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Two days after the Apple store moved several blocks south on Michigan Avenue to its new riverfront location, I stopped by the old Apple store to see what remained. I was greeted by an all-black wall where a sleek glass storefront once welcomed me, with what was for me an intriguing statement stenciled in white: "We would never leave you."
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The Chicago Athletic Association Building now houses a boutique 241-room hotel, with a ground-floor Shake Shack, the Cherry Circle Room on the hotel's second floor, and Cindy's, a rooftop restaurant and bar, with an outdoor terrace. The interior is pretty snazzy.
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Not much to say about this one. That's the Prudential Building. If you doubt me, read the sign at the top. It was completed in 1955--the first skyscraper built in Chicago following the Great Depression. I am standing in Millennium Park's Lurie Garden.
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I am standing dead center on the BP Bridge, which connects Chicago's Millennium Park with the newer Maggie Daley Park. The bridge is one of the most frustrating photographic subjects in Chicago. Designed by famed architect Frank Gehry, its stainless steel parapets and hardwood planked floor slithers across Columbus Drive, bringing children and their parents to the two gigantic climbing walls, an ice skating ribbon, and the playground areas that makeup much of Daley Park.
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No snow today. The temperature was well above 32F until sunset. Yet, for me, today marked the start of winter. I was still after that elusive photograph of the new Apple store that overlooks the Chicago River.
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Finally, after at least a year and half, Apple's new flagship store opened tonight at 5PM, with Apple CEO Tim Cook on the premises. The hordes were out there, worshipping the glass monolith just as the apes worshipped the black monolith in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. From the monolith comes knowledge.
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The Cubs will not be repeating this year thanks to a powerful LA Dodger team, but that is not the only tragedy befalling Wrigleyville, Cubs fans, and late night drunks at bar time. News broke in early August that the much beloved Taco Bell at 111 West Addison would be closing, to be replaced with a shiny new 39,755 square foot three-story retail development.
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Mark Naftalin, who added high octane playing to one of the original incarnations of the Butterfield Blues Band, offered a dazzling two-hour solo piano recital. Why this guy has not issued albums of his great blues piano playing is totally beyond me, particularly because runs an independent record label.
