LOGAN SQUARE — The first two minutes of my time with the Eagle atop Logan Square's Centennial Monument were more focused on not dying than appreciating the view.
I have a deathly fear of heights.
I'm not sure where my fear of heights comes from but, for reference, I had trouble taking a single step onto the glass platform at the Skydeck at Willis Tower a year or two ago.
Even so, when Andrew Schneider of Logan Preservation asked me if I wanted to get an up-close and personal view of the monument, it was not something I (or presumably anyone else in the neighborhood) could pass up.
The preservation group spent the weekend inspecting and modeling the 70-foot-tall column and Eagle statue as part of an effort to return it to its original state ahead of Illinois' 200th birthday.
It was the first time anyone had been up to the top since 1918, and there was a short window Saturday morning before the experts got there that I could get a look.
The only way up was in the basket of a worker lift. When I arrived at the square at 7:45 a.m. Saturday, a tank under the lift was leaking oil onto the square.
Wojciech Straub, the nice guy who I would be heading to the top with, told me he wasn't sure what was causing the leak as he helped me put on a full-body harness and clip me to the side of the thing.
That was the last of leak talk. Up we went as I grabbed the railing of the lift, which jerked its way higher toward the Eagle.
I finally took my hand off the rail and was able to capture some photos of a view I knew few people would ever have a chance to see.
It was hard not to think back and imagine what it was like for those original craftsmen at the top in 1918.
When the wind kicked up a bit, Straub, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth as he worked the levers, admitted my fear wasn't baseless. You get used to being up there, he said. He had recently been up 14 stories in a similar rig.
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here: