Better living through toy robotics.
Looper is a “[q]uasi-daily architectural photoblog generally focused in and around the Loop.” The photos are often stunning, but this recent set stands out.
This shot follows the Chicago River east into Lake Michigan and it shows the city in a completely different way than I’ve ever seen it. It looks like some European city emptying out into the Mediterranean or the Baltic Sea.
I’m sure this is a big shock, but I went to the Printers Row Book Fair over the weekend. I didn’t actually find anything to buy, but I stopped at the library and picked up Ian McDonald’s well regarded River of Gods (it’s on my constantly changing To-Be-Read page). The weather was great and there was a good crowd at the book fair, and that’s a great stretch of Dearborn to walk down in any circumstance, with a few places to eat and drink and the unlikely clock tower of the Dearborn Street Station punctuating the street’s end.
There are few words that go together better than “bar” and “books.” Thursday night, 6/1, is the Chicago Reader BookSwap at Hideout. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it, but I hope it’s a success and it happens again. Especially since I have a bunch of old books laying around that I’d rather swap than sell. [via GB]
I know where I’ll be next weekend. The Printers Row Book Fair has a stellar lineup that includes Augusten Burroughs, E.L. Doctorow, Stuart Dybek, Dave Eggers, Erica Jong, Studs Terkel, Scott Turow, and John Updike. Of personal interest: Rich “Tough Jews” Cohen, Jonathan “Luckiest Man” Eig, and Aleksandar “Nowhere Man” Hemon.
Printers Row is on Dearborn, just south of Congress. Sandmeyer’s Bookstore is right there, at 714 South Dearborn, and while the area’s not exactly a bookstore Mecca, why not walk on over to Powell’s using directions from this handy map?
A few updates to The Amazing Chicago Bookstore Locator. Thanks to the proprietors of papermustache and Pete Lit for the comments.
It all looks different when you see it on a map. So I made a map of Chicago, with all its bookstores plotted.
This complements the Chicago library map (done by somebody else) here.
Via Gapers Block, today I found Yo Chicago, “[a] fresh look at Chicago housing and neighborhoods.” Some of the writing on there is hilarious. Take a look at these headlines:
“Yuppie-on-yuppie violence mars Cabrini-Green housing redevelopment”
“Fisticuffs avoided at Plan Commission hearing on new Cabrini-Green high-rise”
Cabrini-Green, of course, is best known as being one of the things I pass when I drive to Borders.
Elsewhere, Fred Wilson (a venture capitalist who has great thoughts about the Internet and even greater taste in music) teases with a track from the new Arctic Monkeys EP.
There’s a street in Chicago called Maxwell Street. It’s not far from where I live. It has a history of being a gateway community for recent American immigrants, like Manhattan’s Lower East Side on a much smaller scale, and it was also a center for the Chicago blues scene.
And now the famous Maxwell Street Market has been relocated a few blocks away, and the whole area where Maxwell crosses Halsted, just south of Roosevelt, is being redeveloped under the name University Village Marketplace as UIC grows.
Sounds pretty interesting. Having read about it last month, I decided to hop in the robomobile and pay it a visit (it’s way too cold out to walk even to the bus stop if you don’t have to).
On-street parking looked pretty hit-or-miss but I noticed that the ticket collection mechanism wasn’t working in the parking garage, so I parked there for a few hours for free. Not sure if that was legal.
I went to Barbara’s Bookstore, which is pretty big and well stocked for an independent bookstore (it’s the flagship for the small chain). It had a nice selection of graphic novels and manga, literary fiction, and magazines, in addition to the bestsellers that independent stores are forced to carry to compete with the big chains.
Then I went to Quizno’s for a toasty sub and had a cup of coffee at Caribou. I was going to check out Hashbrowns, the breakfast place, but it was crowded. I noticed a sports bar, a swanky sushi restaurant, and a handful of other places in various states of completion. It looks like it will be a great little area for students on the fringes of the University, and a few statues and plaques pay homage to the neighborhood’s quickly vanishing history.
Understandably, for some people that isn’t enough. There’s a Preserve Maxwell Street site and one that aims to Save Maxwell Street’s Heritage (which is the source of these photos). I was intrigued enough to want to read a little more and pay a few more visits to the area. But I’ll wait until it’s a little warmer out.
First, gossip columnist Cindy Adams slams Chicago in the NY Post:
EXCUUUUSE me? I read in last week’s paper that The Second City - Chicago - is now calling itself the Number One City in America. Chicago, that toddlin’ town, The First City?
Excuuuuse me? Take away Al Capone, the Merchandise Mart, O’Hare and Sinatra’s favorite song and what have you got? A nice little gritty city that has decent beef, a few tolerable restaurants, some OK hotels, the stockyards and The Loop. But let us all calm ourselves . . . New York it’s not.
Now comes the rebuttal by Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sun-Times. Although my heart is still in NYC, my body and my job are in Chicago, and based on the strength of these two pieces alone, the score is Chicago 1, New York 0.
Adams calls us a “deprived lot” after posing these questions: “Do you have New York cheesecake? New York sirloin? New York bagels? New York water? New York Post? New York attitude?”
The correct answers: Don’t need it; yes; yes; don’t need it; no thanks; and God, no.
Update: This response is even better. Chicago 2, New York 0! [via GB]
