New Year's Eve
Ok, so back to the catch up. After spending Christmas with my family and snowboarding at Alpine Valley, we got a call from one of my grad school buddies (Brian) asking if we would like to join him and his girlfriend (Camelia) for New Year's Eve with some other folks. This was great timing, because due to the Illini making the Rose Bowl, a lot of our friends were out in California for New Year's and we hadn't finalized any plans yet.
So at about 4 PM on New Years Eve we stepped out of our apartment into what turned out was the beginning of a small blizzard and drove the Jeep (with new tires) down to the neighborhood of
Wicker Park to meet up with the gang. After waiting for another friend of ours and his fiance we all jumped on the Blue Line train and headed down toward the
Loop to have dinner at the
Italian Village. We were given our own private booth which was nice because like all Italian restaurants it was noisy with people visiting with each other. We all enjoyed some good food and wine and then grabbed a cab to the
Chicago Theater where we met up with even more friends to catch the Cirque de Jungle show on its last night in town. It was very similar to a
Cirque de Soliel show if you have ever seen one but on a smaller scale. After the show we caught the Blue Line back out to Wicker Park and spent the rest of the evening ringing in the New Year at Brian and Camelia's and playing "Catch Phrase" until 3:30 AM. After that I dug my Jeep out of the snow and Kelly and I made our way back to Evanston for some much needed sleep! All in all it was a great New Year with loved ones, new friends, a show and dinner. Good Times!
Labels: Chicago, entertainment, Holidays
One thing I have always thought was neat about the Chicago area are all the great bungalow style homes scattered throughout the city and some of the surrounding suburbs. I always thought that it would be cool to own of these places if I really wanted a house in the city. Granted they are smaller but they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, different color bricks, quaint little yards and typically have some neat older features inside. Since most of these homes are older and are not built anymore (as far as I know) they tend to have interesting layouts and a lot of unique features like original crown molding and other touches.
I came across this site awhile back for the
Chicago Bungalow Association. This group offers grants and other resources to all historic Chicago bungalow owners. This allows the city the ability to assist in keep a part of its history alive and help owners get these homes up to code for
efficiencies without compromising their historical aspects. They also assist in converting these homes into "green" status. This means that home meets certain criteria for being efficient and environmentally friendly. The site also offers tips and style guides for people who are rehabbing their bungalow. My guess is that you are only eligible for the grant assistance if your bungalow meets certain base line criteria.
Labels: Architecture, Chicago, History
Another Building In My Work Hood
So recently, there has been a ton of construction in the neighborhood where I earn my living. I work out of the 300 East Randolph building (See first picture). It has to be one of the best locations for an office building around. Our front yard is essentially Grant and
Millennium Parks with views of Lake Michigan. To top that off, we have the
Pritzker across Randolph from us where we can catch free performances during our lunch hour over the summer. Our building also has another unique feature, it was designed to expand upward over time. Similar to building
lego towers when were kids the
HCSC (
BlueCross BlueShield of IL) building was build in 1998 with the expectation that future growth would dictate that we add extra floors to the top of the building at a later date. Well, that date has come much sooner than anticipated thanks to recent growth and construction has begun on adding an addition 30 floors to our building. This building is the only one like it in Chicago and possibly North America! It should be interesting to see how this all comes together over the next 3 years considering they will be doing the work while we are working away at our desks! That's right no relocation during this process!
Now, back to my original point. Directly north of our building is a gigantic hole which was
originally a train yard then a golf course. Now the area is being developed into the new East Lake neighborhood complete with high rise condos, shopping, a school, park and
town homes. One of the buildings that they recent broke ground on is the Aqua (see picture 2). It will be interesting to see if this thing turns out as good as its picture!
Labels: Architecture, Chicago
