Page 5 of 5
Chicago, Illinois
She says I want to do right but not right now
We’re starting our Sunday by taking the train up to Diversey and then walking (what seemed like) forever to get to the Elks National Veterans Memorial, somewhere I honestly had never heard of before.
I’m not exactly sure what the deal with the Elks is. I know that they’re a social organization that is not a cult, but then again their leaders are actually called Grand Exalted Rulers, which is starting to sound a little cult (or at least fascist) like. But I am sure that they do a lot of positive community and charity work (which is good), and their headquarters at the Elks National Veterans Memorial certainly has a Versailles type feel to it, which I guess is good.
We go from the Elks (who are not a cult) to the Groupon offices (who are also not a cult), although uninformed people could easily mistake both for cults.
The Groupon office tour was led by a Groupon employee, who told us of their progressive employee friendly policies. One of these (which we witnessed in person) was that on weekends, the lights would occasionally flash on and off indiscriminately, a subtle (or possibly not so subltle) reminder for employees to not spend too much time in the office on weekends. Another policy which the guide spoke about was unlimited vacation time, which sounds great until you start to think about it. I asked our guide after the tour how that worked in reality, and in a one on one conversation, she confirmed that it wasn’t everything that it sounded like. Sure, you could take off as much time as you wanted, but your deadlines wouldn’t get pushed back if you weren’t there, and people who did take off a lot of time didn’t get promoted. It ended up being a bit of a trap, and the guide admitted that she took hardly any vacation time because of it.
We’re going from a progressive office to an empty one. This is inside SOM’s terrific Inland Steel Building, a rare opportunity to see and appreciate the building without the clutter of an actual office tenant getting in the way.
Open House Chicago was a great reason to go all the way out the Blue Line to Kedzie to see Our Lady of Sorrows Basilica and National Shrine, a gorgeous hundred year old church on the West Side. Just like the Elks, I’m not sure what the deal with Our Lady is, and why she’s so damn unhappy despite having such a beautiful home.
I visited a lot of sites this weekend, and am not even including pictures for all of them. I know it’s hard to believe, but sometimes I do actually show some levels of restraint and think about someone else for a change.
One of the pictures that I am including is from the MDA Apartments, or more specifically, their rooftop view down Wabash where even the elevated tracks look not all that elevated all things considered.
Damn I really love Open House Chicago Weekend, and this year between that and the AIA Convention, I was able to just spend so much quality time in the city, and got into so many spaces and so many buildings it was almost overwhelming at times. Here is an example, four great views from another private club, the Sky-Line, located in just about the middle of everything.
So after visiting Marina City, the Aqua Tower, the South Pond Pavilion, Edgar Miller’s studio, the Tribune Tower, the Mansueto Library, the Art Institute, Crown Hall, surviving the research tower at the Johnson Wax Building (where visitors are lucky to get out alive), that nice, panorama overview of the skyline from Lake Michigan, the 190 LaSalle Law Library, the Lyric Opera, the Metropolitan Club, Lake Point Tower, the TIP TOP TAP sign, Cliff Dwellers, the Spertus Institute, the Elks (not a cult), Groupon (also not a cult), Inland Steel, Our Lady of Sorrows and a few rooftop views, we’re finally ready to say goodbye to Chicago, at least for 2014.
But wait, there’s more
I go to these AIA Conventions almost every year, meaning that there’s lots of slideshows and pictures and stories from all sorts of different cities, showing off their best architecture and design for all to see.
