Category Archives: Chicago

A December Walk Along Chicago Ave.

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While Yuriko attended a cooking class this morning, I had a few hours to kick around in Chicago. I also had the good luck of sunshine and temps in the upper 40s — about as good as you’re going to get this time of the year. So I decided to take a walk.

I parked my car on a small street in what Google Maps tells me is the East Village neighborhood. I’m not sure anyone who lives there calls it that, but since the name is on the map, I’m going to use it. Likewise Noble Square, which is directly to the east of East Village. I spent time there as well.

Much of my walk was along W. Chicago Ave. roughly between the 1800 and 1300 blocks west, or between N. Wolcott Ave. to N. Noble St.

The area has plenty of the markings of gentrification, such as this piece of equipment being used to build a condo development just off Chicago Ave. whose units begin at about twice what my pleasant suburban house would sell for.
Not far away, an event likely to appeal to those with some disposable income. Some pop-up experiential retail, to toss around some real estate argot. Untill Christmas?
 Part of the Chicago Ave. streetscape and some interesting buildings.

Older aspects of the neighborhood are still co-existing with the re-uses. Such as Mr. Taco’s, which ought to keep its weathered sign.
Loop Tavern has an old Chicago look about it. Beatnik, from what I could see the outside, is an expensive new cocktail bar. Or, as this review calls it — using a remarkably ugly word — “clubstaurant.”

Neither is my kind of place. On the other hand, a pie joint on Chicago Ave. attracted my attention. I was intrigued enough to go inside and might have ordered a slice of pie, but I noticed that they sold for $8 to $9. A slice. Really, now? I’ve paid less for pie during this decade in Manhattan. Good pie, too. My take on such a thing: It can’t be that good. Full stop.

Here’s a good adaptive re-use on Chicago Ave. Note that the building still says Goldblatt Bros.
The building is home to the West Town Branch of the Chicago Public Library. Goldblatt’s was a local chain of discount department stores whose heyday was from the early to the mid-20th century. The rest of the 20th century wasn’t kind to the chain. I remember visiting the Goldblatt’s location in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago in the late ’90s, and a sadder retail operation would be hard to imagine. They’re all gone now.

One more thing.
A bit of hyperlocal detail: a vernacular memorial to Stan Lee on Chicago Ave.

Le Corbusier & Ando

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The first-ever exhibit at Wrightwood 659 is called Tadao Ando and Le Corbusier: Masters of Architecture. You’d think the more alliterative Masters of Modernism would be the thing, but probably the organizers thought that would be too narrow. And Masters of Human Creativity would be too broad.
The Le Corbusier exhibit was on the second floor. Pictures and paintings and models and a lot to read.
Before I’d only had a casual acquaintance with his output. I didn’t know about his paintings, for instance. Such as Taureau VIII (Bull VIII), 1954.

Looks suspiciously Picassoesque to my unlearned eye, but I don’t doubt Le Corbusier’s creativity. The models for some of his buildings, built and unbuilt, show that well enough.

A house he designed in Argentina, 1949.
An unbuilt governor’s palace for Punjab State in India, 1950-65.
Still, when I looked at some of the models, I couldn’t help being reminded of every ugly modernist box I’ve ever seen, even if his own work — in this case Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse in Marseille — had a bit more style.
Remarkably, the building now includes the Hôtel Le Corbusier on two floors, and some color seems to have been added to the exterior. Even more remarkably, according to the Telegraph: “Double rooms from €79 (£67) year-round, an incredibly reasonable rate for the opportunity to sleep within an architectural icon.”

Reasonable all right. If the hotel were in this country, its owner would brag about curating Le Corbusier’s legacy, tout its upscale amenities, and charge three or four times as much.

On floors three and four of Wrightwood 659 were the Ando exhibits. I believe Ando has some advantages over Le Corbusier. He’s alive, for example, and could visit the exhibit when it opened and draw on the walls. This doodle evokes the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, which he designed.
Also, Ando is a niche practitioner who does marvels in concrete, not someone inspiring a rash of urban renewal destruction and ugliness. Here’s a model of Ando’s Church of the Light near Osaka. I need to visit someday.

A lot of the third floor was taken up with a model of Naoshima, a small island in the Inland Sea that’s large enough to be home to a number of Ando-designed museums, developed over the last few decades.

Know where else I need to visit? Naoshima. There are just too many interesting places in the world.

Wrightwood 659

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Saint Clement and a stroll in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood were nice, but we’d come to the city last Saturday morning to see Wrightwood 659, a new exhibition space designed by architect Tadao Ando. Yuriko has a fondness for him, and not just because he’s Japanese, or even that he’s from Osaka, though those help. A few years ago, she was impressed by the Church of the Light in Ibaraki in Osaka Prefecture, one of his works.

I have a sneaking admiration for him too. The man has a way with concrete.

You wouldn’t know that looking at the front elevation of Wrightwood 659, which happens to be at 659 W. Wrightwood Ave.
The space, opened only in October, is the redevelopment of an ordinary Lincoln Park apartment building dating from the late 1920s.

“The building greets the visitor with a refurbished facade adorned with arches, festoons and other Beaux-Arts details,” Blair Kamin wrote in the Tribune. “But the decorous facade turns out to be a mask. Like a ship in a bottle, the project inserts a new steel and concrete frame inside the brick walls; the frame braces the old walls and turns the original four floors into three. A concrete slab that floats building’s new identity.

“Ando gives us that kind of space in Wrightwood 659’s lobby, an unexpected, four-story burst of space that’s energized by the rhythmic treads and risers of an exposed concrete stair that corkscrews upward. Common brick recycled from the original building’s corridor lines the walls, its mottled texture in counterpoint with finely honed stairs.”

The staircase is signature Ando.
This image is untinted, reflecting the true color of the walls.
I understand that the dog’s name was “Corbusier.”
Gallery space on the second floor, at least until this Saturday, features an exhibit about Le Corbusier, and the third- and fourth-floor galleries are devoted to Ando. The fourth floor west-facing wall, which is floor-to-ceiling glass and steel, has a terrific view of the neighborhood.
The view also looks down on the Ando-designed, 665 W. Wrightwood Ave., a 1998-vintage private house owned by Fred Eychaner, a Chicago media mogul. Eychaner must like Ando’s work, since he was the moving force — and probably most of the money — behind the establishment of Wrightwood 659.

Eychaner is inevitably described as “reclusive.” As we were leaving, I took a look at the front of 665 W. Wrightwood, nestled as it is among ’20s-vintage apartments.
Yep, that wall pretty much says, Go away, leave me alone.

Saint Clement Church, Chicago

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At noon on Saturday, we’d just emerged onto the street in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago when we heard church bells nearby. A robust peeling that commanded our attention.

We soon figured out that they were the bells of Saint Clement. What do the bells of Saint Clement say? Oranges and lemons. A different church, but never mind. I might not know that if I’d never read 1984, but what kind of person would I be if I’d never read 1984?

Naturally, I wanted to see if the church was open. The bells gave us extra incentive to take a look. Saint Clement is at N. Orchard St. and W. Deming Pl.
Not long before, we’d seen the striking dome of the church from a fourth-floor view, more about which later.
Saint Clement in Chicago is 100 years old, originally built by German Catholics. St. Louis architect Thomas Barnett designed the church. He also did the Byzantine-style Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, and Saint Clement reminded me of that place of worship, though without the mosaics.

The interior was dark when we visited. It must be expensive to light such a large place. Besides, I imagine that most large churches in most places during all the pre-electric centuries were dark most of the time. Here are some pics with all the electric light blazing and it must be quite a sight. But even dark, the place was impressive (and it would be fine to see it lighted by candle).

On an overcast day, the stained glass was well illuminated.

Of course I had to look up St. Clement. I might have learned about him in passing in New Testament class, but that was a good many years ago. Anyway, he was the fourth bishop of Rome and, according to legend, found martyrdom ca. AD 101 in a distinctive way: tossed into the Black Sea tied to an anchor.

That would account for the anchor motif I saw on the exterior of Saint Clement School, which is across the street from the church. If I’d had a bit more light, I might have found that in the church as well.

W. Deming Place, Chicago

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Among Chicago streets, W. Deming Pl. seems to be a two-block runt. Or five very short blocks, if you count every minor cross street. Deming’s west end is at N. Orchard St. and its east end is at Lakeview Ave., which is the edge of Lincoln Park at that point — the actual park, not the neighborhood of that name.

Fairly early on Saturday, we took a short stroll down Deming, from N. Orchard to N. Clark St., a major commercial artery. Temps were below freezing, but not by much, so a brisk walk wasn’t bad.

No doubt about it, Deming’s a nice street in the mostly posh Lincoln Park neighborhood.

One thing about being a posh neighborhood in a dense urban setting: legal parking is hard to find.
We’d avoided that particular problem by driving most of the way to Lincoln Park, parking the car in a less posh but still pleasant enough Chicago neighborhood — one with much more street parking — and taking the El on a short ride to where we wanted to be.

Do urban planners take car-mass transit combinations seriously? From our vantage in the suburbs, it’s often the best choice for arriving at a particular point in the city. I’m no authority on urban planning, but somehow I get the impression that it’s either/or: massive transit vs. private cars.

The Weekend Jam at Chicago Christkindlmarket

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While she was still in town, on the Monday or Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Lilly went to the Chicago Christkindlmarket with some of her friends. I warned her that the weekend would be a bad time to visit, though I don’t think she was planning that anyway.

The last time we went to the Chicago Christkindlmarket was on a Saturday about three years ago. That was a mistake. Even the weekdays can attract a mob. On that weekend in 2015, the place was packed:
That isn’t to say that you can’t admire the things for sale.

Of course, odds are foot traffic is flowing around you while you look at things.

Lilly acquired a souvenir mug. Things trend to be a bit expensive at the Christkindlmarket, since the goods seem to be priced in euros at a lousy exchange rate, with an extra 50 percent tacked on for good measure, but never mind. At least at most vendors, you’re getting something authentically German, right?

The mug’s seasonal and I suppose northern European in inspiration. I don’t have it in front of me. It’s nice enough, though. Still, I happened to check and there it was on the bottom: MADE IN CHINA.

Really, Herr Händler? That’s the kind of authenticity you get at Walmart. For a lot less.

A Pair of Chicago Cathedrals: Holy Name and St. James

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Spent a little while in the city this weekend and had time to visit two major churches. Cathedrals, in fact. Holy Name Cathedral, which is the seat of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, and St. James Cathedral, which is the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. They are a block apart and both only a few blocks west of Michigan Ave. on the near North Side.

The Gothic Revival style Holy Name rises over State St.
“After the Great Chicago Fire destroyed both the Cathedral of St. Mary (Madison and Wabash streets) and the Church of the Holy Name (site of the present Cathedral), a new cathedral was needed,” the Chicago Architecture Center says…. “the new Holy Name Cathedral was dedicated in 1875.”

More recently, the roof was restored after a 2009 fire did serious damage to the cathedral.
St. James Cathedral is another Gothic Revival structure, rising above Wabash St. It too is the result of rebuilding.
“A few weeks after the splendidly redesigned church was formally rededicated in 1871, the Great Chicago Fire erupted, leaving nothing but the stone walls, the Civil War Memorial, and the bell tower, whose bells gave warning to the neighborhood of the fire,” the church’s web site says.

Wiki says that the upper reaches of the bell tower are still stained with soot from the Fire, but I didn’t really see it.
Maybe the soot was obscured by trees from my vantage. Anyway, here are some interior shots of St. James.

Hull-House

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Besides trees and a little public art and some brutalist buildings, here’s something else I saw at the University of Illinois at Chicago on Sunday, the likes of which I’d never seen before.
It’s a knife-sharpening cart, complete with cobble stones, on display on the second floor of Hull-House, with a sign that says: “Julio Fabrizio, an immigrant from Castelvino, Italy, to Chicago in 1919, built this knife-sharpening cart in the 1930s for his peddling services. Pushing it through the streets of his Near West Side neighborhood, Fabrizio used it to repair umbrellas and sharpen scissors, saws, and knives.”

Since I was already at UIC on Sunday afternoon, I decided to drop by for a look at Hull-House, which is more formally called the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. All the years I’ve been in Chicago area, I’d never gotten around to it.

The current structure is a fragment of the 13-building complex in its heyday 100 years ago, but at least it’s a restored version of the original building, which dates back to 1856. By the time it became a settlement house in 1889, the house was fully part of the surrounding immigrant slum and so exactly where Addams and Hull-House cofounder Ellen Gates Starr wanted to be. The organization’s physical structure grew from there. The later buildings, just like much of the neighborhood, were destroyed in the 1960s to make way for the UIC campus.

“In the 1890s, Hull-House was located in the midst of a densely populated urban neighborhood peopled by Italian, Irish, German, Greek, Bohemian, and Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants,” the museum says.

“Jane Addams and the Hull-House residents provided kindergarten and day care facilities for the children of working mothers; an employment bureau; an art gallery; libraries; English and citizenship classes; and theater, music and art classes. As the complex expanded to include thirteen buildings, Hull-House supported more clubs and activities such as a Labor Museum, the Jane Club for single working girls, meeting places for trade union groups, and a wide array of cultural events.”

The museum is small but well designed to convey how the organization furthered the goals of the Progressive movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, besides providing numerous social services in the immediate neighborhood.

“Among the projects that they helped launch were the Immigrants’ Protective League, the Juvenile Protective Association, the first juvenile court in the nation, and a Juvenile Psychopathic Clinic (later called the Institute for Juvenile Research),” the museum notes.

“Through their efforts, the Illinois Legislature enacted protective legislation for women and children in 1893. With the creation of the Federal Children’s Bureau in 1912 and the passage of a federal child labor law in 1916, the Hull-House reformers saw their efforts expanded to the national level.”

Addams’ bedroom is part of the exhibit.
Fairly spare, though there’s a portrait of Tolstoy on the wall (no artist named that I could see, but it looks like a part copy of a 1901 portrait by Ilya Repin).
Apparently the Russian was an inspiration to Addams, though when they met in 1896 the event was less than comfortable for the American reformer.

The museum isn’t all about Addams or even the other settlement workers. Other people associated with the organization are given their due. One in particular caught my eye: Morris Topchevsky (1899-1947), immigrant from Poland when it was still part of the Russian Empire, painter, etcher, lecturer, writer and red.

Some of his works are on display.

Topchevsky took classes at Hull-House and later taught there. Seems that he also spent time in Mexico in the 1920s, becoming friends with Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco, though too early to have hung out with Trotsky.

Artists Monument, UIC

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My walkabout through the University of Illinois at Chicago campus on Sunday wasn’t exhaustive, so I can’t say for sure, but I got the impression that UIC could use a few more works of public art or fountains or memorials. That was one reason I was glad to see the Armistice memorial unveiled that day.

Just as I was about to leave — I’d arrived by taking the Blue Line to the UIC-Halsted station and so headed back toward the station — I noticed some public art on campus. A fairly large piece, too. Multicolored.

And long.

Eighty feet long, as it happens, and eight feet on each of the other two dimensions. It reminded me at once of a high cube shipping container, though with more color. The work is called “Artists Monument” (2014), by retired University of Illinois at Chicago art professor Tony Tasset. Acrylic panels on steel and wood.

The work was installed at this location only last year, after spending time at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and Grant Park in Chicago. According to the university, the work isn’t going anywhere else.

Up close, it’s easy to see the many names on the work.
All together the names of 392,485 artists. How the artist came up with that number, and how long it took to compile them, I couldn’t say. Best not to inquire too closely.

I picked one at random to look up: Atilla Atar, a living Turkish artist, it seems.

(Formerly) Like Going to School in Brasilia

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Back in the late 1980s, I knew a fellow who was pursuing an MFA at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Academically, the place was strong, he told me. “But it’s also like going to school in Brasilia,” he said.

The last time I spent much time on the UIC campus was at roughly the same time, though I’ve visited places on the edges since then. So both before and after the Armistice Day event, I took a stroll through campus to revise my mental image of the place.

Turns out that UIC isn’t quite the brutalist wonder that it was 30 years ago or, presumably, in the mid-60s heyday of brutalism when Walter Netsch designed the school. In recent years the campus has been softened somewhat, especially with the addition of green space and trees.

But the campus still has its brutalist bones. Such as the vaulting University Hall, one of the original buildings and apparently home to some peregrine falcons since the late ’90s. As brutalism goes, not bad.

The Student Residences & Commons South, while also considered brutalist, has some style to it as well.

So does the campus’ latest structure, a residential hall that’s still under construction overlooking the Eisenhower Expressway on the north end of the east campus. More of an homage to brutalism than the thing itself, I’d say.
It’s a 550-bed project, designed by SCB, that will be completed next summer. The university is eager to have more students live on campus, it seems. Back in the days of a hardcore brutalist campus, I doubt that was a priority, but it is now.