Just off the elevators on the 28th floor of the Daley Center, a scene of arresting beauty unfolds. Sunlight glints off Lake Michigan, high-definition views extend for miles and the city seems almost suspended through the lobby's wall of windows.
Not that anyone would notice: Most visitors enter with heads down, distracted, clutching a mass of papers and searching for the right courtroom.
Cook County's foreclosure court is so busy with the wreckage of the sub-prime mortgage crisis that the number of judges has been increased from 10 to 14, and they begin their new schedules Monday.