Frank Sennett

Note: This piece was originally published in the November 13, 2008 issue of Time Out London. By lunchtime on November 4, a sense of serene anticipation spiced the air along Chicago's South Michigan Avenue as Barack Obama's supporters queued up at the main entrance to downtown's Grant Park for a victory rally that would captivate viewers around the world. Tourists and office workers smiled at each other as if sharing a happy secret, while vendors hawked buttons and shirts summing up the pending historic moment—the ascension of an African-American to the US presidency—in mock newspaper headlines, alongside knock-off Andy Warhol portraits of the first man since Abraham Lincoln to rise from the Illinois statehouse to the White House. When polls began closing on the east coast, we watched from Time Out Chicago's break room overlooking the park as revellers gathered under the glow of giant screens showing electoral college vote projections. Three Time Out staffers, mingling with the crowds in the park, capture the atmosphere: Kris Vire, theatre critic “When CNN began making projections, Grant Park seemed more and more like the Happiest Place on Earth. We stayed close to the friends we'd come in with but realised meet-ups with latecomers would be impossible, so we made ‘rally friends’ with strangers around us. After the huge build-up, the moment of spontaneous, unfiltered elation came at 10pm. When CNN declared Obama would win, the crowd on Grant Park's Hutchinson Field went batsh