Archive for the ‘West_Loop’ tag
Photo Republished at Blackbird In Chicago
My photo was used to illustrate this post
Photo By Seth Anderson “Blackbird is one of the finest restaurants in the country” – Chicago Tribune. Sophisticated, earthy food in a modern, sleek setting. Owner of a Michelin star.
click here to keep reading :
Blackbird In Chicago
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Flickr Favorites Uploaded in March 2013
I processed and uploaded 113 photos in March, much less than February’s total. Probably my ear troubles ate into my productivity, but that’s just an excuse.
Anyway via Flickr: Archive of your uploads to Flickr in March 2013 here are my 22 personal favorites created in March. Click image to embiggen.
Go Back To Where You Have Been Again
Take What You Have Gathered From Coincidence
Money Isn’t The Only Answer
Devil’s Paintbrush – Upper Yurtistan
Butterfly – Upper Yurtistan
Wine is Good For You
Minister of Design and The Future, Blue
Somebody Please Tell This Machine I’m Not A Machine
Ready For Take Off
Guardian of Marfa East
Assembling Tian
Fanoenix by Debbie Mullins
Heracles Shoots the Sun
Cold Was the Ground
I don’t love all of this photo, but I do like how the clouds were filtered.
Where The Air Is Fresh And Clean
George playing the piano
Let True Love Win
Garfield Park Conservatory
Fulton Vortex
West Loop weirdness
Not A Simple Binary Choice
Loyola Campus
Off The Grid
Lake Michigan beach in Wilmette, IL
Towers
Bahá’í Temple, Wilmette, IL
Eliyahu Was Thirsty
Hipstamatic closeup of Elijah’s cup, a few days after Passover
West Loop II? Ambitious plan would cover Kennedy, create office hub
Earlier today…
Preliminary plans call for eight to 12 acres of public park that would be built over the expressway, bridging the gap between the West Loop and the central business district, said Steven Fifield, president of Chicago-based Fifield. The recreational space would then serve as a catalyst for bringing new office towers, and tenants to fill them, to the neighborhood, he said.
The capping project would cost around $45 million if it were to span the three blocks between Washington Boulevard and Adams Street, and its first phase could be funded with tax-increment financing from the city, Mr. Fifield said. As more tenants move to the area, boosting tax revenue, the project would likely end up paying for itself, he said
Via:
West Loop II? Ambitious plan would cover Kennedy, create office hub
[automated]
Songs We May Have Forgotten
Songs We May Have Forgotten (click to embiggen)
Sunset in the West Loop.
A Flickr pal asked me how I named this photo.
My response:
Short answer, I don’t know.
Longer answer: Titles are hard, especially after coming up with over 8,000 already1. I try not to repeat myself when naming the photos that I upload to Flickr, but it is a challenge. Some photographs name themselves, others have only a tangential, tenuous relation between subject and title. I’m a bit of a magpie, snatching up fragments of phrases from wherever I find them, or sometimes just from turning off my conscious brain for a second, and seeing what emerges from my subconscious.
Footnotes:- 8,891 items uploaded to Flickr as of 8-31-2012 [↩]
A Brief Rain Storm
A Sunday night rain storm; my soundtrack was Townes Van Zandt and bottle of decent enough red wine. And the sound of falling water.
30 Seconds of a Rainy Night in Chicago
and the actual 30 second video, theoretically… (Flash, sorry)
Not Wishing To Intrude
Rain Bokeh Number 2169
Out The Window Blues
Absinthe Verte in the Rain
Listen to The Falling Rain
Inside A Broken Clock
Youtube version:
City Winery Chicago Moving to Randolph
West Loop at Night number 0142, approximately the 1000 block of West Randolph
Another new neighbor:
CHICAGO-Summit Design + Build LLC is underway on construction on City Winery Chicago, a fully operational urban winery and tasting room, restaurant with outdoor wine garden, concert hall and private event space at 1200 W. Randolph St. in the West Loop. The building is a former refrigerated food distribution warehouse built in the early part of the 20th century, is being renovated into a 33,000-square-foot contemporary winery and hospitality facility. Opening is scheduled for August.
(click here to continue reading GlobeSt.com – Duke Signs Leases for Three Industrial Tenants – Daily News Article.)
Fiat dealer Moving To West Loop
Artificial Notions of Causality
The retail space in R+D 659 has never been leased in the history of the building – it has sat vacant since 2006. Especially since there will not be a garage here, I’m happy to have Fiat as a neighbor.
Fiat of Chicago hopes to open its 12,900-square-foot dealership at 647 W. Randolph St. by July, says Carmelo Scalzo, who will co-own the dealership with his father Antonio Scalzo. They chose the location, on the ground floor of the 15-story R+D 659 condo tower, largely because of its location next to the highway, Carmelo Scalzo says.
After 28 years away from the U.S., Milan-based based Fiat SpA, which also owns Chrysler, began selling its Fiat 500 model here last year and has already opened dealerships in the suburbs. Since its American return, the company has rolled out a publicity blitz including television advertisements featuring Jennifer Lopez and Charlie Sheen. Fiat of Chicago aims to generate its own attention with visibility and easy accessibility to hundreds of thousands of drivers a day.
Fiat 750
“With the right signage, that’s about the heaviest traffic there is in Chicago,” says Greg Kirsch, principal at New York-based Newmark Knight Frank, who represents retail tenants in Chicago but was not involved in this deal. “It kind of follows what Mercedes did on North Avenue. That was a good example of taking advantage of the expressway traffic. The rental income from billboards alone can be tens of thousands of dollars a month, so why not use the high visibility and make it convenient for the customer at the same time?”
The Scalzos already own and operate Volvo of Oak Park. They sought out the Fiat brand because Antonio Scalzo worked as a Fiat technician in his native Calabria, Italy, before coming to the U.S. and eventually owning his own Fiat and Alfa Romeo dealership in Berwyn and later Maywood. “It was an opportunity for my father to get back to his roots with Fiat and Alfa Romeo,” Carmelo Scalzo says. “We’ve been pursuing it for a couple of years, and with our history and heritage they thought we’d be a good fit.”
The younger Mr. Scalzo says he plans to sell 600 Fiats a year out of the dealership, which would give it one of the highest volumes in the country. When the higher-end Alfa Romeo brand returns to the U.S. in 2013 or ’14, those sports cars will become available in the Chicago showroom, he says. That will create price ranges from about $16,000 for the Fiat 500 to more than $60,000 for some Alfa Romeos, Mr. Scalzo says. Fiat of Chicago will have a bright, red-and-white showroom — or “studio,” as the company calls it — with high ceilings. It will not have a service garage.
(click here to continue reading Fiat dealer, parking on Randolph, aims to turn heads on Kennedy – News – Crain’s Chicago Business.)
Maybe the Scalzos want to purchase some Chicago-esque photographs to hang in their showroom?
Gradient Power
Stairway to a Two Bedroom Daguerreotype
West Loop Dreaming
Favorite February 2012 Photos
Without preamble (if you want explanation, check December’s children), here are my favorite twelve photos from February. There were 133 to choose from.
Via Flickr: Archive of your uploads to Flickr in February 2012.)
Help Me Make It Through The Night
Tell Me Why You Hurry So?
And I Still Do Not Know What It Was That I’ve Done Wrong
Secret Meanings
The Wind is Still
Good morning West Loop
Waiting For My Connection Back To You
Midwest Generation Fisk Station
I Know What You Are Remembering
Into A Single Thought
And If You Cross Your Fingers
Sugar Maple
Honorable mention goes to:
Thrift Store on the Right
Veerasway to Change to a Burger Joint
Urban Archeology, 846 W Randolph.
I did eat at Veerasway once, and I thought it ok, not great. Nothing had much flavor, and I never returned. I’m not adverse to a good hamburger now and again, but how many new “organic” hamburger joints can the West Loop support anyway?
Last weekend at Lollapalooza, Veerasway owners Chris and Angela Lee set up shop as Juhu Beach. Little did anyone know that the tent setup would be the modern Indian restaurant’s new form as the Lees shuttered the Michelin Bib Gourmand-stamped Veerasway on Sunday and now will begin transforming it into Grange Hall Farm Burger.
Despite getting recognized by Michelin, Veerasway just wasn’t pulling in the business. “Not enough people gave Indian a chance,” said Chris Lee. “In other words, everyone who had the food thinks it’s great, but not enough people were willing to try the food.”
The new approximately 55-seat free-range burger joint will open sometime this fall to, as the Lees feel, fill a quality burger void in the West Loop. They were inspired to open Grange Hall after seeing the popularity of DMK Burger Bar. “There are many restaurants with good burgers, but the point is that there are no dedicated burger places in the West Loop,” he said. “We want to do it to Angela’s style.” Lee does recognize that Epic Burger recently opened not too far from their location, but considers that more in the Loop.
The restaurant will grind all the hormone-, drug- and antibiotic-free beef in house. They will source all the products—meats, vegetables, fruit—from family farms as close to Chicago as possible and plan to use only in-season ingredients. The menu, which is still being worked out, will also feature turkey and veggie burgers, as well as just-baked pies and hand-churned ice cream. And on weekend mornings, they’ll hold farm breakfasts.
(click here to continue reading Veerasway Closing, Grange Hall Farm Burger Will Replace; Juhu Beach to Carry on Legacy – New Beginnings – Eater Chicago.)
Three Hearts Better than None, 844 W. Randolph.
–
update, walked by here this evening:
Cloudaholic
Yesterday Chicago got a couple of hours of spectacular cloud formations as a slow-moving heat front came in. I took a few dozen photos, but haven’t processed most of them1
Here are a couple, plus a silly little video I shot with my phone, set to the opening strains of Adagio in G Minor for Strings and Organ. Click to embiggen, of course.
Cloudscape in the West Loop – Number 2196
Ready For Locusts
Cloudscape in the West Loop – Number 2205
Cloudscape in the West Loop – Number 2200
Cloudscape in the West Loop – Number 2221
and another version for no apparent reason…
Footnotes:- yet, I will post more later, probably in a week, or month, or year from now. [↩]
West Loop wine bar -Uva
Decaying Carnivale
Kevin Pang reports about who is going to move into the old Rushmore location:
Chef Mark Mendez, who left Carnivale last September, has revealed his next move: opening a Spanish small bites/wine bar with his wife Liz in the West Loop.
They’re calling it Uva, Spanish for grape, and it’ll be located at Lake and Carpenter Streets (1023 W. Lake St.) in the West Loop. His neighbors will include Next/Aviary and Maude’s Liquor Bar.
Mendez said he and his wife are working with Charles Bieler of The Gotham Project, who’s been working on a proprietary system of kegged wines on tap in New York City. Mendez will also be sourcing what he calls “oddball, small batch varieties.”
(click here to continue reading Former Carnivale chef Mark Mendez to open West Loop wine bar – chicagotribune.com.)
Wine Jug
New resident at 833 West Randolph
Former location of Marché, soon to be reopened under new management:
Nellcôte (833 W. Randolph St.; no phone yet), the previously unnamed venture by Jared Van Camp (Old Town Social). The restaurant is named for Villa Nellcôte, the mansion on the Côte d’Azur where the Rolling Stones threw a notorious house party that somehow spawned the album Exile on Main Street.
“Over-the-top luxury without pretense” is how a spokeswoman describes the look. “There will be white Italian marble, wrought-iron gates, [and] cartouche crown molding, but also irreverent accents like bohemian pop art,” she says. The menu will feature a changing-daily lineup of house-made foods using local ingredients, including pizzas and pastas made with house-milled 00 flour. The flour mill is a 9-by-11-foot leviathan that the kitchen was built around, and the finely milled flour will be available for retail sale. Van Camp is targeting November or December for opening.
Sounds somewhat intriguing, the proof will be if it is a place that Gram Parsons would hang out in while consuming heroic amounts of opium derivatives.
Solemn and serene
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: Chunky
Flash: Off
Film: BlacKeys SuperGrain
April showers continue, and continue, and continue
Better when viewed in Lightbox
CCP Holden Building purchased by SCC
Good news re: an old, seemingly abandoned historic Chicago building on W. Madison. Local ad agency Schafer Condon Carter has purchased it, and it going to restore it. I don’t know how much they paid, nor how much they’ve budgeted to modernize it, but I’m happy they are doing so.
An employee left the following comment on the above Flickr photo:
Hey, good news! The advertising agency I work for, Schafer Condon Carter, recently bought the building and are in the early stages of internal demolition. We will be moved in by November of this year! The space has been vacant for quite some time and desperately needs some love which we’re all excited to give it! You can track the buildings progress from our site, www.sccadv.com. We will be installing time-lapsing cameras to catch its development. Cheers.
and via www.urbanremainschicago.com/item.aspx?itemID=700
charles p. holden was a well-known chicago resident during the 1860′s & 70′s. he was deeply involved in real estate and/or development in and around the westside of chicago. this particular building was built shortly after the great chicago fire of 1871. as a consequence of the fire, this structure contains 8 seperate vaults w/ ornamental cast iron safe doors. that way, any valuable assets stashed away could be rescued if another conflaguration was to arise. in addition to the vaults, the first floor contained cast iron fluted columns w. corinthian capitals. the window and door casings were milled in a deep relief pine wood (typical of this period). interestingly, the load bearing columns on all of the upper floors were fashioned in the form of rounded wood columns w/ simple banding near the cap. the decorative stone facade will be rehabilitated during the building’s conversion to other uses.
From the SCC website:
Schafer|Condon|Carter (SCC) is pleased to announce its purchase of the C.C.P. Holden building at 1027 W. Madison Street in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood. The agency plans to move its operations to the 34,500 square-foot building in the fall of 2011 after an extensive renovation.
C.C.P. Holden, a well-known Chicago political figure, railroad magnate and real estate developer was very involved in the massive reconstruction efforts after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 and built the Italianate limestone, sandstone, terra cotta, brick and timber structure in 1872. It is one of only a handful of such architectural gems in Chicago. SCC will be working with Chicago-based Widler Architecture on the restoration. When finished it will be a model of conservation and sustainability.
(click here to continue reading Schafer | Condon | Carter.)
another view
I’ll have to stop over there later this summer and see what changes are visible from the outside.
