My wife and I had a very fun Friday night anniversary night in the city. We took a stroll along the riverwalk and had a drink at the spot between Clark and LaSalle. Next over to Untitled Supper Club for a leisurely dinner with live music. Followed by a walk over to Howl at the Moon piano bar for a nightcap and meet up with some friends celebrating a birthday.

• Video Link



Video of it paired with the current skyline is in the trib link


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/h...019-story.html

Rare video find: Balloon tour over Chicago in 1914

A rare archival film shot over Chicago from a dirigible in 1914 is paired with current-day video looking over the same locations. (National Archives; Chris Walker and Alyssa Pointer / Chicago Tribune)

Mark JacobContact Reporter
Chicago Tribune

An aviation pioneer named Roy Knabenshue brought his dirigible to Chicago in 1914, offered 25-minute balloon rides and settled on a great idea:
Why not hire a cameraman to film Chicago from the air?

That brainstorm led to one of the first aerial movies of the city, a rarely seen, eight-minute film that was recently tracked down by the Chicago Tribune in the National Archives.

The film isn’t newly “discovered” — it’s been in the Archives since 1943 — but hardly anyone knew it existed, so in a sense it’s been rediscovered.

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^ It'll be cool when Grant Park really feels enclosed on 3 sides. They really need to reduce the number of lanes on Columbus, though. And deck over the Metra tracks.

Better yet get rid of Columbus but at the very least make it 2 lanes each direction with parking so nobody dares use it!

Somebody once suggested closing it off from May-October. That’s a start

A Columbus road diet would be great, but the biggest issue with Grant Park is that its simply bisected by too many roads. It segments the park and makes it feel a lot smaller than it really is. Hard to get a respite from the city when you're never far from honking and exhaust fumes.

I'd be happy if they removed all roadways from the park, but that's probably not realistic from a traffic standpoint. LSD and Columbus would probably need to stay (reducing the lanes on Columbus wouldn't hurt). But between the three east-west streets (Monroe, Jackson and Balbo), at least two should be removed. It isn't necessary to have that many cross streets. Congress already gives access to Columbus from Michigan, keep one of the other 3 so that there can be a quick way to get to LSD without forcing all traffic on Roosevelt or Randolph. That would be more than enough. None of those streets gets all that much use east of Michigan anyway.

Eventually, any remaining surface road going through the park would ideally be put underground.

That would be a LSD congestion nightmare. Imagine how many people cut through the park to head east especially at rush hour. If everyone had to drive all the way to randolph and roosevelt to head east. Those turn lanes would be backed up half way across the park.

Hence, why I'd still leave one cross street. Either Balbo or Jackson. Monroe is fairly unnecessary, especially since its one way going east (west of Michigan Ave).

It appears to me that the city functions fairly well while the the Taste and Lolla is occurring... close all the streets in Grant Park except for Monroe, and the carmageddon will not happen...

^No, no it doesn't. Not during Lolla. Everything around the south end of the park just grinds to a halt. No. 6 buses lose nearly a half-hour trying to turn left through Michigan & Roosevelt; No. 3 and 4 buses lose 15-20 minutes creeping through the same area. State backs up solid from Polk to 11th, even though that's the route all the ambulances and fire trucks are trying to use.

The fact that 100,000 people are trying to get to Grant Park all at once might be a bigger reason for the gridlock, rather than the closure of the park streets.

I think this right here is key. Central Park in New York and The National Mall in DC both have several crossover points but you hardly notice them because they are all either underground or depressed and crossed by bridges. Unfortunately this is challenging here since the Metra Electric lines are also cutting through here.

I think there’s broad consensus that the amount of “congestion” is pretty stable over the long run. If you close some of the roads you’ll have more congestion for a while but people will adjust and it’ll go back down as people find alternative transportation or go somewhere else.

The bigger question is one of capacity. How many jobs would leave downtown? How much would museum attendance suffer? On the flip side, how many more people will be attracted to the area thanks to a nicer Grant Park?

So Kim and Kanye named their 3rd kid Chicago West. Is Chicago hip and cool now?

Nope, just the region immediately West of it...

:haha:

in that case, i'm gonna name my 3rd kid "Cicero" or "Maywood".

My firstborn son will be christened Berwyn, in honor of the great Svengoolie

So I started watching Electric Dreams on Amazon Prime, which are a series of adaptations of some of Philip K Dick's short stories. The first episode takes place in Chicago and has some good shots. There is also kind of "futuristic Chicago" in that episode. Thought right away it was in Chicago because of a building that looked like the top of Merchandise Mart and was lit up like it. When they arrived at Lou Mitchell's in the episode, it was obvious.

One of the main characters is a multi billionaire (I think) who lives in Chicago. His penthouse is in River Point looking east down the river. Some cool shots from way up there and also from the plaza in front of River Point looking over the river. All I have to say is - if there really is a penthouse near the top of River Point and the scene out the windows wasn't CGI or it wasn't just a set, then damn. Pure marble, very modern, etc everywhere. I would totally live there if I had enough money. My money is on a lot of people assuming it's NYC instead of Chicago, or some city outside of the US.

My wife pointed out to me, which I never noticed, that most Chicago based movies and shows make it a point throughout the program to have the characters repeatedly state that they are in Chicago.

New York movies let the city speak for itself. I wonder if this is so the audience doesn't take it for granted that the story takes place in New York because obviously Chicago is the only city on the planet that could possibly be confused with New York. If Chicago cabs were all yellow like New York the city's would be indistinguishable from eachother at street level in certain areas in pictures and movies.

My Aunt & Uncle paid $320,000 for a 700 sq. Ft. unit on the 34th floor in the New York Building back in 2006. The finishings were builder grade and they spent tens of thousands putting in new hardwoord floors, pendant and track lighting, concrete counters and sinks, cherry cabinets, sub zero appliances etc.

The neighbor was a Dr. who offered to buy them out to knock down the walls and double his unit. He paid them over $400,000 for it I know but not sure how much. Anyways, I always thought that that's rather expensive. $300,000-$400,000 for a builder grade 700 sq. ft. condo in Lakeview? Not sure what a comp in SF, NY or Boston would cost but it seems exorbitant.

On a side note, they told my Aunt & Uncle they could lose their views as plans were to build a 2nd tower next to the NY building. I guess there was supposed to be a twin tower built that obviously was canceled.