The Ghost of Marshall Field

Posted on January 11, 2023 by admin

On the second to last day of 2022, we spent a while at Macy’s downtown Chicago store. The chain does business in the magnificent building originally occupied by Marshall Field & Co., the celebrated retailer on State Street, which takes up an entire city block.

On the seventh floor, Marshall Field looks out upon the modern operation. It hasn’t had his name since the early 21st century.

Does the mustachioed shade of Mr. Field (d. 1906) wander the building at night, collar taut, making no noise and visible to no one, because he’s a happy ghost? After all, his building, not quite complete when he died, is still there, and still retail. Or is he having trouble keeping quiet, considering the direction of the department store business?

For some modern context – business context, that is – I fed “Macy’s” into Google News today. Some headlines that emerged:

Macy’s Analyst Remains Bearish Following Disappointing Q4 Preannouncement: ‘Longer Term Structural Challenges’

Macy’s Cautious View on Consumers Hits Shares

Macy’s quietly lays an egg — and more may be coming for retail: Morning Brief

All those are actually relatively good news in the world of department stores, which cling to life but which further disappear with each passing year. I’m not saying that Macy’s is doomed, just operating as one of the last players standing on much smaller playing field.

The downtown Chicago location was fairly busy that day and still decked out for the holidays. Especially on the seventh floor, home to the Walnut Room, which still has a reasonably impressive Christmas tree.

The Walnut Room is a grand space even in our time, serving meals of one kind or another since 1907, and the site of large Christmas trees since that same year. Originally named the South Grill Room, this is how it looked in 1909, not in the holiday season.

Generations of Chicagoans came here to eat or, like me as long ago as the late 1980s, to see the grand tree. Looks like they are still coming for both purposes, so at least Macy’s has that going for it.

“The bold selection of grilled foods was meant to distinguish the South Grill Room from the daintier tearooms,” the Digital Research Library of Illinois History notes. “The restaurants’ role was not to make money (they usually operated at a loss) but rather to lure hungry visitors into the store and give those already inside a reason to stay. Their upper-floor location required diners to navigate past enticing impulse goods while making their way upstairs.

“Because so many customers spoke of this restaurant by referring to its Circassian walnut paneling, it was later renamed the ‘Walnut Tearoom,’ next as the ‘Walnut Grill,’ and finally as the ‘Walnut Room’ in 1937.”

Also on the seventh floor: the Narcissus Room. It used to be a tea room. One of those daintier rooms mentioned above. There were still signs pointing to it, so I decided to go take a look. For all I know, tea rooms are the latest thing among hipsters and Gen-Whatever social media posters.

The room as it once was. My source puts the card at 1920.

The entrance to the Narcissus Room much more recently. As in, about two weeks ago. Note that it isn’t locked, and there were no signs advising against entry by non-employees.

Nice detail on at the threshold.

I opened the door.

I did not, in fact, enter. This view was freely available from outside the door, which is in public hallway in the store. According to Macy’s, you can rent the room for an event. As of that day, anyway, no events seemed to be in the works.

The Art of American Victorian Stained Glass

Posted on January 10, 2023 by admin

If you board the El at the Cumberland station near O’Hare, you can ride to downtown Chicago without any further effort. If you get off at Washington station and head east — but not upstairs, since the El is a subway at that point — you will find yourself in the Chicago Pedway System, a network of underground walkways.

If, like me, you go downtown only sporadically, you won’t know the Pedway System in its entirety. Even regular downtown visitors and residents probably don’t know all of the five miles of tunnel or even the half of it. I didn’t know there was that much until I read it — can that be right?

Anyway, from Washington station, the Pedway goes around the northern edge of Macy’s, which occupies an entire city block. In the wall opposite the basement entrance to that department store, 22 pieces of stained glass from the golden age of American stained glass — installed behind protective clear glass and backlit — welcome curious passersby. Like us late on the morning of December 30.

By golden age, I mean the late 19th century. This one was fabricated by Belcher Mosaic Glass Co., Newark, NJ, 1885-87.

Unknown fabricator, originally in a Louisville mansion, late 19th century. I like to think the mansion belonging to Daisy Fay’s (later Daisy Buchanan’s) family, but I suppose not.

A night owl. Fabricator also a late 19th-century unknown; a lot of them in the exhibit are.

The formal name of the exhibit is The Art of American Victorian Stained Glass. I’m not a scholar on art glass, so I rely on someone else’s expertise, namely the curator of the exhibit, Rolf Achilles.

“We always think that America has been copying everything from Europe. But no,” Achilles said about the exhibit when it was installed in 2013 (which I somehow didn’t hear about). “Painting on glass is one of the things Americans did, but also they stained the glass, and used ornamentation on glass; they added jewels, they added large chunks of glass.

“We have a superb example of this type of work. Look at the jewels, the facet of jewels were cut by diamonds and then chunks of glass were cast. This is uniquely American in the 1880s and 1890s. It was only around late 1890s and 1900s when the European started doing this, and then it is called Art Nouveau and everyone gets excited.”

A detail illustrates his point.

The sign for this one was missing.

One more Belcher. All the stained glass is striking, but this one notches it up to stunning.

“While their era of production was short lived [1884 to 1897], Belcher windows were popular and many examples still survive today, both in situ but more likely in collections,” Wiki says.

Manufacturing came to a sudden end at Belcher. It’s possible the fabrication process, unique to the company and involving various heavy metals, poisoned some of the workers, though that isn’t clear. If so, that would well represent that 19th-century age of beauty and poison, wouldn’t it?

Plan B Travels at the End of ’22

Posted on January 5, 2023 by admin

Since Tucson was a no go, we decided to spend the same three days, December 29 to 31, visiting new sights close enough to home to be at home, come bedtime. A suite of day trips, that is. If you can’t go far, go near.

On the first day, we drove southward to near our old west suburban haunts, stopping first in Darien, Illinois, which is home to the National Shrine of St. Thérèse. I’d visited the shrine by myself at some point ca. 1999, but took no notes and made no photos, so I didn’t remember much. Besides, I’d read that a new shrine building was completed only in 2018, so it counted as a new place for me.

I’d also forgotten that Thérèse of Lisieux is also known as the Little Flower of Jesus. The entrance of the new shrine announces that, silently, as you enter.

Later that day, we made our way further south to the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. Strictly speaking, we’d been there before as well, all the way back in the summer of ’04. I told Yuriko we’d been there, but she didn’t remember. Maybe I remember because I spent a lot of time that day pushing Ann’s stroller along an uneven grass path under a hot sun. I seem to have left that part out of my posting about it, however.

On the other hand, Midewin is large, with about 13,000 acres and 30 miles of trails open to the public, so I’m sure we walked through an entirely different part this time – one with visible reminders of the area’s time as the site of an ammunition plant.

The sun wasn’t an issue this time.

On December 30, we made our way to a different sort of human environment: downtown Chicago, by way of driving to near O’Hare, parking the car, and riding the El into town. Without planning to, we found something downtown we’d never seen before, an art exhibit in the underground Pedway.

The Art of American Victorian Stained Glass, featuring well over a dozen windows from the late 19th century and early 20th. Wow. Well hidden and remarkable.

We also spent time in other parts of downtown, including a walkabout inside holiday- season Macy’s. I’ve been there any number of times, of course, but this time I appreciated the place with new eyes. One conclusion: it ain’t no Marshall Field.

Well, some things are the same. Macy’s still has the holiday horns hanging on State Street.

One of these days, I ought to give State Street the Wall Street or William Street treatment, but I’d have to be by myself to do so. State Street might not exactly be a great street, but it still has character.

By that, I mean skyscrapers from the early days of steel-reinforced buildings. Also, astonishingly intricate ironwork from a time when a department store (the vanished Carson Pirie Scott) could afford such things.

Actually, the Louis Sullivan building at State and Madison — the (0 0) of the street numbering system in Chicago — was built in 1899 for the retail firm Schlesinger & Mayer; Carson Pirie Scott was a Johnny-come-lately when it bought Schlesinger in 1904. These days there’s a Target in the lower floor. Sic transit gloria tabernae, I guess.

On the last day of 2022, we headed away from metro Chicago again. We’d considered Starved Rock State Park as a destination, but I wanted something new, so we went to Buffalo Rock State Park, which is more-or-less across the Illinois River from Starved Rock. Nice little park.

Afterward, the weather was good enough, and the temps just warm enough, to allow us to eat Chinese takeout at a picnic table in Washington Park in Ottawa, Illinois, in our coats. The last time we were there, it was hot as blazes.

Didn’t look around too much this time, though someday I want a good look at the many churches along Lafayette St. in Ottawa. I did take a look at LaSalle County’s Civil War memorial.

A closer look at the base –

– reveals that even the names of the Honored Dead are no match for Time.

Art Institute Spaces, Small and Large

Posted on December 8, 2022 by admin

I’d like to say I visited this room recently — looks interesting, doesn’t it? — but I only looked into the room.

An English great room of the late Tudor period, 1550-1603, according to a nearby sign. I couldn’t get in because one inch within this room equals one foot in an actual room of that kind, so at best I could get a hand in.

The Art Institute doesn’t want anyone to do that, and for good reason, since random hands would completely wreck any of the Thorne Miniature Rooms. So they are behind glass in walled-in spaces, and not at eye level for someone as tall as I am.

Still, I leaned over to look in. The fascination is there. Not just for me, but for the many other people looking at the rooms on Saturday. Each room evokes a different place or time, heavily but not exclusively American or European settings.

English drawing room, ca. 1800.

French library, ca. 1720.

Across the Atlantic. Pennsylvania drawing room, 1830s.

Massachusetts living room, 1675-1700.

The fascination isn’t just with the astonishing intricacy of the work, which it certainly has, but also the artful lighting. Artful as the light-play on a Kubrick set. I know those are electric lights in the background, but it looks like the rooms are lighted the way they would have been during those periods. With sunlight, that is.

“Narcissa Niblack Thorne, the creator of the Thorne Rooms, herself had a vivid imagination,” says the Art Institute. “In the 1930s, she assembled a group of skilled artisans in Chicago to create a series of intricate rooms on the minute scale of 1:12.

“With these interiors, she wanted to present a visual history of interior design that was both accurate and inspiring. The result is two parts fantasy, one part history — each room a shoe box–sized stage set awaiting viewers’ characters and plots.” (More microwave oven–sized, I’d say.)

Thorne (d. 1966) had the wherewithal to hire artisans during the Depression by being married to James Ward Thorne, an heir to the Montgomery Ward department store fortune, back when department stores generated fortunes. Bet the artisans were glad to have the work.

It wasn’t my first visit to the Thorne Rooms, but I believe I appreciate it a little more each time. I know I feel that way about the Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room, which I also visited on Saturday.

The Thorne Rooms are an exercise in constrained space. The Trading Room is one of expansive space. So much so that my basic lens really isn’t up to capturing the whole. Still, I try.

No one else was in the room with me. It is a little out of the way, in museum wayfinding terms, and it is the artwork, rather than being mere protective walls and climate control, so maybe people pass it by.

Not me. I spent a while looking at details.

Overhead.

Such a grand room. Victorian ideas at work, striving to add uplift to a space devoted to grubby commerce. I’d say they succeeded.

“Designed by Chicago architects Louis Sullivan and his partner, Dankmar Adler, the original Chicago Stock Exchange was completed in 1894,” the museum notes on a page that also extols the room as a place where as many as 300 people can meet.

“When it was demolished in 1972, sections of the Trading Room, including Sullivan’s elaborate stenciled decorations, molded plaster capitals, and art glass, were preserved and used in the 1976–77 reconstruction of the room here at the Art Institute.”

I attended an event there myself for some forgotten reason about 20 years ago. Suits and ties (a while ago, as I said), dresses, and drinks in hand, the room hosted such a crowd with ease. If I had 300 people to entertain, I’d certainly consider renting the place.

Chagall’s America Windows

Posted on December 7, 2022 by admin

A treasure from the 1970s: Chagall’s America Windows at the Art Institute (1977). They’re out there, those treasures from that time.

In order from right to left.

Here’s a thought for the 2020s: Odious antisemites need to knock it off. As in, shut up. Then again, “odious” is already packed into “antisemite,” isn’t it? So that counts as a redundancy.

Details from the America Windows.

The museum was busy on Saturday, but I had the windows practically to myself.

A Few Rooms of Ancient Art

Posted on December 6, 2022 by admin

I might be misremembering, but I believe the Uffizi Gallery had a hallway that featured busts of every Roman emperor, plus a good many of their wives, down at least to Severus Alexander (d. AD 235), in chronological order. I spent a while there, looking over them all.

The Uffizi array included famed and long-lasting rulers (e.g., Augustus) but also obscure short-timers whose biographies tend to end with “assassinated by…” (e.g., Didius Julianus (d. AD 193), the rich mope who bought the office from the highly untrustworthy Praetorian Guard and held it for all of 66 days in 193).

I thought of all those emperor busts when I took a look at Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius on Saturday.

Second century AD, no doubt part of what would later be called propaganda: the effort to let the Roman people feel the presence of their rulers. These two busts are among the ancient Roman artworks on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, along with works by Greek, Egyptian and other peoples.

It isn’t a huge collection, though sizable enough. If you put together the ancient art found at Art Institute and the Field Museum and the Oriental Institute Museum, that might be a British Museum- or Pergamon Museum-class collection, but no matter. I always enjoy strolling around the Art Institute’s ancient gallery, which is back a fair ways from the main entrance, in four rooms surrounding a peristyle-like courtyard, though that is a story down.

Besides emperors, you’ll see emperor-adjacent figures, such as Antinous, done up as Osiris, 2nd century AD of course.

Beloved by Hadrian, Antinous took a swim in the Nile one day in AD 130 and drowned. Hadrian founded the nearby city of Antinoupolis in his honor (it’s a minor ruin these days) and proclaimed him a god — the sort of thing a grieving emperor could do in those days.

A Roman copy of a Greek statue of Sophocles, ca. AD 100.

Hercules, 1st century AD.

My cohort learned of Hercules through cartoons. Could have done worse, I guess.

A story never animated for children, as far as I know: Leda and the Swan, 1st or 2nd century AD. A story that nevertheless reverberates down the centuries.

Who doesn’t like ancient mosaics? I like to think these 2nd-century AD works were part of an ancient tavern that served food.

A sampling of Greek vases are on display as well. These black-figure works are from the sixth century BC, probably for storing wine. In vino veritas, though in this case that would be Ἐν οἴνῳ ἀλήθεια (En oinō alētheia), and I won’t pretend I didn’t have to look that up.

I always visit the coin case. Here’s a silver tetradrachm minted in the 2nd century BC in Asia Minor, depicting Apollo. Such detailed work for something struck by hand.

Then there’s this — creature.

Statue of a Young Satyr Wearing a Theater Mask of Silenus, ca. 1st century AD, the museum sign says (and he’s putting his hand through the mask). You need to watch out for those young satyrs. They’re always up to something.

Nth Visit to the Art Institute of Chicago

Posted on December 5, 2022 by admin

On Saturday, I made my way to downtown Chicago, while Yuriko created this most delicious Christmas cake at her occasional cake class.

I rode the El part of the way. Not many people are masked these days, unlike subway riders of a year ago (at least in New York). But there are a few.

Another mark of the shifting tides of pandemic: a storefront on a downtown Chicago street.

I didn’t doctor that image. A white rectangle was painted on the sign. Note that it went from Free Covid Care — though surely they meant testing, not intensive care — to Covid Care, as federal subsidies dried up, to For Rent, as business dried up.

Before long, I came to my destination: The Art Institute of Chicago.

The Art Institute and I go back a ways, and I’m sure I’ve been there more than any other art museum, or maybe any museum at all. Remarkably, I know the date of my first visit: May 17, 1981, during my first visit to Chicago. I haven’t consistently keep a diary over the years, but I did then.

That day I mostly remember spending time at an exhibit called “The Search for Alexander.” I might or might not have known it at the time, but the exhibit had opened just the day before.

A few years earlier, the wildly popular “Treasures of Tutankhamun” exhibit had set the stage for the museum megashows of today, with their crowds, high prices and timed tickets, but most of that was still to come in ’81 (and there were other memorable legacies of Tut, too).

I don’t think the Alexander exhibit counted as a megashow, since I don’t remember paying extra, or dealing with a crowd. But I do remember being impressed by the art and artifacts from the time of Alexander of Macedon, especially a wreath of gold fashioned to look like oak leaves and acorns, held by fine gold branches that vibrated ever so gently in the mild air puffs of a climate-controlled display case.

On Saturday, I once again spent time with the museum’s ancient art, but also lingered in front of the Chagall’s America Windows and in the Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room, which I almost always do, as well as taking a long look at the Thorne Miniatures, which was by far the most crowded gallery I visited, though this time I didn’t go into the Impressionist rooms, which always pack ’em in.

Wherever you are, Saturday’s a busy day at the Art Institute.

A scattering of people wore masks.

Many more wore beards.

Museum workers were working.

As befitting my age, I spent a good few minutes on the museum’s benches. That gave me time to fiddle with my camera.

Oops.

Lincoln Park Zoo ’22

Posted on September 23, 2022 by admin

Back in 1984, I took a trip to Chicago from Nashville for the Labor Day weekend. That was the first place I ever went after getting a full-time job. I stayed with my friend Rich, whose apartment was in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, where one could live comfortably just out of college.

That’s how long ago it was. Lincoln Park was then emerging from decades as — not full-blown slum, but maybe the St. Charles Place-States Avenue-Virginia Avenue of Chicago, so rents were still relatively affordable. Those days are long over.

During that visit, Rich suggested we go to the Lincoln Park Zoo, which we did. I’ve visited periodically over the decades since then, and always like it. Zoos can be much more than places to take your kids, though they are that too.

The animals, of course, are the prime attraction. Such as the great apes. This one’s a little hard to spot.

Another of his troop was indoors. He was easier to see. Well, if you were up front.

Some Père David’s deer. Native to China, they just barely escaped extinction by being bred in European zoos.

Flamingos. Lots of flamingos. Some sources say the collective is a flamboyance of flamingos, others say a stand.

I also like some of the zoo buildings, such the Kovler Lion House, outside and in.

No lions were to be seen that morning, however. Guess they were taking cat naps out of sight.

A concession stand.

But it’s got style.

Nature Boardwalk

Posted on September 21, 2022 by admin

Toward the south end of Lincoln Park is the fittingly named South Pond, flush with floral glory last Saturday.

That, and U.S. Grant off in the distance.

The pond is mostly ringed by a feature called Nature Boardwalk, which is an extension, without large animal habitats, of the Lincoln Park Zoo. It’s called that pending a really generous gift, most likely.

I didn’t need any more prompting than that to take a walk along most of the raised walkway.

From one vantage, the handsome Café Brauer building is visible.

The building has a history as home to a successful Chicago restaurant in the first decades of the 20th century. Developed in 1908 with a design by Prairie School notable Dwight Perkins.

The life of the building continues as a wedding venue. A nicely written description — though at heart ad copy for the place — is at The Knot, which specializes in articles and other tools for wedding planning:

Café Brauer overlooks the zoo’s Nature Boardwalk, a lively pond ecosystem. Thanks to the event space’s terrace, couples and their guests can easily admire the setting’s beautiful biodiversity as they celebrate. From this vantage point, a clear view of the surrounding park and city skyline is also visible.

Inside, the… historic Chicago landmark features eye-catching ceilings supported by exposed green-colored beams, with Tiffany-style chandeliers and warm uplighting. Thanks to its stained-glass windows, natural light can flood the interior as guests dine, dance, and mingle.

And what was this?

That must have been there the last time I came this way, but I didn’t remember it.
I walked the path, and over a stone bridge, to the other bank of the pond.

Closer.

Inside.

The Peoples Gas Education Pavilion, it is. I’ll assume the natural gas company of that name had something to do with paying at least part of the construction tab for the structure.

“It was completed in 2010 by Studio Gang, the world-renowned Chicago architecture firm led by Jeanne Gang. It is built from prefabricated glue-laminated timber ‘ribs’ and fiberglass domes,” writes Chicago area photographer Lauri Novak.

Novak lauds the spot as a good one for taking photos. Is it ever.

Farmers’ Market Near an Abandoned Shoreline

Posted on September 20, 2022 by admin

Still warm and sunny here, though punctuated by thunderstorms. I don’t think I saw them forecast — one Sunday evening, another this evening. They rolled through quickly, and didn’t even interfere with evening dog-walking.

On Saturday, I noticed this plaque in Lincoln Park. I didn’t remember seeing it before.

It’s in a good location. The ridge is very much visible from that spot.

Clark Street is to the right, beyond the edge of my image. At that point it’s the western edge of the park, but mostly it’s a non-grid North Side street, one I knew pretty well in my city-dwelling days. It was near my first apartment, and sometimes I took the No. 22 Clark Street bus places (occasionally all the way from downtown, but the El was faster).

In Chicago, non-grid usually means the street follows an Indian trace, and so it is with Clark, at least north of Chicago Ave. Other one-time Indian traces coursing through the North Side include Lincoln, Elston and Milwaukee Aves. The South Side has them, too, such as Ogden and Archer Aves.

In the Loop, Clark is park of the grid, and has been there a long time. Wonder how many people realize that it’s named for George Rogers Clark, whose sizable monument is pretty far away from Chicago?

Not far from Clark on the western edge of Lincoln Park, I happened across Green City Market, a large farmer’s market, in progress. It’s held on Wednesdays and Saturdays during the warmer parts of the year. It was busy.

Lots of tents.

Some wonderful-looking produce.

I don’t begrudge the farmers their direct-to-consumer sales, but the emphasis on “organic” and “pasture raised” and — I saw this — “regenerative agriculture” — got to be a little much. At least I didn’t see anything advertised as “curated.” It can’t be as simple as “fresh produce,” can it?

But that didn’t bother me too much. I enjoyed the band.

The tip in their bucket was the only money I spent in the park that day.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Chicago