VOA慢速英语20060508c

THIS IS AMERICA - Chicago: Some Big Places to See in the 'City of the Big Shoulders'By Jerilyn Watson

Broadcast: Monday, May 08, 2006

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VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember. This week: some places to see in Chicago.

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VOICE ONE:

Early last century, the poet Carl Sandburg described Chicago, Illinois, as the City of the Big Shoulders. That still seems right. Chicago does a lot of things in a big way.

For example, the city is a big transportation center in the Midwest for trains, trucks, ships and planes.

Manufacturing is one of the biggest industries in Chicago.

And Chicago has one of America's busiest ports. The city stretches for about forty kilometers along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. The Saint¹ Lawrence Seaway opened in nineteen fifty-nine. It connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.


Chicago lakefront area

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VOICE TWO:

Chicago is big on music. Visitors can find all kinds, from classical to hip-hop. Some of the best places for jazz and blues² are along Rush Street.

There are lots of things to see and hear in Chicago.

At the Art Institute of Chicago, people can see fine Asian art and much more.

At the Museum of Science and Industry, visitors crowd a working coal mine and a World War Two submarine.

At the Adler Planetarium³, people see stars and learn about space. And at the Shedd Aquarium⁴, they see colorful fish and learn about life under the sea.

VOICE ONE:

Not surprisingly Chicago has a lot of big buildings. The two tallest are the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Building.

Many people take architectural tours around Chicago. There are many interesting landmarks⁵ and building designs to see.

The Wrigley Building, near the Chicago River, opened in the early nineteen twenties. This office building is hard to miss. It is bright white.

Downtown Chicago, the business center, is known as the Loop. There are many offices and stores. The Loop includes the financial district around LaSalle Street. The financial district is home to the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Stock Exchange and many banks.

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VOICE TWO:

Another big thing to see, and feel, is the weather. After all, another name for Chicago is the Windy City. People turn their shoulders to the strong winds off Lake Michigan. In winter, Chicago gets a lot of snow; in summer, the weather is hot and sticky.

Almost three million people live in Chicago. Chicago is America's third largest city, after New York and Los Angeles. More than nine million people live in surrounding communities.

Over the years many immigrants have settled in Chicago. Many of its people have ethnic⁶ roots in Poland, Germany, Ireland and Italy. More recent immigrants have come from all over the world.

Today just under half the population of the city of Chicago is non-Hispanic white. The city has large black and Hispanic populations. Four percent of the people are Asian.

VOICE ONE:

When people in Chicago want to be outdoors, one place to go is Millennium⁷ Park. In this City of Big Shoulders, almost everything about Millennium Park is big. It covers ten hectares. It took almost nine years to finish.


Millennium Park

Millennium Park is on Michigan Avenue near Lake Michigan. It officially opened in two thousand four. It cost four hundred seventy-five million dollars.

Millennium Park has gardens and places for music, dance and ice skating. It also has one of the largest outdoor sculptures in the world. Anish Kapoor of Britain created this work of public art. It weighs one hundred ten tons.

A huge rounded form of shiny steel captures a looking-glass image of the Chicago skyline and the clouds above. The sculpture is called Cloud Gate.

VOICE TWO:

The Spanish artist Jaume Plensa designed the Crown Fountain in Millennium Park. The fountain is surely one of the most unusual in the world.

The artist set a pool of water between two tall glass towers. Video images appear on the towers. The images are a series of pictures of nature and people's faces. The water appears to pour from their mouths. The faces represent the many different people of Chicago.

VOICE ONE:

Millennium Park has music in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. The architect Frank Gehry designed this modern-looking structure. It can seat four thousand people under its open-top steel ribbons. There is also an area called the Great Lawn to listen to the music. The sound system makes the music seem like it is coming from inside a concert hall.

The pavilion is a home for the Grant Park Music Festival. Listen as the Grant Park Symphony⁸ plays Julius Caesar: Symphonic Epilogue After Shakespeare, Opus Twenty-eight, composed by Robert Kurka.

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VOICE TWO:

In warm weather, people eat outdoors in the McCormick Tribune Plaza⁹ and Ice Rink in Millennium Park. In winter, skaters come out to enjoy the ice.


McCormick Place

Visitors can also walk and ride bicycles in several areas of the plaza.

An indoor space has room for three hundred bicycles. There are also places where people who ride their bikes to work can clean up and change clothes.

Another part of Millennium Park is the Lurie Garden. This one-hectare area is bordered by what is called the Shoulder Hedge. Trees almost five meters tall form a living wall around the garden.

Shoulder in this case is meant to honor the poet Carl Sandburg. One hundred thirty-eight kinds of plants grow in the Lurie Garden.

VOICE ONE:

Many people enjoy the activities at Millennium Park. But critics wonder why the city needed a park so big and costly¹⁰. They say the city should have spent the money instead on its more than six hundred public schools. They say it could have helped the poor.

Twenty-one percent of people in the city of Chicago were living below the poverty level in two thousand four. The official poverty rate nationally that year was about thirteen percent.

VOICE TWO:

Other people say Millennium Park has improved the appearance of the area where it was built. The mayor and many other city leaders believed a big park would bring more people, more homes and more businesses to the area.

Mayor Richard M. Daley is the son of former Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley. The father is still remembered for his control over the local Democratic Party organization. The city has not elected a Republican¹¹ mayor since nineteen fifteen.


Mayor Richard M. Daley

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VOICE ONE:

Another big development, the Chicago Cultural Center, stands across Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park. It contains the city's official Visitor Information Center. It is also a showplace for the arts.

The building that now houses the cultural center was completed in eighteen ninety-seven. It held the first permanent collection of the Chicago Public Library. It served as library headquarters until nineteen ninety-one.

There are white walls made of marble from Carrara, Italy. And there are two Tiffany domes¹³. The bigger dome¹² is one of the largest Tiffany designs in the world. It rises almost twelve meters above the floor.

People say the restored Chicago Cultural Center looks like a home for kings and queens. Some call it the People's Palace.

VOICE TWO:

Visitors can listen to all kinds of music at the Chicago Cultural Center. For example, Monday through Friday, there are free LunchBreak Concerts. Listen now to Middle Eastern music performed by Safwan Matni, a popular LunchBreak Concert guest artist.

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Dancers from Hubbard Street Two in Chicago have also performed at the Cultural Center. Hubbard Street Two is a six-member dance group. It trains promising¹⁴ dancers between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five. They perform works by young choreographers.

VOICE ONE:

Carl Sandburg would probably not have been surprised by big projects like the Chicago Cultural Center and Millennium Park. The poet wrote: Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive 鈥?

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VOICE TWO:

Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver¹⁵. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Faith Lapidus. Read and listen to our programs at www.unsv.com. And join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. We leave you with Frank Sinatra singing about My Kind of Town.

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1 saint   

n.圣徒；基督教徒；vt.成为圣徒，把...视为圣徒

参考例句：

• He was made a saint.他被封为圣人。
• The saint had a lowly heart.圣人有谦诚之心。

2 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。

3 planetarium   

n.天文馆；天象仪

参考例句：

• The planetarium staff also prepared talks for radio broadcast.天文馆的工作人员还要准备讲稿给电台广播。
• It landed in a shallow basin fifty yards from the planetarium.它降落在离天文馆五十码处的一个浅盆地中。

4 aquarium   

n.水族馆，养鱼池，玻璃缸

参考例句：

• The first time I saw seals was in an aquarium.我第一次看见海豹是在水族馆里。
• I'm going to the aquarium with my parents this Sunday.这个星期天，我要和父母一起到水族馆去。

5 landmarks   

n.陆标( landmark的名词复数 )；目标；（标志重要阶段的）里程碑 ~ (in sth)；有历史意义的建筑物（或遗址）

参考例句：

• The book stands out as one of the notable landmarks in the progress of modern science. 这部著作是现代科学发展史上著名的里程碑之一。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The baby was one of the big landmarks in our relationship. 孩子的出世是我们俩关系中的一个重要转折点。 来自辞典例句

6 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

7 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

8 symphony   

n.交响乐（曲），（色彩等的）和谐

参考例句：

• The Ninth Symphony of Beethoven is a famous one.贝多芬的第九交响乐非常有名。
• They play over the whole symphony.他们把整个交响乐重新演奏了一遍。

9 plaza   

n.广场，市场

参考例句：

• They designated the new shopping centre York Plaza.他们给这个新购物中心定名为约克购物中心。
• The plaza is teeming with undercover policemen.这个广场上布满了便衣警察。

10 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

11 republican   

n.拥护共和政体的人； adj.共和政体的，（Republican）共和党人，（Republican）共和党的

参考例句：

• Some families have been republican for generations.有些家庭世代都支持共和党。
• A third candidate has entered the contest for the Republican nomination.第三个候选人已经加入角逐共和党提名的行列。

12 dome   

n.圆屋顶，拱顶

参考例句：

• The dome was supported by white marble columns.圆顶由白色大理石柱支撑着。
• They formed the dome with the tree's branches.他们用树枝搭成圆屋顶。

13 domes   

n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场

参考例句：

• The domes are circular or ovoid in cross-section. 穹丘的横断面为圆形或卵圆形。 来自辞典例句
• Parks. The facilities highlighted in text include sport complexes and fabric domes. 本书重点讲的设施包括运动场所和顶棚式结构。 来自互联网

14 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

15 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。