So it goes

Back when I was living in the city, I used to look forward to walking to the bayside park, or going up into the mountains to stomp around. Four months ago, I took a trip and awakened my need for steel canyons, restaurants, culture, the constant low hum of background activity, and most importantly a functional public transportation system. A twenty-four hour world.

Metapheriffic

Union Station is, to me, a microcosm of Chicago. Passages are filled to capacity with people, to the point where it's difficult to find a break to join the stream, let alone go opposite it. It may be dingy in places, but it's clean. There seems to be one restroom for the station, always busy and frequent location of the 'somebody else's luggage steeplechase'. It, of course, opens directly out into one of those streams, people flooding toward the escalator and daylight.
And the guy who's going up the walking half of the narrow escalator still says "Excuse me," to every person he bumps past.