Goodbye to Chicago

This is the last of my images from Chicago. And I think it's appropriate: getting into the taxi for the journey home. I took this outside the Hyatt Regency Chicago on East Wacker Drive, along the river. I really liked how the bellmen were reflected in the glass above their heads.

Anna Maria Alberghetti in a taxi, honey...

Thanks for indulging my little detour to the Windy City. In these dark winter months I tend not to have a lot of opportunity for interesting photos. It depends on the year, of course, and what's going on. But aside from the holiday markets I haven't got out much. We'll see what the coming weeks bring.

This is the sixteenth and final in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

Creative marketing

This statue is in the lobby of an office building in the Chicago Loop. I don't remember which one. I don't know what the statue is called or who sculpted it. But when I saw that someone put a Michael Jordan jersey on the statue, I just couldn't resist a photo.

Go Bulls!

The building was closed as it was Sunday. I took the picture through the glass windows of the lobby. I really like how the red of the jersey just makes the picture dynamic. Don't ask me to explain what I mean by that.

I think I have one more photo from Chicago that I want to share after this. Then I'll stop and we'll return to winter in France. You have been warned.

This is the fifteenth in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

It will always be the Sears to me

For now this is the tallest building in the United States at 108 floors and 442 meters. It was renamed in 2009 when a new tenant, Willis Group Holdings, Ltd. of London, obtained the naming rights in their lease negotiations. Sears' contract for the building's name had expired in 2003 (Sears sold the building in 1994, but kept the naming rights for a while).

I can't bring myself to call this the Willis Tower.

The tower was completed in 1974 and at that time it was the world's tallest building and remained so until 1998. I remember going up to the 103rd floor observation deck once, but I have no pictures from up there, so it must not have been in 1996 when I took the rest of this series. Besides, the new glass balconies were not yet installed then, so I have two good reasons to go back.

This is the fourteenth in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

Bullish on Chicago

We were in Chicago during the 1996 National Basketball Association (NBA) finals. Not on purpose; it just worked out that way. The Chicago Bulls hosted the Seattle SuperSonics for a best of seven series. The Bulls were a real hot team in those days and their star player, Michael Jordan, was about as big as you could get.

A menacing Chicago Bull reflected in downtown glass.

The streets were full of "Go Bulls" kinds of things, including this giant inflated bull on top of one of the buildings in the Loop. I caught its head reflected in some glass windows on a nearby building. It just occurred to me that this may have been somewhere near the Chicago Board of Trade and may have had nothing to do with The Bulls, but with the commodities market. Hmmm.

At any rate, the Bulls won the series four games to two and became national champions that year.

This is the thirteenth in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

Under the "L"

Chicago's mass transit system is referred to as the "L." I think this comes from the word "elevated," as much of the system runs on elevated right-of-way through the city. According to my brief research, the "L" is the second oldest and second longest rail mass transit system in the United States (after the NYC subway) and the third busiest system (after NYC and Washington DC Metro).

I really liked the pattern of the shadows on the bridge's roadway surface.

The most distinctive feature of the "L" is the downtown Loop, around which most of the system's lines run in the center of Chicago. I took this photo somewhere on the edge of the loop on a bridge across the river. I don't remember exactly where, but it could be either North Wells Street or West Lake Street. If any of you recognize it, please let me know.

This is the twelfth in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

The north branch

Of the Chicago River, that is. This shot is taken from the confluence of the three main branches of the river. I think I was standing on Wacker Drive looking roughly north and a little west. The bridge that's open is the Kinzie Street railroad bridge (apparently it's no longer in use and is now locked permanently in the open position) and the lighter colored closed bridge is West Kinzie Street.

Not a typical view of Chicago. This is the North Branch of Chicago River in 1996.

The curious thing about the Chicago river is that engineers reversed its flow in the nineteenth century by building the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. This connected Chicago and the Great Lakes to the Des Plains River and on to the the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Before that, the river drained into Lake Michigan. Now it flows the other way, except for the North Branch that continues to flow southward.

Confused? Wait until you see the river dyed green on Saint Patrick's Day.

This is the eleventh in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

The Adler planetarium

I love planetariums. Or should that be planetaria? My Webster's Unabridged says both are correct. When I was in school, one of my classes took a day trip to New York to visit the Hayden planetarium in Central Park, the one that was subsequently seen in Woody Allen's movie Manhattan. I was mesmerized. And amazed at that double-headed projector they used to put the stars up on the domed ceiling.

The Adler planetarium before its 1999 expansion.

I've also been to sky shows in the planetarium at the Palais de la découverte in Paris. And I think I've been to one or two other planetariums, but I can't remember where. I haven't seen a show inside this one, however. It's Chicago's Adler planetarium. I did walk in and look at the exhibits back in 1996, but didn't have the time to reserve a spot in the theater.

I read that the Adler is the oldest planetarium in the western hemisphere having been built in 1930 (five years before New York's Hayden). Three years after I was there, the museum expanded and added a third theater. I haven't been to a planetarium show since 1982, so I'm overdue!

This is the tenth in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

Chicago's Navy Pier

Where do I begin with such a place? Especially when I've never really explored it. I think we walked out to the end and had a beer in a café (or maybe it was called a beer garden) once. But I've never been to any of the attractions on the pier, and there are many.

A view of the entrance to Chicago's Navy Pier.

The pier was built in 1916 and reaches out over a kilometer into Lake Michigan. It was originally planned as part of a larger waterfront development and as a center for shipping and warehousing activities. It served as a military base during the first World War and was subsequently named "Navy Pier."

Today it is a vast public space filled with attractions that include a giant Ferris wheel, a children's museum, an IMAX theater, parks, gardens, restaurants, and general exhibition halls. It's also the embarkation point for numerous lake cruise operators. Quite an impressive place at 200,000 square meters (more than 50 acres).

This is the ninth in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

A smurf building

Not really. It has forty-one floors and tops out at one hundred seventy-seven meters, so it's not one of the taller buildings in Chicago (although it's almost as tall as the tallest building in my home town). It is, however, one of the more distinctive bits of architecture in the city because of its slanted diamond-shaped roof.

Smurfit-Stone's distinctive slanted roof looks like it's been slashed through the middle.

It's called the Smurfit-Stone building (completed in 1983), home to a large container and packaging corporation. The building's prominent location on Michigan Avenue makes it easy to identify from Grant Park which, if my memory serves, is where I was when I took this picture.

This is the eighth in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

Shouldn't he be walking on the water?

Like I said in a previous post, watching the people on the lakefront trail in Chicago is entertainment in and of itself. I wasn't there long enough to see Elvis go by, but I did get to see Jesus. I never realized that he had such a small, uh, cross.

Jesus schlepped.

I also noticed his stylish work boots and Jesus jeans. This was a hot summer day. Christ, he must have been suffering under all that. But hey, that's his shtick, isn't it? Lordy.

This is the seventh in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

A couple of points

There are two similarly distinctive towers on Chicago's central waterfront. Each is a residential tower and each has the word "point" in its name: Harbor Point and Lake Point. The former is the newer, completed in 1972. It stands 168 meters tall with 54 floors.

Harbor Point (center) and Lake Point Tower (right) on Chicago's waterfront.

The latter (and in my opinion the more graceful of the two) was completed in 1968. Its 70 floors reach up to 197 meters. I read that it has the distinction of being one of the shortest buildings with so many floors. Lake Point Tower is also the only skyscraper that stands east of Lake Shore Drive.

I just noticed that most of my Chicago pictures are taken in "portrait" mode as opposed to "landscape" mode. That's a testament to the verticality of this city. Or at least to the way I saw the city in 1996.

This is the sixth in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

Moving right along

The Chicago lakefront is amazing. There is so much going on, and that's just downtown. This is part of the lakefront trail looking northward from near the Oak Street Beach. Walk, jog, skate, or bike, the choice is yours!

Those trees you see are in Lincoln Park, north of downtown. Click to lakeshorify.

You can also choose, as I did, to just sit and watch all the people go by. It was an amazing show. And the backdrops: on one side the vast blue of Lake Michigan and on the other the grand wall of the Chicago skyline.

This is the fifth in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

The gang's all here

On the day in June '96 when I walked around downtown Chicago with my camera, I stumbled upon a festival parade. I don't remember what it was commemorating, but it was colorful and joyfully noisy. I was along the river, I remember, trying to cross both the river and a street (Wacker Drive?) through the crowd.

Carmen, is that you?

I made it. And along the way I saw these people taking a break from the fun. Outfits like this make me think of Carmen Miranda. Or at least that one number she did in that one movie that made her an icon in a fruity hat.

This is the fourth in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

A trio from the twenties

Each of these three Chicago landmark buildings was completed in the 1920s. That's right, the 1920s, the era of Chicago's infamous gangs and Al Capone. It won't be long before all that is "a hundred years ago." Time flies.

Early skyscrapers were quite ornate with amazing pinnacles in the sky.

From left to right are the InterContinental Hotel with its interesting onion dome, completed in 1929, the Wrigley Building of chewing gum fame, built in 1924, and the gothic-style Tribune Tower which dates from 1925. Those were the days of glamorous skyscrapers that dared to approach the lofty height of forty floors (in fact, the InterContinental Hotel has forty-two). Yes, there were taller buildings (like the Woolworth in NYC), but they were few.

Can you tell that I was an architecture student? Always looking up at buildings. I'll try to mix it up a bit in the coming days.

This is the third in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

The John Hancock Center

Once the tallest building in Chicago and the United States, the striking John Hancock Center's rank has fallen to fourth and sixth, respectively. It currently ranks as the twenty-seventh tallest building in the world. No matter, the Hancock Center's design with its exterior X-bracing makes it distinctive among the world's skyscrapers.

The John Hancock Center (right) with its distinctive bracing and twin antennas.

I once heard that those of the building's seven hundred condominiums that include a diagonal brace element in their windows actually went for a higher price than those that don't. I can't verify that it's true, but it sounds like a good marketing ploy. In addition to condos, the one hundred story building includes offices and restaurants.

I've been up in the observation deck once and to one of the incarnations of a bar up top another time. When we went up to the bar, the welcome was less than warm. Obviously the bar is a popular tourist destination, and it was very crowded. The staff made the crowded conditions worse by treating us and others as if we were bothering them. They made it clear that they thought we were privileged to be allowed to spend our money there. We didn't stay long.

Still, it's a pretty neat building (notice the use of highly technical architectural terminology there).

This is the second in a brief series of photos that I took while visiting Chicago in June 1996. They're 35mm color slides that I've scanned and digitized.

My kind of town

Chicago is. Since I don't have a lot of new photos of France right now, I thought I'd take us on a little trip down memory lane. In June 1996, Ken and I went to Chicago. He had a conference to attend and I tagged along for fun. While Ken worked, I ventured out and took pictures.

The top of Chicago's landmark Water Tower.

I didn't venture far, only in the loop and up Michigan Avenue a bit. I was on foot and it was hot and humid. But I had fun. Boy, would I love to go back and spend some more time exploring. Chicago has changed a lot since I first saw it in 1982. It's changed some more since these pictures were taken, nearly fifteen years ago now.

This first one is the famous Chicago Water Tower. It's up on Michigan Avenue and was built in 1869. It's one of the few buildings to survive the great fire of 1871. Its base, not in this picture, looks like some fantasy castle. I read on Wikipedia that its design inspired the architecture of the famous White Castle hamburger chain.

So get ready for a series of not-so-recent Chicago photos. These are all 35mm color slides that I'm scanning and digitizing. I am retouching them using Photoshop, mainly to crop and correct the color (the scanning process sometimes changes the original colors). Bear with me.