Presto! In Chicago, a High-End Magic Palace Appears
“Tullman, a 66-year-old health care entrepreneur, blames a lack of practice. But for his next trick he will attempt a stunt that is vastly more audacious and can’t be rehearsed. With $50 million of his own money, he is about to open — on April 18 — a 35,000-square-foot mansion of magic in downtown Chicago.
The new venue, called The Hand and the Eye, will feature five performance spaces, seven bars, two dining rooms and one wall that, when touched, will seem to have a beating heart. The place will feed and entertain as many as 350 guests over the course of any given night, on five floors, with a rotating roster of 22 magicians to keep them all astonished.” (Segal, 2026)
“After graduating from Bucknell, he won a scholarship to Oxford and turned to the business of health care in the late ’90s. When his then-8-year-old son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, the anxiety and effort of tracking his blood sugar level provided the idea for Livongo, a tech platform that uses an app and customized hardware to coach and monitor people with chronic conditions. In 2020, it sold for $18.5 billion.” (Segal, 2026)
“Tullman believes that people marooned in digital echo chambers now crave communal, off-line experiences, and everything about The Hand and the Eye is an antidote to the default settings of contemporary life. Starting with the dress code: No jeans, no sneakers. Collared shirts and jackets for men, cocktail dresses or ‘artfully styled’ suits for women. Stickers will be placed on the cameras of mobile phones, preventing photos and videos. There are no windows to stare out of, no TVs to distract.
‘Everything around you,’ said Rockwell, offering a tour of the premises, ‘will be more interesting than scrolling on the phone.’” (Segal, 2026)
This article follows healthcare entrepreneur Glen Tullman through his process of creating The Hand & The Eye, an exclusive magic mansion in Chicago (Segal, 2026). After completely reimagining mobile diabetes care through Livongo, I find it impactful how much emphasis he puts on creating interpersonal and screen-free experiences. Creating an experience where phones are completely banned and betting fifty million dollars of investment on it makes me consider how people want to be impacted in the medical industry. Connecting with others is a large part of healthcare that has reduced in prevalence with new telehealth technologies, so I want to make sure I consider the personal aspect of my project even while focusing on technology and AI.
As well, creating an experience with no distractions, as described in the article, should be considered (Segal, 2026). Especially in times of medical stress, creating an experience on, for example, a phone could add additional distractions to the tasks at hand. Really refining my experience to its simplest terms could be taken from this entertainment exploration back into the medical sphere.
References
Segal, D. (2026, April 7). Presto! In Chicago, a high-end magic palace appears. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/arts/magic-hand-eye-glen-tullman.html
Generative AI was not used in the writing of this article.
