Category Archives: Retail

Wolf Point & The Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame

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On Friday I went to downtown Chicago for business. Since it was a warm, clear spring day, I wanted to do a more extensive walkabout, especially in the River North area, where I attended to business. But I didn’t have much time.

Instead I was able to take a quick walk near the Chicago River, mostly on the way to my appointment and heading back to Union Station afterward. I was near the place where the river divides into its North and South Branches, which is known as Wolf Point and is the origin of the Chicago Municipal Device.

For quite a while, Wolf Point was oddly underdeveloped, at least compared with the rest of the riverfront. For instance, until recently the point was occupied mostly by a parking lot.

No more. The latest project there, Wolf Point East, is still under construction.

So Wolf Point looks a little different than at the beginning of this decade, and a lot different than it did in 1833.

Hines, Joseph P. Kennedy Enterprises, the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust and PNC Realty Investors are the developers of Wolf Point East; Pelli Clarke Pelli did the design. The 60-story tower will have 698 residential units — upper-end rentals — that will be available late this year.

Just to the east, of course, is the 4 million-square-foot Merchandise Mart, seen here catching a shadow in the mid-afternoon.

A street runs between the Merchandise Mart and the river — the unimaginatively named W. Merchandise Mart Plaza — and from there, you can see the Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame. That is, eight bronze busts honoring one-time U.S. merchant princes, each facing the building. Joseph P. Kennedy himself commissioned the busts in the early 1950s, which was possible because the Kennedy family owned the Merchandise Mart for many decades.

The busts are in two groups of four. These are the busts to the west. They don’t look so large from across the street, but the heads are four times the size of a regular human head.
From left to right: John Wanamaker, founder of the stores by that name; George Hartford, founder of A&P; Edward Filene, founder of those stores; and Montgomery Ward.

These are the busts to the east.
Construction and taxis whizzing by made it a little harder to make an image, but in any case they are Robert Wood, a chairman of Sears; F.W. Woolworth; Julius Rosenwald, another chairman of Sears and founder of the Museum of Science and Industry; and Marshall Field.

More about each of the busts is here. Twelve years ago, at least, they looked like they needed some restoration. I didn’t get quite close enough to them this time to know whether that has happened.

Champaign Stroll & Digressions From Kung Fu to the Match King

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After visiting the University of Illinois Arboretum on Easter, we returned to Lilly’s apartment briefly and took a walk from there a few blocks to the UIUC campus. Blocks heavy with businesses supported by students. Along the way everyone else went into one of them, Kung Fu Tea, for bubble tea to go, while I waited outside with the dog.

Kung Fu Tea is a chain I’d never heard of. Lilly didn’t understand why I was amused by the name. But she’s unable to imagine the following variation on an old TV narrative.

“Grasshopper, when you can take the tapioca pearl from my hand, it will be time for you to leave.”

I just found out that Kung Fu is available on Amazon for no extra charge. I was an intermittent viewer when the show was originally on the air, which was 45 years ago anyway, so I might give it another go.

From Kung Fu Tea, it was a short walk to Altgeld Hall, which I’ve seen before, but not from this vantage.

On we went. A fine day for a walk. The sunny warmth had drawn a number of students to the Main Quad, where they parked themselves on the grass. That’s the Illini Union in the distance.
Some students lolled in hammocks. That’s something I don’t ever remember seeing at any of the green fields of Vanderbilt.

We circled back around the other side of Altgeld Hall and happened across this statue.
That’s the goddess Diana.
A nearby plaque says: The Diana Fountain is a creation of the Swedish sculptor, Carl Milles. It was designed for the court of a building at 540 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, where it remained from 1930 until it was generously presented by Time Incorporated to the University of Illinois at the request of the Class of 1921.

The Fountain was dedicated here on October 23, 1971, as a class memorial, at the Fiftieth Anniversary Reunion of the Class of 1921.

Then there’s a list of “members and friends” of the Class of ’21, all of whom presumably ponied up some money for moving the statue, as well as the site work and installation. It’s a long alphabetical list from Allman to Zimmer: eight columns of 35 names each. More, actually, since some of the names represent married couples.

Fifty years plus nearly 50 more. Safe to assume all of the Class of ’21 have shuffled off this mortal coil. As has Carl Milles (d. 1955).

Here’s a digression. Another Diana Fountain by Milles is in Stockholm, at a place called the Matchstick Palace. Who built the Matchstick Palace?

The Match King, Ivar Kreuger, that’s who. I ran across him years ago in the wonderful Webster’s New Biographical Dictionary. Wiki gives a fuller description of his activities. His is an astonishing story.

Pi, Patrick & Joseph

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Almost all of the outdoor ice is finally gone. Dirty rims and clumps of ice mostly at the edge of the streets. Recent rains and temps higher than freezing have turned that ice into dirty puddles. Mud season is just about here.

Every week, grocery store circulars arrive in the mail. This week, as you’d expect, St. Patrick’s Day is mentioned in each one, usually with green or shamrocks or green shamrocks. Nothing unusual about that.

But I also noticed that one store wished its customers a Happy St. Joseph’s Day — the market’s roots are Italian — and even more curiously, another store asked us all to:

Celebrate Pi Day — Thursday, March 14
8″ Fruit Pies from our bakery, $3.14

Never seen that before.

Wine Label Art

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As I’ve mentioned before, I like the idea of wine better than wine itself, which pretty much goes for any intoxicant. One reason to like wine is wine bottles, and one reason to like wine bottles is the label.

Here’s a collection of labels used by Château Mouton Rothschild for more than 70 years. The winery has been hiring an artist a year to create its labels, with some interesting results.

But you don’t have to go all the way to the Médoc to see interesting wine labels. I can do that at a grocery store a few miles away.

This one caught my eye recently.
I don’t think Franklin counts as a Federalist. Sure, he supported the ratification of the Constitution, but in terms of participation in politics, Franklin found himself at a major disadvantage by the time the Federalists became a force in U.S. politics. Namely, he was dead.

There are plenty of actual Federalists who could be on a wine label. Famously, Alexander Hamilton or John Adams. Less famously, but more interestingly, DeWitt Clinton, Rufus King or Charles Pinckney. Well, maybe not Pinckney, since he owned a lot of slaves, but King was an abolitionist before it was cool.

Turns out, the winery did put Hamilton on a different bottle. Along with Washington (he of no faction!) and, incongruously, Lincoln. People might get the wrong idea if you called your product Republican Wine, but there’s always Whig Wine. Lincoln was originally one, after all, and it opens up the possibility of Daniel Webster or Horace Greeley on a bottle.

I saw this and thought: Botero.
I couldn’t find any evidence that Botero himself did the Bastardo label, though as Château Mouton Rothschild shows, artists are hired for such work. Shucks, you don’t even have to be a painter to shill for inexpensive wine.

Another artist-created label.
By one Victo Ngai, whom I’d never heard of. Raised in Hong Kong and current resident of California. She’s done a number of labels for Prophecy; probably a good gig. Just another one of the things you can learn poking around grocery stores.

Cow Ride at the Mall

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Australia Day has come and gone. Oz is reportedly suffering a viciously hot summer this year. Adelaide, a pleasant place in my recollection, seems to be getting hit especially hard.

Meanwhile, here in North America, or at least my part of it, after being a slacker for most of December and part of January, winter is hitting hard. Dead ahead, according to the NWS on Sunday evening:

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 9 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 PM CST MONDAY… Heavy snow and blowing snow tonight with freezing drizzle and blowing snow likely at times Monday. Snow rates overnight into early morning are likely to reach up to an inch per hour at times. This will result in very low visibilities and rapid snow accumulations into the early morning commute. Total snow accumulations of 3 to 7 inches and ice accumulations of a light glaze expected.

This after subzero temps on Friday, and ahead of temps as low as minus 20 by Tuesday (Fahrenheit, the only scale that’s made for humans). Still, on Saturday things had warmed up to low double-digits, so we were out for a while. The three of us and a friend of Ann’s, on the occasion, not quite precisely, of Ann’s birthday. Nice to get out of the house.

We ate at Gabuttø Burger at Ann’s request. Since I discovered the place at the Mitsuwa food court, the Japanese burgerie has moved into a small strip center on a busy street in Rolling Meadows and seems to be doing well there. We visit a few times a year.

Then to a northwest suburban mall. Not the biggest one, the 2.1 million-square-foot Woodfield, but a smaller one. The one we visited isn’t a dying mall, but it has lost an anchor or two, along with some of its inline stores.

Still, the mall is doing what it can. It now sports a number of places to take children and entertain them, for instance. Not playplaces in the middle of the mall, but small entertainment venues that used to be more conventional retail.

Including a place where you can rent animal-ride scooters for a few minutes. She’s not in the main demographic, but according to Ann, it was a birthday thing to do, so she and her friend spent 10 minutes tooling around the mall.

She picked a cow. Looked like she had a jolly time of it.

A December Walk Along Chicago Ave.

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While Yuriko attended a cooking class this morning, I had a few hours to kick around in Chicago. I also had the good luck of sunshine and temps in the upper 40s — about as good as you’re going to get this time of the year. So I decided to take a walk.

I parked my car on a small street in what Google Maps tells me is the East Village neighborhood. I’m not sure anyone who lives there calls it that, but since the name is on the map, I’m going to use it. Likewise Noble Square, which is directly to the east of East Village. I spent time there as well.

Much of my walk was along W. Chicago Ave. roughly between the 1800 and 1300 blocks west, or between N. Wolcott Ave. to N. Noble St.

The area has plenty of the markings of gentrification, such as this piece of equipment being used to build a condo development just off Chicago Ave. whose units begin at about twice what my pleasant suburban house would sell for.
Not far away, an event likely to appeal to those with some disposable income. Some pop-up experiential retail, to toss around some real estate argot. Untill Christmas?
 Part of the Chicago Ave. streetscape and some interesting buildings.

Older aspects of the neighborhood are still co-existing with the re-uses. Such as Mr. Taco’s, which ought to keep its weathered sign.
Loop Tavern has an old Chicago look about it. Beatnik, from what I could see the outside, is an expensive new cocktail bar. Or, as this review calls it — using a remarkably ugly word — “clubstaurant.”

Neither is my kind of place. On the other hand, a pie joint on Chicago Ave. attracted my attention. I was intrigued enough to go inside and might have ordered a slice of pie, but I noticed that they sold for $8 to $9. A slice. Really, now? I’ve paid less for pie during this decade in Manhattan. Good pie, too. My take on such a thing: It can’t be that good. Full stop.

Here’s a good adaptive re-use on Chicago Ave. Note that the building still says Goldblatt Bros.
The building is home to the West Town Branch of the Chicago Public Library. Goldblatt’s was a local chain of discount department stores whose heyday was from the early to the mid-20th century. The rest of the 20th century wasn’t kind to the chain. I remember visiting the Goldblatt’s location in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago in the late ’90s, and a sadder retail operation would be hard to imagine. They’re all gone now.

One more thing.
A bit of hyperlocal detail: a vernacular memorial to Stan Lee on Chicago Ave.

The Weekend Jam at Chicago Christkindlmarket

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While she was still in town, on the Monday or Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Lilly went to the Chicago Christkindlmarket with some of her friends. I warned her that the weekend would be a bad time to visit, though I don’t think she was planning that anyway.

The last time we went to the Chicago Christkindlmarket was on a Saturday about three years ago. That was a mistake. Even the weekdays can attract a mob. On that weekend in 2015, the place was packed:
That isn’t to say that you can’t admire the things for sale.

Of course, odds are foot traffic is flowing around you while you look at things.

Lilly acquired a souvenir mug. Things trend to be a bit expensive at the Christkindlmarket, since the goods seem to be priced in euros at a lousy exchange rate, with an extra 50 percent tacked on for good measure, but never mind. At least at most vendors, you’re getting something authentically German, right?

The mug’s seasonal and I suppose northern European in inspiration. I don’t have it in front of me. It’s nice enough, though. Still, I happened to check and there it was on the bottom: MADE IN CHINA.

Really, Herr Händler? That’s the kind of authenticity you get at Walmart. For a lot less.

Faces in the Grocery Aisle

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Besides helping Lilly move her stuff into her new apartment in Champaign, we also took her to a major grocery store. Management seemed eager for the population of UIUC students to swell, as it does every year at this time.
I got distracted among the product aisles. It’s hard not to. For instance, I wondered about the odd longevity of the Vlasic stork.
When the mascot was created (1974, according to Vlasic), the parody of Groucho Marx, including the pickle-as-cigar, would have been instantly recognizable to the audience. Nearly 45 years later? Not as much. I guess the Vlasic stork exists pretty much as its own thing now.

Why a stork? But better always to ask, why a duck?

Another familiar face, Chef Boy-Ar-Dee. But it’s a younger Boy-Ar-Dee (or Boiardi, to be pedantic).
What gives? Boy-Ar-Dee has been an avuncular fellow, a gray presence, since Chef Boiardi was still alive and unafraid to attach his name (phonetically) to such a product.

Maybe the young Boy-Ar-Dee is part of the “throwback recipe” theme, designed to evoke what — the golden age of canned pasta?

Moving along, I was happy to see this phrase.
The bee’s knees is a phase that needs a new life. As for the product, it’s distinction seems to be honey mixed in.

Finally, what’s a grocery store without an array of Spam? More varieties than I remember.

Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!

High Summer Misc.

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Time for a high summer break. Back to posting around July 22.

Last night around midnight I spent a few pleasant minutes on my deck. Temps were neither hot nor cold, the noise from traffic was subdued, and Mars hung above the garage, a pretty orange point of light. The suburban haze dimmed it some, of course, but not enough to obscure the planet as a object of contemplation.

We, as in human beings, could go to Mars if we really wanted to. So far we don’t. The people who will go there might not be born yet, but I think they will go.

Closer to home, I visited a mall recently and decided to document something that might not be around much longer.

The same retailer has a location in Chicago — a neighborhood store, smaller than the suburban locations, that I drive by sometimes — that’s closing. Or maybe it has already. I wouldn’t mind documenting it either, but it would be a pain in the butt to find parking, and then a vantage to get a good shot.

In another store, an actual bookstore that sells other things, I saw these recently.

I know there are a lot of variations on Monopoly, but Deadpool Monopoly? Walking Dead Monopoly? Golden Girls Monopoly?

Somewhere out there is a collector of Monopoly editions. Must be hard to keep up. Or maybe the Smithsonian, or the Library of Congress, has tasked itself to preserve a copy of every edition. Maybe not. Maybe Golden Girls Monopoly will be highly prized for its rarity by collectors during the Monopoly craze of the 2160s.

Finally, a picture of Independence Day fireworks here in suburban Chicago.

Not a great picture. But not bad for a phone camera.

They Might Be Serious About This Burger Thing

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Today I encountered the strangest press release I’ve seen in a long time, and I’ve seen a few odd ones over the years. Normally, press releases purposely avoid eccentricity of any kind. Sometimes there are as dull as can be. But not always. Especially in this case. It starts off:

BURGER, Calif., June 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Today, IHOP® Restaurants announces that it is going by a new name – IHOb. For burgers…

Turns out it’s a temporary “name change.” IHOP wants to add a little oomph to its effort to compete in the crowded field of hamburgers in America.

The change, in fact, celebrates the debut of the brand’s new Ultimate Steakburgers, a line-up of seven mouth-watering, all-natural burgers…. According to a company spokesburger, “These burgers are so burgerin’ good, we re-burgered our name to the International House of Burgers!”

That isn’t even the strange part. The third, fourth and fifth paragraphs of the release are, and I quote exactly as they appear:

Also, burgers burgers burgers. Burgerin’ burgers burgers. Reburgered burgers burgers burgers burgers burgers burgers. Burger burgerings burgers burgers burgers. Burgerin’ burgers burgers. Moreover, burgers burgered burgers burgers. Burgers burgers burgerin’ burgers burgers burgers burgers burgers burgers burgers burgers burgers burgerin’ burgers.

Furthermore, burgers burgers burgers. Burgerin’ burgers burgers burgers burgers burgers burgers burgers burgerin’ burgers burgers! Burgers burgers burgers reburgered burgers burgers burgers burgering burgers. Not to mention, burgers burgered burgers burgered. Burgers, burgers, burgerin’ burgers and burger burgers.

Lastly, burgers burgers #burgers. Reburgered burgers burgers burgered burgers burgered burger burgers. Burgers burgers burgers?