Mitchell Park Domes ’24

Since we went to Indiana just before Christmas, it only seemed logical (to me) to go to Wisconsin just after Christmas. Due to considerations I don’t need to detail, we chose to make it a day trip. Milwaukee is convenient that way.

We arrived at the Mitchell Park Domes late in the misty drizzly but not freezing morning of December 27. Not our first visit, but the last time was quite a while ago.Mitchell Park Domes Mitchell Park Domes Mitchell Park Domes

Didn’t remember this detail: An analemmatic sundial in the sidewalk near the entrance, the likes of which you don’t see often. But no sun.Mitchell Park Domes

Formally, the place is known as the Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory and, since the last time we were there, the fate of the Domes was the subject of a number of recommendations and other proposals. One proposal was to knock ’em down and replace them with something still undesigned, but which I suspect which would be more along the lines of immersive edu-tainment. Again, just a suspicion, but that would fit a pattern: destroy something distinctive to a particular place (in this case, Milwaukee) and put up something that could be anywhere, in the name of an enhanced guest experience that is interactive as a modest pinball arcade.

A few months ago, the county committed to spending some money on the Domes, including “a $30 million commitment from Milwaukee County once funding milestones are achieved,” according to Friends of the Domes, which unfortunately sounds like “when the county figures out how to get the money, this could take a while.” But at least the magnificent triad of domes isn’t going to be destroyed in a plan to merge it with the county’s Milwaukee Public Museum.

“Based on our review of the information we believe there could be a great guest experience which integrates the content and stories from Milwaukee Public Museum with the content and experience of the current Domes and Conservatory,”  a 2019 report by an outfit called Gallagher Museum Services notes. “Specifically, the natural history portion of the MPM storyline fits very nicely with the Domes experiences. From our analysis, GMS has concluded that the Milwaukee Domes should be demolished. The cost of properly renovating the Domes greatly outweighs the benefit of doing so…”

A far as I can tell as a non-Milwaukeean, the reaction to that was, “Outweighs the benefits? Says who?” Anecdotal evidence supports the preservationists. On the Friday after Christmas this year, when people have more time to go out, they were out in force at the Domes. Not obscenely crowded, but pretty busy. All ages. Many were families with small children. Children who will, if allowed, take their own children one day.Mitchell Park Domes Mitchell Park Domes

The GMS report makes it sound like the Domes themselves aren’t really part of the “Domes experience,” which really just involves an elaborate garden, as opposed to an elaborate garden in a distinctive, placemaking setting. The experience, the report seems to assert, is portable: take it out from under the Domes and you’d still have the “Domes experience” somehow in a spiffy new building.

People like the Domes. They already want to go there. The Domes are not the Milwaukee Public Museum, which is a fine institution in its own right, however one might shoehorn the “Domes experience” into a part of that museum that happens to be about nature. The “Domes experience” is only found at the domes, and the people of Milwaukee know that.

I believe that too. Just for the vaulting glass overhead, if nothing else.Mitchell Park Domes Mitchell Park Domes

The Domes hold their crowds pretty well, too. We were able to circulate comfortably and without any sort of jostling.

The tropical dome.Mitchell Park Domes Mitchell Park Domes Mitchell Park Domes Mitchell Park Domes

The arid dome.Mitchell Park Domes Mitchell Park Domes Mitchell Park Domes

The show dome.Mitchell Park Domes Mitchell Park Domes Mitchell Park Domes Mitchell Park Domes

Christmas was represented, of course, but also Advent, Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.Mitchell Park Domes

As we did those years ago, we caught it during the holiday season show, and quite a show it is under the Domes.

Kokomo Oddities

Near the courthouse square in Kokomo, standing next to a fairly busy intersection and the parking lot of a small office building, is Kokomantis, all of 17 feet tall and – in late December anyway – decked out for the holidays. That’s a big bug. The kind of thing begs you to look at it.Kokomantis Kokomantis Kokomantis

“Its torso and wings are crafted from World War II fuel pontoons, while the legs are made from stoplight arms, giving her an industrial yet graceful appearance,” Heidi Pruitt writes in The Kokomo Post. Local artist Scott Little and developer Scott Pitcher collaborated on the work, with its creation taking Little a reported total of 220 hours.

I wasn’t sure what a “fuel pontoon” was, so I looked into it and came up with a reasonable definition from a British web site: “a self-contained floating facility for the storage and dispensing of petrol and diesel fuel for coastal sheltered marina environments.” Yep, that would have been useful in WWII.

Kokomatis isn’t the only animal of size in Kokomo. In Highland Park, one of the city’s parks, tucked away behind glass in what amounts to its own exhibition room, is the stuffed steer Old Ben (d. 1910). Impressive taxidermy, considering the age.Old Ben, Kokomo Old Ben, Kokomo

“Old Ben’s story began in 1902 on the farm of Mike and John Murphy between Bunker Hill and Miami near what is known as Haggerty’s crossing,” the city of Kokomo tells us. “He was the offspring of a pure bred registered Hereford bull and an ordinary shorthorn cow. Ben was a prodigy from the very beginning, as he weighed 125 pounds at birth…

“He weighed one ton at 20 months and two tons at the age of 4 in 1906. By that time, he had become quite a celebrity, and his owners exhibited him at many fairs and festivals. The Nickel Plate Railroad even ran a spur line to the Murphy farm just to help Ben in his travels.”

The article is worth reading all the way through, including for the pictures of a woman named Phyllis Hartzell-Talbert posing with stuffed Ben in 1944 at age 22 and again in 2022 at 100.

Not far from Ben, but in a different display room in the same building, is another former living thing famed (at least in Kokomo) for its size: The Sycamore Stump. Complete with explanatory notes on a sign.Sycamore Stump, Kokomo Sycamore Stump, Kokomo

A plaque you don’t see often. At least not as much as the WPA or the CCC. In this case, it’s attached to the structure housing Old Ben and the Sycamore Stump.National Youth Administration

A New Deal jobs program for youth, including not only men, but women, and not only white youth, but blacks. It was part of the WPA for most of its existence.

Yet another item on exhibit in the park is a former Confederate cannon, one of those prizes of war that lingers long after the war. This one is a little unusual in that it isn’t out in the elements, like many.Kokomo Cannon Kokomo Cannon

Made by Leeds Iron Foundry in New Orleans some time before the Union occupation of the city beginning in mid-62. The cannon’s plaque explains: “Leeds made a total of 49 cannons for the South. Nine of these were 12-pound howitzers. Of these nine, only three are known to exist. Two are in the National Park Service and ours!”

One more item in the park, and it’s even bigger than Old Ben or the Sycamore Stump. A relocated covered bridge.Vermont Bridge, Kokomo Vermont Bridge, Kokomo Vermont Bridge, Kokomo

The Vermont Bridge, which doesn’t refer to the New England state, but instead to Vermont, Indiana, near Kokomo, where it crossed Wildcat Creek. When threatened with demolition, the city of Kokomo paid to have the bridge moved to the park in 1957 and the park district has done some renovation over the years. By 2039, it will have been in this location as long as it was in its original location.

When you see a bridge, cross it if you can, especially if traffic is light. Inside included plenty of graffiti.Vermont Bridge, Kokomo Vermont Bridge, Kokomo Vermont Bridge, Kokomo

Lewis Cass? Like the 1848 presidential candidate who lost to Zachary Taylor?Vermont Bridge, Kokomo

Yes. I remembered seeing Lewis Cass High School as we drove through Walton, Indiana, which is up the road a piece from Kokomo.

At the corner of Sycamore and Apperson streets in central Kokomo is Story Book Express.Story Book Express, Kokomo Story Book Express, Kokomo Story Book Express, Kokomo

Outside, a design on the whimsical side, using a lot of repurposed building materials from demolished structures, according to Fortune Cos. Inc., which mostly specializes in historic building restoration — and which is headed by Scott Pitcher, also of Kokomantis fame (at least in Kokomo). Inside, it’s a fairly ordinary convenience store. As the last place we visited in Kokomo, we went in for a look, and I knew I had to support this oddball convenience store in some way, so I bought a pack of gum for the drive back.

The Seiberling Mansion

In my 7th grade Texas history class back 50+ years ago, I’m pretty sure the prickly Mrs. Carico taught us about the 1901 Spindletop oil gusher in what’s now Beaumont. Could be that not even Texas students learn about that any more, though I couldn’t say for sure. We did not learn about the Indiana natural gas boom of the late 19th century. Maybe Hoosier kids of my age did. I hope so. Anyway, I had to go to Kokomo to learn about it.

Or rather, go to Kokomo to hear about it. I read more about the gas boom after I got home. I might as well stay home if I’m not going to occasionally follow up on the intriguing things I’ve seen and heard elsewhere.

“[Eastern central Indiana’s] industrial characteristics were brought about by one of the great booms of the late 19th century in the Midwest: the discovery of natural gas,” writes James A. Glass, an architecture prof at Ball State Muncie, in “The Gas Boom in East Central Indiana” in the Indiana Magazine of History (2000).

“The eruption of real estate speculation, industrial development and commercial expansion and population growth transformed a… portion of the state from a landscape of farmers, forest and agricultural villages into a territory in which cities and boom towns dominated, each teeming with factories, neighborhoods and commercial districts….”

There was so much natural gas under Indiana that for a while new towns burned it simply to show off. Gas flambeaux heated the day and lit up the night.

Image from Leslie’s Illustrated Magazine, January 18, 1889.

Hindsight has only one ending to this story: the region had run out of gas by the turn of the 20th century. We tell ourselves that a “this resource will never run out mentality” is particular to the industrial revolution, as if we didn’t really believe it ourselves.

Not far from central Kokomo, you can stand right next to a physical legacy of the Indiana gas boom – the gas boom-era Seiberling Mansion.Seiberling Mansion Seiberling Mansion Seiberling Mansion

The porch. The dome. The gables and arches. The brick and stone. Probably not to everyone’s taste, but it looks like a handsome assemblage to me. We arrived only about 20 minutes before the house museum closed – off-Interstate travel, while rewarding, can be a time suck, and besides, Eastern Standard Time had snatched an hour away from us. The desk volunteers were good enough to say we could look around without paying admission, though I did make a modest donation.

No surprise to find Christmas at Seiberling in full flower.Kokomo Ind Kokomo Ind

We would call Monroe Seiberling a serial entrepreneur, though I expect in his time he was simply a business man. He was a shooting star in the history of Kokomo. From Akron, Ohio – where his nephew Frank Seiberling stayed and cofounded Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. – the elder Seiberling turned up in Kokomo during the gas boom to take advantage of the lovely free gas to set up a few businesses, including a glass factory. He also stayed long enough to commission a mansion, designed by short-lived Hoosier architect Arthur LaBelle and completed in 1891.

After gas ceased to be so available or cheap in Kokomo, Seiberling moved on to Peoria, Illinois, according to one of the mansion docents, who provided us a quick informal tour of the first floor, probably because we showed some interest in the place. Also, she said, Seiberling’s wife didn’t much like Kokomo. As an incentive for him to leave above and beyond mere economics, that has a ring of plausibility to it.

Kokomo Dash

Besides having a fun name, Kokomo, Indiana, is off that beaten path officially known as the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. The closest highway to Kokomo in that system is I-65, which I have driven so many times I’ve lost count, except I never kept count. I also had never diverted to Kokomo.

One way to get from metro Chicago to Kokomo is to take I-65 to near Remington, Indiana, and then head east on US 24 to the burg of Dunkirk near the somewhat bigger burg of Logansport. From there, heading south on US 35 takes you to Kokomo. This is what we did on December 22, spending the night in that town (pop. nearly 60,000) and then returning home late the next day.

I’ve wanted to visit the Kokomo Opalescent Glass Co. for years. How did I hear about it? I don’t remember, but the sticking point has long been that the company, a major maker of art glass, only gives tours on weekdays. I checked and it turned out that the company was indeed open for a tour on December 23, so that clinched it.

We arrived before sunset on the 22nd, in time for a walk-around the Howard County Court House.Kokomo Indiana Kokomo Indiana

That instantly says 1930s. As it happens, the building was dedicated in 1937, built as a replacement for an 1860s Second Empire courthouse that burned down. Postcards, such as the one below, depict that long-lost structure (source).

The buildings surrounding the courthouse are mostly older, some dating from the late 19th-century natural gas boom that put Kokomo on the map.Kokomo Indiana Kokomo Indiana Kokomo Indiana

Details.Kokomo Indiana Kokomo Indiana

Union halls: Operating Engineers and Carpenters.Kokomo Indiana

Some buildings retain their names, which doubtless reflect local real estate entrepreneurs as long gone as the old courthouse. Such as the Riley Vale Building. Nice brickwork.Kokomo Indiana

If it hadn’t been about freezing and a little windy that day, I might have done some closer images of its elaborate front.

The Wilson Block.Kokomo Indiana

The tallest of these buildings says Garritson, with a date of 1911.Kokomo Indiana

Though it’s hard to see in this image, there’s a barber pole in front of the building to the left of Garritson. It so happened that my old barber has retired, or died, and I’ve been looking for a new one. Till then, I’ve had my hair cut in various places. I peeked inside and saw the sole barber idling in his chair. I asked if he could cut my hair sometime that afternoon and he said that his most recent appointment hadn’t shown up, so he could right then.

So I got a haircut from the barber right then. One of the younger barbers I’ve been to recently (in his 30s, probably), we chatted some, and I learned that he was the last barber standing at that shop – which had three other chairs. Not because of a population exodus from Kokomo or anything so abstract, but because two other barbers had been caught with their hands in the till, he said. I’m not sure how that could have happened, considering the economics of a barber shop, but I guess if someone wants to steal, they’ll find a way.

The National Puerto Rican Museum

Jimmy Carter had a hard time as president, but the underappreciated 1970s wouldn’t have been the same without him. RIP, President Carter.

Decorating was a slow process this year, but we finished by Christmas Eve.Xmas Tree Xmas Tree

On the Saturday before Christmas, I had an appointment in Chicago with three Wise Men. Better than an appointment in Samarra with three Wise Guys, certainly.National Puerto Rican Museum

Gaspar, Melchor and Baltasar. Human-sized figures. Not smoking on a rubber cigar that I could see. They stood in a gallery at the National Puerto Rican Museum, which is formally the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture, and which I was able to visit late in the morning. The Wise Men were part of the exhibit Los Reyes Magos Puertorriqueños (Three Wise Kings of Puerto Rico). Artists from the island took their hand at depicting the Wise Men-Kings, including the costumes above, which were created by Reynaldo Rodriguez only this year.

Other interpretations include Tres Reyes Magos Pescando, Three Wise Kings Fishing (2010).National Puerto Rican Museum

Reyes Taínos, Taino Kings (2022).National Puerto Rican Museum

No title (early 20th century), by Rafael “Fito” Hernandez.National Puerto Rican Museum

A more permanent feature of the museum is the stairway mural by Cristian J. Roldán Aponte. National Puerto Rican Museum National Puerto Rican Museum National Puerto Rican Museum National Puerto Rican Museum

Other current exhibits include Puerto RicanEquation: mixed media works, video y El Espiritu Santo by Juan Sánchez; Cuentos Ocultos/Hidden Tales; and liminal: LGBTQ+ Chicago – Boricua Imaginings. Since 2000, the museum has been housed in the wonderful Humboldt Park Stables & Receptory, a structure from the 1890s designed by the mostly obscure Fromann & Jebson, who were busy in their day. Humboldt Park Stables & Receptory Humboldt Park Stables & Receptory

Once upon a time, landscape architect and park superintendent Jens Jensen had his office in the building, and the room is still acknowledged as such by the museum.Humboldt Park Stables & Receptory

I’d hope so. More than any single individual, Jensen fashioned the major parks of Chicago as we know them, and did a lot else besides.

Graceland Cemetery: The Stones

No point in burying the lead (haw, haw): among all the memorials at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, Dexter Graves’ stone surely gets the most attention. For one thing, it stands out at a distance.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago Graceland Cemetery, Chicago Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

Safe to say that the memorial, especially a haunting bronze figure called “Eternal Silence,” is better known than Dexter Graves himself. Graves was a Chicago pioneer, settling in the area in 1833, when the place was little more than a marshy spot near the Chicago River. He died in 1845, with reinternment and the memorial coming much later at the behest of an elderly son of his, who is buried there too – in 1909, by which time Chicago was a vast metropolis that probably would have astonished Graves.

Lorado Taft created the sculpture, and while I made images of it standing alone, soon a small group of French tourists came by for a look, including posing with it for pictures. Since the work is near the cemetery’s only entrance, I came back again before I left for another look, and that time an American couple, about my age, were there. The woman asked me whether I’d also seen “Fountain of Time” down in the Hyde Park neighborhood. Happily, I was able to tell her I had, including the quote that goes with it, “Time stays, we go.”

I also recommended “The Eternal Indian,” out in Ogle County, which she said she hadn’t seen. I forgot to mention – it would have been showing off anyway – seeing his “Alma Mater” in Champaign, the memorial he worked on in Mount Carroll, Illinois, his sculptures in the Fern Room of the Garfield Park Conservatory or the Fountain of the Great Lakes at the Art Institute. That’s just a scattering. To see more of Taft’s work, you have to pay attention elsewhere in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky (in Paducah, I wasn’t paying attention), Washington, DC, Colorado, Michigan, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Kansas and probably other places.

Also, you can see “The Crusader,” which is Graceland, marking the grave of Victor Lawson (d. 1925), one-time publisher of the Chicago Daily News. Lorado Taft did that too, though later in his career, 1931.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

When was the last time a newspaper crusaded about anything? Not recently, private equity owners don’t like it.

Assorted business tycoons, moguls and robber barons repose in Graceland, without a cent to their names these days. But in their day, they or their immediate heirs had big bucks to spend on big memorials. None is bigger than retailer and hotelier Potter Palmer (d. 1902).Graceland Cemetery, Chicago Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

That kind of dough will also buy you a picturesque waterfront location.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

I have to say the Palmer tomb is quite a presence, standing out even among many other large tombs, of which there are many. Such as that for George Pullman.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

The pyramid of 19th-century beermaker Peter Schoenhofen.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago Graceland Cemetery, Chicago Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

Others.Graceland Cemetery Graceland Cemetery Graceland Cemetery
Graceland Cemetery

The cemetery’s stone- and metalwork curls and is otherwise shaped in ways remarkable to see. How can these hard materials be persuaded to take those shapes? By the rare skill of the artisans, as long gone as the captains of industry inside the tombs.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago Graceland Cemetery, Chicago Graceland Cemetery, Chicago Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

A small building stands near the entrance of Graceland, including a patio with iron tables and chairs, a few of which were occupied when I visited, since the day was just warm enough for that. Inside the building, heated this time of year, visitors can rest on a bench, go to the bathroom, watch a video about the cemetery and, just as important, pick up a free paper map that guides you to the graves of some (but hardly all) of the well-known permanent residents.

Not every grand cemetery has that amenity, but when you find one, that ups the visit into a kind of treasure hunt, if you want. A look for the famed stones, like at Hollywood Forever in Los Angeles with its movie stars or Forest Home in Milwaukee with its brewers. My idea of a good time, but I’m eccentric that way. Besides some of the stones mentioned above, the map takes you to lumber baron and Goodman Theatre patron William Goodman.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

And Mr. Whipple.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

He’s not actually on the map, probably because the memorial isn’t for the person obsessed with toilet paper, since he was fictional. Even so, I understand he received treatment for his OCD, retired from the grocery business and lived with his daughter in Florida until his death in 2007.

MLB star Ernie Banks, “Mr. Cub,” and the first black player for the Cubs. Nearby is dancer Ruth Page.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

Minnie Miñoso, a fairly recent stone. In fact, I read that it was erected only this summer. Graceland is still an active cemetery, with more open land than I would have thought.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

I had to look him up; among other things, he was the first black player for the White Sox. The Cuban Comet, he was called, which sounds like something invented by a sports reporter pounding print on his old typewriter.

Heavyweight prizefighter Jack Johnson, the Galveston Giant, famed for upsetting racists in the early 20th century.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

The small pyramid of architectural photographer and preservationist Richard Nickel, a favorite of mine in Chicago history.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

Gov. John Peter Altgeld, another favorite but from Illinois history, who knew that pardoning the surviving men convicted in the Haymarket bombing would probably cost him the governorship, as indeed it likely did. It was that or preside over a miscarriage of justice, he believed.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

Chicago is a city of architects; Graceland is a necropolis of architects. I didn’t see them all – missed Burnham on his island, for example – but I got a good sample.

Including Mies van der Rohe. For him, a flat black spare Miesian sort of memorial.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

But he has a splendid view.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

William LeBaron Jenny.William LeBaron Jenny

Bruce Goff.Bruce Goff grave

Louis Sullivan.Graceland Cemetery, Chicago Graceland Cemetery, Chicago

Talk about teasing a rarefied shape out of base metal. In this case, the work’s designer at least is known: Thomas Tallmadge (d. 1940), who is also at Graceland.

The Eiffel Tower, 1994

Ah, Paris in November. The stuff of romantic moonshine in the English-speaking world? Maybe not quite as much as spring, but we had a fine time anyway. The pastries were good. The best, actually. Calling out to us from behind glass in pastry shops, expensive even when priced in francs, but entirely worth it.

I wonder whether Eiffel Tower postcards are readily available any more. I mailed this one from Paris in November 1994.

I like it even now because of the unusual angle. Reminds me of the few minutes we spent sitting on a bench pretty much under the structure, gazing up at it. At that angle, I thought, that is one impressive iron sculpture. So impressive that moviemakers knock it down a lot.

Except for the fact that it was designed by a Frenchman, and happens to be in France, is there anything essentially French about it? What if its plans for the Exposition Universelle of 1889 had fallen through, but the organizers of the 1893 Columbian Exposition had gotten wind of the design, and asked Gustav Eiffel to erect it in the future Jackson Park in Chicago? Would it stand there even now, a shape associated with Chicago to almost everyone in the world?

The Fine Arts Building

This year on Halloween, I found myself wondering when the apostrophe mostly disappeared from Hallowe’en, at least in U.S. usage. The charts posted at a site called Grammar Revolution (though without citation) offer some information on the question. Hallowe’en, as one might see on a card old enough to be in the public domain, was a more common spelling in the early 20th century.

Around the time of World War II, the apostrophe version started its decline, with the non-apostrophe Halloween becoming more common by far since then. That leads me to the conclusion that apostrophe rationing during WWII inadvertently had a long-term impact. History is funny that way.

The last few days of October this year have been unusually pleasant. On Tuesday the 29th, for instance, I was able to dine al fresco in the afternoon quite comfortably. Yesterday, the 30th, it was still warm enough to sit on our deck in the evening in short sleeves, though the wind was up.

Halloween itself, following rain in the morning, was still windy, but a lot colder. That didn’t deter exactly 30 kids who came to our door for candy – about three-quarters of them before dark. We gave away full-sized Hershey products, which pleased the older kids especially, along with small bags of Utz pretzels, which no one commented on. I didn’t wear a costume for distribution, but I did put on my fez. It was a Christmas present from Jay some years ago, but there are sadly few occasions to wear it. I’d say Halloween or even Hallowe’en is one such.

Back on the October 19 (it was warm then, too), we spent at least an hour getting into, and wandering around, the Fine Arts Building at 410 S. Michigan Ave. Here it is, blocking the sun.Fine Arts Building Fine Arts Building Chicago

Like most vintage buildings, it began as something else: a factory and a showroom for Studebaker, when that company made carriages. The architect who designed it in 1885, Solon Beman (who did the Pullman company town too, among other things), did a redesign in 1898 when Studebaker left, thus creating a rather unusual office building. Since then, the Fine Arts Building has been just that, home to art galleries and artist studios, theater companies, publishers, dance and recording studios, musicians and musical instrument specialists, interior designers, and other arts-associated businesses.

For Open House Chicago, you can wander its long halls.Fine Arts Building

The current tenant directory makes for interesting reading, much more than almost any other office building: designers such as Doorways of Chicago; artists such as L.H. Selman, Ltd., Fine Glass Paperweights; performers such as the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival; very specialized music shops such as Parke Mouthpiece Center, offering “professional brass mouthpieces for trumpet, trombone, horn, & tuba. Interchangeable rims, cups, backbores, tops, & underparts.”Fine Arts Building Chicago Fine Arts Building Chicago Fine Arts Building Chicago

Some of the businesses were open for the event.Fine Arts Building Chicago Fine Arts Building Chicago Fine Arts Building Chicago

The Fine Arts Building is of course going to feature art on its walls.Fine Arts Building Chicago Fine Arts Building Chicago Fine Arts Building Chicago

Plus a lot of fine old details, such as for the manually operated elevators – the only ones in Chicago, I’m told.Fine Arts Building Chicago Fine Arts Building Chicago Fine Arts Building Chicago

Can’t forget the mail chute.Fine Arts Building

That was it for Open House Chicago this year. Still as fine an event as ever, except for one thing: no paper guides and their useful area maps provided to eventgoers, which disappeared when the event was revived in 2021. Sure, they cost money to produce, but I seem to remember advertisements in them that might have offset costs somewhat, or maybe entirely. Just another small step on the road to further map illiteracy.

Next year, Open House New York? We shall see.

Jackson Boulevard Stroll, Starring Monadnock & Rothschild

Not far east of the Chicago Board of Trade at 53 W. Jackson Blvd. is the hulking brown-brick Monadnock Building, one of the great old skyscrapers of Chicago. We passed by on the way to Michigan Ave. during our Open House peregrination. It wasn’t open for the event, but no matter. We’d both been inside, even taken a tour once upon a time.Monadnock Building Chicago Monadnock Building Chicago Monadnock Building Chicago

I also knew a fellow who worked for a nonprofit for a while in the ’90s whose office was in the Monadnock. He said he considered going to work there every day a fringe benefit.

“The northern half has always been the subject of attention and wonder,” the AIA Guide to Chicago says, regarding the Monadnock, which is actually two structures fused into a whole: a load-bearing northern half designed by Burnham and Root (1891), and a steel-framework southern half by Holabird & Roche (1893).

“It was constructed as a thick walled brick tower, 66 feet wide, 200 feet long and 200 feet high,” the AIA Guide continues. “The American Architect in 1892 described it as a chimney. Two cross walls divide the interior space into three, flu like cavities, the centers of which are open from street to roof. A freestanding staircase spirals down from the brilliance of the sky lit 16th floor to the dark lobby cut lengthwise through the ground floor. Around this open stairwell, a light structural grid sustains stacks of rental floors. From these extend the modular alcoves pushing through the facade become bay windows.”

The late 19th century was a time of transition for tall buildings, with the Home Insurance Building in Chicago showing the way as the first building its height (10 stories) to use a weight-bearing structural steel frame to support itself. That building, on West Adams, was a mere diagonal block and a half away the Monadnock. Home Insurance is long gone; but the Monadnock stands. Or maybe I should say, abides.

Further eastward — the direction we were going that day — at Jackson and State is the DePaul Center, originally (1912) the A. M. Rothschild & Company Store, by Holabird & Roche (them again).DePaul Center, Chicago

At the turn of the 20th century, A. M. Rothschild & Co. was a department store rivaling Marshall Field on State Street in Chicago, founded by a German immigrant of that name who also married into one of the richest families in Chicago, the meatpacking Morrises. Abram M. Rothschild didn’t live to see the 1912 building, however. By 1902, his in-laws, who controlled the store, had forced him to retire due to financial problems at the retailer, though he was kept on as a figurehead.

“July 28, 1902 started out like any other day for A.M. Rothschild,” explains chicago.designslinger. “The recently retired 49-year-old retailer visited the sixth floor office of his namesake department store in downtown Chicago that morning, and after a few hours left for home accompanied by his son 16-year-old son Melville. Rothschild’s wife Gusta greeted both of them in the front hall of the family’s large house on Michigan Avenue at 37th Street, and Abram Rothschild headed upstairs to freshen up. He went into his bedroom, retrieved his revolver, went into the bathroom, and shot himself in the head.”

Later, after spending a decade or so putting together the land for it, the Morris family hired Holabird & Roche for a new, 11-story retail building that eventually became the building you can see now, which belongs to DePaul University. Back in 1912, a department store could conceivably use such a building. Hard to imagine now.

“The architectural firm had a number of projects along the State Street corridor, but A.M. Rothschild & Co. would be their largest,” chicago.designslinger notes. “And although the family had a troubled history with the founder, they paid lasting tribute to him by having the architects incorporate the letter ‘R’ into the massive cream-colored, terra cotta facade which was repeated down the entire length of the building.”

As they are to this day, though since I only took an image of (mostly) the Jackson Blvd. elevation, the letters aren’t much visible. The building deserved a closer look, but we were operating on the lunch imperative as we wandered by, more focused on finding victuals. Maybe some other time. No matter how often I go downtown, something there is always worth another look.

The Wintrust Building & The Grand Banking Hall

I don’t know that much about Wintrust Financial, which is a bank holding company that specializes in community banks and has about $63 billion in assets. But I understand that when Wintrust acquires a community bank, which are by necessity locally oriented, the company does not slap the name Wintrust on it, thus sacrificing that local identity on the altar of branding – one of the idols worshiped by corporate America, but not apparently the bank.

I’m not suggesting that brands have no value. Clearly they do. But there are examples of consumer-facing companies gone national that have paved over long established and well-regarded local names.

The consolidation of the department store industry comes to mind. Somehow Macy’s persuaded itself that Chicagoans would respond to their name (which is a New York name) better than Marshall Field, as storied a local store as Chicago has ever had. There are a number of reasons the department store biz is a shadow of its former self, but that kind of thinking is surely one of them.

On the other hand, Wintrust has put its name on 231 S. LaSalle St., which is right at the T intersection with Jackson Blvd., across from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.Wintrust Building Chicago

That’s a better use of a brand, I believe. The building was developed as the Illinois Merchants Bank Building exactly 100 years ago, with a grand design by Graham, Anderson & Probst, which is in the top ranks of name architects from the early 20th century. Since then, the building has been named for a succession of banks, making Wintrust merely the latest in an established pattern. Besides – who gives a fig about Illinois Merchants Bank or any of the others any more anyway?

Wintrust participated in Open House Chicago this year. The grandly named Grand Banking Hall was up a golden escalator.Wintrust Building Chicago

Grand, all right.Wintrust Building Chicago Wintrust Building Chicago

Add a statue of Jupiter Optimus Maximus and take away electricity and you’ve got a Roman temple. Not just any temple, but one of the (that word again) grandest at which the likes of Caesar might have made offerings.

Notes the AIA Guide to Chicago (2004): “[The space] prompted Louis H. Sullivan to suggest that bankers here wear togas and speak Latin” (p. 78). I didn’t know the great Chicago architect Sullivan had a sense of humor, but it seems he did. The bankers shouldn’t take acting Roman too far, however, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to use zeroes.Wintrust Building Chicago

Wintrust moved in after the building was restored in the mid-2010s. The bank uses the space for retail purposes. That’s pretty cool for a bank. Beats leaving it vacant.Wintrust Building Chicago

The bank also rents the space for events. But not (according to the bank web site) for:

  • Weddings
  • Casino nights
  • Gambling
  • Public events
  • Political fundraisers
  • Religious ceremonies
  • Extremist group gatherings
  • Restaurant expos

Wintrust Building Chicago

Below the Grand Hall is a whopping bank vault. Among Chicago Open House visitors, it was a hit.Wintrust Building Chicago

The main attraction is the door.Wintrust Building Chicago Wintrust Building Chicago

The vault itself, unlike the one under the Chicago Board of Trade, wasn’t open. Instead a bit of artwork covering the door depicted the rows of lock boxes inside. What’s going on in there? Time Tunnel experiments after hours at the bank?

A digression: A gritty reboot (is there any other kind?) of The Time Tunnel could be an exceptional show. What about it, Ronald D. Moore? You’re a little younger than me. That and Space: 1999 are waiting for you.

One more detail.Wintrust Building Chicago

Time, the bank might agree, is money.