WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

We often use this space to discuss how Chicago's architecture and neighborhoods are seen in movies and TV shows. But I think the best view comes from hip-hop music videos--especially those by Chicago artists.

Kanye West directed the above video for rapper Common's 2005 cut "The Corner."‚  West sees Chicago the way a native does: at times cold and foreboding, yet beautiful. The opening helicopter shot of the domed Adler Planetarium sitting out in an ice-over Lake Michigan is brilliant, as are the cuts to what I think is a 1981 Oldsmobile rolling down Garfield Blvd on 20" rims. Navy Pier and the high-rises of north Lake Shore Drive are seen, as are the Regal Theater near 79th and Stony Island, the corner of 79th and Cottage Grove.

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"Childhood is Without Prejudice" mural
at 57th near Stony (photo by Lee Bey)

I was cruising‚  through the Hyde Park neighborhood recently when the Childhood is Without Prejudice mural at the 56th St Metra Electric station reminded me of the power of artist William Walker's work. A founding father of the U.S. muralist movement, Walker created some of the most arresting outdoor art in the city.

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Ebony/Jet Building. The former YWCA building on the lef
was demolished earlier this year (photo by Lee Bey)

When the 11-story Johnson Publishing Co., headquarters building was dedicated 38 years ago, it was a big thing. A very big thing.

A thousand people showed up, packing the wide sidewalk and street outside the building at 820 S. Michigan to celebrate Ebony and Jet magazine publisher John H. Johnson's triumph. In addition to dignitaries such as Mayor Richard J. Daley and the Rev. Jesse Jackson (resplendent in Afro and Dashiki) , the list of attendees and visitors to the building in its opening weeks reads like of who's who of who was hip and happening in 1972.

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Randolph Street, 1963

The Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection at Indiana University is one of the most mesmerizing photography collections online--especially if you're a Chicagophile.

Cushman was a Chicago businessman who was not famous or noteworthy beyond his circle of family, friends and associates. But he liked photography. And what makes his work unusual--and thus worth celebrating--is that as early as 1938, he shot in color using Kodak slide film. As a result, a pre- and postwar Chicago that is normally seen through black-and-white photography is presented, by Cushman, in crisp, brilliant color.

Much of his photography captures the last days of older, decaying Chicago. Among the most striking is this 1944 of Potter Palmer's castle at 1350 N. Lake‚  Shore Drive. Color makes the doomed pile seem even heavier, sadder. The building that essentially created the Gold Coast (the rich folks followed the Palmers from the South Side when this castle was built in 1885) would fall to the wrecker's ball six years later.

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(photo by Lee Bey)

I was walking through Millennium Park in February, 2007 when I took the above photo of Chicago artist Chris Heck working on a composition of Anish Kapoor's Cloudgate with the Michigan Avenue streetwall in the background. Art begetting art, as it were.

Anyway, I posted the image on my flickr page and moved on. Then not long ago, three years later, I got a flickr comment from none other than Heck himself.

"I remember you taking my picture and never really thought anymore about it," he said. "It looks great. Ill have to post a pic of the finished painting for you to see." And he did:

And I dig.

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(photo by Lee Bey)

Look at the photo above. Where do you think this is?‚  (And reading ahead is cheating.)

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(photo by Lee Bey)

I know, I know. I just profiled a church building two days ago. But it is Cool Building Wednesday, and I daresay mid-century modern Liberty Baptist Church fits the bill. Besides, it's still open for service. A few quick notes:

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