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| The spire of the First Methodist Church of Chicago casts a shadow on the house that Daley built, and Picasso takes a God-smack as well (JWB, 2007) |
Showing posts with label Photo of the Week. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Photo of the Week. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Church and State
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Photo of the Week: Baseball and the Babe
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| Jack Brickhouse holds steady while "Forever Marilyn" teases the crowds at Pioneer Court (JWB, 2011) |
“I’ve often stood
silent at a party for hours listening to my movie idols turn into dull and
little people,” Marilyn Monroe once said.
There is nothing
dull and little about the 26-foot statue of the actress, “Forever Marilyn,”
that stands close to Michigan Avenue at Pioneer Court. Sculptor Seward Johnson created the
work, and The Sculpture Foundation and Zeller Realty Group, owners of Pioneer
Court, commissioned the installation of the sculpture, an attraction that will
remain through the spring of 2012.
Paul Zeller, the
CEO of Zeller Realty Group, said of the sculpture, “With Marilyn we hope to
rekindle an attitude and optimism from an era that this iconic figure
represents—a time when we, as a nation and a people, were proud, productive,
optimistic and self-assure, if a bit mischievous.
We seek to return to American Exceptionalism, and trust Marilyn will
propel our attitudes in this direction.” [The Sculpture Foundation Press
Release; July 15, 2011]
I’m not sure that
the new sculpture is the best example of American Exceptionalism that one could
find . . . whatever American Exceptionalism is.
But the blonde
beauty is sure drawing them in.
It’s amusing that
just north of Marilyn, the one-time baseball babe, sits Jack Brickhouse at the
microphone, oblivious to the sight of Ms. Monroe’s lacy undergear aimed at the
lucky tenants of 401 North Michigan.
Holding a
scorecard, Brickhouse, as depicted by sculptor Jerry McKenna, most probably is
watching his beloved Cubbies once again fail to score a run with men on second and third and no outs. Brickhouse
is a Media Wing Hall-of-Famer who was born in Peoria in 1917, just nine years
after the Cubs won their last World Series. At the age of 18 he became the youngest sports announcer in
the country and by 1979 had racked up 5,000 broadcasts for WGN radio and
television.
So there he sits,
just upwind of the Hollywood beauty, maybe describing a backdoor slider that
left another batter caught looking.
Or another moon shot that a Cub hit on the sweet spot. Perhaps it was a called shot, launched
after the guy on the mound pitched him high and tight.
It’s appropriate
that the great broadcaster hunkers down to business while just to the south the
wind, blowing out on a perfect day for baseball, lifts Marilyn Monroe’s dress
to the world.
Back. Back. Back. Hey, Hey!
Friday, August 5, 2011
Photo of the Week: Goethe Sees the Light
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| Goethe enjoys his evening of "frozen music" (JJB, 2011) |
She who must be
obeyed and I were heading west on Diversey a couple weeks ago, talking with
friends on our way to the Basil Leaf for dinner. It had been a strange day . . . two or three blocks from the
lake the sun shone brightly with temperatures in the upper 80’s. Next to the lake, though, everything
was shrouded in fog, and the temperature was lower by a good ten degrees.
As we approached
the corner of Diversey and Sheridan, we came upon a sight unlike anything I
have seen before. We were in the
zone between fog and sunlight when, looking south, the top half of Lucien Lagrange’s
brand new 2520 Lincoln Park seemed to explode in sunlight.
The building was
topped out at the beginning of the summer, but as of yet only about the lower
half of the building’s 39 floors have had windows installed. So as we walked
past on that day a couple weeks ago, the setting sun burst through the open
spaces where the building was still wide open on the upper floors. From there the light exploded through
the fog.
It was a site so
extraordinary that even Herman Hahn’s 25-foot statue of Wolfgang von Goethe
seemed to take notice.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Photo of the Week: Rain on My Parade
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| Lake Michigan after the Sunday storm . . . open water near the horizon as the storm clouds move east (JWB, 2011) |
One of the great
annual events in Chicago comes on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend when the
powers that be shut down Lake Shore Drive, north and south, and allow bike
riders to navigate a 30-mile circuit down the middle of one of the great urban
roadways in the world.
There ain’t no road
just like it . . . anywhere I’ve found.
The experience is
always a blast, no matter what the weather. Weather-wise, we had a little bit of everything this past
Sunday. My daughter, Kristen, and
I headed south from Diversey at 5:45 with our wristbands prominently displayed. We were at the Sullivan Arch at
Columbus and Monroe by 6:05, where we picked up my friend, Ron, who had driven
in from Channahon in heavy fog.
The fog never
lifted. It was hard to tell as we
headed north to the Hollywood turnaround where we were at any point. The city was shrouded in a thick cloud,
and we were cycling through the middle of it. It made the sense of peaceful quiet that always comes from
thousands of cyclists zipping along one of the busiest highways in the city
even more pronounced.
The fog continued
throughout the morning as we discovered at 57th Street when the
Museum of Science and Industry suddenly appeared out of the mist. Fortunately, the winds were light and
the going was easy. It was another
great day, shared with thousands of other Chicagoans, all of them up early and
prepared for rolling along between the great lake and the city they love.
You work up a big
appetite after 30 or 40 miles on the road, so the three of us headed for the
Cosi on Michigan Avenue and had ourselves some good coffee and a nice, hot
breakfast. There are few things
better on a Sunday then casual conversation, lots of laughs and good
coffee. That’s especially true
after planting your rear on a bicycle seat for three hours.
Just as I was
headed for the second cup of coffee, Kristen held up her I-Phone and said,
“Hey, guys, you better look at this.”
On the screen was a blotch of red and yellow that had not been there a
half-hour before. Thunderstorms
were on the way.
So the three of us
scurried back to Grant Park to pick up our bikes, and after saying good-bye
to Ron, Kristen and I started back north to Diversey, four miles away. In the rain. In really heavy rain.
By the time we
cleared the Roosevelt Bridge and rounded Oak Street, the real heavy-duty action
began. A person feels very
vulnerable, riding along a large body of water on the seat of a bicycle, the
tallest object in the area, with lightning flashing all around.
We made it to the
North Avenue beach house . . . alive.
I paid seven bucks for a yellow plastic poncho that Kristen used to keep
the I-Phone alive, and we moved on, finally arriving back home, soaked to the
skin and covered in the sand our wheels threw up as we pedaled along the beach.
On the Inner Drive
the water was so high that ducks were swimming next to the curb across the
street from the Diversey driving range.
The rest of the
afternoon was a mixture of heavy storms and a strange fog that repeatedly moved
west from the lake and fell back again almost as if the lake were
breathing. The above picture gives
a good idea of how strange that afternoon was as the storm clouds once
again head east and the lake sends forth another layer of fog.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Photo of the Week: Urbs in Horto
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| City in a Garden -- Downtown as viewed from the north end of Diversey Harbor (JWB, 2011) |
The few folks who
lived in the swampy mess that would become Chicago back there in the mid-1830’s
either had an enormously optimistic vision of the future or an uncommonly
wicked sense of humor when someone chose “Urbs in Horto” as the phrase that was
to be placed on the little hamlet’s corporate seal.
First of all, there
wasn’t much garden (horto) in the city’s muck and mire. For a distance of eight to ten miles
around the town, water lay two to three feet deep in many places. And there wasn’t much city (urbs),
either . . . just a few thousand soles squatting alongside a brown river.
Still, in July of 1837 the citizens of the newly incorporated village enacted an ordinance that stated, “The seal of Chicago shall be represented by a shield (American) with a sheaf of wheat on its center; a ship in full sail on the right; a sleeping infant on the top; an Indian with bow and arrow on the left; and with the motto ‘Urbs in Horto’ at the bottom of the shield, with the inscription “City of Chicago-Incorporated, 4th of March, 1837 around the outside edge of said seal.”
It may have been a
grandiose gesture on the part of a small constituency back then, but the little
Latin phrase on the city’s official seal set the stage for a philosophy that
has carried down, ebbing and flowing with the times, to the beautiful city we
find today.
That is clear this
morning as I look out my living room window and see the landscapers hard at
work, arranging attractive floral schemes around the statues of Goethe and
Hamilton on the north boundary of Lincoln Park. It was true this weekend as I skirted the northern end of
Diversey Harbor on my way to the lake and saw the island of downtown
skyscrapers framed between the flowering crab trees, a city in a garden.
“. . . the need for
breathing spaces and recreation grounds is being forced upon the attention of
practical men,” Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett wrote in the Chicago Plan of
1909. “who are learning to
appreciate the fact that a city, in order to be a good labor-market, must
provide for the health and pleasure of the great body of workers. Density of population beyond a certain
point results in disorder, vice, and disease, and thereby becomes the greatest
menace to the well-being of the city itself.”
Urbs in horto. Find a place. Make your space.
Give thanks for all that we have been given and for all that we might
still do.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Photo of the Week: Bird on a Bell
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| The 1920 Meneely Bell, with bird, on the DuSable bridge (JWB, 2011) |
Before the skies
darkened and the wind whipped up, we had a couple of lovely days last
week. On one of those I found this
sparrow perched atop the bell on the southeast bridge house of the DuSable
Bridge.
The bridge,
designed by Edward H. Bennett, with Daniel Burnham the author of the Chicago
Plan of 1909, was finished in 1920 and turned a little country lane called Pine
Street into what has become one of the great merchandising boulevards in the
world.
The bridge married
the latest in technology with the timeless beauty of the Beaux Arts style. Bennett believed in Burnham’s
philosophy, the philosophy that Thomas Hines in his Burnham of Chicago
summarized in this way: “Burnham
sought to bring to American soil much of the power, grandeur, mystery, and monumentality
he saw in his Old World travels.
Somehow, he thought, there must be in America the same sense of wonder
for Americans who would never be able to travel abroad.”
This modest, little
bell falls fully in line with that philosophy. Although the bell shows its date of manufacture as 1920, it was designed by a company that had been around since 1826, the Meneely Bell Foundry, located in
West Troy, now Watervliet, New York.
The founder of the
company, Andrew Meneely, started
his career as an apprentice to one Julius Hanks, who began the first bell
foundry in the United States.
Overall the Meneely Foundry produced 65,000 bells before it stopped
production in 1952.
Meneely bells can
be found at Cornell University and West Point. They hang in churches from Guatemala (Parish Church of San
Andres Xecul, Totonicapan) to Hawaii (Soldiers’ Chapel, Schofield
Barracks).
Bennett and Burnham
certainly would have been familiar with Meneely’s work; the company created the
13,000-pound Columbian Liberty Bell, which was displayed at the 1893 World’s
Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
That bell mysteriously disappeared, most likely in Russia, during a
European tour after the fair closed.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Photo of the Week: The Abbott Hotel
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| The Abbott Hotel, 721 West Belmont (JWB, 2011) |
One of my favorite
signs in the city – the display for the Abbott Hotel at 721 West Belmont. The sign tells you everything you need
to know . . . it comes straight from a different time, a time when Chevy
Bel-Airs, Plymouth Furys, and Mercury Montereys rolled up and down Belmont.
Imagine . . .
checking into a room with air conditioning AND color television. For free!
Although times have
changed, the Abbott hasn’t.
If you use your imagination, you might picture poor old Miss Havisham up
there in a room on the third floor, watching a Philco with the color all wrong
and the sound too loud.
And, if you read
the reviews, the hotel staff fits the motif, characters, seemingly, straight
out of a Dickens novel.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Photo of the Week: Sheridan's Rainy Day
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| General Phillip Sheridan and Winchester on a Rainy Day (JWB, 2011) |
Rest
of Today
Rain in
the morning...then a chance of rain in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 50s.
Northwest winds around 10 mph in the morning becoming light and variable in the
late morning and early afternoon...then becoming north around 10 mph late in
the afternoon. Chance of precipitation 100 percent.
Tonight
Cloudy.
Showers likely in the evening...then a chance of showers after midnight. Lows
in the upper 30s...except in the lower 40s downtown. West winds 10 to 15 mph.
Chance of precipitation 60 percent.
Thursday
Showers
likely. Cold. Highs in the upper 40s. West winds 10 to 20 mph. Chance of
precipitation 60 percent.
Thursday
Night
Mostly
cloudy. Cold. Lows in the upper 30s. Northwest winds 10 to 15 mph.
Day after
rainy day . . . a soul could grow weary, were it not for the promise of spring
brought by the landscapers at work in the city’s gardens.
In the
above photo Gutzon Borglum’s statue of General Phillip Sheridan mounted on his
favorite horse, Winchester, emerge from the clouds at the intersection of
Belmont and Sheridan. (Connecting
the Windy City
Blog of May 6, 2010.)
Just the
horse, the general and me – standin’ in the rain, talking to myself.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Photo of the Week: April Snow
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| The city awakes on April 18, 2011 (JWB, 2011) |
Well, this was a
heck of a way to wake up yesterday morning, three weeks into what they told us
would be spring. The temperature in the
mid-30’s and the ground covered with snow.
Just a little over
a week ago, I stood in shorts and a shirt-sleeve shirt in a parking lot at
Miller Field in Milwaukee with the temperature in the 80’s.
Now here we are . .
. a snowfall record for this date – even though only .6 of an inch fell out at
O’Hare.
Where is the essential fairness of it all? St. Louis had temperatures in the 70’s yesterday. Washington, D. C. basked in 74° weather. The forsythia are all in bloom. The locusts are green. Tulips stand resolutely against the onslaught.
The sandals tucked
in the back of the closet are asking, “When do we get OUR turn?”
Not today. The forecast? Rain in the morning . . . then rain and isolated
thunderstorms in the afternoon.
Some thunderstorms may produce gusty winds and small hail in the
afternoon. Blustery. Highs in the lower 40’s. Northeast winds 15 to 25 mph with gusts
up to 35 mpy at times. Chance of
percepitation 90 percent.
Blustery. There's a word I could do without.
Temperatures in the
40’s for the next two days. Rain
on Friday and Saturday. A good week for blowing out an umbrella.
Michael “Hinky Dink”
Kenna, the Lord of the Levee, who never lost an election in 40 years as alderman
from the first ward once said, “Chicago ain’t no sissy town.”
This week we’re
proving it.
By the way, the
photo looks toward the rapidly rising Lincoln Park 2520, a Lucien LaGrange-designed project that
will include a 39-story tower, flanked by a 22-story north tower and a 16-story
south tower as well as private gardens and three levels of underground parking.
The joint is so
posh that a dog exercise area and paw wash will be part of the one-acre private
gardens.
It’s a miserable
week for dogs. And Chicagoans,
too.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Photo of the Week: Go Cubs
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JWB, 2011
|
I didn’t realize
how stark those half-dozen words would appear until I typed them. I have spent my life moving between
exultation and bitterness, sometimes in the same day, sometimes in my Leon
Durham or Steve Bartman memories in the space of a few seconds.
I rode high with
Ron Santo’s heel clicks in 1969 and fell to the ground with Don Young’s missed
catch that same summer, symbols of the aura of great men and goats that
surrounds my men in blue.
And now Ron Santo
is gone, another one of the tens of thousands of fans who were born, lived
their lives and then died, never once seeing the team they love defend the
honor of Chicago in the baseball championship of the world.
In 1984, up two
games to none in a five-games series against the San Diego Padres, the Cubs let
the national league west champion back into the series, losing 7-1 in Game 3
and allowing a Steve Garvey homerun in the bottom of the ninth to tie the
series. Then, leading 3-2 in the
seventh of Game 5, with the eventual Cy Young winner, Rick Sutcliffe, on the
mound . . . The Error.
Cubs lose, 6-3.
They installed
lights at Wrigley in 1989. The
Cubs went on to win 93 games and the Eastern Division championship. They won the first two games at home
against the Giants, held leads in each of the next three games, managing to
lose all three.
Just before the
season started in 1998, Harry Caray died.
He would have loved the new flame-throwing rookie, Kerry Wood, a name
Harry could have actually pronounced.
The Cubs finish 90-73 and win a one-game wild card game against the
Giants at Wrigley.
Too much work. The team scores four runs in the series
against Atlanta and spends the next two years in the cellar.
Five years later,
2003, and the magic is back. Five
out of six from St. Louis in September when it actually mattered. Dominant ball against the upstart
Marlins. Five outs away from the
World Serious.
Great men and
goats. Exhilaration and
bitterness.
Which is a lot of
words to get to the Picture of the Week.
Cruising along the
Fort Lauderdale intracoastal waterway yesterday on the Carrie B with my wife
and eldest daughter, one particular feature at one of the many lavish
waterfront estates caught my eye.
With the glare of
the water and the bright blue sky, I couldn’t trust myself until I got home and
downloaded the pictures, but I thought I had seen a Cubs flag beneath the stars
and stripes up on the beautiful home’s flagpole.
I was right, some
fabulously wealthy Cubs fan, was proudly proclaiming loyalty as the team gets
ready to defend the honor of Chicago in a new season.
But look more
closely. The flag is flying upside
down.
In another month or
so, I’ll be on the deck of a Chicago Architecture Foundation tour boat,
narrating the glories of the Chicago River. I will speak nonstop for an hour-and-a-half, describing
between 70 and 80 buildings during that time.
Every one of those
great buildings, except one, has been built since the Cubs last won the World
Series. In some places structures
have been designed, built, torn down and new buildings erected during that
time. In a few cases the cycle has
occurred several times.
A century is a long
time. The flag is flying
upside down.
Go Cubs.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Photo of the Week: Spring Reflections
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| JWB, 2010 |
Now
that we’ve got that first 70-degree day out of the way, and all the cars have
been towed off the snowbound Lake Shore Drive (There ain’t no road just like it
anywhere I’ve found), it’s time to begin the uplifting business of appreciating
what a beautiful city Chicago is.
On a
sunny day you can do that in far more places than you can in most cities. Parks abound, and green space is never
far away . . . even if there is only a little patch of it. A city needs that, especially a big,
brawling hog butcher to the world of a city.
Nowhere
is the city more beautiful in the summer than along the river. And strolling
the River Walk on a bright spring morning, you’re reminded of e. e. cummings
words:
i
thank You God for most this amazing
day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
Mr. Trump’s tower is two-years-old now, and we’re accustomed to
seeing its reflective surface. But
it’s like anything else; sometimes we become too familiar with something or
someone and we don’t notice it, we don’t love it, as we did when everything was
new.
But Adrian Smith’s design for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill rates a
serious look, especially on a sunny day.
Here the reflective glass surface mirrors the great buildings across the
river – Mather Tower, Hotel 71, 360 North Michigan, Prudential II, and the Aon Building.
THIS is what a great city looks like at the end of a long winter.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Photo of the Week: Thompson Building at 350 North Clark
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| (JWB Photo, 2008) |
Walk north of Helmut Jahn's Thompson Center on Clark Street, cross the river and you'll come face to face with another building that carries the Thompson name, this one a real beauty with a creamy terra cotta skin and an understated ornamentation at the base of its classic Chicago school organization.
The building at 350 North Clark Street is named after a different Thompson -- not James R., but John R., a restauranteur who rocked the lunchroom business in a big way from the latter part of the 19th century to the 1950's. If you've got some time on your hands, here's a cool website for you -- victualling.wordpress.com. Some great information about John R. and a bunch of other stuff, too.
Turns out that Mr. Thompson (the dead one, not the one still with us) began his career running a general store in rural Illinois. In 1891 he came to Chicago and opened a restaurant on State Street. Thirty years later the Thompson empire included a chain of groceries and 109 restaurants, including 49 in Chicago and 11 in New York City. The company's commissary was moved to the brand new building at 350 North Clark in 1912, and the company went public in 1914. Mr. Thompson died in 1927.
Thompson's restaurants stressed efficiency and hygiene, attributes that work well in restaurants and in buildings. So it is that the Thompson building has a glazed exterior of white terra cotta, emphasizing the cleanliness of the operation. The modest terra cotta ornament presents garlands of fruit, vegetables and grain, a visual clue as to what the original purpose of the building was. The strong geometric grid of the eight-story facade may well suggest the efficiency of Thompson's "scientific" approach to his enterprise.
The building has a great pedigree -- the designer was Alfred Alschuler, a prolific architect during the first quarter of the 20th century, whose accomplishments include the 360 North Michigan Avenue Building, the oldest synagogue in the city (KAM Isaiah Israel in Hyde Park), and a number of factories and showrooms.
The Thompson building's terra cotta was manufactured by the great Northwestern Terra Cotta Company, which produced the cladding for the Wrigley Building and which had its offices in the Santa Fe Building. Northwestern's main plant was at the corner of Wright and Clybourn and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Photo of the Week: Sunrise
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| JWB Photo, 2010 |
But when you DO see it, you have to think about what a great gift the new day is and how fortunate you are to be in this particular patch at this particular time.
Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door . . . that's the way Emily Dickinson put it.
And maybe that's a good way to think about it . . . not knowing when one of these fantastic Chicago sunrises will insinuate itself into our little lives, we best open ourselves up to the possibility of a day of surprises, with or without the sunrise.
It's the way we live out here in the midwest, out on the open prairie, the field of dreams.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Photo of the Week: Trump Jump
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| The July 20, 2010 jump from the top of Trump Tower (JWB Photo, 2010) |
As I watched the trailer of this futuristic bust-em-up and saw the carnage taking place on the north side of the DuSable Bridge, two thoughts came to me. The first was that the July 1 release would be in the middle of the summer, and warm weather would be once again a part of the Chicago lifestyle. The snow will melt, the lake will thaw, and Chicago's new mayor will preside over what once again will be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Right after that I thought about the hot morning last summer when on July 20 at about 8:30 in the morning, five parachutists hurled themselves off the top of Trump Tower, landing a minute or two later on a waiting barge moored just northeast of the DuSable Bridge. Those of you who lived through it will remember when the film crews blew up Michigan Avenue, 35 East Wacker lay in ruins on Wacker Drive, and the helicopters roared so loudly that you couldn't hold a conversation.
So warm yourself with the knowledge that when you sit in an air conditioned theater, watching the Autobots struggle desperately to learn the secret of the Decepticons' lethal moon craft, it will be high times and green grass in the City of the Big Shoulders and all will be right with the world.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Photo of the Week: The Heyworth
 |
| The Heyworth Building (JWB Photo) |
In the photo above you can see what's going on here. There is the Chicago School's three-part organization. The string cornice four floors above ground level, marking the base of the structure, the vertical rise of the office tower itself with each floor exactly like the one above and below it, the cornice, restored in 2001, that finishes the building's rise. And look at how deeply those windows are set in the fabric of the Heyworth's exterior. There is no mistaking the fact that this is a building built around a steel framework . . . the skeleton clearly shows, vertically and horizontally. Notice, though, the subtlety of the ornamentation, even on the Wabash side, where the fire escapes were placed and the elevated trains clatter by just feet from the office spaces. Subtlety is the key here. This is a scheme of decoration farther away from the ornamentation of the Flatiron than just the distance between two great cities. Here Dinkelberg gives us the perfect complement to Louis Sullivan's lavish ornamentation, newly restored, on his Schlesinger and Mayer store, now the Sullivan Center, that sits adjacent to the Heyworth.
Even in the dark canyon of Wabash Avenue, where the el screams and the electric sparks fly, the play of light and shadow on the surface of the Heyworth shows the building for what it is, an overlooked beauty in a city of beauties and a testament to the versatile genius of Frederick Dinkelberg.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Photo of the Week: Diversey Cheaters
(Bartholomew Photo)
Big deal up here on Diversey last week as the vans, trucks and crew rolled in for a day of filming portions of what will become the latest Ron Howard movie. We watched the action take place in front of the Goethe statue from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. I walked down to the statue with my camera, but a muscular security guy told me not to use it. What he actually said was, "I would appreciate it if you would not take any pictures." I was so taken with the civility of his request that I kept the cap on my photographer's rights and went back up to the condo where I took the pictures anyway.
The working title of the film is Cheaters, and it features Vince Vaughn, who discovers that his best friend's wife, played by Winona Ryder, is having an affair. The central conflict seems to center around the question "To tell or not to tell?"
In the photo above, Mr. Howard, holding what appears to be the script, steps out from under an umbrella after conferring with Ms. Ryder. The "scene" must have lasted all of five seconds and consisted of Ms. Ryder's character standing on the sidewalk alongside Cannon Drive, talking on a cell phone. There were easily a dozen takes before Mr. Howard called it a day.
The morning's activity consisted of filming two young women on bicycles as they pedaled around the gravel in front of the Goethe statue while various passers-by walked to and fro. Diversey from the Inner Drive to Sheridan was filled with semis, and the "base camp" for the crew took up much of the parking lot at Diversey Harbor.
This may be one of the few films that I see when it comes out. I'd like to find out if the five second-section I watched actually makes it into the final cut.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Photo of the Week: Those Lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Bartholomew Photo
Adelor, the 15-year-old male lion at Lincoln Park Zoo, settles in for the long days of summer. The majestic beast would be nearing the end of his days in the wild where competition for survival gets tough at his age. But at the zoo he could be around for another half-decade or so.
The Kovler Lion House at Lincoln Park Zoo is a Chicago landmark, an impressive melding of classical and Prairie School designs. The architect was Dwight Perkins, who had quite an impact on Chicago public buildings in the early part of the twentieth century. I'll be sharing some significant Perkins-designed buildings in the near future.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Photo of the Week: Hawks Win!
Bartholomew Photo
On the night before the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup with an unbelievable overtime goal by Patrick Kane, the Unitrin Building at 1 East Wacker Drive sends out its message of support.
According to the Chicago Architecture Foundation this building was once the tallest marble-clad building in the world at 522 feet. Only Water Tower Place outshines Unitrin in this category today. At one time the Aon Cener on Randolph Street held the prize, but it lost its marbles in the early 1990's in a façade replacement of historic proportions.
Alfred P. Shaw was the principal designer of Unitrin. Shaw also was responsible for the design of the Civic Opera Building, the Merchandise Mart, and 135 South LaSalle, originally the Field Building, while working for Graham, Anderson, Probst and White.
Of course, everyone knows that 1961 was the year that the Blackhawks last won the Stanley Cup. Unitrin had not been built . . . it was completed in 1962. Even more amazing is that virtually every building on the south side of the Chicago River from the lake to Wolf Point, where the Main Stem meets the North and South branches, has been built since 1961.
The only buildings that predate that championship season are (1) 333 North Michigan; (2) 360 North Michigan; (3) Mather Tower at 75 East Wacker; (4) Hotel 71 at 71 East Wacker; (5) 35 East Wacker, originally the Jewelers' Building; (6) the LaSalle-Wacker Building at 221 North LaSalle; and (7) the Builders' Building at 222 North LaSalle.
It's an amazing tribute to the developers and designers who, over the past half-century, have transformed this magnificent city into the tree-lined showplace that it is today.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Photo of the Week: Sunrise
Bartholomew Photo
On the Sunday morning before Memorial Day, with Lake Shore Drive closed in preparation for the annual Bike the Drive, the sun rises over Lake Michigan.
And this, too, is Chicago.
I see the sun come up on the miracle of a new day, and I think of the words by which the late John Wooden lived his life . . .
Be true to yourself. Make each day a masterpiece. Help others. Drink deeply from good books. Make friendship a fine art. Build a shelter against a rainy day.
That part about making each day a masterpiece . . . that's a good idea.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Photo of the Week: Welcome Home, Mr. President
Bartholomew Photo
We have been running to and from the windows since last Thursday, reacting to the sound of helicopter rotors as the President came and left his hometown this Memorial Day weekend.
We watched the helicopters come by our condo Thursday evening, then return to O'Hare, flying west into the setting sun. Early Friday morning I saw them swing by again on their way to pick the Commander-in-Chief up for his trip to Louisiana. Back they came that night. Their final trip was this afternoon as they took President Obama back to O'Hare for the return to the nation's capital.
In addition to watching the comings and goings from the air, I also got to sit in traffic on Lake Shore Drive, about a quarter mile from McCormick Place, as the motorcade dropped the President off at the landing site. Traffic was stopped in both directions, so I had a chance to listen to sports radio for 15 minutes, sitting in the sunlight at the beginning of a beautiful day with the car's engine off and the windows rolled down.
It couldn't have been much of a vacation for him. He spent most of Friday on the Gulf coast, observing the increasingly alarming environmental disaster that is reaching the end of its second month. Today he ended up in the middle of a severe thunderstorm at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, standing in the middle of a downpour, urging people who had waited for hours for the ceremony to take to their cars for their own safety.
Still, for us Chicagoans, it was great to have him back in town. We all stood a little taller this weekend. We know who we are . . . we know who he is . . . and we know what we can all become if we can just start looking around for someone we can help rather than spending our time and energy, trying to find someone whom we can blame.
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