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Reach Out
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Artifacts
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Everybody loves wandering about in an antique store. In Chicago, we have several, but the most notable one is Architectural Artifacts. The proprietors have gathered works from around the world.
A Discovery
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Pretty Flamingo
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The landscape has changed significantly in since I moved to Chicago 25 years ago. Some change for the good, other change not so good. Developers have all but destroyed the branch of the Chicago River that bisects the north from the south.
Al's Italian Beef
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On the corner of Welles and Ontario in Chicago's River North neighborhood sits Al's Italian Beef, just 4 doors north of the Flamingo Rum Club.
The Pit
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Soon it will be impossible to reproduce anything that looks like this photograph. The finished building will yield images that are largely differentiated by atmospheric conditions. The building will the same in every image.
Fire & Fury II
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Chicago is shrouded in dense ground fog. It is difficult to identify buildings just two or three blocks down the avenues. Fog obscures, but it also amplifies colors, which brings a certain clarity to the urban landscape. It creates a mysterious whirl in the air.
Fire & Fury I
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So when the Lord blesses us with a day or two of January temperatures in the forties, we hit the streets. Today, it was Grant Park and the Women's March. Some 300,000 people showed up, breaking last year's attendance number by about 50,000 people.
René Marie
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Earlier today, I listened to René Marie's new album Sound of Red in anticipation of tonight's concert at the University of Chicago's Logan Center. Last year, Marie was scheduled to appear at the Logan Center, but had to cancel.
Winterlude
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My hands are warm, then they get cold, then they burn, and then it's not so bad. Winter in Chicago. Headed north today along the lakefront. The sky was bright, thin blue. By the time I headed back about 90 minutes later the sky had already clouded over. Snow is forecast for the early evening hours.
Roy Hargrove
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Gutsy Protest
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I was headed downtown today to photograph the cold. As the 146 bus approached the Wrigley building I noticed, to my delight, a demonstration across the Michigan Avenue, in the plaza that abuts the Tribune Tower and the international style building just south of the Tribune.
Frozen Shards
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At 1PM, the temperature is down to 5-degrees Fahrenheit, but the wind chill makes it feel like 10 to 15 degrees below-zero. Layers are essential, but unfortunately, I have not found a pair of gloves that allows me to operate at camera without taking them off.
Day and Night
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Today I had the opportunity to photograph the contrast between old and new when I visited a furniture and fixture manufacturing company and a metal grinder and fabricating plant, both located within a block of each other on Chicago's far west side.
Parasite or Love?
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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."
Venetian Gothic
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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.
Chilling in the Park
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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.
A Wet Fall Day
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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.
Winter's Arrival
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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.