(photo by Lee Bey)
I got a note a few days ago from reader Gaylon Alcaraz. She asks: "Lee....what do you know about the Pill Hill area beyond the fact that doctors and lawyers live there? The homes are very "Californian" to me, with slanted roofs and just very unique designs. Do you know any history behind the development of the neighborhood?
I was coming up from the riverwalk downtown on a recent morning, camera in hand, when I saw the vista of the winding Beaux Art staircase and the gleaming, modern, 321 N. Clark building, built in 1987, in the background. Architectural contrasts like this--and you can live here for years and not notice a particular one until one day---are what make Chicago so cool.
(photo by Lee Bey)
(photo by Lee Bey)
The arched entrance of the old Parisian Novelty Co., at 3510 S. Western is one of my favorites. It's just the right height and width, visually. I dig how the letters in "Parisian" rise and fall to fill the arch. We're a city of buildings. Which means lots of opportunities to make a grand entrance.
(photo by Lee Bey)
The fascinating "DuSable to Obama: Chicago's Black Metropolis," documentary that's been airing this month on WTTW--catch it if you have not seen it--shows us the black experience in Chicago is substantially fuller, broader and deeper than many of us have been taught, or imagined.
(photo by Lee Bey)
(photo by Lee Bey)
I took a drive through the western edge of South Shore a couple of days ago.
Until I was 10, my family--father, mother, two sisters, and later grandmother and aunt--lived in a two flat my old man owned in the neighborhood at 7327 S. Kimbark. The landmarks were simple then: James Madison public school at 74th and Dorchester; Mrs Smith's corner store at 74th and Kimbark; and St Laurence Parish, seemingly a world away at 72nd and Dorchester because I wasn't allowed to go north of 73rd St---which only made me sneak and do it anyway. The St. Laurence buildings--a church, school, rectory and parish house that looked as romantic and Old World as the locales I'd see on "I Spy" reruns on Channel 44--had their importance.
(photo by Lee Bey)
The former Jays potato chip factory at 99th and Cottage Grove is for sale.
The plant once perfumed the South Side neighborhood with the oily/salty smell of cooking potatoes. The factory closed two-and-a-half years ago when Jays newest owner, Synder's of Hanover moved the potato chip-making apparatus elsewhere.
(photo by Lee Bey)
One of the more overlooked preservation stories this year has been the alarm sounded by Landmarks Illinois a few months back.
The statewide preservation group named the entire 10400 and 10500 blocks of Corliss and Maryland avenues to its "most endangered list." The citation is significant and alarming because the blocks compose the northeast portion of the local and nationally-landmarked Pullman Historic District--an almost completely intact former company town‚ that was built in the 1880s to house workers of the long-shuttered Pullman Palace Car factory.
