Chicago has changed a lot in the 27 years since I moved to the city. And my time away, for college, grad school, and now living in the Bay Area, has seen it change more substantially and quickly than I recall growing up there. Maybe because, like a frog in heating water, we don't notice the change which immerses us. Also, I suspect, Chicago has had the funds to change more quickly with substantial political clout from Illinois in Washington.
A few years after the actual Millennium, Chicago finished Millennium Park, which bleeds into Grant Park in a manner such that I couldn't tell you the boundaries. One of the city's most interesting, controversial, and beautiful sculptures is The Bean. Properly known as Cloud Gate, it had to be made twice due to the first one being constructed of the wrong materials. What the Bean does is create myriad, changing reflections of the city, park, lakefront, itself, and the people who visit.
Like a fun house mirror that's grown up, The Bean reflects everything in a complete sphere around it, although that sphere is warped by the sculpture's shape.
Inside, The Bean looks like this:
Looking upward, to where The Bean's shape gives it the name 'Bean', the sculpture reflects on itself and the pavement and people below. The area reflects upon itself a dozen-fold, warping like wood left in the rain. I am a huge fan of this sculpture and think it has done more good for Chicago than the cost, delay, and controversy harmed the city; even if, from some angles, it looks like a mercury blob come to consume everyone.
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