Chicago Works

Geoffrey Baer talks with members of Chicago’s bridge crews, who work in and around Chicago River bridge houses, which raise downtown bridges to allow sailboats and other tall vessels to travel to and from Lake Michigan. At their command, 1,500 tons of metal and concrete are hoisted with the bridge’s impressive mechanisms.

Geoffrey Baer visits the largest UPS ground-sorting facility in the country, located in Hodgkins, Illinois. The facility employs 7,000 people and spans 1.5 million square feet. A single package’s journey takes just five minutes to go through the facility’s mostly automated system before being loaded onto a truck.

Inside the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field, a skilled crew maintains the iconic elements of the ballpark, such as the ivy-covered outfield wall and the old-fashioned, manual scoreboard.

Geoffrey Baer feeds the whales at the Shedd Aquarium, where he meets a trainer who shares her love of the belugas. And we meet the operator who makes 9,000 gallons of salt water per day.

Every day, Metra’s busy control center directs 700 commuter trains across 11 lines. Geoffrey Baer meets the dispatchers who send the signals that direct the trains and rides along with a train engineer in a locomotive.

One of Chicago’s last gold-leaf sign painters, Robert Frese, shared gilders’ guarded secrets with Andrew and Kelsey McClellan. The McClellans have revived the delicate, nearly lost art of gold-leaf sign painting in Chicago, adorning businesses with their shimmering work.

Geoffrey Baer meets one of the full-time wigmakers at the Lyric Opera, where he also gets to try on his own wig. Plus, a prop master shows off his expertise in illusion, and acclaimed maestro Enrique Mazzola demonstrates how the conductor brings the whole production together.

Two rodent control workers show Geoffrey Baer the telltale signs that rats have taken up residence in one of Chicago’s alleys. An innocent gap in the pavement or a crack in a trash can might signal that rats are afoot. And we learn that an uncovered trash can is the number one invitation to a rat party.

The workday starts very early at the Chicago International Produce Market, located on the city’s Southwest Side in the Pilsen neighborhood. In the warehouse, wholesalers set about gathering every kind of produce imaginable shipped from farms all across the country to load onto trucks for delivery.

The city of Chicago has room for improvement when it comes to recycling. Chicago has one of the lowest recycling rates of cities across the country at approximately 10%. But for the recyclables that do make it to the right place, the sorting facility in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood is a mind-boggling mostly automated operation.

Did you know that there’s always ice under the floor during a Chicago Bulls basketball game? Geoffrey helps the United Center’s crew transform the court into an ice rink and then hitches a ride on the Zamboni.

How does the crew of NBC’s "Chicago Fire" set the scenery on fire every week without burning down the studio? Geoffrey Baer goes behind the scenes of the show to see how the special effects wizards make television magic happen.