Category Archives: Been There

Lakeshore East Park

Posted on by

I attended an event recently at the Swissôtel Chicago, which is downtown east of Michigan Ave. When it was over, instead of emerging from the front of the hotel on Wacker Dr., I exited at by a back door, planning to walk to Union Station. It had been a long time since I’d walked through the East Loop. So long, in fact, that I’d never seen this park.

Lakeshore East Park, the centerpiece of a mixed-use redevelopment called Lakeshore East — note the residential properties ringing the park. I reported on its beginnings about 10 years ago, but hadn’t thought much about it since my old magazine, Real Estate Chicago, went under. The developers managed to finish a lot of Lakeshore East before commercial development mostly ground to a halt in 2008, but not all of the proposed buildings. The six-acre park park opened in 2005. Needs a snappier name, I think.

Supposedly it’s the only Chicago park with a free wireless signal, but I didn’t test that. February’s about the worst time to linger in a park. No one else was around, either. Bet the place will be busier as it greens up.

This fountain ought to be running by then, too.

This tray of rocks is one of several along a sidewalk running through the park. I expect water will return when it’s warm enough not to freeze.

Keep it to Yourself, Passengers

Posted on by

I don’t ride in Chicago cabs that often, but recently I did. And I happened to have my camera handy.

I  noticed a charge I’d never seen before. That’s because it’s only been possible for cabbies to levy a vomit clean-up fee since July 1 of last year. There’s a long, gross history of drunks in cabs behind that fee, I figure. Wonder if anyone’s actually been able to collect $50 from someone drunk enough to throw up in a cab.

The Presiding Bishop

Posted on by

I looked at the back of this card the other day, since it was a February item, and I discovered it’s been five years since I saw the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori in person. Just another tempus fugit moment.

The back of the card says: Commemorating the visit of the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, to St. Nichols Episcopal Church, Elk Grove Village, Illinois, February 3, 2008.

On an ordinary Sunday in the dead of winter, it’s hard to get out of the house, but how often do you get to see a presiding bishop? Not often, I figured. Lilly and I went.

She’s still in office, which has a curious nine-year term, though there’s probably an arcane reason for it. I’ve always thought the title didn’t have much zing to it, not like those some other Anglican primates get. Just to the north, for example, is the “Primate of Canada,” which used to be “Primate of All Canada,” which is cooler still. Even “Prime Bishop” would be better.

Sledding ’13

Posted on by

Now that snow’s on the ground, a few inches anyway, the girls wanted to go sledding. So I took them to the catchment where they’ve been sledding for years — except for last year, when snow covered the ground only for a few days, and they didn’t get around to it.

It made me recall fond old memories of sledding as a child… actually, no. I never did that. Snow was in short supply in South Texas from the late ’60s to the late ’70s. And so was the equipment necessary to slide down a slope, in case we ever got any snow.

Anyway, a Nashvillian friend of mine took me sledding for the first time ever when I was 22, in Nashville, during one of its snow events, which happened once or twice a winter. That was a good time, but probably not the thrill of being a small child on a sled.

I didn’t get any good pictures of the girls in motion, like I have before. But I did take one or two that I liked.

Chance Encounter With an Elected Official

Posted on by

After attending an event this morning, I walked through downtown from Trump Chicago to Union Station, aiming to catch a 10:30 train. Time was a little tight. My route took me by the State of Illinois Building (Thompson Center), where I notice a large DHL truck parked outside. Glancing inside the building and its enormous atrium, I noticed a wall of DHL boxes.

Not something you see every day. Or ever, come to think of it. Train or no train, I had to get a closer look at that. On the other side of the boxes, I saw a small crowd of people, and a few TV cameras. Some kind of event was going on.

So I peaked around the DHL wall and saw a man giving a speech. He was lauding a thing called Pizza4Patriots, which ships pizza to soldiers on occasions such as the Super Bowl, with the assistance of DHL.

He looked awfully familiar. Then it hit me. That was Gov. Quinn, doing the ceremonial part of his job. I’d never seen him in person before. Curiously, today’s the fourth anniversary of him succeeding his (now) imprisoned predecessor, Gov. Putz.

Boerne Ramble ’79

Posted on by

Sleet came down this afternoon, followed by heavy rain. It’s still raining, last time I looked. Or maybe that’s an ice-rain mix. There’s bound to be ice on the sidewalks and roads tomorrow, and probably ice on my old car. It’ll probably be a good day to stay home. A day on which the benefits of working at home are clear.

In early January 1983, not long before I returned to Tennessee to complete my formal education, some friends and I went out to the vicinity of Boerne, Texas, for the day. We might have passed through that town, but mostly I remember visiting Lester’s family’s ranch, which was out that way. We tooled around in a beaten-up van. At one point, we had to get out and push the thing to a downward slope, so that we could get it running.

Everyone ought to have that kind of experience with a motor vehicle sometime in his or her life. My experience was ideal: it wasn’t my vehicle, and there were a lot of other people pushing too.

Pictured: Stephen (RIP), Nancy, Debbie, Eric, Kirk, Tom and me. Lester took the shot and later sent us prints.

Crystal Pepsi Girl

Posted on by

Twenty years ago for the 92/93 New Year’s, Yuriko and I were in Boston. We spent some of New Year’s Eve downtown, including a short visit to the Massachusetts State House. Out in front of the building, PepsiCo was busy marketing a new drink, Crystal Pepsi.

Even then, the detachable pop-top was a thing of the past, but the costume wouldn’t have worked without it. I returned to Japan shortly afterward and thought little about Crystal Pepsi. Years later I learned that it was a famed new-product flop.

Reading about that flop now, I found an interview with Yum! Brands CEO David Novak in Fast Company in 2007. He’s credited with creating Crystal Pepsi, and when asked about the flop, his money quote is: “People were saying we should stop and address some issues along the way, and they were right. It would have been nice if I’d made sure the product tasted good.”

Tidbinbilla

Posted on by

Christmas Eve 1991

A summer’s day. I bought sun block today. Along with Pete, his brother, and his brother’s enormously pregnant wife, we went to the Tidbinbilla Deep Space Tracking Station southwest of Canberra to take a look at the big dishes and the small museum, which emphasizes Australian, Japanese and European efforts to explore space.

Had a “Jupiter Dog” at the Moon Rock Café. You’d think there would be a Great Red Spot on it somehow, but it mainly featured onions and diced tomatoes (maybe one of those tomatoes counts as the spot). Returned to town the way we had come, winding through hilly bush and flatter farmland. Sometimes emu and kangaroos bounded across the road ahead of us.

Postscript 2012: The formal name of the place is the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, and it still functions as one of three stations operated by NASA to keep track of far, far away spacecraft, with the other two in California and Spain. “This strategic placement permits constant observation of spacecraft as the Earth rotates, and helps make the Deep Space Network the largest and most sensitive scientific telecommunications system in the world,” notes NASA.

South Loop Lights

Posted on by

I went to a real estate event in the South Loop yesterday, at a mixed-use property started in 2007 but delayed, as so many were — and still are — by the Panic of 2008. But there’s been some recovery since then. These days, the property’s in reasonably good shape, with its apartments leased and retail tenants committing for space.

It has a U-shaped layout, with the residential floors on either side of a drive that runs the length of property, and an upscale movie theater at the end of the U, which is open for business.

It’s one of those places that has a fancy bar upstairs from the lobby of the theater, which is where the event was held. I didn’t drink there, but the bar food was pretty good. Fine views of the city from that vantage. The room had interesting lighting, too, which allowed me to take pictures like this one of the small crowd.

Outside the theater, not far from the Seward Johnson statue, shines this array of lights.

Nice to see a spot that isn’t all decked out for Christmas yet. Unless this is Christmas décor that’s trying to smash the prevailing red-green-gold-silver paradigm.

“Caution, Man Contemplating Work”

Posted on by

“Can you see what’s wrong with it?”

A security guard asked me that today. I was looking at this statue, “Caution, Man Contemplating Work” by Seward Johnson, which is in a new mixed-use development in the South Loop of Chicago.

I started looking more closely. Two left feet? A tool held in an unrealistic way?

“It isn’t something hard to see,” the guard said. “It’ll jump out at you.”

I looked a little more and there it was — on his head is a New York Yankees cap. I pointed that out.

“Yeah, it was supposed to be the Cubs,” he said.