Postcard : Route 66 - Mainstreet of America

First contacts this week-end with penpals from Chicago. So first cards from the city should come this week to start really the trip ! Waiting that, I thank a lot Brenda who sent me a card about the Mainstreet for the official Postcrossing exchange, where she has the profile "9teen87", and registered as my first follower (very courageous and optimistic !). See her nice and interesting postcard blog where she loves working.

Barack OBAMA, US Senator from Illinois, 44th US President

Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is the first African American to be elected President of the United States. Obama was the junior United States Senator from Illinois from 2005 until his resignation on November 16, 2008.

He is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review. Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate in January 2003, won a primary victory in March 2004, and was elected to the Senate in November 2004. Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004.

Postcard - CHICAGO : Moon over Sears Tower

To start this virtual trip, a first postcard about CHICAGO that I have gotten in Postcrossing official swap, 2008 April, from Sarah.
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The Sears Tower, a skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois, has been the tallest building in North America since 1973. It surpassed the World Trade Center, which itself had surpassed the Empire State Building only a year earlier. Commissioned by Sears, Roebuck and Company, it was designed by chief architect Bruce Graham and structural engineer Fazlur Khan of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

Construction commenced in August 1970 and the building reached its originally anticipated maximum height on May 3, 1973. When completed, the Sears Tower had overtaken the World Trade Center in New York City as the world's tallest building. The tower has 108 stories as counted by standard methods, though the building owners count the main roof as 109 and the mechanical penthouse roof as 110. The distance to the roof is 1,450.58 feet (442 m), measured from the east entrance.

In February 1982, two television antennas were added to the structure, increasing its total height to 1,707 feet (520 m). The western antenna was later extended to 1,730 feet (527 m) on June 5, 2000 to improve reception of local NBC station WMAQ-TV.

Black bands appear on the tower around the 29th–32nd, 64th–65th, 88th–89th, and 104th–109th floors. These are louvers which allow ventilation for service equipment and obscure the structure's belt trusses which Sears Roebuck did not want to be visible as on the John Hancock Center.

The building's official address is 233 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60606.

On August 12, 2007, the Burj Dubai in Dubai, United Arab Emirates was reported by its developers to have surpassed the Sears Tower in all height categories.

First State : ILLINOIS

State of Illinois on WIKIPEDIA
Map : Route 66 in Illinois (on website www.illinoisroute66.com)

Description: Historic Route 66 - Starting point in Chicago

U.S. Highway 66 or Route 66 was a highway in the U.S. Highway system. One of the original federal routes, US 66 was established on November 11, 1926, though signs did not go up until the following year. It originally ran from Chicago, Illinois through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California before ending at the beach at Santa Monica for a total distance of 2,448 miles (3,940 km).

Route 66 was a major migratory path west and supported the economies of the communities on which the road passed. People became prosperous due to the growing popularity of the highway, and those same people later fought to keep the highway alive even with the growing threat of the new Interstate Highway System.

US 66 was officially decommissioned (that is, officially removed from the US Highway System) in 1985 after it was decided the route was no longer relevant and had been replaced by the Interstate Highway System. The road currently exists as a "historic route" in the states it once crossed on its journey from Chicago to Santa Monica. It has begun to return to maps in this form.