By Vince Michael

When it opened two years ago, Millennium Park was four years behind schedule, hundreds of millions of public and private dollars over budget, and still not finished. It had all the makings of a disaster.
Within a week it was a smash hit and within two weeks city kids were putting on their swimsuits, getting on the “L” and heading downtown to splash in 1/8″ of water and the occasional spoutings of the Crown Fountain. The Bean, unfinished and still being polished in 2006, became an icon for the city in a fraction of the time it took for Picasso’s eponymous 1967 steelwork to do so. It was a triumph of ideas over reality and every Chicagoan and tourist loved it and still does.
Millennium Park fits its name because it is not real. It is a cheat and a fantasy – an artificial grass-covered roof over railroad yards that adheres to the letter of lakefront law in the cheekiest way imaginable. No buildings are allowed in Grant Park (which includes Millennium Park), thanks to a 100-year old lawsuit by Montgomery Ward, so grass and trees soar 40 feet above Michigan Avenue, tucking a 1,600-seat dance theater and a massive bandshell with backstage rooms beneath the surface. They built four-story buildings in Grant Park and then lifted the park up to cover the buildings.

Read More

Posted on July 17, 2006

By Natasha Julius

I know how it works. As a jaded Chicagoan I’m supposed to reject Millennium Park outright as a symbol of everything that’s wrong with our city. It arrived heinously over-budget and comically overdue, an unmistakable whiff of patronage surrounding its development. The plan to cram four major public art works onto a 24-acre site along with plazas, pavilions, an ice rink, and a state-of-the-art bicycle storage facility has resulted in a sort of cultural Portillo’s; a vast clearinghouse of sensory experiences that, consciously or not, substitutes noise for nuance, capacity for quality, and pandering for populism. So yes, in many ways I can dismiss Millennium Park as a great, gaudy symbol of how this city has lost its way.
Yet there is one feature of the park that cuts through my urban skepticism. Rising like a stainless steel beacon of hope from the AT&T Plaza, Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate sculpture is a reminder that sometimes Chicago’s brash ambition and constant urge to cast off and reinvent can create something wonderful. Sure, a lot of times we wind up with a jumbled mess, a garish box or a pointless heap of concrete. But these colossal disappointments are mitigated by the glorious success of the Bean.
I freely admit I was somewhat in love with the Bean before I’d even seen it. I’ve been fascinated by Kapoor’s work since learning he’d unwittingly developed a working Death Star. And I’ll gladly concede the point that the Bean came in even more budget-bloated and behind schedule than the rest of Millennium Park. I don’t care. In my eyes, the Bean is a triumph.

Read More

Posted on July 17, 2006

By Scott Gordon

According to online records of the National Transportation Safety Board, last week’s Blue Line derailment is the fifth Chicago Transit Authority accident since 2001 to prompt an NTSB investigation. NTSB investigator Kitty Higgins, at a press conference last week, vaguely credited the CTA with making improvements following past investigations. But it’s not clear that the CTA is taking the initiative. These reports suggest that while the CTA has followed some of the NTSB’s recommendations, it didn’t make full use of NTSB findings – or, say, basic logic and intuition – to fix pervasive safety problems, like drivers’ negligence. It took three accidents and two urgings by the NTSB, for example, for the CTA to “implement systematic procedures” to monitor drivers’ compliance with speed limits and signal rules. Here are summaries of the accidents, as taken directly from NTSB reports. under that, a roundup of recent small fires on the O’Hare branch of the Blue Line.

Read More

Posted on July 16, 2006

Date: July 7, 2006
From: Wicker Park
To: Near North Side
The Cab: My first Mohawk cab – the ones with the rooftop advertising wedge. (“Allstate Deduction Rewards”). Otherwise clean, sturdy, and nondescript.

Read More

Posted on July 7, 2006

Date: July 7, 2006
From: Near North Side
To: Wicker Park
The Cab: What’s that smell? I like it, but I can’t place it. Oh, there it is! A strawberry car freshener tree in the back window. Mmm, strawberry.
Hey, what’s that sticker on the little coin window slat thing: It says “Helper.”
Hey, what’s that little metal plate screwed into the back seat separation unit? It says “Whip It Out. J-Fold. Original Sportswallet.”
Hey, there’s another one: “KGT Bumper Guards, Long Island.”
Just below the black, oscillating, Axics 12-volt fan.
There’s a lot to look at in here, for a cab with no actual decoration.

Read More

Posted on July 7, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

It would be all too easy to make fun of the “Freedom Museum” now housed in the former Hammacher Schlemmer space, in the Tribune Tower complex on North Michigan Avenue. Ironies abound, many of which inform our very own “Freedom Museum Exhibits We’d Like To See.”
But if you are any sort of freedom geek like those of us here at Beachwood HQ, you have to admit the museum is kind of inspiring. After all, it’s about freedom.
So hop aboard the freedom train, McCormick Tribune Foundation-style.

Read More

Posted on July 1, 2006

By Natasha Julius and Tim Willette

The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum is a fine attempt at civic virtue, but we think they left out a few exhibits.
1. Write Your Congressman! User is invited to write letter which via elaborate rope & pulley system is delivered to congressman’s desk, but it works only if sack of money is placed on scale/chute.
1a. More money allows user to write congressional bill.
2. Speak Out! User is invited to air grievance (unamplified) in a room filled with blaring televisions, radios, & loudspeakers.
3. Mr. Potato Head of State. Build a candidate for office from die-cut parts which user can test in the Focus Group Analyzer. (Deposit required)

Read More

Posted on July 1, 2006

By Marilyn Ferdinand

You can’t be a serious film geek without accumulating along with your ticket stubs and memorabilia a raft of stories about your movie-related experiences. Some of the stories are impressive. For instance, I can boast of having a three-hour dinner at a film festival with Sam Elliott, as well as winning a vintage program from the 1961 King of Kings by naming three actresses known for playing flappers in the silent era (Clara Bow, Gloria Swanson, and Colleen Moore) at Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival.
Then there are my endurance anecdotes, like standing for 45 minutes in Arctic-like cold to attend opening night of The Exorcist at the Gateway Theatre; nearly bursting a kidney by refusing to miss one second of Edward Yang’s 4-hour A Brighter Summer Day; and sitting through not one or two, but eight film breaks to see Jean Renoir’s French Cancan at the Music Box.
And every film buff has a theatre that fills her or his imagination in some way. Some theatres, like the Elgin in New York City (“The Radio City Music Hall of Midnight Movies”), are the stuff of legend. Others are uncomfortable, even deplorably shabby, but still beloved for presenting those cherished or rare films we live for. And then there’s the Skokie Theatre.

Read More

Posted on June 25, 2006

By Timothy Inklebarger

Star Wars was one of the first movies I ever saw in a theater, and afterward my parents took me to the TG&Y department store and bought me my first action figure. I picked Princess Leia in her evening gown, white cape, and mesmerizing side buns. The purchase would mark the first of many childhood collections – G.I. Joe, He-Man, Transformers – but none would surpass my legion of Star Wars figures. My rebel alliance alone was some 50 men strong at one point.
I watched the movie recently for the first time in maybe 10 years and was a little rusty on the plot, but I could easily identify each character by whether they had an action figure and if I had owned it. That’s how I came to notice Porkins.
Luke blows up the Death Star at the end of the movie, but the rebel army suffers a few casualties. One of them is Red Six, aka Jek Porkins, a guy who looks about two space cheeseburgers away from not being able to fit in an X-wing fighter. You would never know the guy’s name was Porkins if you missed a short line from pilot Biggs Darklight: “I’m going in. Cover me, Porkins.” Whaa? Did he just call that guy Porkins?

Read More

Posted on June 17, 2006

Date: 6/11/06
From: Lincoln Square
To: Roscoe Village
The Cab: Seats padded like Double-Stuf Oreos; it seemed like too much of a good thing at first, but that extra layer of fluff made me wonder how I’d ever gotten by without it.

Read More

Posted on June 16, 2006