A Little Bit Higher...
(photo by Lee Bey)
..the tower rises.
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April 30, 2008
April 29, 2008
The Urban Observer is Returning Soon....
(photos by Lee Bey)
The Urban Observer hopes to return next week, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, today I ran into an architect I know and we wound up discussing this blog. He teased me by saying he read the blog for the architecture, but what he really liked were the images of good-looking women that appear here.
I suspect he's not the only one.
Scroll down to the last photo to see the stone fox of the bunch.
April 28, 2008
A Discussion with Paul Goldberger (moderated by some dude) on May 15th
Featuring Paul Goldberger
Moderated by Lee Bey
Chicago Public Library Harold Washington Library Center
The Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
400 S. State Street
Doors open at 5:15pm. Free admission. Seating is limited.
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Chicago Landmarks Ordinance and the 10th Annual Great Chicago Places and Spaces, the City of Chicago is pleased to welcome Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer Prize-winner and architecture critic for The New Yorker.
Where is historic preservation going at the beginning of the twenty-first century? To mark forty years since Chicago passed its landmarks legislation, Mr. Goldberger will look at the state of architecture and how Chicago compares to other cities around the country.
Joining Mr. Goldberger will be Lee Bey, Executive Director of the Chicago Central Area Committee, writer, adviser, professor and critic specializing in architecture.
Presented by the Mayor's Office of Special Events, the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, the Chicago Public Library and the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.
April 23, 2008
Damn.
April 21, 2008
Hang On, Now...
(photo by Lee Bey)
The Urban Observer is taking a bit of a hiatus. I hope to be back in about two weeks. Until then, please browse the archives for more Urban Observer goodness.
April 17, 2008
South Shore High School
(photos by Lee Bey)
City officials are planning a new $50 million South Shore High School--a 200,000sq ft, LEED "Silver" building to be built at 75th and Jeffrey at Rosenblum Park, about a block north of the present campus pictured above.
This news made me curious about the current South Shore High School building at 76th and Constance. It looks like a low-security prison, with its slit windows and industrial beige paint job, but South Shore was envisioned as a triumph in school design--a place were educational possibilities would be limitless---when plans for the campus were unveiled in 1965. It never quite turned out that way though...
School Supt. Benjamin C. Willis--a real piece of work himself--showed off the new design at the South Shore Country Club in Sept. 1965. The school would have carpeted classrooms and closed circuit television (for teaching, not security). An outdoor theater, skating rink and an indoor auditorium would be used by students and the community. Motorized walls allowed teachers to change the size and configuration of their classrooms. A skybridge over 76th Street would connect the new building with the older South Shore High (which still exists) to the south.
The $4 million budget made it the most expensive high school in the city.
But the building had difficulty fulfilling its promise. When South Shore opened in 1968, portions of the building were still under construction and the pricetag had grown to $6 million due to overruns and delays. Features like the skybridge never materialzed. An investigation found shoddy work, such as hot water pipes connected to drinking fountains.
Moreoever, hopes that the new school would help stabilize the then racially-changing South Shore neighborhood were unfounded.
As far as the new South Shore High School that is currently being planned, bids on the project are expected to begin by July, according to the city's Public Building Commission. The new building is slated to include a library, art and music facilities, green roofs and open spaces.
April 16, 2008
Chicago's Piece of the Rock
(photo by Lee Bey)
The Prudential Building has been part of my daily routine since I started working for the Chicago Central Area Committee located in the neighboring Aon Building.
The 42-story building was the talk of the city when it was completed in 1955. It was the tallest building in Chicago; the first skyscraper built downtown since 1934. The $40 million building would be the Mid-America headquarters Prudential Insurance and the company was quite proud: It wrote its name across the top of the building in 13-foot high red neon lettering and hired Alfonso Ianelli (for $7,500) to create a 65-ton replica of the Rock of Gilbratar for the building's lower wing.
The Prudential became an instant icon of mid-century Chicago. Here is a 1955 image from a booster publication on Chicago:
At 53, the Prudential still looks good in a conservative-gray-flannel-suit sort of way, although it seems to "read" differently than before. The red Prudential lettering at the top of the building was replaced in the 1990s, as was the building's original limestone skin, which began cracking around that time.
April 15, 2008
Bob Johnson (of all people!) Says Geraldine Ferraro is Right
Bob Johnson thinks Geraldine Ferraro is right about Barack Obama. That the billionaire would relegate himself to racial attack-dog status when there is so much to talk about in Decision '08 says more about him than anything.
With his billions, Johnson could be a real voice in this election, even though is not impartial (he is a Clinton supporter.) He could challenge Obama, Clinton or McCain to develop a real plan-to uplift American cities. He could force a real open debate on healthcare, mass transit, economic development, fiscal responsibility---all sorts of things.But this isn't the first time Johnson has suffered from a gross lack of imagination. BET, the cable network he founded in 1980 and sold to Viacom for $3 billion a little while back, could have been a proud voice of black America. Instead, Johnson programmed music videos with black rumpshakers and minstrel-grade stand-up comedies. All that was missing was this.
And now, sitting on his billions, he appears all too happy to serve no other purpose in Decision '08 than to use race to poke at Obama whenever the bell sounds. And even then, Johnson can't come up with an original criticism, and instead picks up the frayed baton of Ferraro's tired claim. The rumpshakers were at least interesting...
(BTW: The animated Boondocks series did a wicked take-off on BET, but the episode was supposedly banned for reasons that appear open to dispute. See a clip here, but a warning: the scene contains foul language, use of the 'n' word and a Prada shoe as an instrument of death.)
April 14, 2008
Bertrand Goldberg Work in Peril?
The Chicago Tribune has a story today about two endangered Bertrand Goldberg buildings on the grounds of the Elgin Mental Health Center. Goldberg's best known work is Marina City.
The Trib's on-line story doesn't have a photo, but I'll track one down (or try to take one) at some point.
Urban Observer friend Jim Peters of Landmarks Illinois tells us of this great site, which features Goldberg's work, including the buildings in question.
April 12, 2008
Music Video Chicago
I'm almost two years late on this, but hey--if its new to me, then its new...
I've been getting a kick out of watching this Jonas Brothers video which makes pretty good use of Anish Kapoor's Cloudgate. The song they're singing, "Mandy," I could take or leave, but I do understand I'm not the age demographic being targeted here. The video also features two of the Jonases playing a security guard and a most unauthentic-looking Chicago cop who chase the band up and down Michigan Avenue and Wabash.
Nice vid, but it's Chicago as backdrop. For the real Chicago...
...my pick is South Side native's Common's 2005 video for "The Corner." Directed by fellow son of the South Side, Kanye West, the video is cinematic in scope and approach, showing us the graystones on King Drive, the New Regal Theater, Hilliard Homes, the EL passing over the Dan Ryan Expressway and a glimpse of the old Seville Motel sign near 90th and Stony Island. There is also some very well-done aerial photography of downtown landmarks.
Architecture aside: If you like rap/spoken word, you can't help but smile at the sight of true pioneers The Last Poets (!) huddled around a garbage can spitting rhymes after more than four decades in the business (and reminding the unschooled that there was rap long before the Sugar Hill Gang.)
Cosby IS Right
The general reaction to Bill Cosby's transformation from lovable funnyman to pointed critic of negative social behavior within black America fascinates me.
But you pay attention to Cos' history and workand you realize there is no transformation at all. Here's a man who has always wanted to see his race uplifted--and by its own hand. The signs were there. He donated millions to black universities and black causes, no doubt more than all of his present-day critics combined. Look at his 1980s sitcom "The Cosby Show." Watching at the time, I oogled over Lisa Bonet and laughed at the jokes. Seeing it reruns, something more profound strikes me: Here was self-sustaining black family who stressed love, education, history and tradition. If there were lessons learned, it was a black person that provided the wisdom. Excellence was expected. College was a must.
What's got me worked up again is a very good piece about Cosby written in The Atlantic this month by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Coates examines what Cosby's been saying, makes it plain, and shows how what he's saying is not alien to black ears and actually speaks to traditional social conservatism within black America. (I should add its a conservatism that is honest and straight up. It recognizes and fights against racism on one front, while demanding self-reliance on the other. It is not the smug, hectoring, and divisive gasbag-ism of this kind of conservatism. Or this kind. Or this kind.)
Last year, I bought a DVD of Cosby's first sitcom, the Bill Cosby Show, from 1969-1970. Seeing it now is a revelation. Within the context of a comedy, Cosby gives us a complete man--an intelligent, aware, black man--who is on equal footing with the whites in his world. He has frustrations, he falls in love, he handles his business and he makes us laugh, all without resorting to ugly cheap stereotypes about his race.
Looking through the present-day haze of the low-grade, loudmouth chitlinesque black cast comedies on television now, the two Cosby shows are revolutionary. And in that context, heck yes, Cosby would be angered enough to speak out against what he sees and dream to want something better for black America. Others want that, too.
(BTW: Given my two excursions into social commentary in recent weeks, there may be the making of another blog for these musings. I'm not sure, yet. I had the same internal struggle when I was architecture critic at the Sun-Times. You write about the physical aspect of the buildings and neighborhoods, but at some point you want to go a little deeper...)
April 10, 2008
Decision '08
(photo by Lee Bey)
Last night, at a gas station at 95th and Halsted: Premium gas for $3.95 a gallon....and the other grades not far behind. Wait until summer comes.
The price of gas isn't going to decrease. Ever. It might retreat a few cents, but it will gain ground in spades later. So rather than presidential candidates being forced to defend what their former pastors said, seeing sniper fire where there was none, or whining that the apology wasn't good enough, I'd rather one of them outline a broad and sweeping plan to create and fund the mass-transit system this country needs if we're going to survive the 21st century.
Reliable mass transit provides an affordable alternative to the current model of spending billions to rebuild roads that only clog up and crumble in a few years anyway. A national transportation system based on high-speed rail would be a godsend to anyone who's waited 3 hours in an airport to take a 2 hour flight; or got stuck in a monstrous traffic jam trying to drive to another city. Workers could get to their jobs via a relatively inexpensive train ride, rather than spending $4000 a year buying $80 tanks of gas every week at $4 a gallon.
Suburbs would be better connected to other suburbs and nearby cities. Urban centers would be linked by major rail to other urban centers. Chicago, still the transportation hub of the nation for now, must become a chief advocate for a total remake of the U.S. transportation system.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the WPA to build 78,000 bridges, 650,000 miles of road and 800 airports during the 1930s and 1940s. What FDR did for public works projects--during the Depression, no less---the next president must do for public and mass transit. The need is just as vital, if not more.
Yes, it will take billions. And it will take years. But most of all, it takes courage.
April 08, 2008
Sly & The Family Stone...? Playing Here Next Month? YES!
Incredible news, reported on Gapers Block today. Sly & The Family Stone....doing a show May 3rd at the Vic. Dag! But it's been 40 years, though--like an act from the 1930s performing in 1970---I wonder if Sly (now 64) and the people can still get down like this?
BTW: One of best bits of Sly Stone trivia was his pre-Family Stone turn as producer of the San Francisco group, the Beau Brummels. Check them out here, singing "Laugh, Laugh," but first a warning regarding the dancing in this clip: I haven't movement this stiff since the last few seconds of the Lee Harvey Oswald perp walk.
BBTW: The Beau Brummels on The Flinstones, as the Beau Brummelstones.
UOughta Know...
The Urban Observer introduces a new feature: UOughta Know. Simply put, send in your pix and questions about Chicago buildings and I'll see if I can answer them. Today's image comes from reader John Riordan who sent in the above photo of a former Studebaker auto facility at Washington and Kilpatrick on the city's West Side. Given the building's ornament--especially this killer piece right here---
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--Riordan wanted to know if building might have been designed by the great Louis Sullivan.
Answer: Built in 1925, this old Studebaker facility near Washington and Keeler is likely not a Sullivan--he died in 1924--but it does show the influence the architect had. Builders could order Sullivanesque terra cotta pieces from catalogs and as a result, scores of buildings have touches like these.
The classy ornament would have conveyed the right image for Studebaker, an upscale automobile company. According to a Feb 22, 1925 Chicago Tribune article, this building was the seventh in a series of sales and service centers the automaker opened around Chicago during the time. The Studebaker Corporation's best-known local structure is the Fine Arts Building at 410 S. Michigan which was originally a showroom for Studebaker carriages.
Got a building you're curious about? Grab a picture and send it in to lee@leebey.com
The Photography of Dawoud Bey
The work of Chicago photographer Dawoud Bey is mesmerizing. Click this and see.
Even though we have the same last name, Dawoud and I are not related. But here's how we met.:
For years I'd run into people who'd ask if we were brothers. Then in 2003, while I was taking pictures in Grant Park in front of Columbia College a woman asked me if I still taught there. I actually did teach journalism at Columbia once, so I told her 'No, I stopped a few years ago."
"I heard you were still teaching," she said.
"I wish I could, but I can't find the time," I said.
"I love your photography," she said. Then it hit me: She thinks I'm Dawoud, who does teach at Columbia College.
Then she said, "How's your brother?"
"You might have me mistaken for someone else," I said. "I don't have a brother." "
"Yes you do," she said. "And I heard y'all wasn't getting along."
"I don't have a brother," I said laughing.
"Yeah, alright then," she said. She did not believe.
I knew Dawoud's brother, Ken. And they do get along. So I ran into Ken a few weeks later and told him the story and he cracked up laughing. "You should give him a call," he said of Dawoud. He gave me the number and I left him a message: "Brother Bey. This is your long lost brother, Lee, reaching out for you." He called me back a few minutes later, laughing. We hooked up for lunch and that was that.
April 07, 2008
Just in Time for Summer...
I saw a post about a bulletproof hooded sweatshirt, now being marketed in the UK, on the local blog, Second City Cop (a personal favorite, btw.) SCC says "Anyone who has seen the goofs killing one another over the $150 baseball hats can have no doubt that $600 for a hoodie to make you bulletproof is going to be a "must have" item shortly."
Makes you think. And shiver.
Old Kennedy King: Revisited
(photos by Lee Bey)
I visited the old Kennedy King College campus last summer, just before the place was mothballed. I got a chance to go inside the vacant building and even made it up on the roof to take a few shots.
Revisiting the photos now, I am impressed by the sheer power of the building, particularly its sweeping interior spaces. I had discounted this building previously---you can even see shades of that in my previous KKC post. It's architecture of a different time, yes. But I can also see it is a complex of uncommon boldness and power. I heard last year the city was investigating the reuse potential for the campus, which has a day care, a theater, a gym, a library, an indoor swimming pool and other features working saving. Here's hoping a solution is found.
April 04, 2008
Rockwell was Right: Somebody IS Watching Me...
The Smoking Gun presents the tale of a Pittsburgh couple who is suing Google for invasion of privacy. They bought a house on a private road, expecting privacy, only to find their abode clearly visible on Google's Street View feature.
Since Google released the feature last year, Street View has captured all sorts of things, including a photo of a man at 39th and Vincennes that is open to debate (Google has since removed the image from its database) to a friend of mine standing in front of his house for no apparent reason. The website StreetViewFun keeps a running tally.
Observed
I first met Chicago photographer Carey Primeau on the photo-sharing site, flickr. Primeau is among a handful of local photographers who take absolutely arresting shots of abandoned and vacant buildings. Primeau has photographed other cities, but I find his Chicago work particularly poetic, maybe because I know these building better. His use of shadows, soft colors and amazing detail show life in these condemned structures, making their demolition or neglect all the more sad.
Primeau's work will be on exhibition at the Tapestry Center, 3824 W. Irving Park Road, running April 11--May 3. The opening night reception begins April 11 at 7:30pm.
Skyward
(photo by Lee Bey)
The Urban Observer is off again today, but I had to leave you with something: a shot of a Marina City tower and the former IBM Building facing off over the Chicago River.
I should return to a full schedule next week with features that include a peek at Mies van der Rohe's FBI file and a look at the architecture of South Shore High School. Also I'm experimenting with a new feature called "Ask the Urban Observer" (maybe I should call it "UOughta Know.)
Have a great weekend.
April 03, 2008
The Urban Observer is Out Again..
(photo by Lee Bey)
The Urban Observer is still catching up on other work.
Meanwhile, the preservation group Landmarks Illinois has announced its "Ten Most Endangered List" for this year. The list includes the Germania Club and Theater on Chicago's North Side and the Jetsons-like Assembly Hall at the University of Illinois downtown.
The building above is not endangered, however. It's a handsome church in the city's Bronzeville community.
April 02, 2008
Burn Baby Burn? Doubt it.
In what I originally figured to be an April Fool's gag, writer Ted Rall ponders the idea that black people in Chicago will riot if Barack Obama doesn't beat out Hillary Clinton. Rall surveyed blogs to come up with this bit of knowledge. Can't tell if he actually surveyed any actual, you know, Chicago black people.
Urban Observer Takes a Day Off
(photo by Lee Bey)
...with apologies. But feel free to browse the archives (now more than 180 entries!) and find all sorts of things such as the Pullman neighborhood, a Mies van der Rohe music video, unbuilt projects from Chicago's architectural history and a photo of a woman in a bathing suit. Besides this one, I mean:
And under the Urban Observer Equal Time Act of 1967:
April 01, 2008
'Xcuse Me, While I Kiss the Sky...
(photo by Lee Bey)
Our old friend, the Purple Hotel in Lincolnwood--profiled here last month--makes news again in today's Sun-Times. Stuart Levine, the star witness in the trial of businessman and political fixer Tony Rezko testified about having day-long drug parties at the hotel.
A Modernist's Day Dream
I say "day" dream because I can't say the kind of dream I am really thinking about--this is a G-rated site, you know--but you get my drift.
Anyway, in another installment of The Paper Skyline, we get a gander at plans the Illinois Central Railroad drew up at mid-century to replace its decaying railyards east of Michigan at Roosevelt with this campus of modernist office and residential buildings. It never got off the ground, but designwise the approach is not unlike what was built about a decade later at Illinois Center--the railroad's other big parcel on the north end of Grant Park.
The current Central Station development includes the land that depicted here.
I almost forgot. The Chicago Journal last month did a story on my fascination with unbuilt projects. And they called me an architecture geek. Dag!
