A Colorful History, too

A colorful part of the Aragon Ballroom in the Uptown neighborhood. According to the Aragon's website, it was built in 1926 at a cost of $2 million dollars (admission was 90 cents). It is named after a Spanish providence and designed to look like a Spanish palace courtyard. Through the 50s, it was a dance hall. In the late 50s, an explosion next door did a lot of damage (broken chandeliers, flying bar stools). It had to close for repairs and by the time it re-opened, the dance hall phase had passed. It next became a skating rink, then a boxing/wrestling sports arena, then a "mod-type discotheque", more rehab and refurbishing work, back to a ballroom dancing hall, then a "monster rock" marathon concert venue, yet another try at big bands and ballroom dancing, even more rehab and restoration, and back to rock concerts.

Yes, a colorful history to go with the colorful venue.

Birds on a Door

Found this interesting carving of birds (maybe artistic owls?) on a door in the Old Town section of the Lincoln Park neighborhood. The full doorway, which is also pretty fancy - is below.

Mother Nature's Ice Sculptures

Time, dirt, sand, and, now, rising temperatures have created some odd little ice sculptures along the lakefront. (This almost doesn't look like ice anymore.) This little lopsided heart was formed - briefly - near Fullerton Avenue. By the time I walked back to this area, about fifteen minutes later, the front section had collapsed.

City of Cities

Yesterday was Chicago's 173rd Birthday. The Chicago History Museum celebrated by having a free admissions day. The museum has a number of interesting regular exhibits and special events. One exhibit focuses on the uniqueness of Chicago neighborhoods and includes this map showing the names and boundaries of each. It is rather interesting how each neighborhood has its own "personality", allowing you to feel as though you are traveling without ever leaving your home city.

Same Time Last Year

Must be something about early March and the almost Spring conditions that brings out some pretty sunrises. Purely coincidentally, I posted a sunrise photo last year on March 3, too. The sky looks springlike but, as you can see, the marina is still full of ice and snow. And, they are predicting 50 degree temperatures for later in the week (which was the same forecast for "later in the week" last year, too, according to my 2009 post).

Waiting ... Waiting ... Waiting ...

I waited around forever for this guy to throw that frisbee. I finally gave up and just took the photo.

In Like a Lion

The saying goes "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb". (Although that is not always true because last year it came in like a lion and went out like a lion, too. So not fair.) But at least it is now Spring (from the meteorological perspective).

On the lion note, though, this seems to be the original Hubert (the Harris Bank Lion). It is on the Harris Bank Building built, if my roman numeral translation is correct, in 1910.