PERSPECTIVES: Chicago: my kind of town (03/26/06)

PERSPECTIVES

by Andrew Fedynsky

Chicago: my kind of town

The American Institute of Architects recently named Chicago the city with the finest architecture in the country. Atlantic Magazine book critic, Benjamin Schwarz, is not surprised. He calls it "affirming the evident," and notes that "Chicago holds more important buildings of the past century and a half than any other place in the world."

I'm no expert, but I don't disagree. Driving in from the east on the Chicago Skyway, you see a dramatic skyline, dominated by the Sears Tower at one end and the Hancock Building at the other. At ground level, walking up Michigan Avenue, Wabash or in the neighborhoods, you marvel at the diversity and how often stone, glass, brick and concrete are joined in a perfect wedding of form and function to create what Schwarz calls "one of this country's greatest contributions to modern civilization."

No building in Chicago appeals to me more than the Tribune Tower on Northern Michigan Avenue. With neo-gothic arches, flying buttresses and soaring columns, this 1922 building is beautiful to be sure, but what's particularly interesting is the collection of stones inserted into the ground level walls from famous sites around the world, including the Arc de Triomphe and Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the Parthenon in Athens, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Berlin Wall, the Taj Mahal, the White House, the Kremlin in Moscow, even the moon itself.

Ah, but nothing from Ukraine. Nothing, that is, until 2002, when retired Chicago physician Jaroslav Panchuk decided to do something about it. I've known Dr. Panchuk ever since he agreed to welcome me into his family as his son-in-law. As a person, he's tactful and diplomatic, yet utterly implacable when he decides on the proper course of action.

And so, when he took his grandchildren to the Tribune Tower to see the historic stones imbedded there and perhaps stimulate dreams of visiting Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Egypt and more than 130 other places, Dr. Panchuk wanted one of those options to include his native Ukraine. So he picked up the phone, called the offices of the Chicago Tribune and asked to speak with the person in charge of placing rock fragments into the building wall. He didn't stop until he had persuaded the powers that be that the Tribune Tower collection was incomplete without a contribution from Ukraine.

Then, working with the Ukrainian Consulate in Chicago and through them with the State Scientific-Technological Center for Conservation and Restoration of Monuments in Kyiv, Dr. Panchuk arranged for a fragment from St. Michael's Monastery to be delivered to Chicago where it's now imbedded alongside fragments from the Alamo, Mammoth Cave, Westminster Abbey and David's Tower in Jerusalem.

St. Michael's is a fitting choice. Originally built in 1108 by Kniaz (Prince) Sviatopolk, it stood near St. Sophia Square in Kyiv for more than 800 years. To be sure, the building was damaged during the Mongol invasions, but Orthodox clergy restored and renovated it during the Kozak era, its golden domes attesting to the glory of God and the might of Kyivan Rus'. Then in 1922, Lenin and the Bolsheviks closed it down; in 1936 under Stalin, the monastery was dynamited to the ground. With the restoration of Ukrainian independence in 1991, a campaign was launched to also restore St. Michael's Monastery; it reopened in 1998. Next time you're in Chicago, make a point of going to the Tribune Building to see the stone fragment.

And as long as you're there, don't forget to visit another architectural treasure, St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral on the corner of Oakley Boulevard and Rice Street. It's where I married a beautiful girl from Chicago and it's where we baptized our son and where, as an adopted citizen of the Windy City, I've listened to the ethereal choir nearly every Christmas and Easter for the last 17 years. The Chicago Tribune recently ran a feature about this gorgeous 90-year-old building with its graceful green Kozak Baroque cupolas, luscious icons, painted ceilings, mosaics and stained glass windows, calling it one of the city's most valuable and unusual architectural treasures. Given the competition, that's saying a lot.

Within minutes of St. Nicholas, you'll find Ukrainian bookstores, grocery stores, restaurants, the Ukrainian National Institute, Ukrainian Museum of Modern Art, the Selfreliance credit union and Ss. Volodymyr and Olha's, another of Chicago's architectural treasures, its golden domes visible miles away from the observation deck of the 1,000-plus foot John Hancock Center.

Over the years, Chicago has been at the leading edge of Ukrainian-American cultural life with strong publishing, performing and academic sectors. Politically, the community won the support of powerful congressmen like Clement Zablocki, Ed Derwinski and Henry Hyde; Sens. Charles Percy and Richard Durbin. Ukrainians Boris Antonovych, Myron Kulas and Walter Dudych served in the Illinois Legislature. Myron Kuropas worked in President Gerald Ford's White House. Indeed, the first lady of Ukraine, Kateryna Chumachenko Yushchenko, was born and raised in Chicago and regularly visits her hometown. So does native Chicagoan Marta Kolomayets, a pioneer journalist for The Ukrainian Weekly who covered the period of "perebudova" in Ukraine in January-July 1991 and served seeral more tours of duty in 1992-1996, and now lives in Kyiv.

Chicago's Ukrainians even managed to turn setbacks into victories. When a major bank came in to swallow a small Ukrainian-owned bank - a fate that befell similar institutions in other communities, including my hometown of Cleveland - Chicagoans, led by my friend and fellow co-chair of Ukrainians for Clinton-Gore, Julian Kulas, negotiated for and successfully established a multi-million dollar Heritage Foundation that's been helping Ukrainian civic, cultural and religious institutions around the country and will continue to do so for generations to come.

A community is not just a collection of buildings, regardless of how beautiful. Many of the stones embedded in the Tribune Tower are from cultures that have died and left magnificent ruins behind. Buildings take on life from the people who inhabit them, work there, create and recreate within their walls. Chicago, including its "Ukrainian Village" section, not only has glorious architecture, but also vibrant citizens who infuse their structures with energy and vitality. Like the song says, "Chicago is my kind of town."

Andrew Fedynsky's e-mail address is: fedynsky@stratos.net.

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