I took this photo on August 6th, 2021, and processed it in my digital darkroom on August 12th, 2021.
ƒ/1.8 at 1/160
35.0 mm prime lens
ISO 125
I think this was embedded in a church wall, but I could be wrong. Maybe it was a former priest’s apartment? I cannot recall. Somewhere in the Gold Coast, probably on Dearborn, if memory serves.
Is the face a Christ? Seems like it could be, though the broken nose reminds me of the Egyptian sculptures, and the conspiracy that the noses were broken off because they were African, or other reasons.
I liked the inherent decay of the sculpture1 and the expression of this man. So seriously sad.
I was listening to my vinyl collection; tonight I played Bob Dylan’s often disparaged album, Street-Legal, which I happen to think is pretty good. By the way, Jerry Garcia recorded a good cover of Señor (Tales of Yankee Power), as did Willie Nelson with Calexico, if you are keeping track.
Senor, senor, do you know where she is hidin’? How long are we gonna be ridin’? How long must I keep my eyes glued to the door? Will there be any comfort there, senor?
This seemed appropriate for a Christ embedded on a stone wall…
Last year the five lakes that together hold 20 percent of the fresh surface water on the planet broke 10 high-water records, and more are expected to fall this year. The inundation follows a 15-year span from 1999 to 2014 when the so-called upper lakes of Superior, Michigan and Huron experienced the longest period of low water in recorded history.
The lakes have always been tempestuous neighbors, but today they appear to be entering a new era of volatility that is testing the region as never before. The simple explanation is that the last five years have been the wettest in history in the Great Lakes watershed, which encompasses parts of eight states and two Canadian provinces. But some scientists believe a more complicated dynamic is at work: a warming climate that will continue to cause extreme fluctuations in weather and water levels, threatening havoc for lakeside homeowners, towns and cities, tourism and shipping.
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All of this has many lakefront property owners reconsidering their relationship with the lakes they love. Should people living in areas prone to flooding and shoreline erosion pack up and leave? Or should they stay, and at what cost to themselves and taxpayers? How much are communities willing to spend to protect against storms and rising waters?
The Midwest might have been complacent about climate change, but less and less as the facts become more obvious.
As an aside, the Great Lakes are just one area on the planet with coasts, what about all the rest? Are we going to start factoring in cost to keep beaches livable? Or?
I find it harder to take new photographs in the bleak mid-winter months, so instead dig through my massive archives of unprocessed photos. I randomly click around in my Lightroom catalog, find a time that has lots of photos that I never really looked at, and often find some interesting images to work on.
It’s a visionary idea for beautifying Chicago and lifting a community’s property values whose time has never come.
But might it come at last? There’s still an allure here for making no little plans, even if they are arguably unwise.
The idea is the Kennedy Expressway cap, a green oasis that could be built on a deck over the highway as it cuts its swath west of downtown. It would cover that unsightly traffic, diminish its roar and provide open space for a West Loop region that teems with new residents, offices, hotels and restaurants. Think of it as Millennium Park replicated about a mile and a half west.
Capping the Kennedy is a notion that’s been out there for years, always with a dream-like quality to it. It was included in the city’s 2003 Central Area Plan, its first comprehensive look at the downtown region since 1958, and it also was featured in a 2009 “action plan” update that cheerily set a goal of completing it by 2020.
As a friend said on Twitter, Chicago covered up lots of railroads, why not highways too?
Seems like I’m not the only to think those thoughts:
I was at a meeting last week called by Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th) and the West Loop Community Organization where residents offered comments about a new hotel and apartment tower connected to an office building on the block just west of the Kennedy between Washington and Randolph streets. People liked the project overall, but talk inevitably turned to traffic management and lack of park space for an area that now has many young families. Residents said the closest parks, Mary Bartelme and Skinner, can be overrun. That’s when Burnett brought up capping the Kennedy. I asked him about it later. He said the project could tap into funds in his ward’s tax increment financing districts that may be close to expiring. “If we don’t use it, we lose it,” he said. “That money has to be distributed back to all the taxing bodies, so let’s use it while we can.’’
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Sarver said he still believes in the cap. If the experience of Millennium Park is a guide, the Kennedy cap “would generate billions in tax revenue for the city. It would be wonderful. That stretch of roadway is a real fissure in our city.’’ He said other cities, such as Dallas, have done well by relegating a highway to a tunnel and creating attractive public space above it.
“I think this really would be the kind of project that TIF dollars were intended for,” Sarver said.
The cost? Sarver estimates it at $50 million per block. If you did the stretch between Randolph and Adams streets, that would get you to $200 million. Others may suggest capping only two or three blocks.
The West Loop and Fulton Market has drastically changed in recent time, but there is dearth of greenspace. More greenspace is more better…
Finishing touches were made Monday on a yellow brick road in the Humboldt Park neighborhood to commemorate L. Frank Baum, who lived in the neighborhood when he wrote “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and other Oz books.
Spanning 200 feet of the sidewalk at the corner of Humboldt Boulevard and Wabansia Avenue, the brick road surrounds a group of affordable housing town houses managed by Bickerdike Redevelopment Corp. that are on the site where Baum lived when he wrote the children’s novel in the late 19th century.
Bickerdike also plans to install a tile mosaic mural on a low wall engraved with a line from the movie adaptation of the novel: “There’s no place like home.”
I need to go there one sunny afternoon and take some photos.
I didn’t know this when I moved to Chicago, but my grandfather lived in an apartment in Humboldt Park. I have always meant to take my own photo of the specific address (1627 North Humboldt Boulevard, Chicago, IL).
Photo taken a couple summers ago at some Wicker Park street festival, added to Flickr Explore 10/9/2019.
The woman was playfully teasing her boyfriend because while he hemmed and hawed and tried to line up his perfect shot, I stepped in and took a quick photo, and she gestured at me, saying something, “come on, this guy already took my picture!”
I’m a zen photographer: I see something interesting, snap, and either the photo turns out ok or not. And in fact, this is a flawed photo, my focus was a little off, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
