New Renderings, Info For Lakefront Skyscraper Duo
Editor’s note: These days pretty much everyone is worried about the Wuhan Flu. With a full-time gig for a healthcare company, we understand. We’ve also noticed that a lot of the more irreverent online publications aren’t publishing anymore because the world is a much more serious place now. We understand that, too. But as rabid news consumers, we also understand that sometimes you need an...
33 Years Later, Chicago’s DuSable Park Still Not Ready
If you thought this was going to be the year you could finally pack a picnic hamper with egg salad sandwiches, pull on your favorite sun bonnet, and head to DuSable Park to enjoy a warm spring afternoon in downtown Chicago, you’re as loopy as that lady who sits in the hobo corner on the Brown Line scat singing the Check Please theme music to herself. It’s been a third of a century since Mayor Harold Washington declared the...
Wayback Wednesday: Connors Park Construction
Today we crank the Wayback Machine back seven years to February 19, 2013. Here we find ourselves at the triangle formed by East Chestnut Street, North Wabash Avenue, and North Rush Street. Better known as Connors Park. Connors Park rehabilitation, February 2013. (File) Or at least it was when these pictures were taken. Today it’s mostly known as the location of an Argo Tea house, which you can see in the early days of its...
Choice Loop Lot Up For Redevelopment — Pritzker Park May Get Slimmed
There’s not a lot of places left in The Loop where someone with a valise full of hundred dollar bills can make a near-permanent mark on the city. But one of those places is about to open up. 311 South Plymouth Court (Base map via Apple Maps) You may know 331 South Plymouth Court as the funky (not in a good way) city parking garage lurking behind Pritzker Park, just off State Street. City Hall has decided to take advantage...
Wayback Wednesday: Time Freezes on Chicago Avenue
This Wednesday we skate back in time ten years to February 12, 2010. The place is Chicago Avenue at Seneca Playground Park. Seneca Park clocktower, February 12, 2010 In the foreground we see the park’s clock tower, about which we could find exactly zero information in our usual sources or on the intarwebs. In the background, we can see Children’s Memorial Hospital still a little bit under construction. This parkling...
Navy Pier Flyover Flies Into Phase Three
It’s a common refrain in the Midwest that there are two seasons: Winter, and Construction. But that’s not true in Chicago, where Construction Season is every season. It just. Never. Stops. Such are the perils of Paris on the Prairie, which you will witness first-hand if you use Lower North Lake Shore Drive. March 2014 drawing of the Navy Pier Flyover The Navy Pier Flyover enters its third phase of construction this...
Wayback Wednesday: New Year’s Day 10 Years Ago
Today, freshly spaded from the archive is a photograph of the Chicago skyline taken on a quiet, somber morning from Lincoln Park January 1st, 2010. Even the squirrels were nursing hangovers. Chicago skyline from Lincoln Park, January 1, 2010...
Key Link in Navy Pier Flyover Unchanged, But Still Improved
Six months ago we showed you a picture of the Navy Pier Flyover as it nearly, almost, just about connected to the Lake Shore Drive Bridge. Four months later, Streeterville Spy Joel popped by to check on the construction progress, and… oh, wait… well, hmm… October 2019 Navy Pier Flyover construction (Courtesy of Streeterville Spy Joel) It’s exactly the same. The ramp that puts the “flyover” in the...
Obama Center Design Revised Again
The design of the Barack Obama Presidential Center has been tweaked again. Today the Obama Foundation released new information and renderings of the museum campus it wants to build in Jackson Park. October 219 rendering of the Obama Presidential Center (Courtesy of the Obama Foundation) The most notable change is in the main museum tower. It’s still 235 feet tall, but its shape is a little slimmer and it features large...
The Parts Have Arrived to Finish a North Side Recreation Trail
Gaps may work for David Letterman’s teeth or buying blue jeans, but they are terrible for bicycle paths. That’s why people from Ravenswood to Evanston are excited about the giant hulks of steel sitting on the east bank of the Chicago River’s north branch. Lincoln Village Pedestrian Bridge under construction in October 2019 (Courtesy of West Rogers Park Spy Joel) West Rogers Park Spy Joel spotted the two halves of the...
