The Former McLean County Courthouse

Posted on January 31, 2023 by admin

Now we’re in the pit of winter. Temps last night and into the morning dipped below zero Fahrenheit for some hours and didn’t rise much higher than positive single digits afterward. As of posting time, it’s 3 degrees F. hereabouts. But at least the roads aren’t iced over, as they are in parts of the South.

As far as I’m concerned, zero Fahrenheit is the gold standard for cold, as 100 F. is for heat. Thus demonstrating the genius of Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit when it came to thermometry, though I don’t disparage those other men of science, Anders Celsius or William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin or even William Rankine.

Temps (F) weren’t quite as cold when I took Ann back to Normal on Sunday, and there was no snow, so the traveling along I-55 was easy enough. Once I’d dropped her off, I took note of the fact that it was still light. So I headed to downtown Bloomington, where I’ve spent some wintertime moments, and took a look at the former McLean County Courthouse, now home to the McLean County Museum of History.

Impressive. Design credit is given to a Peoria firm, Reeves and Baillie, who were busy in their time, it seems.

This is the third – or fourth – building on the site, depending on whether you count the restoration following a major fire 1900 (the small image is post-fire). Whatever the count, the building took its current form in the first years of the 20th century, and remained an actual courthouse until 1976.

For the last 30 years or so, the museum has occupied all four floors of the place. Ann told me she and some friends went there one day earlier this semester and found it worth the visit. I would have gone in, but it’s closed on Sundays. So I had to content myself with the sights to be seen circumambulating the building.

Such as war memorials.

It took considerably longer to get around to this one.

In Illinois, Lincoln Was Here plaques are plentiful.

Looks like Lincoln is still in Bloomington. Bronze Lincoln anyway, and those are plentiful in the Land of Lincoln too. Of course they are.

By local artist Rick Harney and dedicated in 2000. That’s the bearded, presidential Lincoln, so one that never actually would have made an appearance in Bloomington, but never mind. Lincoln is Lincoln.

Vestiges of Marshall Field’s

Posted on January 12, 2023 by admin

Back to posting on January 17, out of respect to the legacy of Dr. King, because a holiday’s a holiday, and also since it’s nice to have a little time off not long after a sizable stretch of holidays, which can be a bit tiring.

We’re just ahead the pit of winter, but for now anyway the weather isn’t that bad. “Pit” is an inexact term, of course, but I think of it as the last week of January and the first one of February, more or less. Since the Christmas freeze, temps have been more moderate, but I expect another gelid blast sometime soon.

The following is a reminder that, once upon a time, department stores were the disruptors.

“The development of the department store posed a serious threat to smaller retailers,” explains the Encyclopedia of Chicago. “Many small merchants tried to rally the public against the new behemoths, but they failed to gain much support. Rather than rally to the side of traditional merchants, Chicago shoppers embraced the new form of retail.

“The opening of the new Marshall Field’s State Street store in 1902, only a few years after anti–department store protests, signaled that this newer type of institution had won the admiration of consumers. The opening was a sensational event, and the store decided not to start selling items on its first day of business so that more of the eager public would be able to pass through.”

Ah, if only passing through the building were quite as awe-inspiring here in the fraught 21st century. Still, a visit has its moments of visual splendor. If you look up.

I need to spend more time looking this masterpiece. In person, I mean. Closer views are available on higher floors, but it’s a wow even from the ground floor. Worth the crick you might get putting your neck in just the right position to see it.

“The highlight of the Marshall Field store was the Tiffany Dome (1907), a glass mosaic covering six thousand square feet, six floors high,” EOC says.

Not just any glass, but a special kind of glass that Tiffany & Co. had just invented. State-of-the-Victorian-art amorphous solids in a glassy myriad of hues, in other words.

The Marshall Field Building’s other yawning space – a building that takes up a city block has ample room for yawning spaces – is worth the uplook too.

A building of this kind also has a practically limitless supply of engaging detail. Some of it is literally underfoot, and by literally, I mean literally.

Back on the seventh floor, not long after noon, we wandered through a not particularly busy clutch of quick-service restaurants. At some point, department store management erased the longstanding and high-quality casual food service in the basement, and reconfigured parts of the seventh floor for food service.

Near the restaurants is a corner with floor-to-ceiling windows. Hard to pass those up, so we didn’t. We took in the views from northwest corner of the building.

Looking north on State St.

Looking west on Washington St.

A few years ago, the ornate venue originally known as the Oriental Theatre, which started as a 1920s movie palace, took a new name, Nederlander. After theater impresario James M. Nederlander (d. 2016). Doesn’t he count as a New Yorker? Guess his company would argue that it is national, as indeed it is.

Elsewhere on the seventh floor is a pocket-sized, plain hallway with a small exhibit of figures from Marshall Field Christmas windows on State Street, which were as much holiday tradition at the store as decorating the Walnut Room or hiring a Santa Claus, with thousands of Chicagoans and tourists seeing the windows every year and developing fond memories of the place.

As recently as 2015, the windows were inventive expressions of the window designers’ art.

The items on display in the hall aren’t particularly old: most are from this century. Such as from 2004.

2006.

A luminous creation from 2005.

I could write more – say, 1000 words – contrasting these artifacts with the 2022 State Street Christmas windows, but I don’t need to. Here’s one of the storied windows this Christmastime.

One could take the current owners of the building to task for this diminished creativity, but it isn’t the cause of anything, only a symptom.

I can’t end on that sour note.

While taking pictures at an elegantly decorated part of the seventh floor, I caught an image of a passing lass, elegant as her surroundings.

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.

Capitol Mall & Old Sacramento Stroll

Posted on November 1, 2022 by admin

One place to go from the California state capitol is down Capitol Mall, a boulevard that generally heads west-northwest from that building to the Sacramento River three-quarters of a mile or so away.

The view down the Mall from the capitol.

The yellow-gold structure in the distance is Tower Bridge, which I decided was my destination that afternoon, on my last full day in California. The day was very warm, but I had a hat (acquired at Joshua Tree NP) and a bottle of water.

U.S. Bank Tower (621 Capitol Mall), an HOK glasswork, rises 25 stories over the street, making it the second-tallest building in the city.

I liked the blue tones of Bank of the West Tower, 500 Capitol Mall, designed by E.M. Kado and started construction in 2007, just ahead of the panic.

There are bears in front.

Another excellent styling, I thought: Emerald Tower, 300 Capitol Mall, an ’80s building designed by DMJM (pronounced Dim-Jim). It was a go-go decade for office development, after all, and this was one of the fruits of that era.

Soon the Tower Bridge was well within view, near One Capitol Mall.

An excellent bridge.

Built in the 1930s, the distinctive golden color is actually much newer than that: 2002.

I wanted to walk across it — walk across bridges when you can — and so I did, even though as a vertical lift bridge, there was a chance I’d be stuck on the other side for a while. But I made it across and back without the lifting-bridge alarm bells sounding, and I even got a view of Old Sacramento on the riverfront.

In full, Old Sacramento State Historic Park. It’s a renovated tourist district these days, with restaurants, shops and a few museums, but of course it was a working riverfront in the 19th century. Actually, I suppose it’s merely doing a different kind of work in our time.

Not to forget the good ship Delta King, built in 1927 and docked at Old Sacramento.

Except it isn’t really a ship anymore, but a floating hotel with restaurants and a theater. Popular as a wedding venue, too.

Delta King used to ply the Sacramento River to San Francisco and back as a passenger ferry. After its days as a ferry were over, it suffered the usual period of neglect and shifting ownership, but was renovated closer to our time. It’s a remarkable story.

The California State Capitol

Posted on October 31, 2022 by admin

Halloween looked the part this afternoon: cool and misty, almost clammy. By dark, 22 kids had come by. Twenty-two in ’22. We gave away full-sized candy bars.

This isn’t the California State Capitol.

Such is the zeitgeist that someone, somewhere could claim that it is, and that nefarious persons — lizard people, even — are up to no good inside, and it would have some chance of being believed, at least by a fraction of the population.

I won’t be that person. That’s the Golden 1 Center. It happens to be in Sacramento too, and I happened to see it. I will say that it has some interesting detail.

Design by AECOM and Mark Dziewulski Architect, the arena was completed only in 2016 and is home of the Sacramento Kings, a team originally formed 99 years ago as the Rochester Seagrams. The development of Golden 1 Center was a “long-running and convoluted… drama,” according to the Sacramento Bee.

Anyway, this is the state capitol of California. It has interesting detail of its own.

San Francisco architect Reuben S. Clark, clearly inspired by the U.S. Capitol, designed the building, which was constructed between 1861 and ’74. Sacramento had been state capital since 1854, apparently picked as a midway point between where the action was in early U.S. California, namely the Sierra Nevada gold fields to the east and the port of San Francisco to the west.

The building is currently undergoing renovation. The park behind the capitol, which takes up many whole city blocks, was entirely closed off by a temporary wall (ah, that’s where the lizard people are scheming).

Too bad. I hear it’s quite a park. But Lilly and I could get into the capitol itself, via a temporary covered walkway through a construction site, and through metal detectors.

If there’s a rotunda, the thing to do is look up at it.

State capitols tend to feature portraits of governors, and California is no different. Some are more recognizable than others, though I imagine even Arnold’s fame will fade over the coming decades.

On the other hand, Minerva isn’t likely to fade from her fame among classicists, eccentrics and a few schoolchildren.

Minerva and not Athena because the signs with this depiction of state seal (mounted in the capitol) called her Minerva, and besides, Athena has been associated with another place for thousands of years.

A few other details about the seal. The bear is a California grizzly which, despite being important to California symbolism, was hunted to extinction. There are 31 stars, the state being the 31st to join the union. A miner toils for gold, and ships connect California to the rest of the world in the early days.

Why Minerva? She was born fully an adult from Jupiter’s brow. As for California, it was born fully a state, skipping territorial status.

Carson City & The Nevada State Capitol

Posted on October 23, 2022 by admin

When visiting a place like Carson City, Nevada, you wonder how many other places are named after Kit Carson. That’s the kind of fleeting question that occurs to me, anyway, and sometimes I remember to look it up later.

I like the conciseness of Britannica on the matter, though it’s short on facts: “Carson’s name is preserved variously throughout the Southwest, including Nevada’s capital at Carson City; Fort Carson, Colorado; and Carson Pass in California.”

The National Park Service has naught to say about the mountain man’s naming legacy, so of course the place to go is Wikipedia. All easily checked facts, grouped in one place.

“Carson National Forest in New Mexico was named for him, as well as a county and a town in Colorado. A river and valley in Nevada are named for Carson as well as the state’s capital, Carson City. The Carson Plain in southwest Arizona was named for him.

“Kit Carson Peak, Colorado in the Sangre de Cristo range, Kit Carson Mesa in Colfax County, New Mexico, and Carson Pass in Alpine county, California, were named for him.

“Fort Carson, Colorado, an army post near Colorado Springs, was named after him during World War II by the popular vote of the men training there… Innumerable streets, businesses, and lesser geographical features were given his name.”

Apparently, so was Kit Carson Park in Taos, NM, and a recent move to change it was defeated for interesting reasons.

In Carson City, you can see the bronze Kit. He passed this way in the early 1840s, when he was guiding John C. Fremont.

The inscription: 1843-44, Kit Carson by Buckeye Blake, Commissioned by Truett and Eula Loftin. The Loftins, former casino owners in Carson City, donated the work to the state in 1989.

The statue is on the grounds of the Nevada state capitol, along with an unusual plaque imparting geographic information about Carson’s visits to the future state of Nevada.

Nearby is a man without any national fame, Abraham Curry.

His nickname locally is the “Father of Carson City.” Kit might have passed this way, but Curry stayed. Among many other things, he gave the state the 10 acres on which the capitol stands.

The capitol is a handsome structure, and wouldn’t look out of place as a county courthouse back east. If it were behind scaffolding.

The landscaping is unusual for a capitol, which tend to be clear of trees. Not so for Nevada.

Designed by Joseph Gosling of San Francisco, who is known for a scattering of works. The capitol, completed in 1871, wasn’t always surrounded by trees, such as about 150 years ago.

Inside, no metal detectors, though there is a uniformed officer at the desk. There’s also a bronze of Sara Winnemucca Hopkins.

There are a few of the design elements you see in U.S. capitols, but on the whole the capitol is restrained.

One space is given over to museum exhibits.

Featuring a number of artifacts you aren’t likely to see anywhere else.

This is Guy Shipler (1913-96), once dean of the capitol press corps. Good to see a journalist honored.

The capitol is on N. Carson St. I took a stroll down that street and a couple of connecting streets. A number of state buildings cluster around Carson St. These days, this building houses the Nevada Department of Tourism.

Dating from 1891 as a federal edifice, it has variously been home to the Carson City Post Office, Land Office, Weather Bureau and U.S. District Court.

A few other Carson City buildings pleasing to the eye.

The Nevada State Museum includes this building, the former Carson City Mint. It was closed for Monday.

It’s important (to me) to list the coin types made there from 1870 to ’93. In silver: Seated Liberty dimes, 20-cent pieces, Seated Liberty quarters, half dollars, and dollars, Trade dollars and Morgan dollars. In gold: Half Eagles, Eagles and Double Eagles.

St. John’s Lutheran Church, Milwaukee

Posted on September 28, 2022 by admin

What do we think of when we think of Milwaukee, the result of years of history but also modern lore, only a part of which involves anything as consciously planned as advertising? Beer.

Found on a wall at a food court at the former Pabst Brewery complex.

What do I think of? Beer, yes, but also the astonishing number of large churches for such a mid-sized city. Every time I go there now, I see at least one I hadn’t seen before, inside and out.

Such as St. John’s Lutheran Church, which has been a congregation since 1848. A year of mass movement of Germans out of Germany, for sure, though I imagine most of the original congregants were Germans already in Milwaukee. It was the last place in town that we saw as part of this year’s Doors Open event, arriving in the mid-afternoon on Sunday.

The current church building dates from 1890, a design by Herman Schnetzky and Eugene Liebert, two German architects who came to Milwaukee in the late 19th century.

Inside, a curious feature: lights running along the ceiling arches, added in the early 20th century. Over 800 bulbs, I read. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in a church. Adds more than a touch of luminosity to the place.

The altar, hand-carved in Germany long ago.

Four prophets from the Old Testament: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.

Those were the west transept windows. The east windows featured Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

An organist was practicing on the church’s sizable organ, a 2,500-pipe instrument. He had a nice touch.

The pastor was also around — a young man, maybe no more than 30, and not long out of seminary. Had a nice chat with him about the church and a bit about the various Lutheran groups, which I can never quite keep track of. A synod here and a synod there. He seemed like a personable fellow, which you really ought to be if you go into that line of work.

Doors Open Milwaukee ’22

Posted on September 26, 2022 by admin

My brother Jay is in town for a visit, and part of the visit included heading up to Milwaukee on Sunday for the Doors Open event.

Except for rain late in the afternoon, it was a fine cool day for gallivanting around, looking at buildings. First we went to the Basilica of St. Josaphat and then the Tripoli Shrine Temple, owned by the Shriners.

I decided to take a few detail shots at the temple, such as the top of a door handle, wall décor and a hanging bit of masonic symbolism.

Plus something to remember the guide by.

From there we sought lunch, which we found — takeout, so we had it in the car — from a place on Wisconsin Ave., east of Marquette U. Breakfast food for lunch.

Also on Wisconsin Ave., the main Milwaukee Public Library branch was part of the event, but unfortunately not on Sunday, so we didn’t get in. The sign shouldn’t have been left up.

Later in the afternoon, we spent time looking around the site of the former Pabst Brewery complex, now handsomely redeveloped, and capped things off with a visit to St. John’s Lutheran Church. The last two of those were new even to me. Though not that big, Milwaukee is dense with sights.

On the way home, we couldn’t very well pass up a short visit to Mars Cheese Castle.

The rain was done by then, leaving a rainbow over the Interstate.

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.

Downtown Fort Wayne

Posted on July 7, 2022 by admin

RIP, Will Friend. I didn’t know him well, but did meet him at events over the years, and we got along. I didn’t realize he was quite that young.

Toward the end of the afternoon on Saturday, we took a walk in downtown Fort Wayne. Not long after parking the car, this caught our attention.

Not just any pedestrian bridge, but the historic Wells Street Bridge over the St. Marys River. A sign on the 1884 truss bridge names the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Akron, Ohio, as the bridgebuilder.

For nearly 100 years, vehicular traffic crossed the bridge, but in 1982 it became a pedestrian walkway. A view from the bridge, toward a less-developed part of the city.

After you cross the bridge, there is another elevated walkway, this one over a small section of riverbank. The blue building in the background is a block of riverside apartments, under construction. Move to Fort Wayne, young members of the laptop class. While rents don’t exactly seem cheap there — I don’t think anywhere counts as that anymore — there have to better deals than in the large cities.

The walk offers a view of the Fort Wayne — skyline isn’t quite the word. A view of a few larger buildings in the background, with Promenade Park in the foreground. We soon rested a while at that park, lounging around on iron chairs at an iron table, drinking soda. Rest: always an essential part of any walkabout.

Occasional party boats ply the St. Marys.

Away from the river is Freimann Square, home of the aforementioned Anthony Wayne statue, as well as a fountain and flower beds.

Not far is the Allen County Courthouse, designed around the turn of the 20th century by Hoosier architect Brentwood Tolan.

The figure on top, I’ve read, is a copper Lady Liberty that turns, as a vane does, with the wind.

A few decades pass and you get art deco. In this case, the Lincoln Bank Tower, another of those structures started just in time — 1929. Design by another Hoosier architect, Alvin Strauss.
It could have been the German American Bank Tower, but for some hard-to-figure reason the bank changed its name in 1918.

The Japanese Friendship Garden, on a tenth of an acre near the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, was gift of one of Fort Wayne’s sister cities, Takaoka. I had to look it up, even though I probably passed through it on a train the fall we went to Hida-Takayama. I suspect most Japanese, faced with the name Fort Wayne, would have to look it up, too.

The museum was closed when we got there, but the garden is always open. Bonus: the garden also features a 2002 time capsule under a rock, slated for a 2027 opening.

Elsewhere downtown: Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Dating from 1860, it is the oldest church building in Fort Wayne, with its Gothic design attributed to Rev. Msgr. Julian Benoit.

Vigil mass was about to start, but we got a peek.

It isn’t the only sizable church around. A few blocks away is St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Not open. Too bad, looks like quite a looker inside.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Architecture