Revolving Conundrum...

As soon as I laid eyes on the Chicago skyline, I knew I was in for something special.

Beside me, Kenton tightly gripped the steering wheel, his breath hissing through his clenched teeth as he attempted to negotiate the Chicago Expressways. I ignored him as I took picture after picture of the incredible skyscrapers of Chicago.

Let’s put this into perspective, in Winnipeg we have three skyscrapers: The Richardson Building, the Canwest Tower, and the Commodity Exchange tower. They line three of the four corners of Portage and Main, so if we want to go see big buildings, that’s where we go. They are all 30 floors or so high, at the tallest (I’m not sure which is, though.)

Chicago has a building like that on every block. We’re talking dozens of skyscrapers, and 30 floors is the minimum. Of course the Willis (ne Sears) Tower is the tallest at a whopping 103 floors, but many of the other buildings seem almost as high.

So let’s get back to Kenton’s stressed out ride and my awe of the Chicago skyline. As we exited the JFK Expressway and entered what is known as “The Loop” in downtown Chicago, I had to stop looking up at the buildings because I simply couldn’t see the top of them. Instead, I focused on the streets and buildings that I could see outside my window. While I noticed many other things that we don’t have in Winnipeg (traffic management officers at every intersection, the Rainforest Café) a trend began to emerge that didn’t even make itself clear until a few days later after I had been able to explore some of the city on foot.

Chicago has a hell of a lot of revolving doors.

I mean, we’re not talking about on or two here, we’re talking every single building. As I walked down the magnificent mile on my first full day in Chicago, I started to notice this. Office buildings, the Chicago Tribune, the Hard Rock Hotel. Hell, even 7-11 had a revolving door


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As did other conveniences such as Walgreen’s (like Shoppers Drug Mart) and Dunkin’ Donuts

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This couldn’t be coincidence, there had to be a reason for this! So I started asking around.

“I never even thought about it,” said Dave, a businessman exiting from Chicago Place through a revolving door.

“Are there a lot? Doesn’t every city have them?” said Joan, a woman carting her kids out of the Disney Store through –you guessed it – another revolving door.

The guy working the graveyard shift at the 7-11 just gave me a weird look, like a “you’re crazy!” kind of look. Then he gave me my jumbo Big Bite. He had actually given me the same look the night before, when I had asked him about the foam, “We’re #1” White Sox fingers behind the counter. (Why would you need to keep those behind the counter? Is there a huge problem in Chicago with baseball memorabilia theft? But I digress.)

So apparently I was the only person in Chicago who thought the proliferation of revolving doors was unusual. Well, not quite. Several of my classmates had also noticed this phenomenon, but were similarly stumped as to the reason. The only plausible explanation I could think of was that the revolving door had been extremely popular (or new) back at the end of the 1800’s, when the Great Chicago Fire had burned the entire city down and it was completely re-built all at the same time. As far as I knew, that was the only time that had ever happened in North America.

Only today, as I was getting ready to post this blog entry, did the answer come to me. Crystal Klippenstein, known for her savage Ellen-like dancing skills and her quick wit, said to me: “Is it because of the wind?”

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Of course. The wind. “The Windy City,” isn’t that what they call Chicago? Why didn’t I think of that? Cause I’m an idiot who didn’t bother to Google “Chicago revolving doors.” After doing so, I have discovered that the revolving door was in fact invented specifically to prevent gusts of wind from blowing into a building, thus keeping heating said building efficient and cost-effective.

Who knew?

No one I had talked to, and after full four days in Chicago, 28 total hours driving with Kenton Larsen, and a couple of drunken Minneapolis hotel nights, the answer came to me in Winnipeg, also known for its high winds (although none of those three buildings I mentioned previously have revolving doors, at least on the outside,) from the first person I talked to about this.

Just goes to show you, you can take the Winnipegger out of Chicago, but you can’t take Chicago out of the Winnipegger.

If that even makes any sense.

Thank you everyone for the trip of a lifetime!

Dan Vadeboncoeur