Royals in the News After Oprah Interview - A Sloop Connection?

With all the palace intrigue swirling around the interwebs last night and today given Oprah's bombshell interview of Megan and Harry, we thought we would take the opportunity to bring it home.  Granted - this post is a bit of a stretch but here we go.

So the connection to the story about Megan and Harry doesn't have anything to do with the Sloop (as far as we can tell).  The current story is sad and unfortunate and whatever you make of it more drama feeding the Royal Industrial Media Complex.  We aren't going to wade in those waters because frankly that's not our place and we're not experts (or that interested).  However, the royal family and its likeness has some proximity to our neighborhood with a landmark in Grant Park.  

Maybe you're thinking Buckingham Fountain given its shared name with Buckingham Palace.  However, you'd be wrong (see more info on who Buckingham Fountain is named after here).  It's close though - just across Lake Shore Drive is the "Queen's Landing":

It's a pretty unimpressive 'piece of concrete', but serves some role in Chicago's history (via Chicago Tribune):

Mayor Richard J. Daley invited the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, to Chicago to celebrate the city's emergence as one of the world's leading seaports following the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the summer of 1959.

The queen's visit, which occurred during the city's International Trade Fair in July 1959, marked the first time a reigning British monarch had come to Chicago. The royal couple sailed down the new seaway in the royal yacht Britannia and were brought ashore by a royal barge.

As Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor write in their biography of Daley, more than a million people gathered along the shores of Lake Michigan to greet the queen and prince. Joining the Britannia was a fleet of seven warships and hundreds of smaller craft, including two Chinese junks.

You can find some more info about the Queen's visit on wikipedia if you'd like to go a little deeper.  We did and found an interesting fact about the world's longest red carpet being rolled out for them on Navy Pier.

Anyway, with the Royals in the news thought we'd bring the story home for you in the Sloop!