I love thunderstorms. I remember sitting on my parent’s porch when I was a child and just listening to the rain. It’s always had a soothing affect on me. Chicago’s storms are fewer and further between but no less beautiful.
Unfortunately these days I’m very often working or sleeping through these storms and my garden apartment does is so well insulated that even just listening to a storm is next to impossible.
Sunday as I was leaving work I got lucky. I managed to get to the Chicago Brown line stop just as it started to rain. I took a few moments to just sit and watch the rain and listen to the sound of it beating down on the wood and metal around me. This is my calm, this is what puts me at peace.
By the time I got up to my neighborhood the rain had stopped and the sun was brightly shining through the clouds. Moments like these are among my favorites, everything just glistens from the moisture before it completely evaporates into the sun.
A few days ago I was downtown to get my license plate sticker renewed. I took this time to wander around the Loop a bit.
The Loop is one of the weirdest anomalies about this city to me. It seems to me that it would make logical sense that the Loop, being the easiest possible place to reach from ANY train would be a bustling active party of the city and it’s nights/weekends. Instead the loop is almost strictly commercial with few things to do after 6pm on a weekday or on the weekends at all. This absolutely baffles me.
In the years I lived in NY I only once rode an MTA bus (and it was because some made me). Not so in Chicago, I ride at least one bus a day. In NY I didn’t need to. I could easily reach any part of the city using the subway system. Here in Chicago if I want to visit one of my friends on the west side I pretty much have to take a bus. The other option of course would be to take a train down to the Loop and then another back up to the west side, which is mind-numbingly dumb. Hasn’t this city heard of “crosstown trains?” This is not a new concept, virtually every other mass transit system has them.
So wouldn’t it make sense that my friend and I could split the difference and meet in the Loop? Too bad there is nothing to do down there. The city almost figured this out with Looptopia, but even then failed in execution. And of course the idea was eventually killed before it really got the chance.
Despite my disappointment with this neighborhood not living up to my ideals of it’s potential there is still a lot to be said for the Loop. One of my favorite things about this city is how even some of the most heavily trafficked and distinguished areas of the city can have a gritty and raw appearance. It’s no wonder that Chicago was chosen as the set of Gotham City two times now. That grit is what I was able to discover in shooting the Loop. There are many signs of life and some beautiful repetition in the architecture of the area. I just wish there was a reason to be down there at night and shoot. Maybe some day.
When I first moved to Chicago one of the things that struck me was the lack of a natural land barrier stifling the city’s growth. Sure there is the lake, and yes it very much impedes Chicago’s ability to have an East side, but that is only part of what I mean.
Manhattan Island is divided on all sides from the mainland in some way and this acts as a natural boundary for New York city and it’s development. The skyscrapers sorta go up to the water and then end there suddenly. As soon as you cross over into Brooklyn, Queens, New Jersey or the Bronx and the cityscape changes dramatically. Chicago isn’t like this. Downtown is full of high rise buildings and skyscrapers but it lasts for a relatively smaller portion before it tapers off. And that’s just it, it tapers off without a natural boundary to do so. It seems once you get above Chicago Avenue all the buildings gradually get shorter. When friends of mine come to visit from NY they are often taken aback by areas like Lakeview and Logan Square. They ask if I live in “Chicago proper” or “the boroughs” because to them neighborhoods like that are very distinctly divided from the rest of the city by the East river. It’s silly and obvious but most people don’t think about it.
What gets me as well is that Chicago does have things that could act as natural divisions but don’t. Chicago, unlike New York, has major waterways stretching through it.What fascinates me most with this is the Chicago River which splits downtown and Michigan Avenue right in the middle yet does not seem to impede growth on either side. Still the river has a calming effect and the small amount of land around it can be a nice place to relax.
Here are a few shots I took back in March of the river and the immediate area around it.
A few weeks back I popped up to Loyola to visit a friend for lunch. I’ve always been a big fan of college campus’s especially the architecture. When I used to live in New York I would often find myself sitting in the middle of the Columbia University campus just taking in the surroundings and people watching, even though I wasn’t a student there.
Being the kind of person that I am Loyola’s campus was really interesting to me, but of course what fascinated me most on that particular day was not the sprawling lawns, beautiful brick work or striking arches, but the parking garage and it’s immediate surroundings.
One of the things I enjoyed most was it’s proximity to the CTA train line and the unique perspective it offered of the tracks themselves. Expect to see a lot more shots in the future focusing on the CTA.
I did of course also take a few pictures of the other the other things as well, not just the parking garage. Enjoy.
So, if you caught me on ChicagoNow Radio on Saturday you may have heard me mention I live in Wrigleyville. You may have even heard me refer to it as “the training wheels of Chicago.”
As much as I love to trash on my Lakeview-community-by-the-field I have to confess: I do love it here.
I moved to Chicago in May of 2007 after an epic hunt for apartments that had me flying out from New York three out of four weekends in March. When I finally settled down in a place, I had found one I loved.
The truth of the matter is the neighborhood isn’t that bad. The truth is I am a baseball fan so there is a certain magic and energy to me in living so close to the field, but at the same time I’m just far enough away that I don’t have to put up with the majority of the craziness.
If you can get past the craziness on Clark Street, Wrigleyville has a lot of hidden charm and I plan to showcase more of this as time goes on. What follows are some of my favorite shots I’ve taken of Wrigleyville, most of them have never been published before.
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