We went downtown again on Saturday, more specifically to Michigan Avenue and within a few blocks to the east and west of that famed street. A famed street, and crowded on a Saturday during the time of year when it’s still warm.
The sidewalk wasn’t always that crowded. But sometimes it was, suddenly.

At the spot officially called Pioneer Court — I don’t know anyone who actually calls it that — in front of the Equitable Building and just south of the Tribune Tower, the new Michigan Avenue Apple Store is under construction, to take the place of the store further to the north on the avenue. They say it’ll be a humdinger when it’s done.
Wonder whether the bronze Jack Brickhouse will be in Pioneer Court near the Tribune Tower for much longer.
After all, the Tribune hasn’t owned the Cubs in a while, and the Tribune isn’t even going to own the Tribune Tower much longer (the company got $240 million for it). Then there’s the matter of Brickhouse being dead for nearly two decades. That’s a long time not to be on the radio. Time flies, people forget, your statue ends up in a less prominent location. Just speculation.

The plaza across the street from Pioneer Court, in the shadow of the Wrigley Building, was just the place on Saturday for some wedding photography. At least this party thought so, and they could do a lot worse.
The bust in the corner is of Jean-Baptiste Pointe DeSable, the fellow from Haiti — I suppose that would be from Saint-Domingue — who founded a trading post on the Chicago River near this site in the 1770s, making him the first non-Indian Chicagoan. I think that bust used to be where the Apple store is being built.

Not far away, just at that moment, was Jeremy the Magician from Britain. That’s what his hat said, anyway, and he had the accent for it, and a Union Jack vest, in case you didn’t get the point.
Further north, in fact not far from the Chicago Water Tower (can I call it iconic? Too bad that word’s been beaten to death), this fellow had a different sort of message.

Namely, you’re going to Hell.

(Capitalize “Hell.” English Language & Usage Stack Exchange says: “No less an authority than Fulton Sheen had the galleys for his latest book come back from the typesetters with ‘Heaven’ and ‘Hell’ knocked down to lowercase. He carefully re-capitalized each occurrence. When his editor called to request an explanation, he gave what I think we can regard as the definitive answer to [the] question: Because they’re places. You know, like Scarsdale.)