Now that all the self-congratulations and unabashed huffing, puffing and gushing about the wonder of Millennium Park are calming down, perhaps some more realistic observations can be heard.
I recently walked the steel bridge and could barely make the whole trip across Columbus Drive, not because of the length but, rather, due to the intense, suffocating heat.
In their unbridled enthusiasm for the project, did the structural engineers and steel contractors leave their common sense behind? When steel is exposed to sunlight, the heat is absorbed, magnified and transmitted to anything in its vicinity. This is the operating principle of a solar oven. As a result, walking across that bridge on a sunny day is a death-defying experience.
It’s sure no cake walk. Perhaps it should be called the bake walk.
