Lee Bey: The Urban Observer

(photo by Lula Bey) 

 The Urban Observer is taking a little break for the Christmas holiday. In the meantime, please do look through the archives for all kinds of UO goodness, such as visions of State Street from 1973;  the Mies Van der Rohe music video (I still can't get enough of it); and the burlesque show I photographed last summer.

Look long enough and you'll be Medium Cool as you Monkey Hustle. And you'll read the story of the Bleak House, an old manse on South Michigan Avenue whose wealthy original owners had a run of bad luck.

But most importantly, this Christmas season, spend time with your loved ones.

OH! I guess I should say something about today's photo. This is a photo of me, taken by my mother in December 1971. I was in 1st grade and got cast as Santa Claus for the Christmas play at James Madison Elementary School at 74th and Dorchester in Chicago. I say "cast," but the truth is I volunteered to be Santa because Thereseda Rodgers, who I wasdigging madly and unrequitedly, got picked for Mrs. Claus. I was so happy to get selected, I also volunteered my mother as seamstress to make this Santa suit and the costumes for my entire class. I should have asked my mother first. Because it was a big class (that's me--the 5th kid from the left in the second row; the young Miss Rodgers is in the top row, second from the right):

My mother took on the job, making the costumes out of crepe paper. After the play, the kids got a kick out of tearing out of the costumes as they took them off. But not me. My mother ordered me to leave mine on until we got home so she could take the above photo of me. I still remember the kids teasing me--and nobody can tease like my black brothers and sisters--as we walked to her car: 'Santa Claus! What you gonna get ME for Christmas?'

My mother's big Polaroid Land camera was instant...by 1971 standards. I remember you had to pull the photo out the side of it and wind some built-in timer. When the timer went off, the photo had developed. She put a little cardboard backing on the photo and on it and wrote: "Chip [which is my nickname to this very day, by the way] 6 years old 12/3/71. Santa Claus in the school play." Man, I still remember the love I felt...

And with that, my crepe paper Santa Claus suit also wound up in the garbage. But I've got this photo--and one of my favorite Christmas memories.

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(photo by Lee Bey) 

Street scene in Englewood: an elegant, but vacant, building and a magnificent old city church. Frankly, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on that building.

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(photo by Lee Bey) 

If you found yourself down North Western Avenue in Chicago's Lincoln Square neighborhood, you couldn't help but notice Joseph Zeman. The elderly man was always there. Always surrounded by pigeons. Sometimes only a few birds...other times, enough to have made Tippi Hedren cross the street.

The Chicago Tribune reports today that Zeman, 77, was killed yesterday when he was struck by a van exiting a parking lot at Devon Avenue and McCormick Road. The Tribune's Barbara Mahany--a mighty fine writer whose talents I've always admired--profiled Zeman in this 2004 piece.

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(photos by Lee Bey) 

For a moment or two earlier in my journalism career, I really considered becoming a police officer. It was 1988. I was 22 and working for the City News Bureau of Chicago and making as little money as allowed by law. I was assigned to Area 4 that summer, covering crime and everything else on the West Side when a pair of young black patrol officers befriended me. Almost like slightly older brothers.

"Man, the rock you are trying to climb has teeth marks all over it," the talkative one told me, telling me a successful career in journalism would be difficult to achieve because I am black. "You need to take the test, come over here and advance. You are smart."

He didn't even have to say it paid more than what I was making then. We both knew that. 

"Officer Lee Bey." "Wentworth Area Violent Crimes Det. Lee Bey." "Sgt. Lee Bey." "Lt. Lee Bey." I remember scribbling all that out on a piece of paper, just to try it on for size. "Lt. Bey" sounded good. "Detective Bey" sounded really good.

But the reality is, being a good Chicago cop is a tough ass job. And I say that with respect and acknowledgment. How would I do in a traffic stop on dark night? Or how would I deal with someone I'd have to physically remove? Could I shoot somebody if I had to? Could I not shoot somebody? (And could I tell the difference between the two situations in a split second?) But still, a part of me wondered what might have been. Heck, I'd be coming on 20 years had I joined the department in 1988. Maybe I'd be ready to retire at 42. (Hey, wait a minute..)

All photography is self-portraits, a wise woman told me a few months ago. And it's true. Police frequently wind up in what I shoot. It must be something subliminal.

 (Above) A stop at 87th and Cottage Grove.

(Above) A very friendly mounted police woman I met when I was in Amsterdam back in 2005.

 (Above) A ballet in blue: Police officer at 8th and State, directing traffic.

(Above): The Commander of the Jefferson Park District police station, relaxing in a breakroom. I took this for an architectural firm earlier this year.

(Above)  Police captain (?) on a Segway, directing pedestrian traffic after a May Day protest.

(Above) Cop on the street on a cold day on Dearborn north of Randolph 

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Welcome to the year 1999....as seen though the eyes of 1967. Today's offering is a series of clips from a corporate film, "1999 A.D." It was made 40 years ago and saw a future of on-line shopping, on-line banking, e-mail (almost), and a few other things that are now commonplace. In the screen-grab above, Karen, the woman of the house, prepares the meal via home computer.

And below, we find out how the family of the future shops and banks online. Mike--clearly played by Wink Martindale!--checks out the bills online and is disgruntled. Some late 1960s chauvinism is on display as the narrator Alexander Scourby reminds us Wink is responsible for paying the bills Karen has rung up. I bet she wants to work, but Wink won't let her, the oppressor! Besides, why the grumpy face? You'd think he'd have enough money left over from hosting "High Rollers" and "The New Tic Tac Dough" or something.

Next is the introduction to the film. Karen and son Jamie are on the beach. I can get over the manufactured lisp that boy has, but I'm having trouble believing a child that old would have trouble remembering what year it is....

...and is it just me or, with the music and all, did you also expect something bad to happen as Karen wrote in the sand? I thought maybe the camera would go wide and show a scrap of the fallen Statue of Liberty at the water's edge with a bunch of apes on horseback riding around it.

A few notes in conclusion: The film was made by Ford Philco and in addition to our man Wink, the  production features actress Marj Dusay as Karen. Don't know who that irritating little boy is.

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(photos courtesy of the Charles W. Cushman Collection at Indiana University)

One of the most astounding photo collections on the web is the Charles W. Cushman Collection at Indiana University. Cushman, who died in 1969, was a traveling businessman who worked for a variety of companies in Chicago. He was not famous; he was probably unknown outside of friends, family and associates. Yet Cushman did one thing in life that has now given him a bit of notoriety nearly 40 years after his death: As he traveled the city--and the country and world, for that matter---he took his camera with him and took lots of photos.

What's so amazing is Cushman shot with color slides as early as the late 1930s and 1940s. His digitized archives reveal a Chicago normally rendered in the romantic tones of black-and-white. It is a city rediscovered.  The photo above, one of my favorites from the collection, shows a black family in May 1942 huddled on the porch of a ramshackle Second Empire house at 95th and State. The family--and you can't quite make them out--appear relaxed and comfortable in their poses, almost undercutting the squalid nature of the home in which they live.

 (Above) The castle-like home of Potter Palmer in 1944. The home looks abandoned here and by 1950 it would be demolished. Palmer's legacy in Chicago is unmistakable. His name graces the Palmer House hotel and his dry goods store later became Marshall Field's. And the uber-rich of gaslight-era Chicago lived on Prairie Avenue south of Loop until Palmer built this castle at 1350 N. Lake Shore Drive in 1882. After that the rich relocated to that area, creating what became the Gold Coast. Those towers, by the way, were 80ft high.

(Above) St. Xavier Academy, a Catholic girl's school at 29th and Wabash, photographed by Cushman in July, 1946. The school closed in the 1950s, and was later demolished. My Chicago Archdiocese readers: help me out with this one...I think this school ultimately split up when this campus was closed and one branch of St. Xavier became Mother McAuley HS?

(Above) Here, in September 1948, Cushman photographed the then new State Street bridge over the Chicago River. Look at how empty the surroundings are as compared to today! Wrigley Building stands prominently with the Tribune Tower hiding behind the clocktower while the Medinah Building sits to the left.

And here: a nightmarish photo--an image almost Dali-like---from January 1949 showing the aftermath of a fire at 46th and Paulina:

And finally: Cushman spent a lot of time photographing Jackson Park and Promontory Point in Hyde Park. He also dug taking pictures of bathing beauties who frequented the beachfront there. Below is a "a brunette and a tanned blonde" at Promontory Point in July, 1941:

And then there was Annette from June 1942, described by Cushman as "an athletic girl with a generous bosom":

 And this heartbreaker---in tennis shoes!--Maria Grygier, from September 1949

Check out the rest of the vast Cushman archive and read the man's story here.

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(photo by Lee Bey) 

Illinois Center on a cold day. Looking south from Wacker Drive. 

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(photo by Lee Bey) 

The Blue Cross/Blue Shield Building, 300 East Randolph. 

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(photos by Lee Bey)
I wonder if anybody--even confidentially--ever suggested to the owners of this car wash near 81st and Racince that "Mr. Pee" might not be the best of names? And offering a hand wash on top of it....only makes me giggle even more.

Shame on me. My inner 14-year-old rages unabated. While I'm photographing streetscapes, buildings and other things, I can't help but also seek out the odd, the strange, the inexplicable and the funny.

(Above) And old Buick, a "one way" sign and a Sinclair gas sign perched atop a car repair place at 77th and Stony. There is even an old gas pump up there too.

 (Above) And they mean business. I took this photo at 7:05 pm.

(Above) I believe, too. But it's the church's maintenance man who's giving me doubts. 

(Above) Hideous mascot for Liberty Tax Service. It's supposed to be the Statue of Liberty. Boats carrying the huddled masses would have turned around in the harbor if Lady Liberty was this ugly in real life.

(Above) What more could you ask for?  Get your medical supplies. Get your diabetes treated. Get your lottery ticket. Get your prescription. Withdraw some cash. All in one spot.

(Above) GoodStellas? Women at a bustop at Sheridan and Devon. 

(Above) Indifferent Foods tried and failed. So did Moderately Pleased Foods. Then Eureka! In 1963, a place opened that finally put "Misery Foods" out of business forever.

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(photos by Lee Bey) 

Am I imagining things, or has Frank Lloyd Wright mania subsided in a bit in recently years? Sure, his talent is still known and respected; people still flock to this works. But for a while in the late 1990s--particularly after the Ken Burns documentary on PBS--Wright, and all things connected to him, had achieved rock star status.

With the crowds gone, we can appreciate the work a little better, such as the Robie House above...

..or the Meyer May House (above) in Grand Rapids, Michigan...

and this is...oh wait. This isn't the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. This album is the work of Norma Jean Wright (no relation), formerly of the disco group, Chic. This has nothing to do with architecture, but I'll press on: Norma Jean left Chic in 1978 to do this album, and it's complete with Chic personnel. But for reasons that escape me, Norma Jean Wright's career--and those awesome dimples---never got the exposure that was warranted. But she's still out there singing with Luci Martin, Chic's other former lead singer.  What the heck..I'm off topic anyway...check out this clip of Chic signing "Le Freak" from 1979, have a moment of silence for bassist Bernard Edwards and drummer Tony Thompson, then come back.

or this beautifully gem of a house at 121st and Harvard: the Foster House & Stables designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright was fresh from Tokyo when he designed this place, orginally a summer home for a judge. I think it sold about three years ago for $240,000. Wish I bought it. But I do have that Norma Jean Wright album, tho.

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(photos by Lee Bey) 

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On three separate occasions, Chicago won the right to a world's fair. No other city in the world has been more fortunate. You know about the first two fairs--the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and A Century of Progress in 1933.

Chicago won a bid to host the third fair--Age of Discovery, slated for 1992. But in the political, social and civic tumult of 1980s Chicago, the city folded its cards on the venture and the fair never got further than renderings and excited talk. But here's what some of it might have looked like. The scene is a view looking from an expanded Northerly Island across a bridge onto the mainland.

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(photos by Lee Bey)
Chicago has a wealth of old churches--a brick-and-mortar legacy of the city's many neighborhoods and ethnic factions. Like the former St. John Missionary Baptist Church at 62nd and Woodlawn, they are often grand old places inspired by the design of European temples, synagogues and other places of worship. Others are sterling examples of adaptive reuse, as congregations turn old grocery stores, banquet halls, banks car dealerships, etc., into places that serve the Lord.

Above is an example of adaptive reuse. The elegant former Englewood State Bank 63rd just east of Ashland has been a house of worship for decades.

Just before Sunday evening worship, a young man peeks out of the front door of a small church at 95th and Lafayette.

(above) The twin towers of St. Adalbert's, a Roman Catholic Church at 1650 W. 17th Street Chicago's Little Village neighborhood. The church was built in 1914 and was designed by architect Henry J. Schlacks, who created tons of high-style, Renaissance inspired churches around town. The church was built for $200,000 (imagine!) and was designed to resemble St. Paul's Bascilia. 

(above) This former Roman Catholic church was built for a Polish parish in 1920. It sits on 52nd and Throop and overlooks Sherman Park.

(Above) Modernist church at Madison & Ashland. 

(Above) Livestone MB Church at Ogden & Millard

(Above) A reminder to us all:Pilgrim Baptist Church, the Adler & Sullivan gem, after the embers died down from the Jan 2006 fire. 

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(photo by Lee Bey) 

Yeah, breathe in, breathe out

If ya iced up, pull ya sleeves out

Push a big truck, pull ya keys out

Girls go wild and pull ya deez out

Breathe in, breathe out/

Let them [girls] fight, pull her weave out...

                   ---Kanye West feat. Ludacris
       

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