How come you didn’t mention any public squares that are in Chicago?” I asked author and architect Robert Gatje when he lectured about his book Great Public Squares at the Chicago Architecture Foundation recently.

“They asked me the same question when I lectured in Boston,” he replied, about the Boston squares. At least Gatje included one square from Boston in his book — along with one from New Mexico, one from Portland, Oregon — and Rockefeller Center in New York. All the rest are in Italy, with a smattering of other European squares in Germany, England, the Czech Republic, France, Greece and Spain.

Talk about feeling dissed in the South Loop! We have a lot of great squares in the neighborhood. And we have many in close proximity — the Daley Center Plaza, the Bean area at Millennium Park and the plaza surrounding Buckingham Fountain — that more than meet Gatje’s criteria for greatness.

Those criteria include serving a useful purpose, such as commerce, public assembly or as a snazzy foreground for an important building. They also need to have the potential for pleasure and delight that the people utilizing the square can experience — which ultimately gives it life.

Come on, neighbors. Don’t we have all that and more within our South Loop boundaries? Our cup runneth over.

We even have dog parks that serve as great public squares for dogs and their people — Grant Bark Park right in Grant Park is one great example, paid for by the dog lovers in the neighborhood with an infrastructure so strong and reliable that, well … think of what would happen if it wasn’t strong and reliable? (The doggie doo would runneth over.)

We have wonderful parks for sitting and chatting (or, as I like to say, shirking our chores and gossiping) that also serve as great public squares: Cottontail Park, for example, at 15th Street, just west of State. It’s a totally round “square” that harbors kids in the playground, along with runners, walkers and talkers along its big round path that’s ringed by lots and lots of townhouses, as well as big buildings that have sprung up on Michigan, Wabash, State and Indiana in recent years. There’s even a gazebo for inclement weather and shaded picnics.

Its sister park at the northern end of the southern part of Dearborn Park, Jones Park — which I still like to call by its former name, Indigo Bird — used to serve as a great public square, surrounded by comfortable townhomes and stately single families. That is, until the adjacent South Loop School insisted on enclosing the park with a black wrought iron fence. Since then, most neighborhood residents do their public assembling outside the Indigo Bird, and much of that assembling turns to talk of not wanting to assemble inside anymore due to the fence.

One of my favorite public assemblies at Jones — pre-fence — was when the DP II Garden Club held a raffle to raise funds there many years ago, and I won a ton of prizes — from a pot of mums to an outdoor ceramic candle holder — because I bought so many tickets.

Dearborn Park proper, a short walk to the north at 9th and Plymouth, has hosted concerts and movies, and is a true square that lives up to Gatje’s criterion big time.

The public assembly at Dearborn Park has included everything from huge neighborhood “garage” sales to serving as the setting of the children’s portion of the Printers Row Book Fair. The red brick apartment buildings and white brick townhouses that surround it certainly “join hands to become the outer surface of the space they enclose,” as Gatje says should happen at a truly great square.

A little farther north, Printers Row Park meets Gatje’s standards perfectly. It’s a rectangular plaza that rivals St. Mark’s Square in Venice and St. Peter’s in Rome. It has a tiled fountain, a super-hard landscape, a hill and historic (now residential) buildings a few steps in every direction that at one time personified commerce in Chicago.

The crowning glory at Printers Row Park, which is located in a large space between Federal and Dearborn, just north of Polk, is the seating: unusual benches that are adorned with backwards letters (bring a mirror) that make up parts of street names associated with the neighborhood.

They were conceived by neighborhood historian and cartographer Dennis McClendon, who also serves as the president of South Loop Neighbors. They pay homage to the printers who made their living in the buildings in this small section of the South Loop back in the day.

The question, according to architecture writer Lynn Becker — who asked it a couple of years ago — is whether Printers Row Park should have “park” in its name at all, since it has far more paving than an actual park should have.

And he’s right — it would be better to just call it what it is: a public square. Or a gigantic room — which is how Gatje ultimately characterizes a perfect public square, architect that he is.

In any case, the next time you go to an impressive open space in the South Loop where people gather, think of the great squares of Europe. Those spaces, like the ones in the South Loop, are surrounded by great architecture, galvanizing history and vibrant commerce.

And while assembling in such surroundings, don’t forget to gossip.

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By goldfishka
Posted: 05/09/2011 10:56 PM

All perfectly done