Most Chicagoans are familiar with the Lyric Opera, but the so-called Lyric Opera House is really the Civic Opera House designed by architectural firm Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, which was also responsible for the design of the Merchandise Mart, the old Post Office, the Wrigley building, the Shedd Aquarium, and Union Station.
My signature slogan "tomorrow's garage sale today," came to mind when I came upon this window in Chicago's Chinatown. This particular dealer is on Wentworth Avenue, which is the main drag in this concentrated community. I hadn't been down to Chinatown in a few years. The restaurants appear to be multiplying, but there seemed to be a lot of vacant store fronts.
Among everyone's favorite buildings in Chicago, Bertrand Goldberg's Marina City still towers over the Chicago River. I will undoubtedly post many photographs of this mid-20th Century gem (designed in 1959, completed in 1964). It was the first post-war residential tower built in the United States in an effort to stop middle class flight from the city to the suburbs, a trend that after 60 years is in full reversal.
I was late and there were no buses, so I flagged a cab. First thing the driver said, "Boy is it hot." "Yep, but I bet you complain about the cold in January." I had that same conversation with another photographer when I arrived at the MCA. Yet, with James Sanders and Conjunto as the featured performers tonight at the MCA's Tuesdays on the Terrace, the heat and high humidity felt great. Latin music, with those slinky and slippery Latin rhythms, proved to be the perfect antidote for the heat. I didn't have my notebook, so I don't have the set list, but the band started with Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man, one of my favorites.
As good as the cops are--I assume they perfected the technique during the NATO protests four years ago--they did make one big tactical mistake tonight, or maybe not. The demonstrators were funneled south on Wabash. That makes sense when the demonstration is crossing Chicago Avenue, but about six or seven blocks south sits what has become a politically charged Chicago landmark: Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago. About three blocks before arriving, the protesters realized where they were headed. At about the same time, the police realized the potential problem they had created. That wasn't a hard realization to come by: People had begun chanting "Fuck Trump." The bicycle cops responded, racing down the far sidewalk in an effort to reach the Trump International Hotel before the demonstrators got there. Trump had to put his name on the building in two-story letters.
For more details and photographs, follow the link.
The building is known for one colossal engineering mistake. It was originally clad is Carrara marble, but one piece fell off the building and an inspection found cracks in other pieces covering the building. In 1985, the owners tried to alleviate the problem by stainless steel straps to hold the marble in place. That apparently proved to be an unsatisfactory solution. Beginning in 1990, the Carrara marble was replaced with Mount Airy granite at an estimated cost of somewhere around $80 million.
Well the citizens of Chicago must have succeeded in doing good things, because the "Go Do Good" mural has been removed. In its place, is now a colorful portrait of Chicago Blues icon Muddy Waters. To me, it is a far more appropriate image for the space and the City. Although I might have preferred a more subtle depiction of Muddy. It instantly brings to mind Muddy's controversial 1968 album on Chess entitled Electric Mud. Muddy did not need to go psychedelic. He was the one who paved the path that made a lot of the rock music of the late Sixties possible.
Today, Holy Name cathedral is probably the best know religious facility in the Chicago. In addition to regular services, it is the ceremonial site for the Chicago's Catholic community. Major weddings and funerals are held here. One of the more notable recent funerals was for Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert. I was told by one wedding photographer that the fee for a wedding is $1,000, which does not strike me as a large sum given the extravegent spending that often accompanies the union of two people.
