A couple of the other C10 Committe members & I trooped down to the Congress Hotel today to look over the rooms we'll be using and the surrounding cityscape.

To anybody concerned about the Congress, don't be. It's friggin' gorgeous. I mean GORGEOUS. I've never been to a convention in a hotel REMOTELY this nice, and I've only had the pleasure of STAYING in a hotel this nice a handful of times.

I took a stack of photos and I've posted them at www.sinistervisions.net/c10/co...ss.html - look for more from other Committee members soon.

I have to say, the photos do the hotel absolutely NO justice. You have to be there. Between the atmosphere of the over-century-old decor and the spectacular views of Grant Park, Lake Michigan and downtown Chicago, I honestly can't think of a better hotel in the city to host a gothic convention. Well, that goes for less than $500 a night, anyway. ;)

Charles, the Catering Sales Manager for the hotel and our tour guide for the afternoon, regaled us with stories about Al Capone's favorite rooms (2 of which we saw and photographed), ghosts in the hotel (see below), and selected anecdotes from the many International Mister Leather conventions that the hotel has hosted over the years. Suffice to say on the latter: Convergence attendees will NOT be shocking the staff of the Congress Hotel. Trust me on this.

The rooms we'll be using for hospitality, vending, the Art Show and so forth are all extremely cool, old, and GAF. The 24-hour hospitality room has huge picture windows overlooking Grant Park and is connected to the (rather large) hotel bar, which has darts, pool, and one of the coolest paintings I've ever seen in a bar (see photo page listed above).

The Alcove Room, which we'll be using for the Art Show, is spacious and connected to one of the vendor rooms. I'll be speaking with the hotel staff this week about what the art show will require and getting a cost analysis, which will determine how much space we have for hanging, and what the hanging fees will be.

After our tour of the hotel, we walked around the area to see what convention attendees can expect by way of food, liquor and shopping. Jackpot. Because it's at the southern corner of Chicago's downtown Loop area, and in the middle of Columbia University's campus, and only a few blocks from the Art Institute, there are a TON of restaurants, liquor stores, parking lots, convenience stores, and so forth - within 3 blocks of the hotel. Within a 5 minute walk we found restaurants from 6 different nationalities, a Pot Belly, a Subway, a Starbucks, a Dunkin Donuts, an Arby's, and several of Chicago's infamous little Vienna Beef greasy spoon-type places. If you're willing to walk a few more blocks, that puts you in the Loop, and there's no end of stores, galleries, cafes, restaurants, boutiques, you-name-it at your disposal.

For those who've never been to a convention, this is probably no biggie. But for those of us who've attended conventions held at airport hotels (where the nearest bar or restaurant outside the hotel was 20 miles away), this is friggin' Nirvana.

The Chicago El train runs right behind the hotel, and attendees can easily follow it to the nearest station to access the entire city.

There's a couple of places with free internet access within a couple of blocks of the hotel, including Chicago's famous Harold Washington Library.

There's stuff I'm forgetting, but this is getting long, so I'll stop. Oh, wait. The ghosts! Right...

THE HAUNTED TOWER & OTHER GHOSTS OF THE CONGRESS HOTEL

We learned that there are 2 ghosts that regularly visit guests of the 12th floor of one of the hotel's 3 towers (referred to by the staff as "The Haunted Tower". Yes. Convergence 10 will take place at a hotel with A HAUNTED TOWER). One is a man in clothes from the early part of the 20th century - guests wake up to see him watching them. He then walks into the bathroom, turns on the light, uses the toilet, flushes it... and vanishes. The other ghost is a little boy who, once spotted, will turn and walk out of the room - opening the door and closing it behind him - and when followed out into the hall, he is, of course, not there.

Then there is the lovely young couple that appears on the balcony in the Gold Room (which is one of the rooms we'll be using for vendors!). They seem to be overseeing an event that only they can see (their wedding, perhaps?).

We also learned that more than one late night security guard will not go near the Florentine Room, as they are tired of the lights turning themselves on and off, the self-flushing toilets and the self-opening-and-closing doors. The Florentine Room is where we'll be having the Meet & Greet. (!)

I got the distinct impression that these were only a few of the ghosts that Charles knows about, but time prevented us from delving deeper!

Charles also told us that famed Chicago paranormal researcher Richard T. Crowe [ www.ghosttours.com/ ] has expressed interest in the hotel for his Ghosts of Chicago Tour and/or his next book about Chicago's famous haunted spots.

Intrigued, I did a cursory search on the Congress and discovered that MSNBC named it one of their Top Ten Favorite Haunted Hotels in the United States! [ local.msn.com/special/arc..._haunted.asp ] - "FDR, Thomas Edison and Frank Lloyd Wright are rumored to make appearances here."

Oh, and one other thing. The Congress Plaza Hotel has a 13th floor. And it's actually a 13th floor. Most hotels, by tradition, go from 12 to 14 in the elevator, skipping 13 and supposedly the bad luck that would go with it. If you've never noticed this, start looking when you're in hotels or even some office buildings. The Congress' elevator has an actual 13 floor button. Spooooky.