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the windy city wields a wonderful whimsical world-class wealth of whatever it is you may want its reputation for rising from the ashes like the phoenix makes it far more fascinating and fantastic its sprawling skyscrapers set and surpass the standard as far as architecture is concerned put on your plush parkas as we pound the pavement in sensational spectacular sassy chicago on this week's episode of f y i welcome to for your info english you got it [Music]
hello hello hello and welcome to another exciting edition of fyi that's right my amigos the topic based english show where you don't only learn english but you learn about a fascinating topic every week so welcome my friends we're going to a city that i can't get enough of and i went there on my honeymoon that's right i didn't go there till i was in my late 30s so i've been missing out but i know one thing is true i am definitely going back and my wife agrees chicago is
a spectacular city and careful with the pronunciation it's not chicago it's chicago now the windy city that's one of its nicknames and i know what you're thinking they call it the windy city because it's very windy there well yes it is very windy there but there's another reason and we'll get to it a little bit later on in the podcast the windy city wields now this is a good word to know to wield this it wields that means it has we talk about it as well when we talk about weapons empanad
so it's another way of saying a poetic way of saying it has it wields a wonderful whimsical and i like this word whimsical i'm sure you know the word wonderful it's maravioso but whimsical is extravagante whimsical what a great way to describe this windy city and i said it's world class is and it has a wealth unabundantly of whatever it is you may want so whatever your thing is there's something for everybody in chicago then i said its reputation for rising from the ashes now
the ashes are less than ethas so if you remember that bird the phoenix well the phoenix rises from the ashes i know you guys say fenix we pronounce it phoenix just like the city in arizona phoenix arizona and then i said it's far more fascinating far more fascinating mucho mas fastinante and fantastic well yeah because chicago burned to the ground but it rose from the ashes el pasado rise rose risen but we'll look at the chicago fire a little bit later on too up next i said it's sprawling
skyscrapers and sprawling is an expansion we use this word a lot when we talk about cities that are growing sprawling cities it even sounds good together just like sprawling skyscrapers and a skyscraper is un rascalo i said that they set marcan and surpass sobre passan the standard as far as architecture is concerned in cuanto alla architectura and we're going to discover that if you are an architecture buff chicago is your kind of town why did i say town instead
of city well a lot of times when we talk about a place that we like we talk about it lovingly we say it's a town so i would say new york it's my kind of town or chicago it's a great town it's a loving way to say city then i said put on your plush parkas and plush has two meanings right luxurious or fluffy soft el pado is what it says here so plush and i think i mean it in both ways put on your nice jackets and your warm soft jackets because it gets bitter cold in
the winter in chicago and well that makes sense because it's on a lake it's on lake michigan it's not michigan it's michigan chicago lake michigan so we're going to have to bundle up to bundle up es garcia and some more peas up ahead i said we're going to pound the pavement which means patellar or record so are you guys ready to pound the pavement in this sensational spectacular sassy city known as chicago and the word sassy is picaro si hablamos de una persona but sassy is also a trevido
it's a place where anything goes in this sense i think it means more like fashionable ooh it's a sassy city i already told you that chicago is called the windy city well that's what most people from outside of chicago call it people in chicago call it shy town that's right c-h-i like chicago with town como tediantes pueblo so shy town but the windy city is probably the most well-known moniker and as i said before yes it's a very windy area being on the shores of lake michigan but it's not the
reason they call it the windy city well it's not the only reason they call it the windy city supposedly chicago was called the windy city metaphorically because they said that chicagoans were braggers that they like to brag fanfa i don't think i'll ever learn that word they like to show off and they are full of hot air and the word hot air means and i'm going to try here guys believe me i'm trying to say this word fanfarroneria oh man if i can say that word then anyone can do anything
that is really tough es bastante di fitil yeah so people there they said are full of hot air questana vendin poco you would say in spanish they're always boasting and showing off now when i was in chicago i didn't get that feeling but hey the nickname stuck so it's not just because of the wind that's blowing around the city but it's also that hot air that's coming out of people's mouths another nickname for this city is the second city and there are several stories behind this one as
well as i said there was a huge fire called the great chicago fire this was in 1871 and the city was pretty much destroyed by this raging fire and it lasted several days now so many of the buildings and the infrastructure that was chicago were completely destroyed but city planners and residents of chicago chicagoans well they saw this as an opportunity to start fresh they saw it as a clean slate and they could rebuild their city from scratch the way they wanted it built the way that it would be
most convenient for the citizens of that city and the result was a brand new chicago that looked totally different from the original chicago the buildings were obviously stronger they used less wood when they were constructing these buildings more metal so basically chicago built a second city it was rebuilt it was built twice but another story says it's about chicago's rivalry with new york city in the early 20th century and well some would say that this rivalry continues
today they're both big cities they both have amazing sights tremendous history skyscrapers so you could understand that maybe there's a little bit of envy it's okay chicagoans we were first we don't hate you we welcome you as another big city in the united states but uh second city [Music] in that aspect i don't think chicagoans like being known as the second city if it means second to new york so you can choose whatever story you want again chicagoans we know which one they're
gonna choose but either way the nickname stuck and it's still known as the second city in fact if you're in chicago and you get the chance to go see an improv show at the world famous second city improv well you should jump on that opportunity because second city is the place where saturday night live goes to recruit some of the most famous future comedians so you can see somebody like bill murray or other second city members before they get famous so as you can see
the comedy troupe they embraced that name la fete so now that we know a couple of chicago's nicknames let's take a look at the history it was incorporated in the year 1833 as a town and then four years later in 1837 it was incorporated as a city that's when the population reached 4
000. in the year 1848 another milestone chicago got its first telegraph and railroad things were looking up for chicago las cosas by the year 1854 the city was the world's largest grain port the world's not america's the world's largest green port and it also had over 30 000 residents again this is in 1854 and you know where most of those residents were originally from take a guess you guessed it europe they were european immigrants and one of the key industries
in chicago was their slaughterhouses now to slaughter is to kill and a slaughterhouse is where animals are slaughtered to make beef to make pork and what have you it was in 1865 a company called the union stockyard and transit company and they set up shop montaron el chiringito this was in 1865 and this became one of the biggest meat packing industries in the world right here in this concentrated area of chicago the area is called the yards but it was because it was the union stock
yard and that's where they would slaughter cows and if you think about it the chicago bulls i wonder where they got that name from hmm the yards the slaughterhouses that once were all over chicago you bet it was the biggest industry at one point it was the center of the meat packing industry now after many years in operation the yards officially closed at midnight this was in 1971 and this was after decades of decline in the meat packing industry it was due to many different reasons but
many of the citizens actually celebrated it because think about this if you have a meat packing district right in the center of the city what are the conditions like what's the smell in the air in the summer do you think there's gonna be a lot of flies in the area muchas moscas yeah i would say that some of it was probably even unsanitary so it was a major part of chicago's history as i said they kept the name the chicago bulls but now that area has been as many turned into a
national historic landmark but if you ask anybody about chicago and its history they'll tell you about those stockyards now if you remember before i said that the city was rebuilt after the fire and the fire was in 1871 as i said earlier well around the year 1909 once the city was being rebuilt and they had a pretty clear idea a guy came on board a guy named daniel burnham and he created a plan for the city of chicago this was called and still called the burnham plan or the plan of chicago
of 1909 and this was a plan that he co-created with another guy named edward h bennett and this plan was to make chicago a livable city a fantastic city that wasn't just a place to go and work it wasn't just going to be a functional city but also it was going to be a fantastic city and he dreamt sonjavacon he dreamt of new wide streets and avenues harbor facilities civic buildings i mean he had a lot of ideas for improvement and many of these were put into place and they're still
there today so if you like chicago and the way it's set up and its beautiful walks along the river and how the lakefront is just so beautiful and the railway stations are extensive and there are parks everywhere and you don't feel like you're in the middle of some metropolis well you have this guy daniel burnham to thank so a lot of people say chicago wouldn't be what it is without daniel burnham and his plan now it's time to pound the pavement that's right we're going to check out some of
chicago's best neighborhoods and the first one is i think one of the most exclusive one of the ones where i can't really afford anything this is where i do something that we call window shopping esto es comprar si comprar es mira escaparates and i'm talking about the magnificent mile la mia magnifica this would be like the equivalent of saks fifth avenue or or you know one of these like this uh these luxurious shops that as i said i don't even think they would let me in to these shops
they're upscale you know prada all these names these italian gucci and all that stuff that's where you'll find those on the magnificent mile and it is absolutely beautiful so you don't have to go shopping but if you're a shopaholic and you've got a credit card and some money to burn this is your place now as far as me i just enjoyed a nice stroll down the magnificent mile and it was truly beautiful i mean it reminded me as i said of fifth avenue or park avenue some of the more luxurious
or swanky areas of new york and it is extremely ritzy hotel ritz i think you would say so that's magnificent mile take a walk there but don't take out your wallet another area which is absolutely beautiful is river north and this is another area that is bustling with shops eateries eateries are another way to say restaurants posh nightclubs cocktail bars i mean it's absolutely fascinating i think any area that is near water whether it's the riverwalk area which is
absolutely beautiful or even walking along the different shores of the chicago beaches which we'll talk about a little bit later on and chicago's river flows backwards that's right and we'll look at why in the bonus part of today's show remember guys there is bonus audio every week where you can get tons of extra content and information about each topic plus you can get pdfs with all the vocabulary expressions and all the structures therein plus if you're one of our higher level students
you can be in weekly and monthly classes with me if you want to find out more you can go over to patreon.com slash alberto alonso there are over a hundred of us somos mas de thien and i want to send a shout out to each and every one of my patrons great job my amigos keep up the wonderful work and a special shout out to my super duper students mara javier frantisco tony roberto david jose maria mila alex patricio edgar and lolis and don't forget about my interstellar students
paco diego carmen and diana if you guys want to get more information on how you can get bonus content and classes with me find out what's going on over at patreon.com slash alberto alonso we'll be expecting you another very well-known neighborhood is the loop i think this is as central as it gets and they call it the loop because it's follows their subway line there's a loop ate loop so this area is very vibrant it's very lively and it's an area with a lot of skyscrapers so if you're into
skyscrapers you'll love this area plus there's an amazing park there and it's called millennium park it's part of a bigger park called grant park and many of you if you're music fans you'll know that the famous lollapalooza music festival goes on there every year among many other events i remember when i was there there was a huge food festival going on oh and in the bonus part i'm gonna tell you guys about all my experiences my first hand experiences in the windy city because i think you guys
are gonna love this place and you can't go to chicago and say you've been to chicago without going to the loop i mean it is the place it's that famous view of chicago it's also got that famous fountain which is called the buckingham fountain which if you're familiar with the show married with children i think it's matrimonio conicos there's a famous fountain in the opening well that is buckingham fountain it was designed to look like a wedding cake with a lot of different tiers so
that area is chock-full of interesting sights this next area is a little bit off the beaten path and i'm talking about the neighborhood of oak park it's interesting you'll see the word oak a lot in names in english it's because the word oak is roble it's a kind of tree and oak park i mean i remember it took us about 15 or 20 minutes so it's not that far off the beaten path but it's not smack dab in the center of chicago either but it's worth it it is a beautiful neighborhood
in chicago called oak park and in this neighborhood this was where frank lloyd wright had his studio and his home and he designed many other homes there as well so this this neighborhood in itself is a tourist attraction but i highly recommend you go see the frank lloyd wright home and studio and then take a stroll around the neighborhood and you'll see a dozen other houses that were designed by frank lloyd wright one of the greatest architects of all time his most famous
work i would say is possibly falling water have you guys seen this house that's built into a rock with a waterfall that's frank lloyd wright a native chicagoan and right around the corner from frank lloyd wright's house and studio you've got hemingway's birth house so wow those are two amazing people who changed the world each in their own way and they literally lived right around the corner from each other in oak park some other famous chicagoans because i guess you could be a stickler and say
well they're from a suburb of chicago what about chicago proper i know i know i said bill murray before but he's technically not from the city of chicago he's from evanston illinois so bill murray yeah i guess you could say he's from chicago that's where he grew up as i said before he was in second city improv troupe so i guess that counts but i'm talking again as i said about chicago proper well what about harrison ford does that name ring a bell han solo indiana jones
that's right he was born in chicago another man who was funny and surprised everybody even as a serious actor and we're talking about robin williams another chicagoan michelle obama former first lady former siendo anterior walt disney was born in chicago as well so these are some remarkable people who come from this metropolis well uh i know some people that'll say walt disney was born in mojacar in almeria but according to his birth certificate it says it was in chicago again documents can be
doctored and doctored in este caso es manipulado and last but not least and of course there are many others but i just made a short list here bobby fisher one of the greatest chess players to ever walk the planet bobby fisher also from chicago so guys we're going to take a quick break right now but in the bonus part we are going to discover chicago in depth i'm going gonna give you guys my first hand experiences and recommendations we'll also take a look at the dark side don't forget
al capone conducted his business over in chicago so we'll talk a little bit about the mafia some of the great sites the beaches sports and of course we'll definitely talk about food as well all that and much more in the bonus part of today's fyi [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you