The Chapel in the
Sky
| On my last visit to Chicago, I wanted to see the Picasso sculpture in Daley Plaza. Here it is surrounded by stalls of a farmers market. The Daley Center, which houses courts and the state law library, is behind it. After I took some pictures I sat on a bench and fell into conversation with a man who was planning to visit the "Chapel in the Sky." It is open for tours only one day a week, and he asked if I wanted to come along. |
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I didn't see a church anywhere in the vicinity, but he said it was right across the street. It was. The Chicago Temple of the First United Methodist Church is the tallest church in the world. A block or so away from it you can see the steeple. When it was built in 1922 it was Chicago's tallest skyscraper at 568 feet. |
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| The chapel is in the steeple, behind the highest windows directly above the residence of the pastor. We took the elevator to the 22nd floor and exited in a small lobby at the base of the steeple. We took two flights of stairs up to the Chapel in the Sky. |
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The chapel, paneled in dark wood, holds about 30 people. This was a gift from the Walgreen family in 1952 (yes, the drugstore Walgreens) and is used for weekly Thursday evening prayer services as well as the occasional wedding. |
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 The altar bas relief shows Jesus overlooking the city as it appeared in 1922 |
 The windows in the chapel had Christian symbols as well as images of the Methodist Church. This window had a panel with a photograph of people going to church (presumably Methodist). |
 At the end of our tour, they swung back the lower part of one of the stained glass windows (there was a clear glass window behind it) so we could look out on the city. The Picasso on Daley Plaza is in the shadow of the steeple. |
| The sanctuary is on the bottom floor of the building. It is paneled in dark wood and looks very much like any well-endowed church built in that era. A few other floors are used for meetings and church offices, but most of the building is rented out as office space, mainly to lawyers. Clarence Darrow of Scopes Trial fame once had an office there. The courthouse is across the street and the Illinois State Office Building is a block away. |