Lee Bey

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Recent stories by this author

A midcentury bank at risk in Gage Park

Apr. 10, 2013
The working class Chicago neighborhood went a bit go-go in the 1950s and 1960s, and the result is some unexpectedly modern buildings turning up here and there in the mainly pre-War landscape.

Siskel & Ebert and one last laugh

Apr. 9, 2013
I posted this on my Facebook page last week, then thought a wider audience might enjoy it today: a 1995 episode of the short-lived (and wickedly funny) animated series The Critic featuring Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.

Roger Ebert: An architecture critic, too

Apr. 5, 2013
 "I walk around Chicago, and look up at buildings of variety and charm. I walk into lobbies of untold beauty. I ascend in elevators fit for the gods. Then I walk outside again and see the street defaced by the cruel storefronts of bank branches and mall chains, scornful of beauty.

Bulldozers roll on Reagan's boyhood home

Apr. 2, 2013
Demolition has begun on a Hyde Park apartment house that was once a boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan. 

Chicago architecture showcased in vintage commercials

Apr. 1, 2013
Chicago shows off quite nicely in television commercials and these pair of TV spots from nearly 35 years ago underscore that point.The first commercial, from 1980, is for the old American National Bank.

CTA's million dollar rip-off

Mar. 27, 2013
Watch a blast from Chicago's cinematic past: The Million Dollar Rip Off, a 1976 made-for-television movie about an ex-con who plans a heist $1.5 million from the Chicago Transit Authority.

Closures loom over unique class of architecture

Mar. 25, 2013
What will happen to the closed school buildings? Many were done by some of the city's best architects. Are they worthy of preservation and reuse?

Ornate Roman Catholic parish center faces demo

Mar. 20, 2013
A vacant neo-Gothic gymnasium and community center--an unofficial landmark in the Brighton Park neighborhood for more than 80 years--might soon be demolished by the Chicago Roman Catholic archdiocese. In late January, the archdiocese applied for a permit wreck the former St.

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