Wednesday, October 4, 2006

More Chicago


This is for Dzesika, a little morsel to help her London-to-Muscatine transition (sorry, but Muscatine sounds like the perverse cross between a citrus fruit and a small, brown rodent).



Today's walk managed to narrowly avoid the rains, and terminated (again) at Gino's. For those unfamiliar, this current Gino's is in the old Planet Hollywood building, having moved there nearly a decade ago after their longtime location at Superior and Michigan was condemned (I arrived, Susan being dragged breathlessly behind me for her inaugural visit, to find the building... gone! You can't imagine the panic that ensued). Both places have graffiti from floor-to-ceiling, and what you see here is from the last two years or so (everything is painted over pretty regularly).







The Fox & Obel Market is one of Susan's and my favorite stops, less because we have a thing for haute cuisine (we don't) than because it's all just so cool! It's similar to New York's Dean & Deluca, though maybe reflecting Chicago's more blue collar style. Still, they do hand out caviar occasionally for their floor samples. Their produce and meat and bakery sections are all spectacular--it all is! Here's their olive bar (a gift for my olive-loving wife!):



For the rest of my urban scenery, the camera seems drawn to concrete canyon views--maybe because there is so little composition for me, the non-photographer, to worry about. I do love the cacophonous assault on the eyes from widely-divergent styles of architecture and periods in the same view. Fire escapes next to glass towers.







3 comments:

Jessica said...

I especially like the red head bar and the alley photo!

Jeff said...

More great pics!

I am sad to hear that Gino's had to move, but at least they still exist. I had no idea all that graffiti was just from the last two years. I figured that a new location would have taken a long time to build up the character that the old one had, but I guess you can get a lot of scrawling in two years if you encourage it.

Dzesika said...

Aww ... thanks :) *sniff*. Seriously.

And you're totally right about Muscatine.