![[bicyclist near Chippewa Falls, WI]](http://images.midwestweekend.com/graphics/biker_chippewa.jpg)
![[The Mississippi Queen in La Crosse, WI]](http://images.midwestweekend.com/graphics/mississippi_queen.jpg)
![[web site logo]](http://images.midwestweekend.com/graphics/title_and_tag.jpg)
In Chicago, there’s great people-watching — but the building-watching is even better.
The city is best known for humongous buildings — the Sears Tower, Hancock Center, Aon Building. But clustered around their knees are others that attract tourists from all over the world, buildings with so much flair it’s tempting to give them personalities.
There’s Helmut Jahn’s Thompson Center, the brassy showgirl with the heart of gold, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Federal Plaza, the geek with the thick black glasses. Two Prudential Plaza is Miss Congeniality — Chicagoans were so bored by Pru One that the company made Pru Two a twin of the beloved Chrysler Building in New York. Philip Johnson’s slick 190 South LaSalle is a yuppie with too much money.
A hundred years ago, Grand Marais was a wind-buffeted outpost at the tip of the North Shore, stomping grounds of trappers, loggers and fishermen. The dirt road connecting the village to Duluth often was impassable, and winter provisions had to be brought in by steamer before Lake Superior iced over.
But amid the hardship, there was always art.
Swedish immigrant Anna Johnson was first to create and sell art, at the log trading post she operated with her husband after their 1907 marriage. Trained at Augustana College in Rockford, Ill., she painted, drew and worked in stained glass, leather and ceramics. Some of her many oils now hang in a log replica of her store, the Johnson Heritage Post Gallery.