Category Archives: Suburban Chicago

The Last of the Summer Weekends. Maybe.

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On Friday afternoon, we took the dog for a walk at Poplar Creek Nature Preserve. A balmy afternoon. Most of the tree foliage is still green, but includes distinct tinges of yellow or brown. Goldenrod blooms profusely, and so do white daisy-like flowers, along with a larger version that’s lavender-colored, but not actually lavender. The tall grass is brown, the short grass green. The cicadas still buzz and the grasshoppers still hop.

The Woodfield Mall was busy in its own way on Saturday afternoon. I can’t remember the last time I was there, but it’s been a while. There’s a certain amount of renovation going on in the common areas, but nothing that affects the flow of people too much. A number of stores displayed Star Wars merchandise in highly visible ways. I haven’t been keeping track, but that must foreshadow a movie along those lines.

Sure enough, a line in the Sunday Tribune Arts and Entertainment section tells me that, “As a new Star Wars movie looms [interesting choice of verbs], many of the franchise’s original fans are as devoted as ever.” Guess the merch is partly for them and their offspring. As far as I’m concerned, the first three movies, while very entertaining in their time, need to go in a box labeled Things of the Past.

Most of Sunday was overcast, so I wondered whether I was going to see the lunar eclipse. A couple of hours before dark, however, the clouds cleared away, and at about 8:30 I went out to see the shadow of the Earth falling on the Moon. At about 9, Yuriko, Ann and I were out, and then again 15 minutes later for totality. The dog was out, too, but typical of dogs, she didn’t give a fig for the celestial phenomenon (no smell involved, I guess). The copper moon was a pretty sight, but it didn’t look any bigger than usual to me.

In time for the eclipse, the Atlantic posted these images, marvels of 20th-century manned space exploration. These images are more recent marvels of (mostly) unmanned space exploration.

Lilly was at a friend’s house on Sunday evening, so I did what you do these days, and sent her a text about the eclipse. Later she said she’d seen it. I’m also glad to report that at least two neighboring families on my block were out to see it, too. I noticed that while taking the garbage out under the dark copper moon.

St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, Park Ridge

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You might call St. Luke’s Lutheran Church at 205 N. Prospect Ave. in Park Ridge an example of Suburban Gothic, but apparently that’s the name of a movie that came out last year. Anyway, it’s a handsome English Gothic-style church in the suburbs. We were back in Park Ridge Saturday afternoon for the last stop on the Churches by Bus tour.

St Luke'sThe building has the distinction of being designed in the late 1920s by Elisabeth Martini (1886-1984), the first woman to be the proprietor of an architectural firm in Chicago. Mostly she did houses, but it seems that she was a member of this church, and did the design work for a payment of $60 a month for the rest of her life, which turned out to be another 50-odd years, though it might not have been adjusted for inflation.

Adjoining the sanctuary (next to the bus in my picture) is a 2010 addition by Douglas E. Lasch of Jaeger, Nickola, Kuhlman & Associates, which replaced a smaller addition from the 1970s and blends in remarkably well with the original structure. He has his own shop now, Faith Environ Studio, which focuses “primarily on providing architectural services to faith-based and other non-profit clients.”

St. Luke’s sanctuary has an elegant interior.

St Luke'sThe stained glass windows tell of the Old and New Testaments. I’m sure the representation of Moses in one of the windows was meant seriously, but I can’t shake the idea that he’s grinning. Maybe it’s the eyes. “See what I have here! Commandments! Ten of them! Aren’t they terrific?”

MosesLuther, on the other hand, looks fairly serious, but not grim.

LutherI suppose those are the 95 theses on the door. A little hard to read at this scale. Wonder if they’re microprinted in the original Latin? I didn’t check. Never mind, the text is easily available on line in Latin and English (and other languages).

I haven’t looked at the theses since sometime in a college history class, so I was amused to find No. 86: “Again, ‘Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?’ ”

Ah, if only in our time and place we could mention Crassus without having to explain who he was. Then again, if those poor believers were able to understand that they were doing their little part to build the grandest church in Christendom, would they have been particularly upset?

One more thing about St. Luke’s in Park Ridge, which I read about later. It’s the home to the Bottle Band. Odd the things you find out. More about the band here.

Our Lady of Hope, Rosemont

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The newest church on our bus tour last Saturday was Our Lady of Hope, a Catholic church at 9711 W. Devon Ave., just barely in the boundaries of the small suburb of Rosemont, which is better known for its proximity to O’Hare and various entertainment venues. In fact, while I might be wrong, it seems to be the only church with a location in Rosemont, based on a Google map search.

Built only in 1986 (which seems new to me), the church counts as a “Modern Prairie” style, according to the Chicago Architecture Foundation. “Modern Prairie designs are often devoid of frills and decoration, but build character through asymmetrical shape, and large open spaces,” the CAF says.

Frill-less indeed, especially on the outside.
Our Lady of HopeAlso true to its prairie-style forerunners, the entrance isn’t immediately apparent, but once you go in, you do find large open spaces. I liked the curve into the nave — maybe this space counts as the narthex, though probably that terminology went out with traditional church decor.
Out Lady of HopeA semicircle of seats faces the altar. The lighting was such that I didn’t get a decent shot of the altar. The seats, on the other hand, were quite visible.
Our Lady of HopeThere was some representational art, but not much. Such as this group standing among plants.
Our Lady of HopeA young architect named Leslie Ventsch, working at the time for developer Opus Corp., designed the structure. These days he’s a design director at Gensler, according to LinkedIn. He won a Burnham Award in the mid-80s, for a different structure.

First United Methodist Church, Park Ridge

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Late yesterday morning, Yuriko and I were in Park Ridge, Ill., an inner northwest suburb of Chicago. On the whole, it’s a handsome suburb, well marked by prosperity. A lot of rain had fallen on Friday as thunderstorms rolled through, but by Saturday morning the day was well on its way to being pleasant and clear.

So it was a good day to be on the Chicago Architecture Foundation Churches by Bus tour, as we did last year. This year, the tour visited six churches on the Northwest Side of Chicago and two of its adjoining suburbs: Park Ridge as well as the diminutive Rosemont, which is better known for its convention center and theaters and restaurants near O’Hare.

We were on Bus # 4 again. Our first stop was First United Methodist Church at 418 W. Touhy Ave. in Park Ridge.
First United Methodist Church, Park RidgeAs suburban congregations go, it’s an old church, founded in 1856, with the original sanctuary built in 1857. The church building we saw dates from the 1920s, a Tudor Revival design by two men once in Daniel Burnham’s employ, Thomas Tallmadge and Vernon Watson. Inside, it isn’t particularly ornate.

First MethodistExcept for the six large stained-glass windows, completed in 1940. They were fashioned by Conrad Schmitt Studios in Wisconsin, which is apparently still around, and designed by a young German immigrant named Conrad Pickel, whose children run a stained-glass studio in Florida.

Stained Glass!The organ in back is much newer, installed only during this century. The organist (seen looking down at the sanctuary) played a bit for us. It has an excellent sound.
Big organ!The church has a couple of other distinctions besides its design. Hillary Clinton attended church here growing up in Park Ridge, and it’s also home to one of the first  Boy Scout Troops in the nation (the docent claimed it was the first), continuously active since 1912.

This, That and the Other Thursday

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Here’s a sign you can see in my neighborhood.

Cave CanemLiterally true, and it might mean a legal quagmire for the property owner, though I’m no expert on the matter.

Driving along today, I spotted the first bumper sticker of next year’s election. Next year being the operative term. Everything at this point is just talk, and citizens are entitled to pay it no mind. The sticker said: Bernie 2016.

Mostly blue, but the letters and numbers were white, with a thin red swoosh underlining the letters. Reminded me of the Obama O design; no accident, I’m sure.

I mentioned it to Ann, who is as nonpolitical as a 12-year-old should be, and she told me the only presidential candidates she’s heard of are Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

On the Roosevelt Road bridge at the southern edge of downtown Chicago are some nifty bronzes. I only took a picture of one.

WorldBronzeRooseveltRoadThe sculptures are by Miklos P. Simon and include (among other things) likenesses of  dolphins, dinosaurs and celestial navigation instruments, supposedly homages to the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum, and the Adler Planetarium, none of which are far away. More about the bridge is here.

Thursday Scraps

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Last year my part of the suburbs was lousy with skunks. For whatever ecological reasons, the population was up — so much so that both Lilly and I saw them prowling the streets at night.

This year, not so much. This year, it’s rabbits. Yesterday I looked out my office window, which faces my front yard, and saw two, each helping to trim the lawn. I’ve seen single rabbits frequently in both yards, and in parks, but never two at the same time.

rabbits June 2015The dog would have had a barking fit if she’d seen them. But she didn’t.

Not long ago I woke up thinking, why are sidekicks just for superheroes and singing cowboys? Why not for other, less fictional occupations? Some examples:

Ben Smith, CPA, and his sidekick Tuck.
Deepak Patal, Ph.D., and his sidekick Hadji
President Clinton and her sidekick Slick (still hypothetical)

Earlier this month I was driving west on North Ave. in Glendale Heights, Ill., which is a western suburb, and decided I needed to go east, so I turned north on Glen Ellyn Rd. to find a convenient place to turn around. And then I discovered Easy Street. So I drove down Easy Street, just to get a look at the houses of the people who Live on Easy Street. More carports than usual in the Chicago suburbs, but other than that it looked fairly ordinary.

Occasionally, as in once every few years, the urge to listen to early ’80s German-language rock ‘n’ roll is just too strong to resist. We all feel that way. No? Well, I feel that way now and then, and the Spider Murphy Gang is just the thing for it. There’s always “Schickeria.” or “Skandal im Sperrbezirk.”

Palatine Prairie Nature Preserve

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I’ve driven by the edge of the Palatine Prairie Nature Preserve and the adjoining Riemer Reservoir Park many times, traveling on N. Quentin Rd. in Palatine, Ill. Last Thursday, I decided it was time to stop and take a look at the place on foot. It happened not be raining, but the evidence of frequent rain was all around in the lush greens of this particular patch of Illinois greenspace.
Palatine Prairie, June 2015That makes it look like the middle of nowhere. It’s no such thing. At the northern edge of the Palatine Prairie is the Union Pacific Northwest line of the Metra commuter rail system (not the line I usually take). Here’s a train bound for Crystal Lake at least, and maybe further northwest, and making the prairie a little less quiet.

Palatine Prairie, June 2015Not that the place is quiet. The roads aren’t far away. Palatine Prairie is the northern section of the greenspace; the somewhat larger Riemer Reservoir is to the south, and they’re separated by the small W. Wood St. A trail winds through both, and it’s a pleasant walk when it isn’t raining or too hot. The weather was just right for us last week.

The greenspace that isn’t completely given over to prairie also includes a disc golf course. Guys were out playing disc golf. They seemed pretty serious about it, too.
Palatine Prairie, June 2015I’ve never played the game myself, though in the connected basements of Branscomb Quad at VU, we tossed frisbees at some kind of goals. Maybe the corridor doors, but I don’t think the rules were very well refined.

Spring Flowers ’15

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Lilacia Park, May 9, 2015

The Lombard park sports a wealth of lilacs, of course, such as this Hyacinthiflora lilac.Lilacia Park, May 9, 2015But also tulips, such as “Antoinnette.”Lilacia Park, May 9, 2015And “Mona Lisa.”Lilacia Park May 2015And “Burgundy Lace,” a fringed tulip.Lilacia Park May 2015Also, good old crabapple trees.Lilacia Park, May 9, 2015This character showed up to entertain. I think. Or maybe he just likes to dress up. Thing 1 and Thing 2 weren’t around.Lilacia Park, May 9, 2015I took some of the pictures and Ann took others.

Original Dairy Queen Sign 1955: So Says The Plaque

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Lombard, Ill. May 2015How many Dairy Queens have metal plaques on their side? I couldn’t say, but I did notice that the Dairy Queen across the street from the Maple Street Chapel, there at Maple St. and Main St. in Lombard, Ill., has one.

A fairly new plaque, by the looks of it. Someone on the Lombard Historical Commission, or maybe a committee of someones, decided that the Dairy Queen sign, vintage 1955, was worthy of note. I wasn’t in the mood to find just the right angle at which to get a full picture of the sign, especially since it meant crossing and recrossing a fairly busy street, or maybe standing in the street. But I did stand under the sign and snap the neon cone.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERABesides, the Internet can be counted on to provide pictures of original Dairy Queen signs in various parts of the North America, and sure enough here they are. Including the Lombard sign.

There’s a pair of benches next to the shop. We sat there and ate some ice cream.

The Mapel Street Chapel, Lombard

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We spent a little time in west suburban Lombard on Saturday, since it was a dry day among the many rainy ones lately, mainly to take in the pleasures of Lilacia Park in May, but also for a short walk nearby. I wanted to take another look at the Maple Street Chapel.

At the corner of Maple St. and Main St., which is about as Middle America nomenclature as you can get. Nearby streets are Willow, Ash, Elm and Hickory, and not far away are streets named for presidents.
Mapel Street ChapelIt’s been 145 years since the chapel replaced an earlier structure, lost to fire. At one time a Congregationalist congregation met in the building, but later it became part of The First Church of Lombard, which is UCC. In its early days, the structure also had various community functions as well, such as a school and library.

These days, the church members meet for regular services nearby, with the chapel hosting various events, such as a folk concert on Saturday we were too early to see. In fact, the building was closed, so we didn’t see the inside. Apparently it’s nice.

I like the steeple.
Maple Street Chapel, May 8, 2015Lightning hit it in 1994, knocking off the original cross. The replacement, I’ve read, also serves as a lightning rod.