The photos of our lives

08/26/2009

Two bulldogs in front of a garage on 8th Street. A dim-lit swimming pool in green surrounded by red brick. A bird’s-eye view slice of Printers Row from a nearby rooftop. These were the winning images in the annual South Loop Neighbors photo contest, as announced last Friday at a well-attended reception at Chicago Community Bank. Read More...

News and notes

08/05/2009

August, traditionally marked by stultifying heat and a generalized slow-down in news and public affairs, promises to be neither this year. Here’s a few stories I’ll be following, and other recent news and notes. Read More...

The students, they just keep coming

07/29/2009

When a lot of my friends started getting a little concerned recently about another new dorm in the neighborhood, I simply tsk-tsked. Read more...

Recovering river needs protection

One View

07/22/2009

The "Great Coyote Hunt" series (Chicago Journal, July 2 and July 9) was a wonderful reminder of the natural legacy of the Chicago region. The much maligned coyote living along the river at the South Branch meander site reminded me of the Chicago River itself - a critical part of our natural landscape that was mistreated for over a century that is starting to recover. Read more...

Hey, buyer. Beware!

07/08/2009

I was set to close on a condo in the West Loop at the end of May. It was to be an upgrade with an extra bedroom, some green space and an end to the guilt that by renting I was “throwing money into a bottomless pit.” Things started out nice enough. When we left the showing, Read more...

A neighborhood of Mrs. Glessners

06/24/2009

I have visited the first floor bedroom of Mrs. John “Frances” Glessner hundreds, if not thousands of times. As a docent at the famous 1887 landmark building at 18th and Prairie, it isn’t the décor of the room that inspires me. It’s Mrs. Glessner’s desk. Read more...

Never a dull moment ...

06/17/2009

So much for the lull in the West Loop I wrote about last month. There was a shooting May 31, this time near the nightclubs at Lake and Sangamon. I watched with a clenched jaw as the evening news reporter told of a violent weekend in which ours was one of six shootings in 24 hours. Read more...

Alderman Bob at two

05/27/2009

An anniversary recently passed in the 2nd Ward: Bob Fioretti has finished his second year as alderman. Bob has been around now for two springs, two summers, two winters and two falls. He’s still campaigning, still smiling and still shaking hands. He’s still going places. But our ward now seems to take him for granted. Read More...

In the West Loop, the private life

05/20/2009

It’s been quiet in the West Loop. I guess the big public issues like building heights wax and wane. We seem to be in a wane phase right now, waiting for projects to get done. Like Adams-Sangamon park, the Skinner Park improvements, the new Skinner School facility. Read more...

Weak controls leave associations vulnerable

05/13/2009

Every year, it seems, we hear about a management company owner who makes off with his client’s accounts or an employee who embezzles a condominium association’s funds. News of these improprieties should put condominium and cooperative owners on alert and prompt them to ask how can they protect their own association funds from a similar fate. Read more...