Pullman Field Trip

Pictures of the Day] The town of Pullman.

Mood] Tired

Weather] Sunny and breezy

Currently]At the front desk

Quote of the day: "Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are."

So we went to the historical town of Pullman last week. It was seriously like stepping into the past. The Hotel Florence there has a beautiful exterior. The gardens around it are well maintained through volunteer efforts and the building itself is still standing after all these years. The interior is a shock! You step from painted, bright and happy exterior to gloomy and dilapidated interior. The floors and the walls are all torn up. The different rooms have terribly old carpet and some of the glass in the windows are missing. The bathroom has a whole section that is inaccessible and what furniture that is there is broken or looks like if you touched it it would fall to pieces instantly. The town of Pullman has a ton of volunteers that are trying to help preserve the buildings, especially the Hotel Florence, so their work on the interior is obviously not finished, but it is amazing to think that that space used to be filled with bustling people in large dresses and full suits, smoking, laughing, talking, and waiting to check in.

After we learned about the history of Pullman, we left the Hotel and moved toward a few of the garden/park spaces. Although the plants are not exactly the same as they were in the past, a lot has been done to try and recreate the look of the whole area. I think my favourite building might be the Green Stone Church, which actually has green stone! It was beautiful and apparently no one could afford to actually use the church back in the day, so it stood for quite some time, completely built, before anyone actually used it for its purpose.

We went to the market square, now completely devoid of life, and a roof for that matter! Then we walked to some of the homes to see the many differences between them. Although the homes were each done in a slightly different style, it all seemed to be connected somehow. Maybe it was the colour palette. There was a lot of brick and wood.

In the end, it was great to see the place where all these industrial workers used to enter through high gates to work and to live. Now the town is completely empty, or at least, it feels like it. There were not that many people on the street and although there probably is a sense of community between residents, it was not visually apparent. Overall, our visit was very very interesting, and I think that Pullman is an important historical district for Chicago! A must see!

~Jaye