Chicago noir: Downtown architecture and streetscapes after dark

Chicago noir: Downtown architecture and streetscapes after dark
WBEZ/Lee Bey
Chicago noir: Downtown architecture and streetscapes after dark
WBEZ/Lee Bey

Chicago noir: Downtown architecture and streetscapes after dark

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I strolled around downtown with my camera last night. Killing time that way was better than standing on a Metra platform, staring at nothing and no one in particular for 40 minutes waiting for my train to load and depart.

The view from Daley Plaza is impressive at night. In the photo above, the City Hall/County Building, the Burnham Center at 111 W. Washington and the lighted steeple of the Chicago Temple building are part of a set of buildings that frame the plaza. The dark night sky brings the ceiling down so low, the space feels like an interior room after dark.

A window at the base of the Burnham Center frames a trio of workers toiling in the night:

The musical Mamma Mia is playing at the Oriental Theater. I still remember watching bad Kung Fu movies there for $1.75 as a kid in the 1970s. This is better:

At one of the shops at Block 37. I saw something like this in a window in Amsterdam once. But it was a little more animated:

The entrance of the Burnham & Root-designed Rookery Building on LaSalle Street…

And then, right outside of the Rookery, one of the best night views in the city—the Chicago Board of Trade building at Jackson and LaSalle, designed by Holabird & Root. It was my last shot before I dashed off for the train: