All tagged Millenium Park

Women and Children

Chicago’s Ukrainian community, organized and led by its female members, held a demonstration on Michigan Avenue and in Millenium Park yesterday, hoping to focus attention on the victims of Russian terrorism, including the children. The demonstration included a die-in, as well as the creation of a tableau of dolls and toys on the fence in front of the Consulate General of Ukraine. Here are my thoughts on and photographs from the dramatic rally.

A Wet Fall Day

[Click on the photograph to enlarge it and for additional commentary]

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.

Blues in the Schools

[Click on the photograph to enlarge it and for additional commentary and photographs]

Each year, a group of elementary school students shows attendees of the Chicago Blues Festival what they have learned.  Whether or not the next Muddy Waters, Lonnie Baker, or Guy Clark Jr. emerges from the program won't be known for at least a decade or two.  In the meantime, the kids are having a rollicking good time.  If nothing else, I suspect we will see many of these kinds in the audience in future years.

Nutella

[Click on the photograph to enlarge it and for additional information]

Several years back, Nutella was the rage on college campuses.  The little single serving packets were replacing salt, sugar, and butter packets in college cafeterias, with administrators being forced to keep a sharp eye on students loading pockets, purses, and backpacks with dozens of those packets filled with delicious chocolate hazelnut goo.