Placemaking in the Loop: art, poetry, and wellness in Chicago’s central business district

Chicago’s downtown management and promotion organization made its mission to program and activate public spaces. Through art, dance, retail, music, poetry, and innovative partnerships, the Loop transformed into a vibrant and inclusive destination.

I worked with artist Jessica Stockholder to envision, present, and promote the “Color Jam” installation, which reimagined a busy intersection in Chicago

On State Street, that great street, I just want to say, we did some experimental, spectacular, and strange things. Working with the Chicago Loop Alliance — the civic organization responsible for managing and enlivening Chicago’s downtown core — I conceived and led a series of public art and placemaking projects that brought creative energy to the district. With plenty of input from elected officials, business leaders, residents, and the creative community, we defined opportunities to activate urban spaces, and made them happen.

Our mission was to make downtown more inviting, more expressive of Chicago’s diverse cultures, more human-scaled, and more fun. To reach people across the area, I built unusual partnerships across Chicago’s cultural landscape, including athletes, house music DJs, printmakers, poets, and even a former Playboy centerfold. Some highlights: 

Pegasus soars on State Street

Poetry magazine never missed an issue in its 100 years of publication. It published some of the most important verse of our time and continues to be a venue for new poets, a resource to scholars, and a delight to readers. To celebrate the centenary of this Chicago-based institution, I proposed an ambitious idea: what if all of downtown were to turn poetic? Banners on light posts; signage along sidewalks; loudspeakers in front of department stores; even the most prosaic benches and garbage bins would be wrapped in poetry.

So we did. For more than a month, downtown denizens were greeted with a multisensory poetry experience. Excerpts were printed on urban infrastructure and broadcast from hidden speakers. (We borrowed the avuncular baritone of NPR’s Garrison Keillor to read from the archive.) Contemporary authors like Reginald Gibbons and Li-Young Lee were represented alongside Poetry’s best-known contributors. I was particularly tickled by covering a subway headhouse in Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro.” As commuters rushed towards the train, the fourteen-word masterpiece made them pause: “The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough.” 

Stockholder’s first conceptual sketch, above, eventually became Chicago’s largest ever public artwork

Color Jam is city’s largest temporary contemporary art

Because I’m an urbanist and not an arts expert, I relied on a group of prominent curators to advise the Chicago Loop Alliance on public art. When Jessica Stockholder — one of our generation’s most recognized visual artists — joined the faculty at the University of Chicago, the curators were unanimous in their recommendation: would we make downtown Stockholder’s canvas?

The result was a stunning piece: an entire city intersection remade by bright, larger-than-life shapes. I worked with Stockholder and her colleagues at the University, as well as property owners, project managers, and construction crews to implement this enveloping vision. Rising seven stories tall and covering all of the public way, Color Jam became an instant destination for a summer. I helped it land on the cover of the Chicago Tribune, in Vogue, Rolling Stone, and other publications. I also invited graphic artist Jason Pickleman to interpret the artwork with playful typography and visual identity, which extended Color Jam onto buses, banners, and ads throughout the region. Especially gratifying was that small businesses embraced the art: the menu of one local restaurant featured a “Colortini,” which was just as sweet as it sounds. 

Metrospective lays down the funky beats 

When ground-floor space in an iconic downtown highrise became vacant, I couldn’t pass up the chance to transform it into a thumping dance party. Sort of.

While the property owner looked for a permanent tenant, the Loop Alliance was in control of programming 5,000 SF of prime retail space. I asked Joe Shanahan, owner of the legendary indy music venue Metro, if he’d set up a downtown outpost. We wanted something that felt public, open, and diverse — while respecting neighbors (and noise ordinances) in the landmark building. Joe offered a brilliant compromise: in 30 years of presenting the best in hip-hop, house, and rock music, Metro commissioned countless show posters from talented visual artists. “Metrospective” would display a curated selection from this archive by day. And by night, we’d host designers for talks and workshops — followed, of course, by thumping dance parties. Thanks to partnerships with screenprinters and graphic studios, we were able to keep the space active and accessible at all times. And thanks to Metro’s diverse talent roster, we welcomed Chicagoans of all walks, tastes, and stripes to enjoy a series of free performances in a central location.

Open Streets brings a skatepark downtown 

For the first-ever Cyclovia in Chicago, the Loop Alliance diverted traffic away from a mile of Chicago’s main artery, State Street. To help us navigate through the byzantine permitting process, Gabe Klein, then the DOT commissioner, offered his cell phone number. I still text Klein sometimes, for sport.

Working in partnership with advocacy group Active Transportation Alliance, resident groups, and business owners, we envisioned an urban playground in the 100+ foot section of the public way. As part of the inaugural team, I spent months planning activities that invited Chicagoans to practice wellness and self-care, try dancing and singing, participate in family activities and theatrical performances. Though Open Streets emphasized health, I worked to incorporate a strong art and culture dimension. And on one glorious autumn day, I stepped out into the lanes of State Street to a clamor of cyclists, skateboarders, hoop dancers, marching bands, tamale carts, and plenty of other forms of creativity and conveyance that springs up in place of traffic.