Thursday, September 27, 2018

POSTCARD - CHICAGO - HYDE PARK DISTRICT - AERIAL PANORAMA - DOWNTOWN IN BACKGROUND - LOOKING N - SECOND LARGEST CITY SERIES - 1951

A POSTCARD - CHICAGO - HYDE PARK DISTRICT - DOWNTOWN IN BACKGROUND - LOOKING N - SECOND LARGEST CITY SERIES - 1951

CAN - CHICAGO - MRS JAPP'S POTATO CHIPS WAS THE ORIGINAL NAME FOR JAY'S GOING BACK TO 1920s - JAYS WAS A MUCH-LOVED LOCAL PRODUCT FOR MANY DECADES - THE COMPANY NAME WAS CHANGED AFTER PEARL HARBOR - THE CAN, WHICH I THINK IS FROM EARLY 1940s, MUCH RESEMBLES WHAT WE KNEW IN 1960s

A CAN - CHICAGO - MRS JAPP'S POTATO CHIPS (JAY'S) - BEFORE WWII 2

PHOTO - CHICAGO - THE BERGHOFF RESTAURANT - 17 W ADAMS - CROWD WAITING AS THEY DID BACK IN THE 1960s - IT WAS A BELOVED BUSTLY PLACE - BUT THE LAST TIME I WAS IN CHICAGO IN 2001 I THOUGHT IT WAS A BIT DETERIORATED AND THERE WAS NO CROWD - I UNDERSTAND IT CLOSED IN 2006 AND THEN REOPENED AS MORE OF A BAR AND CATERING PLACE - IT SEEMS NOW TO BE BACK FULLY AS A RESTAURANT - ONE OF THE OLDEST IN THE COUNTRY DATING BACK TO 1898 - IMAGE DATE UNKNOWN

A PHOTO - CHICAGO - THE BERGHOFF RESTAURANT - 17 W ADAMS - CROWD WAITING

PHOTO - CHICAGO - THE BERGHOFF RESTAURANT - 17 W ADAMS - INTERIOR OF THE BAR - LOOKING GREAT AS IT DID IN THE 1960s - IMAGE DATE UNKNOWN BUT IT SEEMS FAIRLY RECENT IN DIGITAL QUALITY

A PHOTO - CHICAGO - THE BERGHOFF - THE BAR

PHOTO - CHICAGO - BERGHOFF RESTAURANT - 17 W ADAMS - UPSTAIRS DINING ROOM - HEAVILY DECORATED FOR CHRISTMAS - I DON'T RECALL EVER SEEING IT QUITE SO DECORATED - BUT I KNOW CHICAGO NOW DOES A BIG GERMANIC OUTDOOR CHRISTMAS MARKET SO THIS WOULD BE IN KEEPING - THE ROOM LOOKS GREAT AS IT DID IN THE 1960s - IMAGE DATE UNKNOWN

A PHOTO - CHICAGO - BERGHOFF RESTAURANT - UPSTAIRS DINING ROOM - HEAVILY DECORATED FOR CHRISTMAS

PHOTO - CHICAGO - THE BERGHOFF RESTAURANT - 17 W ADAMS - DOWNSTAIRS ROOMS WHERE I OFTEN SAT BECAUSE WITH THE CROWDS IT WAS A LITTLE FASTER TO BE SEATED THAN UPSTAIRS - LOOKING JUST AS IT DID IN 1960s - NO IMAGE DATE

A PHOTO - CHICAGO - THE BERGHOFF RESTAURANT - DOWNSTAIRS AREA - LOOKING JUST AS IT DID IN 1960s

PHOTO - CHICAGO - NORTH AND LEAVITT - COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS AND STORE FRONTS - TED'S TICK-TOCK POLKA LOUNGE - THE LOUNGE IS VERY REPRESENTATIVE OF SMALL JOINTS IN MODEST NEIGHBORHOODS OF THE TIME - I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE PLACE BUT I LOVE ITS LARGE JAY'S POPCORN AD PAINTED ON WALL - PAINTED WALL SIGNS WERE POPULAR THEN - c1960

A PHOTO - CHICAGO - NORTH AND LEAVITT - COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS AND STORE FRONTS - TED'S TICK-TOCK POLKA LOUNGE - LARGE JAY'S POPCORN AD PAINTED ON WALL - c1960

PHOTO - CHICAGO - IRVING PARK AND PULASKI - THE BUFFALO ICE CREAM PARLOR AND SNACK SHOP - IT'S WHERE I DISCOVERED OLIVE-AND-NUT SANDWICHES - I MADE THE SPREAD LATER AND INTRODUCED IT TO PEOPLE AS A SNACK CRACKER TOPPING - ALWAYS A HIT - THIS (NOT VERY GOOD IMAGE) SHOWS ASSOCIATED BUILDINGS INCLUDING THE BUFFALO BAR ON LEFT END OF BUILDINGS - WHEN GRANDPA LIVED IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD HE LOVED THAT BAR WITH ITS FRIENDLY BARTENDER NAMED GEORGE - 1960s

A PHOTO - CHICAGO - IRVING PARK AND PULASKI - THE BUFFALO ICE CREAM PARLOR AND SNACK SHOP - ASSOCIATED BUILDINGS INCLUDING THE BUFFALO BAR ON LEFT END OF BUILDINGS - 1960s

PHOTO - CHICAGO - THE BUFFALO ICE CREAM AND SNACK BAR - PULASKI AND IRVING PARK ROAD - NOT A VERY SATISFACTORY IMAGE BUT THERE ARE SO FEW TO BE FOUND FOR THE BUFFALO - IT WOULD CLOSE NOT TOO LONG AFTER THIS DATE - ON A SATURDAY NIGHT IN THE EARLY- TO MID-1960s A LONG LINE OF PEOPLE WOULD FORM ON PULASKI ALMOST AS AT A MOVIE THEATER WITH A POPULAR SHOW - 1973

A PHOTO - CHICAGO - THE BUFFALO - ICE CREAM AND SNACK BAR - PULASKI AND IRVING PARK ROAD - 1973

Monday, September 24, 2018

TEMPORARY POST ABOUT MY CONCERN WITH CHICAGO'S OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL CENTER - IT IS A POORLY CONCEIVED PROJECT IN TERMS OF LOCATION, LOOKS, AND PURPOSE - A STERILE SUBURBANISH CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS-TYPE BUILDING TO BE PLUNKED DOWN ON TWENTY ACRES OF A MORE-THAN CENTURY-OLD PARK - IT IS TO OFFER FACILITIES FOR YOGA, BASKETBALL, A TEST KITCHEN, AND PARKING - AND, OH YES, A DIGITAL ARCHIVE, NOT THE ORIGINAL PAPERS SCHOLARS WOULD WANT TO SEE

John Chuckman


EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN INVESTMENT WATCH

https://ricochet.com/archives/what-obamas-billion-dollar-chicago-temple-will-look-like/



The proposed Barack Obama Presidential Center - or whatever it is to be called, it apparently is not going to be a traditional repository-of-presidential-papers library - intended for Chicago’s Jackson Park near the waterfront is an unwelcome project with its lack of respect for the city’s historic park system, unquestionably one of the greatest in the world.

It doesn't matter whether you like Obama or not, the project is poorly conceived.

This park is more than a century old and is part of the "chain of jewels" America's greatest landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, created for the city. No other American city has anything quite like it. Every acre of it is irreplaceable. This will cover twenty acres.

I know the park well. I've walked through its roughly 500 acres a number of times.

This isn't even to be a presidential library but some kind of oddball complex of digital archive, yoga and cooking center, basketball court, and parking – all tucked into a whitish cement mausoleum covering twenty acres of prime lakefront parkland. Its architecture says “monument,” not friendly gathering place, and it seems very strange thinking, indeed, to me to say it can somehow be both.

It is like putting a huge parking garage in front of a beautiful garden. Chicago’s motto, urbs in horto (city in a garden), although adopted before the great parks existed, has come to be associated with the parks and associated boulevards for over a century

I don’t care if Obama wants such a monument built, but it does not belong in this location, where Mayor Rahm Emanuel already has had some mature trees cut-down to accommodate it.

In terms of its sheer aesthetics, the project belongs in a suburb. It looks like the headquarters for some corporation.

I grew up in the city, in and near the very neighborhood, and almost cannot believe what Obama is allowing. It is without respect for history. It is without respect for beauty. It is anti-green. It is without respect for a special space which already belongs to the people.

The notions of yoga, basketball, and a test kitchen are of course to make local residents feel it is their place, but the idea of neighborhood people going to a giant cement mausoleum to do such casual and fun activities seems a confused fantasy.

Such activities, if thought desirable, could have been dotted here and there in small facilities through neighborhood streets in a way far more likely to be of some real use.

And if all you are storing is a digital archive, you don't even need the building. That can be done anywhere and accessed from anywhere. So, it seems to me we have a costly hulk going into an inappropriate place to do absolutely nothing needed.

A tallish concrete building right near the lakeshore of an historic and beautiful park - indeed, any concrete building, whether tall or not - simply does not belong there.

We must remember that the hard-nosed guy pushing this abomination is former Obama aide and greatly-failed Chicago Mayor, Rahm Emanuel.

The last project he championed was a hideous Star Wars Museum, a giant concrete promotion center for the Star Wars movie franchise to be planked down in downtown’s beautiful lakeside Grant Park museum campus, home of such world-famous and architecturally distinguished institutions as the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Natural History Museum, and the Adler Planetarium.

Thank God, that effort failed, but this one is almost as bad.