Window Pane

Lawry's Steakhouse has these interesting metal frames on the windows.

Bronzeville Sign

While you are on the Stevenson Expressway, near Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Drive, there is a large sign identifying the area as Bronzeville, a subsection of the Douglas Neighborhood. The area has a lot of history and, based on a little research, quite a bit of public art and historical plaques (thus, moving it up on on my list of future photo excursions).

I've never quite been able to get a photo of the whole sign because stopping your car on the expressway is very dangerous and generally frowned upon. This is the center portion of the sign. I'm pretty sure the image depicted in this logo is the Stephen Douglas statue, which is in the area.

I have a correction: The image is the Doughboy statue from a memorial, in the Bronzeville area, to 187 national guard members who died in WWI. Thanks Jim (who's informative Chicago photo blog is here)!

Election Day

It's election day in Chicago. We're voting for a new mayor. There are six candidates, down from twenty that initially filed for candidacy.

If a candidate gets an absolute majority (50% of the vote + 1) then that person gets to move into City Hall on May 16 and the whole city gets spared 42 more days of speeches, debates, TV commercials, and photo-ops (including snow shoveling, restaurant visits, el stop handshakes, and way more information about all the different areas of the city each candidate ever called 'home' than most people care to know). In short, we get to move on from politics to the pressing topic of whether the Cubs can break their 103 year pennant drought (and don't think we haven't noticed that while the candidates like to discuss their solutions to budgets, taxes, and education, none of them seem to have a plan to solve the Cubs' curse).

If no candidate gets an absolute majority then the top two vote getters get back to the trenches until April 5.

Wish us luck!

Archway

I liked how the bare trees formed a lacy archway over the Sears Tower*.

*Yeah, yeah, yeah, it has some new name. It will always be Sears Tower to me ;)

Pieces of the River

We get some very interesting designs in the Chicago River when the ice layer starts to crack, separate, and eventually melt. (Best part was when I was taking these photos, two different people stopped to mention that they like when the ice cracks like this and makes those great shapes.)

(Click to enlarge the photo collage)

All Heart

(Click to enlarge the photo)

Another really fun and informational public art display appeared on Michigan Avenue recently. Last Summer it was old refrigerators with energy saving messages. Now it is Hearts with heart healthy tips that decorate both sides of Michigan Avenue from the Chicago River to Chicago Avenue.

Officially titled Hearts-A-Bluhm, the hearts, sponsored by various civic and corporate groups,were created by Columbia College students and staff. Northwestern Hospital's Bluhm Cardiovascular Center came up with the idea to promote public awareness of heart issues.

The one little problem is that most of the heart healthy tips are on the base of the statues and currently covered with snow leftover from the Blizzard of 2011. That problem should be resolved by the end of this week, when temperatures are forecast to hit 50 degrees. Then the Blizzard of 2011 will melt into the Flood of 2011. (Forget the shovel, where is my rowboat?)

Lakefront Tourists

Chicago gets a lot of tourists. This fine family, resting on one of the benches along the Lakefront Path, probably decided to visit our fair city to escape the snow and cold temperatures from their native Arctic home.