Category Archives: Chicago

View and No View

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The Cliff Dwellers have a swell view of the eastern reaches of Chicago, Millennium Park, Grant Park, and the expanse of Lake Michigan beyond. The northeast vista looked like this on Saturday, October 19, 2013, at about 12:30, before the clouds and wind blew in.

The southeast vista was even better, but my photography skills weren’t up to the task. With the eye it was clear enough to see the structures of East Chicago and Gary, Indiana. The view is the from the 22nd floor of 200 S. Michigan Ave., a building across the street from the Art Institute. My photography skills were up to the task of capturing an aspect of that museum that few pay any attention to: its multi-surfaced roof.

Not a bad roof, I guess, but it seems like the Art Institute is missing an opportunity. It ought to commission a few brightly colored murals that, like the Nazca Lines, can best be appreciated from the air. Or large pieces of sculpture likewise fixed to the roof for distant viewing. The museum could then lease small spaces high up on the surrounding buildings and install telescopes for viewing, maybe for a small extra fee. That’s got to be pushing the conventional boundaries between art and life, or exploring the relationship between physical distance and the aesthetic experience, or beating up some kind of pervasive assumption about art, or something.

The Cliff Dwellers is a private club. I wanted a look-see because I’ve seen parts of other Chicago clubs’ spaces – the Rotary Club, the Union League Club, the University Club, the Metropolitan Club – but not the Cliff Dwellers. “The club exists as a cultivator for the arts, welcoming working writers, painters, musicians, and others as well as affluent art lovers who want to act as patrons,” explains Michigan Avenue magazine. “Though the clubhouse itself is modest, with a bar, dining room, and reading nook (in addition to a breathtaking aerial view of the waterfront and sprawling greenery of Grant Park), the society’s roots are far from low profile, with names like Daniel Burnham, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, and Carl Sandburg marking its pedigree.”

I imagine the Cliff Dwellers would be happy to mount a big brass telescope to view Nazca Lines on the top of the Art Institute. That would be cultivating the arts.

Moving on, I soon found myself at the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, a round structure at Wabash and Wacker, very near the Chicago River. It’s a Harry Weese design, completed in 1968.

I used to have an office across the street in 35 E. Wacker. I’ve walked by this church countless times. I’d never been inside.

Most of the roundness of the structure is filled by a 764-seat auditorium with a focus on the “readers’ platform,” which is backed by a 3,316 pipe Aeolian-Skinner organ. Supposedly the inspiration for the auditorium is the layout of a Greek amphitheater, but I couldn’t help being reminded of a meeting room at the UN. It has no windows, the better to keep ambient noise from the city from intruding. That works pretty well – I couldn’t hear anything identifiable as noise from the surrounding streets.

The Auditorium Theatre

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How many inglenooks are there in public buildings in greater Chicago? A fireplace recess, that is. I wouldn’t know, but it couldn’t be too many.

The Auditorium Theatre on Congress Ave. downtown has two large ones, echoing the enormous size of the theater itself, in the dress circle lobby. In 1889, when the theater was spanking new, the inglenooks featured gas fireplaces with cast-iron “logs” and long benches warmed by radiators underneath the cushions, and walls adorned by foliate mosaic friezes. Socializing went on, but so did warming. The Earth was colder then, and indoor heating was much more primitive.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t notice the inglenooks when I attended a show at the Auditorium Theatre in 1989. Or was it 1988? I went to see a radio broadcast of Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know? Or was it Lily Tomlin’s one-woman show? It’s a jumble. In any case, I remember the Auditorium Theatre being opulent in the late 1980s, but since then Roosevelt University, which owns the building, completed a restoration in 2001 to make it look more like it did when the structure was spanking new. So when I saw the theater on Saturday, I saw something new – which looked old.

On December 19, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison and Vice President Levi P. Morton  – just about everyone’s favorite obscure high office holders of the Gilded Age, I figure – came for the dedication of the Auditorium Theatre. Interestingly enough, they’d been nominated for these offices in the summer of ’88 at the theater, even though it wasn’t finished yet. That’s where the Republican Party held its convention that year.

President Harrison said a few words at the dedication, which are on a plaque hanging on the wall at the south inglenook: “I wish that this great building may continue to be to all your population that which it should be: opening its doors from night to night, calling your people away from cares of business to those enjoyments and entertainments which develop the souls of men and inspire those whose lives are heavy with daily toil and in this magnificent and enchanted presence, lift them for a time out of dull things into those higher things where men should live.”

He and his vice president would have seen an interior very much like I saw this weekend, a tour de force design by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, with its 3,500 clear-glass electric light bulbs luminously arrayed on the ceiling arches, the balcony and the gallery fronts, the 20 x 24-foot murals depicting winter and spring, and the 4,200 seats, including some way, way up in the third balcony. These days, I understand, there are 3,877 seats; people have grown fatter in the last 130 years.

The theater has plenty of other distinctions, which are best explored at its web site. Like many other grand buildings, it was nearly destroyed. Supposedly in the early ’30s, when it seemingly had outlived its economic usefulness, bids were taken for demolition. But the theater and its surrounding building (more about which later) were so solidly built that no one wanted to pay to have it razed.

Another story I enjoyed about the theater is its World War II use. The USO had the stage and some of the front-row seats removed to install a bowling alley. It looked like this.

For Chicago developer Ferdinand Peck, the theater was only one component of the property, and so it remains today. The Auditorium Theatre is part of the Auditorium Building, which originally included office space and a hotel, and now has office space and classrooms. Since 1946, Roosevelt University has owned the building as well as the theater, which have separate entrances. The Auditorium Building also could be explored as a part of Openhousechicago, so I took a look.

The building has a fine lobby, and a grand staircase with nice stained glass, and a good view of Grant Park and Lake Michigan from its library on the 12th floor. It also pays homage to a president and first lady.

This mosaic is on the landing between the first and second floors. Also in the lobby are busts of Franklin and Eleanor, in case you’re inclined to think the school was named after the other famed Roosevelt.

Openhousechicago ’13

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This weekend the Chicago Architecture Foundation held its third annual Openhousechicago (that’s how the organization styles “Open House Chicago”). Last year, I heard about the event a week or two after it was over. Yesterday, I participated.

The CAF describes it this way:  “A free, citywide festival that offers behind-the-scenes access to more than 150 buildings across this great city. Explore historic mansions, hidden rooms, sacred spaces, private clubs, offices, hotels, iconic performance venues and more much – all for free.” Note the emphasis on free.

Sounds like my kind of event. At each place there were volunteers at folding tables taking attendance in the form of asking you your zip code. At a few places, you had to join a short guided tour, but most of the time you just offered your zip code, walked in, and looked around. Not all of the spaces were open 9-5 on both Saturday and Sunday, so it was worthwhile to check the CAF guide to the event, which had such details, as well as useful maps.

That and the purchase of a $10 CTA all-day pass got me ready. I didn’t arrive downtown until about 11 a.m. – it’s impossible to get up early on Saturday, unless you need to catch a flight somewhere interesting – and I ran out of energy at about 4 p.m.. I was on the move constantly in between.

In order, starting in the South Loop and trending northward by bus and foot, I went to the Auditorium Theatre, the Auditorium Building of Roosevelt University, the Cliff Dwellers, the Monroe Building, the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, the Harvest Bible Chapel (formerly the Scottish Rite Cathedral), the Moody Church, the National Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, and the Elks National Memorial.

I bypassed participating places I’d already been, such as the Chicago Temple, City Hall, the Fine Arts Building, the Blackstone Hotel, the Marquette Building, the Palmer House, Holy Name Cathedral, the Chicago History Museum, and the Lincoln Park Conservatory, though I made an exception for the Auditorium Theatre, where I saw at least one show in the late ’80s. A handful of interesting-sounding places required CAF membership to visit, including 35 E. Wacker’s crowning cupola, which is leased by Helmut Jahn. The Newberry Library was accessible only by tour, and the wait was 45 minutes, so I didn’t go there, either (since I used to visit there in the late ’80s, too).

I also spent time walking through Lincoln Park, and saw a few things not on the CAF list. The weather was cool and windy, partly cloudy, and good for walking. I took my camera. If you frame things right, you can edit out the fact that 9 million or so people are in the vicinity.

That’s looking southward at the edge of North Pond in Lincoln Park. If you move a few yards from that spot, it’s easy enough to see the city looming over the park.

The green seems to be hanging on a little later this year than usual. Maybe that’s because we haven’t had a frost yet.

Pullman Ruins

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What creates a ruin? The elements over time, neglect, war, accidents, extreme weather, assorted acts of God. In the case of the industrial structures at Pullman State Historic District, arson. After the structure was severely damaged in 1998, the Chicago Tribune reported that “the police determined the fire to be arson and arrested a 45-year-old man on Wednesday,” the article noted. “Sgt. Maurice Sullivan, a detective with the police bomb and arson unit, said that the man confessed to setting the blaze at the direction of voices he heard in his head.”

Much reconstruction of the Administration Building and Central Clock Tower has been done since then.

Inside, though, it’s still mostly raw space. These things take time.

The nearby industrial buildings aren’t in such good shape, inside or out, though they’ve probably been stabilized.

Even though I believe the buildings ought to be restored, there’s still something satisfying about wandering around ruins. Especially when large pieces of iron equipment are nearby.

What is it? What was it used for? Someone could probably tell me. Why did it end up in exactly that place and position? Who were the workmen who moved it to where it is, and did they intend to abandon it, or just put it somewhere temporarily – but never got back to it? Maybe no one knows these things any more. Or maybe I’m misinterpreting the object. Could be it was removed from the wrecked building after the fire, and will return after its restoration.

Someday, parts of the Pullman district, including the industrial sites, might be part of a National Historical Park, along the lines of the one in Lowell, Mass. The National Park Service recently reported that it thought Pullman had the right stuff to be such a park, and Congress and other interested parties have to figure out how to pay for it. Considering Congress’ recently difficulties with even basic governance, it might be a while before that happens.

Sounds like a good idea to me. A petition to grant park status to Pullman was at the Visitors Center when we picked up our House Tour tickets, and I signed it.

The Greenstone Church

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The Greenstone United Methodist Church is at the corner of 112th St. and St. Lawrence Ave. and it’s green.

Yuriko suggested it was covered with moss, but closer inspection reveals that much of the rock itself is green. Apparently it’s made of serpentine quarried in Pennsylvania. I wasn’t familiar with serpentine, so I looked into it. The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica says that it’s “a mineral which, in a massive and impure form, occurs on a large scale as a rock, and being commonly of variegated colour, is often cut and polished, like marble, for use as a decorative stone… Although popularly called a ‘marble,’ serpentine is essentially different from any kind of limestone, in that it is a magnesium silicate, associated however, with more or less ferrous silicate.”

Why aren’t more things built of it? Could be the expense. But it does make for a sturdy structure. Greenstone has been standing since 1882, designed by Solon Beman, who did all of Pullman. He did a number of other things – including a large number of Christian Science churches, interestingly enough – but he’s best known for Pullman.

Back in the days of Mr. Pullman, the structure was built as a Unitarian Church “for all to unite in a union body and get a broad-minded evangelical clergyman,” according to the Pullman Foundation. That dog didn’t hunt, with each denomination going its own way in rented space elsewhere. It also didn’t help that rent was high at Greenstone. In 1907, a decade after Pullman and his company ceased to own the property, Methodists acquired it.

The inside is modestly adorned, with its original cherry wood pews. I’m sorry I didn’t get to hear the organ.

Again from the Pullman Foundation: “The organ was built in 1882 by the distinguished firm of Steere and Turner as their Opus #170. It is one of the few manual tracker organs remaining in the United States… The organ contains 1,260 pipes ranging in size from the large front pipes to others the size of a pencil. It consists of two manuals for the hands, one for the feet, twenty-one stops and twenty-three ranks of pipes, three couplers and a twenty-seven note-pedal board.”

I don’t know a lot about organs, but that sounds fancy. The foundation further says that “its tracker action means that the valves are mechanically linked to the keys and are directly activated by the organist’s hands and feet. Most organs have an electrical system which eliminates this direct link between the keys and pipes. Today’s organists find playing this organ a physically demanding but emotionally satisfying act.” No organ for old men, you could say.

Pullman Interiors

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All together we visited seven residences on the Historic Pullman House Tour, none of them usually open to the public because people live in them. But on this particular weekend the owners agreed to show them off. I don’t think I’d ever been on a house walk of this kind before, probably because of a vague association with a House Beautiful sensibility. De gustibus non est disputandum, but it isn’t an impulse I share. I’m more House Cluttered.

Pullman’s historic character pulled me in, and come to think of it a house walk can be a good way to go into places and see things. I might have to look into other walks: House Interesting or Odd, if not Beautiful.

Usually it took a few minutes to get into each house, with small groups entering as others left. None of the Pullman houses are that large, and they’re easy to fill up. The event wasn’t teeming with people, but well attended, including a couple of busloads of seniors. In fact, I’d guess that the average age of the attendees was a bit older than me.

Sometimes the rooms and halls were so crowded, it felt like being at a party – except no one knew anyone else, or planned to stick around to gab. The homeowner was usually in one of the rooms, with volunteers in other rooms to explain the original layout of the place, answer questions, and (probably) keep an eye on small possessions.

As far as I could tell, none of the houses still feature their original layouts, but some were closer than others. You’d hardly except a 21st-century family to live in space designed for, say, a half-dozen unmarried skilled workers of the late 19th century. A couple of the homeowners, especially the fellow who owns 533 E. 112th St., whose block is also known as Arcade Row, did an elaborate, painstaking restoration job inspired by design of the late 19th century – wall colors, fixtures, furnishings. He also had art and artifacts either from the period, or reminiscent of it, including items from the mostly lost mansions on Prairie Ave. (George Pullman had his mansion there), and others depicting the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

Arcade Row is close to the former site of the Pullman Arcade Building, a missing part of Pullman. It would be quite a thing to have around: “Pullman Arcade Building contained a 500-seat theatre, a post office, library, the Pullman Trust and Savings Bank, the town management offices as well as office and storefront spaces that were rented to private businesses,” notes the Historic Pullman Foundation. “Modeled after the enclosed arcades of Europe, the Arcade Building was a forerunner of the modern shopping mall we know today. The building was unfortunately demolished in 1927, as the nearby shopping areas gained greater popularity and the building became no longer financially viable.”

Jazz Age retail killed the Arcade, not rampant out-with-the-old of the ’50s and ’60s. Ah, well.

All of homeowners had put a lot of effort into their properties, but mostly their interiors were distinctly modern, some more aesthetic than others. One owner’s hobby was stained glass, and he put a lot of nice work into his house. Other owners invested a lot of time in their small back yards, raising flowers and koi and installing sculptures and sundials and fountains. Another owner was fond of art exhibit posters. I looked at one in particular for a few moments  – The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, which was at the Art Institute in the summer of ’87 – before I thought, “Hey, I went to that one.”

Yet another owner had a large collection of model fantasy figures – you know, heroes, dragons, orcs, and so on, a few inches high, quite detailed, and each with a home in a display case. And, he told me, places to set them up that were put away for the house tour. I told him my cousin has an impressive collection of military model figures, and he allowed that fantasy/military is probably the main division among figure-oriented hobbyists.

Each home has two or three floors, all of them with narrow staircases. After climbing stairs in seven houses, we were fairly tired but also thirsty and in need of lunch. So we repaired to the Cal-Harbor Restaurant, a diner-like place without a lot of decoration; it was good to take a rest from sensory overload. Or at least to shift away from visual stimulation to the satisfaction of good omelettes and – something you don’t always find in Chicago diners – good grits.

Cal-Harbor is on 115th, which is a mid-sized east-west street. Visible from its window is a facility across the street that includes a vast plain of black asphalt and a brutal concrete building, all surrounded by a chain-link fence. I don’t know what it is. I guess it has some economic utility. But it’s butt ugly. The Pullman neighborhood could have been that.

The Historic Pullman House Tour

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On Saturday, Yuriko and I went to Pullman to participate in the 40th annual Historic Pullman House Tour. For a fairly modest fee, you can walk around the Pullman neighborhood and go into seven privately owned houses, one church, one community center, and the visitor center – which would be accessible anyway and isn’t historic, though it’s a good little museum about Pullman.

You can also take a look at the outside of the Hotel Florence, which has been closed and under renovation for years, and wander around the Pullman factory ruins, which were ruined less by the neglect over the decades than a fire set by a lunatic in 1998. We did all those things over the course of the afternoon, and also squeezed in lunch at the diner-like Cal-Harbor restaurant at the edge of the district.

In the early 1880s, industrialist George Pullman established a company town just to the south of Chicago to build his famed railroad cars. The place has a long and storied history, easy to find described elsewhere. Enough to say that the legacy neighborhood, now in the city and way down on the South Side, features about 900 row houses either two or three stories high, made of brick with limestone foundations, with a lot of late Victorian detail. It is, I’ve read, one of the largest collections of 19th-century residences in Chicago.

The entire neighborhood was nearly Eisenhowered around 1960 to make way for an industrial park. The neighborhood successfully fought its destruction and it lives on, though parts are still dilapidated. Pullman clearly includes some enthusiastic residents.

You might call that a Pullman car.

The Rookery

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Also during my most recent visit downtown, I swung by the Rookery. Because it had been a long time since I’ve been in the Rookery. The last time might have been the Halloween parties that the concierge service down the hall at the Civic Opera building used to have, when I had an office at the Civic Opera building. The early ’00s, that is.

As always, the Rookery is cool on the outside.

And stunning on the inside.

As you can see, I wasn’t the only person paying photographic attention to the Burnham & Root creation, with its Frank Lloyd Wright filling.

Electric Jellyfish

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Not long ago I visited the J.W. Marriott hotel at 151 W. Adams. It hasn’t had that flag very long — only about three years — and the building itself is the former Continental & Commercial National Bank, designed by no other than Daniel Burnham in 1914. I read that to turn the structure into a 610-room hotel — an upmarket one, since J.W. Marriott is described as the “black label” of Marriotts — and restore the ornate lobby, the hotelier spent $396 milllion.

I didn’t have a lot of time in the lobby, but ornate is a good adjective for it. Mostly I was in one of the larger meeting rooms, which was more interesting than most hotel meeting rooms.

There must be a reason, maybe in the original design of the property, that the ceiling sports arched beams, but I’m not in a position to say why.

Nice lights, too. A bloom of electric jellyfish

Protest at Adams & Clark

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Back again on September 3 or so. Hard to believe the summer’s dwindling down, but at least it’s still as warm and dry as a real summer.

I was downtown late yesterday morning, and spotted a protest at the northeast corner of Adams and Clark. I heard it first, and then went closer to take a look. People filled the sidewalk in front of the building at that corner, and with them were a speaker on a small platform, some cameramen, and a few bored-looking cops, watching.

At first I thought it might be fast-food workers out on strike, but no. That was scheduled for today, and besides, no fast food is available at that corner. Instead, the building is home to the Chicago Board of Education, and it wasn’t long before I figured out that the protestors were being vocal about the recent closings of a large number of public schools in the city.

The speaker, despite his microphone, was a little hard to hear. Across the street, a fellow let us know his displeasure with Mayor Emanuel.

I haven’t followed the mayor’s time in office closely enough to form much of an opinion, but I know the protestor is hardly alone.