Haunting in the Loop...

Our Benevolent Dictator, Da'Mare, who will go to no ends to ensure his name is plastered on anything owned by the city and vertical, has done this "Haunted Village" in his fathers namesake plaza for nearly ten years now.
Each year I pass by the orange cauldron of water churning in the fountain, looking at the carved pumpkins sitting on shelves behind chicken wire, and think to myself... "Only in Chicago..."
Well, again this year I have been passing by this haunted splendor sitting in modernist Daley Plaza for a few weeks, and until tonight, I still hadn't taken the time to take photographs. So finally, with tonight being Halloween, I went over and took a few images.


The orange lights in the trees and the cauldron of orange water is quite striking. Tonight being Halloween, this was my last chance to catch the orange water, for historically, the fountain is shut down and drained beginning on November, 1st.


Close up of the fountain.


Carved pumpkins behind chicken wire beyond the fountain.


They do a nice job creating an atmosphere that if I were a little kid, it would surely seem scary.

Nice Day for a Parade...

So thought 1.75 million people...

I wasn't able to take much time away from the office (Damn meetings and work) to attend the ticker tape parade on LaSalle Street, but I did manage to get away long enough to walk down to Jackson and Canal to see the motorcade.

Here we see the team members in double decker buses heading towards LaSalle Street.


Conveniently... They placed signs on the fronts of all of the busses to let people like me know who the heck we are looking at. That said, I knew this was Ozzie Guillen and Konerko at the front of this bus.


The tail end of the motorcade heading towards the parade.


While I may not have been able to get over to LaSalle Street, a co-worker did, and she brought this back to the office.

Special guest photo credit goes to Lila Licea. Thanks Lila!

Oh, BTW... If you want to see some fantastic images of the parade, check out Chicagoist' Team Photo Coverage over at Flickr

Chase Tower...

Now that Chase Tower is officially known as Chase Tower, and no longer known as Bank One Plaza, I noticed they have done a heck of a clean up job there. Here are a few images I shot a few weeks ago. (Oh, BTW...They didn't change the name to Chase Plaza, because Chicago already has a building named Chase Plaza.)

A quiet moment when the fountain is still.


There is still nothing quite like looking straight up the curving side of the building.


Close up of the Chagall. This piece of public art is a great treasure for those of us that live here.


The pretty new CTA Blue Line Entrance.

Congratulations White Sox!

As I noted earlier this week, I am not one to pay close attention to sports... But, I can't help being proud to be a Chicagoan tonight. Congrats to the South Side!

Millennium Park in the Abstract II...

Millennium Park is a great place to capture shapes, forms, shadows, and patterns, especially when there isn't anybody there. I did a post called Millennium Park in the Abstract last May, it is time for a follow-up.

Several weeks ago, we had to vacate my apartment early on a Sunday morning for a helicopter lift in the neighborhood. We took the opportunity, and headed over to the park where I proceeded to shot about 200 images and spent a lot of time around the Gehry Band Shell. The Jay Priztker Pavilion presents a multitude of opportunities for photographers, and here is a sample of what I shot.


Which seat is "AAA6"?


Trellis with band shell.


Trellis with Mid Continental Plaza in the background.

Mies Most Miesian...

While touring the IIT Campus Saturday before last, the tour ended at what is perhaps Mies most famous work. Crown Hall has influenced architecture for the last 50 years, and to those that "get it", it is a masterpiece of minimalism. IIT just completed an honorable restoration of the hall, and it is glowing like it hasn't since the 50s. The black is black, the aluminum is aluminum, and the glass is spectacular.

This shot is the shadow of the building name on the glass at the main entrance.


Outside front of the building


At 120 feet by 200 feet, this is essentially one giant column free classroom.


Shadow of trees on windows


Library on the lower level. I love the collection of chairs lining the bookshelves.


Crown Hall from Jahn's State Street Village.

Random Mondays 10.24.05...

Looking for images to use in my third post of Random Mondays, I wanted to really be random. Since this is an architecture focused blog, I felt I should include at least a couple of building images, but I also wanted to find a couple of other images to post as well... So here goes... I will probably tinker with the formula for Random Mondays, but any input from my readers is encouraged.

Standing between east and west towers on the plaza of Marina City looking straight up, last Sunday.


Zebra's ass, at the Lincoln Park Zoo.



Top of Tribune Tower. This image has always been elusive for me. I have made multiple attempts, but not to great success. The angle of this one is a bit off, but the lighting of the top is quite a bit closer to what I have been trying to capture. I will keep trying...


Fish with cigarette butt. This past Saturday, we were along the Fox River in St. Charles where I found this pile of dead fish.

Almost Fall, in Island Park...

I had a rental car this weekend and Michael and I took off, not quite knowing where we were going to end up. Late in the day we found ourselves at Island Park, in Geneva, IL. Its funny how fall colors are different even among different trees. This little guy is quite ready for winter, while the older bigger ones seem to be saying, not quite yet.


I don't know what this flower is, but it was a surprise to find it growing in a park where there were no other flowers.


Looking across the water, fall is slowly appearing...


Another bit of color.

Go Sox!?!...

Anybody who knows me well, knows I would rather be taking pictures of buildings than watching sports, but as disinterested in sports as I may be, I would be glad to see the Sox win, and win big. At the very least, this is bringing in lots of money in sales tax to the city.

State Street Village...

In continuation from yesterday of our tour of IIT this past Saturday, we got to see up close the Helmut Jahn designed, new student housing at IIT. Completed in 2003, this was Jahn's first project in Chicago in quite a long time.

The view standing at the corner of State and 33rd looking south.


Looking up from the same spot. Jahn's newer designs are an improvement over his work in the 80s. I see similarities to the Shure Headquarters building in Niles.


The top floor of each building has an outdoor terrace for the students with great views of the downtown skyline and Crown Hall across the street.


Downtown skyline looking along the sun shades between each terrace.


Same shot focusing on the sun shade itself.


The student housing faces the Green Line, our tour guide told us that the double pane windows use two different thicknesses of glass to minimize the sound transmission of the train.

Koolhaas at IIT...

This past Saturday, Michael and I took the Architecture Foundation's "Mies and Modernism: The IIT Campus Tour" and aside from being in complete overwhelm with all of the Mies buildings, I was equally blown away by Rem Koolhaas' design for the McCormick Tribune Campus Center. The center is so completely different from very Miesian surroundings, yet the relationship is very clear. I had seen the building from a car driving down State Street, but this was the first time I was able to walk inside and take it in. All I can say is Wow!

The entrance on State Street uses tiny icons of varying shapes to create the image of Mies Van Der Rohe. This was Koolhaas' ode to his modernist forefather.


Inside the front entrance is this hallway leading off on a angle. There are several passageways on various angles which represent the pattern created by students walking through the grass before the structure was built.


Looking down into the dining area. Jacobsen's Series 7 Chairs (1955) still look so current.


Looking south through the center of the building. The steel structure above is the underside of the tube which wraps around the CTA's Green Line.


Outside, you can see how the building appears crushed by the tube structure wrapping the "L" tracks.

Random Mondays 10.17.05...

Continuing the "Random Mondays" theme...

This is a great example of 60s design which almost nobody knows about. It is an outdoor screen along the east side of the SBC Building on Randolph and Franklin. It shields the employee smoking area from the alley.


Standing on a balcony in the upper 30s, one can see this reflection of both Marina City Towers in the Quaker building.


Cardinal on head of the Fountain of the Great Lakes in the small garden, south of the main entrance at the Art Institute.


Water cascading down Plensa Fountain (Millennium Park) last spring.

"H" and "E" Coming Soon...

I tried to post this last night, but have been having ISP issues. I will post Random Mondays this evening provided my connection is fixed.

As seen yesterday, looking at the south side of the building from the top of a parking structure on Wabash, "C_AS_" is putting up a new sign on their newly acquired building.


Closer Up


Curiosity forced us to check out the north side of the building from the roof of West Tower, Marina City. Same Letters, with a crooked logo.

Sunset on Randolph...

Walking along Randolph near Halstead this evening, I captured this:

IBM Plaza...

Mies final stroke of genius was IBM Plaza on the north bank of the Chicago River between State Street and Wabash. Completed in 1972 after his death in 1969, IBM is Mies through and through. The great thing about this building is that it is nearly untouched from the time it was completed right down to the original sign (less the web address of course).


I shot these images last night, instead of my usual focus of the building, I focused on the lobby and surrounding plaza. Mies always did his designs on a grid, and everything lines up to it, right down to the cracks between the slabs of granite on the plaza.


Looking towards Marina City across State Street.


Note the lines between the travertine marble on the wall match up to the lines on the plaza, as well as the frame of the door, and so on and so on...

Gray Sky Blues...

The very recent gray skies over Chicago have reminded me of my thirteen years in Seattle. The mild temps that vary by only a few degrees per day, thin overcast skies, and a general grayness everywhere. To show how recent these gray skies are, I found a few images of truly blue skies taken over the past two weeks.

Standing at the intersection of Monroe and Franklin this past Sunday, I looked up and saw this:



Standing in Millennium Park at about 7:45 AM Sunday before last, I got to see the sun reflecting on the Mid-Continental Plaza:


That same Sunday, standing on the roof deck of the East Tower at Marina City, I captured this:



Friday before last, I saw this walking west across the Washington Street Bridge:

Random Mondays 10.10.05...

In my collection of thousands of images taken in and around the Loop, I have hundreds of images that are for the most part random. They were not taken as part of any project, subject, or any other reason in particular, other than being images that just caught my eye.
So, I decided to begin a weekly series of post called "Random Mondays". This will give me a chance to feature images which don't fit with other posts, yet deserve to be shared.

First up... Last week was "Festival Italiano" at Daley Plaza. I couldn't help but snap this picture of classical David in midst of absolute modernism, which is Daley Plaza.


Perched out on the edge.... This worker was found working on the top of Carson Pirie Scott last week. They are finishing up a complete restoration of the exterior of this historic building by Louis Sullivan (including restoration of the missing cornice).
It feels as though there has been scaffolding up for years (its been at least since 2003), but they are supposed to be finished in time for "Day After Thanksgiving Sales".


Swing dancing at Federal Plaza. Seen yesterday afternoon, dozens of people dancing in a part of town that is usually quite vacant on a Sunday afternoon.

Marathon...

While we were sitting around this morning reading the Sunday paper, drinking strong coffee, and dining on pancakes (buckwheat w/pure maple syrup) and sage sausage from Whole Foods, there were about 40,000 people running outside my front door. The crowd stayed pretty heavy for quite a while...


But, even with that many runners, you can see that the sidewalks along Randolph St and on State St along Block 37 were pretty vacant. It was after all, only 8:15 on a Sunday morning.


The image is a bit fuzzy, but this poor woman was in last place followed up by the police escort, at the time she came past my place. Given that about one in six runners don't make it to the finish line, I suspect this was not to be her day. At least she tried, which is more than I can say while I sat eating my pancakes and watching.

Reflections on the Bean...

While sorting through some images, I forgot about these images of I shot shortly after it was revealed with the outer seams polished at the end of August.

No need for much verbiage here...

Wacker Tower...

Unknown to most Chicagoans, a little art deco gem of a skyscraper on E Wacker Place, stands Wacker Tower.


Built in 1928 as the Chicago Motor Club, my understanding is that it was the precursor to AAA. In 1997 there was an adaptive re-use project done converting the building to office space, but today it sits empty. Internet searches about the building have mostly come up empty.


At sixteen stories, its a pretty small skyscraper, and it is surrounded by taller buildings on a small spur off of Wacker Drive, The entrance has plastic sheeting hiding the view of the intact art deco lobby with a large vintage mural of the motoring age in the 20s.

Detail of the facade.

Nighttime at Daley Center...

Daley Center is one of my favorite buildings in the city, and a lot of fun to photograph. There are endless angles to capture its modernist aesthetic.

I had the opportunity last week to take images from the upper floor of a nearby building, and shot about 60 images in 15 minutes. Here are a few of the pics I shot.


The Picasso is sitting all alone with only the security guard looking on. This is actually out of the ordinary, there are usually several kids out skateboarding in the plaza.


Looking past the Hotel Burnham (left) the fountain looks otherworldly with sharp peaks of cotton-like water.


Back up to the upper floors. Part of what make this building so great to photograph is the nearly identical original lighting on each floor. I have dozens of images of just the lighting on multiple floors. In this image, I love the diplomas (certificates?) on the office wall (right center).

Follow up...

The Citi Sign is back today...

Mantis in the Loop...

This past Sunday, we went to Millennium Park early in the morning so I could take pictures before it got crowded (more of those to come soon) and stumbled across a form of nature I hadn't seen in the wild for decades. The Stagmomantis Carolina is not something you would expect to find in such a man-made place as Millennium Park, but this is a good example of nature over man.


The Mantis was found on the seats at the Pritzker Pavilion.

Quick Change Billboard...

For the past year or so, Citi has been running ads on the billboard above the old Walgreens (site of soon to be MoMo) at State and Randolph. Here is an example (center left) taken during "Fashion Week" of the ad that was present up until last night.


This morning when I got up, I couldn't help but notice this brightly colored billboard had replaced the Citi ad, so I had to take a picture of it before I left for work. This billboard is for "Salem Preferred", also known as "Salem Pianissimo", a brand of cigarettes RJ Reynolds promoted in Japan in the 1990s as a cleaner, "healthier" cigarette. Not sure where it came from, or who is behind it, but I would guess the proposal to ban smoking in the city is related somehow.


When I got home from work this evening, the weird cigarette ad was gone, and now there is an ad sponsored by US Cellular celebrating the Sox recent victory. I can only imagine what will be there tomorrow...

Lava... Red Hot Lava....

I am always amazed when I discover yet another "Chicago 101" thing I have not done. Well, I had another one of those experiences. Somehow in the six years I have lived here, I have never been to Buckingham Fountain at night with the lighting on. So, Last night, Michael and I found ourselves on another one of our aimless walks in the "hood", and ended up staring at red flowing lava.


I will let the rest of the images speak for themselves...