The Garden City

Chicago has various nicknames such as The Windy City and Second City, but it also has the nickname The Garden City.  I've been so impressed with the flowers everywhere, but the ones I want to show you are art installations.  Every summer Chicago does thematic art installations around the city, and this year's happen to be huge heads with flowers growing out of them.  Here are two of them:

And over at the Willis Building were these great planters which I suppose were to juxtapose with the heads. Vanessa, my friend, Weyburn has to give you and me a budget next summer so we can do some creative planting around Weyburn.

Glenda, this silly city doesn't have a single postcard of one of its most magnificent buildings.  Here's the Harold Washington Public Library which I truly love inside and out.  What do you think?

 

And here are a few pictures of things that caught my fancy. 

 I hope the people in these apartments don't have false fire alarms too often.  That would be a long trip down.

This building doesn't appear to be too dirty until you look at the parts that have been cleaned. 

And here's something you might not know; it's bad manners to put ketchup on your Chicago hot dog.

Will all the Target stores in Canada have facades as good as this one? 

There are blue bikes all over the place that you can rent for 24 hours for $7 .

This window in Macy's proves that they don't make mannequins like they used to.  Personally, I'm very glad about that!

Bob figured out this art sign before I did.  Do you get the message?

Forgive the look of my hair.  It's what your hair would look like too if you rode on an open-air bus in the Windy City for two hours.

We took a tour of the Chicago Theater which opened in 1921. 

The coat of arms on the stained glass window could have been made for me!  Look: the initials B.K., the crown, the ribbons of movie film.  Okay, I can't really work the horses carrying the film into my life history, but it's almost right!

 



The stairs leading to the dressing rooms are filled with signatures of those who have performed and worked at the theater.  Frank Sinatra's is there as is Julie Andrew's, Liza Minelli's and k.d. lang's.  Here's Steve Martin's.  The last show he did here was just ten days ago.

Outside these fellows were changing the marquee.  Their letters are considerably larger than the ones Bob uses at the Comp.  Bob could give them lessons in organization as they have them all piled in the yellow laundry basket with no alphabetization at all.

I stopped at Macy's where I was impressed by this central area.

I checked out the Walnut Room which has been serving lunches since 1907.  Macy's has several other food areas as well and I had a snack at one of them.  There was a normal looking lady muttering to herself; she looked so normal that I thought she must have a handless phone or something.  Then she shouted out to no one "how's Obama doing?" and went back to muttering.  Perhaps she wasn't quiet normal after all.

This is the Walnut Room.

Then I stopped at Garrett Popcorn which has been popping since 1947.  I bought the small bag of the Chicago Mix which was actually pretty big.  Luckily both Bob and I quickly became addicted to the mixture of caramel crisp popcorn and cheesy popcorn so even the small/BIG bag isn't going to last long.

Yum!

Let me repeat that:  YUM!

Tonight we intended to go to a game at Wrigley Field but it was raining off and on so we decided against it.  Instead we took the City Lights Night Tour and, luckily, it didn't rain while we were on it.

One of my favorite sculptures any time, anywhere, is the Bean here in Chicago.  Here it is reflecting part of the cityscape.  My admiration goes out to artists who think differently, who imagine, who create, who make our world so interesting.

And, now, Ellen, you must be wondering where my pictures of Aqua are.  My head is hanging in shame as I accidentally erased them from my camera before they were loaded onto my netbook.  Lousy excuse, I know, and that's why I am hanging my head in shame.  It's an amazing building and its symbolism makes it even more special.  When you and Brian buy your condo in it, I'm coming to visit.

 

Good night, everyone!