Category Archives: Suburban Chicago

Aurora Across the Millennia

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Behind the former Leland Hotel in Aurora is a spot called Millennium Plaza, dedicated on January 1, 2000. It has a nice view of the Fox River, but otherwise isn’t a very inspiring public space. There’s a large bell.

I looked around, but there’s no clue about the bell’s history or what it’s doing there. No doubt it has a history, and maybe an interesting one tied to Aurora’s story. Maybe the municipal committee responsible for creating the plaza ran out of money when it came time to commission a plaque or even a small sign for it.

A tower rises over the plaza.

Not a color or shape I would have chosen. But there it is. Apparently, if you stand at a certain spot not far away on a clear night, the tower will guide your eye to Polaris. The committee found money to add a plaque that explains that. Even though the plaque has been scratched up by bush-league vandals, I’m able to quote it at length.

Millennium Tower stands as Aurora’s Salute to the third millennium. It has brought the business and private sectors of the community together to leave a lasting gift to future generations of Aurora citizens.

Millennium Tower is constructed in a triangular form, with each side having its own plaza representing the past, present and future of Aurora. We enter the tower at Present Plaza, moving to the south and down, we stand on Past Plaza, and to the north and up, we stand on Future Plaza.

I have to say at this point that just wandering around the site as a casual visitor, there’s no sense that it’s divided into three parts, much less ones that sound so temporally disorienting. And not to pick nits — actually, I like picking this kind of nit — what’s the difference between the business and private sectors?

The tower’s orientation is true north. The upper angle of the tower is at 42.5 degrees. Standing on the granite stone at the entrance to the tower, one can sight at the peak of the tower to the North Star.

As the North Star has lead mankind into the future, so today we, the citizens of Aurora, dedicate Millennium Tower to the future generations of Aurorans to guide you into the future millenniums.

Wait, what? It’s interesting that the tower points to Polaris, I guess, though it’s one of easiest stars to find in the sky — the easiest — if you happen to be in the Northern Hemisphere. But what’s this about the North Star leading mankind into the future? As important as Polaris might be to navigation, and even considering that it shows up occasionally as a symbol of constancy in literature, what’s that supposed to mean?

Also, and here’s another nit, I suspect the planners of the tower had never heard of the precession of the equinoxes. That’s something that moves along at a millennial pace. We won’t live to see it, of course, but poor old Polaris won’t be the pole star forever — not even by the beginning of the fifth millennium.

Aurora itself might not last so long, but you never know. Whatever its current troubles, Damascus (for example) has been around a really long time, and probably has thousands of years to go. Aurora might even be a major city someday — where was it that became the capital of a large new empire in the fourth millennium in A Canticle for Leibowitz? Texarkana.

The Leland & The Aurora

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This fine building stands at 7 S. Stolp Ave. on Stolp Island in Aurora. The 1920s was clearly an age of  fine buildings, and we’re fortunate to still have so many in Chicago and environs.

Built as the Leland Hotel in 1928, it’s now Fox Island Place Apartments. A helpful plaque on the exterior wall told me that the structure is on the National Register of Historic Places. “Designed by Anker Sveere Graven and Arthur Guy Mayger… it was the tallest building in Illinois outside of Chicago.”

That seems like reaching to find a distinction, but never mind. “In addition to being a first-class hotel, it became an important entertainment center,” the plaque continued. “In the 1930s it was the recording studio for some of the most influential blues musicians of the golden age of blues recording. This plaque honors this historic building, and these artists.”

And it lists some of them. I will too, just as the plaque does. With some links. As the plaque cannot. Not yet, anyway.

John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson – Harmonica Legend

Big Bill Broonzy – Guitar/Singer

Hudson “Tampa Red” Whittaker – The Guitar Wizard

Yank Rachell – Mandolin

“Robert Night Hawk” Robert Lee McCoy – Guitar

Bill “Jazz” Gillam – Harmonica

Big Joe Williams – Guitar

Washboard Sam – Washboard

Lester Melrose – Producer

Across the street from the former Leland is the former Aurora Hotel, now the North Island Apartments. It dates from 1917 and is also a nice bit of work.

Not, as far as I can tell, where bluesmen hung out. A simpler plaque on the building says that one H. Ziegler Dietz was the original architect; hope his commissions didn’t dry up because of the war. The redevelopment architect in 1998 was Carl R. Klimek & Associates.

On Stolp Island

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I took pictures at the western end of the New York Street Memorial Bridge in Aurora, but naturally I had to walk across it too. Or at least across the western section of the bridge to Stolp Island, because I didn’t realize at that moment that the eastern section of the bridge counted as part of the same bridge.

HistoricBridges.org explains: “The New York Street Memorial Bridge is technically a single bridge spanning the entire river. However, in the 1960s, fill was brought in to expand the island northward, and the center of the bridge was buried in the fill. Today, a parking garage is located south of the former center of the bridge and a casino is located north of the former center of the bridge.”

I made it as far that former center of the bridge, where I saw a plaque dedicated to Gen. Pershing.

It looks like it was tacked on to the parking garage, but the plaque came first, put there in 1960 for Pershing’s centennial (about 12 years after he died). Not far away was a bas-relief, flanked by eagles. I didn’t see a sign describing the work, but it’s safe to say it honors the ordinary soldiers of the Great War.

Across the street, in front of the casino, is the statue “Victory.”

“The Chicago Architectural Bronze Company manufactured the bronze tablets and light fixtures. Roman Bronze Works of New York City cast the bridge’s crowning central figure of Victory,” according to HistoricBridges.org.

Does anyone entering the casino mistake her for Lady Luck? Of course, Lady Luck doesn’t spend much time in a casino, however much gamblers want her to. Or maybe she does, but hews more closely to Fortuna, who inspired both good and bad luck. I think Dame Probability runs the joint – and she’s always on the side of the house.

The New York Street Memorial Bridge

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On Saturday afternoon, I got a good look at the New York Street Memorial Bridge in Aurora, Illinois, which spans the Fox River.

My vantage for this image was from the Fox River Trail, next to the river. The bridge connects the west bank of the river to a large island — large enough, in fact, that a good bit of downtown Aurora is built on it — and then another section of the bridge (not pictured) connects the island with the east bank of the river. The building in the background is the Hollywood Aurora Casino, which is located on the northern tip of the island — Stolp Island, to use its euphonious name.

HistoricBridges.org tells me that “the New York Street Memorial Bridge was designed as a memorial to World War I veterans. The bridge is far more than a typical memorial bridge where a simple memorial plaque is placed on the bridge. Instead, the bridge displays a truly beautiful design where the bridge itself is the memorial. At each end of the bridge, a concrete statue titled ‘Memory’ rises up above the railings at the westernmost and easternmost pier points.”

This is one of the “Memory” statues. At the base of this statue — and I suppose the other three, though I didn’t check — is a plaque. Oddly, its language doesn’t explicitly memorialize those who fought in WWI, but considering the date on the plaque, those who built the bridge probably assumed that everyone would know who it was for. The plaque says:

MEMORIAL BRIDGE

Aurora – Illinois

1930-1931

Be this memorial forever dedicated to the defenders of American ideals; as a reverent memory to the departed; as a vivid tribute to the living; and as a patriotic challenge to posterity, that these ideals shall not perish. Anon.”

More from HistoricBridges.org: “The bridge was originally proposed and designed by Aurora City Engineer Walter E. Deuchler, but citizens then requested the bridge be a memorial bridge and so Emory Seidel and Karl Miller of Seidel Studios of Chicago… were hired to redesign the proposed bridge as the memorial bridge seen today.”

More about the bridge is at the site, including information from the National Register Historic District nomination form.

A closer look at “Memory.”

Posterity drives and walks by her every day. Who sees her as anything more than a bridge ornament? A few, perhaps. Could be that “Memory” has mostly been forgotten.

Dog v. Skunk

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We usually let the dog out in the back yard one more time before we go to bed, and usually she isn’t very noisy. There isn’t much to stimulate her barking – nobody walking their dogs in the park behind our fence, no active squirrels or birds, no kids playing. But one recent night she cut loose and made a lot of noise.

Barking isn’t something that should come from your yard at 11 p.m. or midnight, so I went to bring her in. She was focused on the edge of the deck, snout down, pawing the ground. Something was under the deck. At first I thought the raccoon – a raccoon – had returned, since one seemed to live there for a little while a few years ago. Then I smelled skunk.

I really wanted to get her in. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. By then the reek of skunk was pretty strong. It turned out the dog hadn’t been sprayed directly, or at least the understructure of the deck caught most of it. Good thing, since the dog smells like dog and needs to smell no worse. Soon the stink wafted faintly into the house. It was gone by morning, except for the deck, which still smells of skunk, though not that much (the rest of family feels that it’s more powerful that I do, though).

About 20 minutes later, as I was in bed reading, I heard barking from elsewhere. As I’ve said, that’s fairly rare, but I think it was the dogs a couple of houses down from us, having their own encounter with the skunk.

Summertime Samosa

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Saw the streak of a firefly over my lawn this evening. First one of the year. That and twilight at about 9 p.m. mark the coming of high summer. Even so, I can feel June slipping away. Wish this sweetest of months could linger a little longer.

Before adopting our dog, I wouldn’t have guessed how important windows were to her. She’s a tall dog when she stands on her hind legs, and can see out of some of our windows – and spends a lot of time doing just that. One of the windows she fancies is easy to see from the driveway, and sometimes as I pass that window in my car, headed for the garage, I see the glint of two canine eyes.

Impulse purchase of the week (of the month?): Regal Chowk’s Punjabi Samosa, which seems to be made by an entity called Anarkali in Pakistan. Basic searches tell of a folk heroine from Lahore called Anarkali, who’s appeared in books, plays and movies made on the subcontinent, but I’m too lazy to look into that any further right now.

Anyway, these samosa are in the frozen foods section of your neighborhood grocery store, or at least one of my nearby grocery stores, since there’s a fairly large population here in the northwest suburbs who are from, or whose parents are from, South Asia. The first place I ever had samosa was on Devon Ave. in Chicago years ago, as an appetizer, and I’ve enjoyed them now and then ever since. Fresh is going to be hard to beat, but I thought I’d give these a try. Might be surprised.

Lilacia Park ’13

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It’s been a while since we visited Lilacia Park in Lombard, Ill., at the height of lilac blossoming. It’s been six years, in fact. I wouldn’t have guessed quite that long. On Saturday I thought it was time to visit again.

I’m glad we went. For the profusion of lilacs, if no other reason. Make that two reasons: their fine sweet smell, which the picture can’t convey.

The tulips aren’t too shabby, either.

It was a flawless spring day, warm but not hot. Yet the park wasn’t jammed with flower seekers, though it was hardly empty. It’s a little-known jewel of the suburbs.