Below is a cool view of an urban garden in the new east side. The Aon building (formerly Standard Oil) is on the left and the Aqua on the right.
The clouds look interesting.
Cross posted at LITGM
Urban Garden
Chicagoania
Dogs Around Town
Around River North I frequently see this rather petite woman walking these two giant dogs. A female relative of mine hurt her arm when a big dog pulled on the leash while she was walking it; these dogs could obviously take her for quite a ride if they were ill trained. They appear to be well trained – she must know what she is doing at least according to the “Dog Whisperer” she is walking in front of her dogs (everyone else I see in the city walks behind their dog).
While shooting at Gerry’s farm this dog apparently had some sort of death wish… he continually walked in front of the firing line, no matter what we were firing (even Gerry’s powder gun which packed a big wallop). We had to shout “dog” while people were shooting so they could wait for the dog to lope right past the targets before restarting, kind of like how you shouted “car” when you were younger while playing ball in the street. This went on for over a half hour.
Cross posted at LITGM
Around Chicago July 2012
Upper left – we have been having some crazy storms here in Chicago along with the heat. This red art sculpture was knocked down by the micro-burst last weekend as I drove through the rain. Upper right – I remember in my marketing class that you could sell on “price” or “quality”. This car dealer is clearly going with the “price” approach. Middle left – two girls on a scooter on the Eisenhower in heavy traffic is a bad idea.
Middle center – the beautiful Nissan GTR supercar valet parked in front of a hip restaurant in River North. Middle right – are we in Russia? $5 Vodka? Lower left – a monster Red Bull truck dwarfs traffic in a spot on Wacker Drive. Lower right – the Protein Bar, a place where non-obese Chicago citizens (there are a few of them) tend to congregate and eat healthy food. Highly recommended.
Cross posted at LITGM
Baseball
Nothing says the 4th of July more than a great game of baseball. From the White Sox blowout victory over the Texas Rangers last night.
Wolf Point and Urban Traffic Lies
Wolf Point is a famous piece of land that is a penninsula where the Chicago River is on three sides, right in front of the Holiday Inn and adjacent to the Merchandise Mart. Recently the Kennedys, who own this land, proposed building three giant high rises on the site, as described in this article.
Of all the habitual liars in this world, one of the most odious has to be the “traffic consultant”. One of these firms, hired by the Kennedys, gave a report on the impact of traffic, and per the article:
Residents also suggested the development would further clog already-congested streets and mocked a traffic consultant’s conclusion that the project would not significantly worsen traffic.
To some extent, per the picture above, it is impossible to further “worsen” traffic. This is a photo taken during rush hour that is relatively typical; the bridge going north on Orleans (it is one-way) is completely gridlocked leading towards the Wolf Point site and backed up into Wacker drive, blocking both streets. Thus to some extent the consultant is right, because you can’t get worse than gridlock.