401 N Michigan

I have to say that I love this building in almost every way. There are restrooms on the lower level, and we can get into the building from both the upper and lower levels. The Plaza outside is great for people watching in the summer when you are standing by. The coffee shop inside is a good place to stand by during the winter. Even the guy who runs the sundries shop is really nice.
For the most part, their security policies are great. If you are a messenger, you can walk in the front door or use either of the entrances off Lower Michigan. You can keep your bag with you the whole time. All you have to do is give them an ID, and they give you a security badge.

Like this one:

Now, you might notice that this badge looks a little ragged. The picture doesn't really do it justice. The lamination had completely fallen apart, and someone had taped it back together, but that was falling apart too. I know this badge is at least four years old, because the building has been using the same ones for as long as I have been a messenger in Chicago. Recently, the building has replaced these old blue badges with a new, green set. But this day, the gave me one of the old ones. I asked them if I would still be charged $500.00 if I lost it, and the guard laughed a little bit and said "yes". I laughed too, but I really don't think this is all that funny. Ridiculous, yes. But not funny. I put the badge into my front-right pants pocket before I left the guard station. I have been using this method for the past four years, and so far I have never lost a badge. But, this means that the guard is the only person in the building who saw that I had a messenger badge. It doesn't really matter, since nobody has ever asked to see my messenger badge when I delivered their package to them. However, a couple of months ago, I asked the guard if I could just give her my work ID, and not get a messenger badge, since I wasn't really comfortable possessing such a valuable thing while I was in the building, and I really didn't need it, because I was just going to keep it in my pocket the whole time I was there. I was told that I had to take a messenger badge, and they would charge me $500.00 if I lost it because they would have to replace the whole set. It bothers me that I would still be charged $500.00 for one of the old, blue badges, as they have upgraded to the new, green ones. And it bothers me even more, because if I lose just one badge, can't they replace it without having to replace the whole set? And how much does it actually cost to produce a set of 50 sequentially-numbered, laminated cards in a three-ring binder? These are the kind of questions that it might seem like a bike messenger is unqualified to answer.




But wait a minute. I have raced in a bunch of messenger races, or "alleycats". Usually you get a laminated card with your racer number on it, and the race logo. These are called "spoke-cards".
These are a couple that I had laying around in my apartment. The top is from the 2008 Stupor Bowl, and I was number 247. There were over 300 racers in the Stupor Bowl that year. The spoke card is nice, it is double-laminated and has a picture of Mary Tyler Moore on it along with my race number. I guess the Minneapolis Bike Messenger Association must have spent over $3000.00 to produce spokecards for the race, if it costs a building in downtown Chicago $500.00 to produce 50 sequentially-numbered laminated cards. The lower spokecard is for the Black Cat, an alleycat race that the Chicago Couriers Union put on in 2006 as a fundraiser. I was number 64 in that race. But I was also a member of the CCU back in 2006, and I looked back on my notes from the organizational meetings for the race. The CCU put up $50.00 for the production of all materials for the race. This included 200 hundred flyers, 100 8-page manifest booklets, and 100 sequentially-numbered, laminated spokecards, with the event logo on them. We got all of the materials produced under budget, and the race raised nearly $400.00 for the CCU bank account. So if a bunch of uneducated, unskilled messengers can produce 100 sequentially-numbered, laminated cards for less than $50.00, why does it cost one of the biggest property management companies in Chicago ten times that much to make half as many. Well, we didn't put ours in a binder. That must make the difference. I bet it costs at least $400.00 for a binder to hold 50 laminated badges. So I looked on the Office Depot website to get a quote. What I came up with was one really nice three-ring binder, and two packages of vertical photo pages for the binder, enough to hold 80 badges. Surprisingly, the grand total was only $18.65. And if I lost one badge, couldn't the building just re-use the binder anyway?
I'm not really going to make a big deal about this. 401 N. Michigan is still a good building as far as bike messengers are concerned. But these are the things that bother me. Only bike messengers are required to take a pass to enter this building, and a pass has a value of $500.00 according to building management. The big messenger companies in Chicago, US Messenger, CMS, Arrow, and Dynamex go along with this. They don't want to ruffle any feathers because they are all vying for the building management companies as clients. The smaller companies may complain, but our voices are too faint to be heard. All I know, is that I am a professional messenger, and I don't lose things. But if I ever lose a 401 N. Michigan messenger pass, they will have to take me to court in order to collect $500.00 for it.