Archive for the 'Chicago Events' Category
LIGHTNING TOPS THE TRUMP TOWER
June 24th, 2010 categories: Buying, Chicago Events, Lifestyle, Selling
Last night was supposed to be the first official lighting of the spire on top of the Trump Tower. Well, last night we had yet another one of those gully washer storms that have been sweeping through the Chicago area sowing uprooted trees, flooded basements, and flooded highways (miles of the Stevenson expressway were totally closed for eight hours). A canny photographer who just wanted a picture of the spire while it was lit scored a once in a lifetime picture.
Blair Kamin’s article says it all–and the pictures are spectacular! I won’t try to improve on Blair’s prose–he’s an excellent writer and I think you will enjoy the pictures. Just click here.
Questions about Chicago real estate– call me, 312-607-1306 or e-mail me.
Here are some articles you might enjoy:
A Catio? You Have To Be Joking!
A Housing Shortage? Impossible!
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CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE! SOMETHING NEW!
April 12th, 2010 categories: Chicago Events, Market Trends
We all know how many different styles of architecture we experience in our daily lives in Chicago–we know but we probably don’t see it all. We’ve all grown to love or hate Frank Gehry’s shiny convoluted Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park–along with the “Bean” and the wonderful fountain of faces that spout water into a summertime wading pool. Millennium Park is truly a fabulous place in our city. Renzo Piano’s new addition to the Art Institute works well as a transition between the old neo-classic Art Institute and the modern wonders of Millennium Park. And of course there is that fabulous stretch of Michigan Avenue with the classic facades from several architectural eras. This is just along a short stretch of Michigan Avenue–the Loop holds many, many more architectural treasures such as the Monadnock Building and the Rookery. Of course we have Mies van der Rohe’s Illinois Institute of Technology campus and his high rise residential buildings and many other excellent buildings by other architects–mostly in average to expensive parts of the city.
What is interesting to me is that there is good to great architecture going on in depressed areas. Blair Kamin’s recent column “New Austin school breaks the mold,” is a review of a wonderful new building in a very, very depressed area of Chicago. I studied a lot of History of Art and Architecture years ago and one of the things I remember most vividly was feeling that we’re pretty much stuck with architecture so we better be careful what we build–I think the new Christ the King Jesuit College Prep School in Austin is a building that is classic. The key comment in the whole article, for me, is “Here is a reminder, after years in which designers were obsessed with flashy museums and concert halls, that the social promise of architecture still matters.” You know by now that I am head over heels in love with Chicago and Chicago architecture–I hope you will read the article. Read it, if only to marvel at the fact that it was built with impeccable taste for $27,000,000–pretty much a pittance in today’s expensive world.
Of course you know I will be glad to help you research a new home or advise you about selling your present home in Chicago. All you have to do is call me 312-981-2360, direct, or cell phone is 312-607-1306. E-mail is great too!
Other articles you might enjoy:
Chinese Time in Chicago and Hawaii
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SPRING HAS SPRUNG!
March 31st, 2010 categories: Chicago Events, Lifestyle
After writing two really serious real estate posts, I am taking a spring break! This is the first really, truly, honest-to-goodness spring day in Chicago! The temperature is in the 70s, the sun is balmy and warm, and I can’t get a serious thought about Chicago real estate to work it’s way into my head! I drove to a final walk through in Lakeview, and got off the Outer Drive at Fullerton–totally forgetting that this is the week Chicago schools are on spring break. Traffic around Lincoln Park Zoo was unbelievable–all the families out with their children trying to get into the Zoo. The first nice day in Chicago is giddy! Everyone behaves as if they were just let out of a box–and we were, the cold ice box of winter. People walk around smiling, footwear becomes thongs after months of boots, down jackets become tee shirts! We are all a bit lunatic! Earlier in the week I saw a young woman walking while wearing thongs on her feet and a down parka on her top–hope she shed the down parka today. Even though the traffic was thick enough to be stirred with a stick, nobody was honking, nobody was making rude finger gestures at the other drivers–people were actually civil and well behaved. I haven’t tested the water with taxi cab behavior yet–if the cabbies are behaving better than usual, we’ll know this is the millennium! Tomorrow is supposed to be just as nice a day. Maybe the novelty of sunshine and 70 degrees will have worn off by then and I’ll turn back into a Realtor–for now, I am just enjoying!
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FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT RENEWED
February 1st, 2010 categories: Buying, Chicago Events, Market Trends, Selling
Every once in awhile I am going to write a post that is about Chicago architecture–after all, in another life I was an architectural historian. In Chicago we are blessed to have a superabundance of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings. Oak Park, a western suburb that borders on Chicago, has a Frank Lloyd Wright tour each spring. Wright’s home and studio are open for tours on a year round basis. I wish I had been there recently and bought a better picture of the great man than the one on the postage stamp! He was a ladies man and at one point ran off to Europe with a client’s wife–scandalous behaviour in his time, well, any time I guess. Even with all of that he managed to have a successful architecture practice with a home and work room for himself and his students in both Spring Green, Wisconsin, and Taliesin West, Arizona. The students were subject to a regime of learning architecture, acting as draftsmen, and cultural and etiquette indoctrination. The reason for this introduction is to entice you to read an article Blair Kamin published recently in the Chicago Tribune. A new building has been designed for the S. C. Johnson factory campus in Racine, Wisconsin. Norman Foster, based in London, has done a marvelous job of integrating a new building with the two Frank Lloyd Wright buildings completed in 1939. Please click here and read the article–it is well-written and has made me resolve that my husband and I will take a day off in the spring and take the tour.
Other articles that might interest you are:
Louis Sullivan Restoration! Hooray!
Remodel Now? Yes! Yes! and Yes!
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LOUIS SULLIVAN RESTORATION! HOORAY!
January 25th, 2010 categories: Buying, Chicago Events, Market Trends, Selling
Blair Kamin, architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune, published a wonderful article on the restoration of the old Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. store at One South State Street. Because I am a rabid Chicagophile and because I used to be an architectural historian I was delighted to read the article describing a thoughtful, loving restoration. I can hardly wait to get down to State Street and see something that has made it yet again a great street. Sullivan’s work has been almost systematically destroyed so it is an unusual and wonderful happening that this restoration has been so carefully done. I recommend that anyone with even a smidgen of interest in Chicago architecture read the article. Louis Sullivan’s ornament is some of the most beautiful ever created. Just click here to read the entire article. The retail space has been difficult to fill even though the office space is 80 per cent rented. The location is fabulous–hopefully the retail space will rent as the economy improves.
Here are three articles you mikght find interesting:
Real Estate Definitions–More of Them
Real Estate Definitions–Even More of Them
Sweet Dreams? No! A Bit Kooky? Yes
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HOW GREEN GROWS CHICAGO
September 22nd, 2009 categories: Buying, Chicago Events, Lifestyle, Selling
As I have told you in past blogs, I am a certified Chicagophile–I love this city! It is relatively clean, has beautiful architecture, amazing parks and really, truly nice people. It is nice to know that Chicago ranks No. 1 in the country for certified green buildings. A non-profit organization, the U. S. Green Building Council, has ranked us at the top. Blair Kamin in his blog, Cityscapes, wrote about this ranking recently. To read the entire article, just click here. Our Mayor Daley wants to make Chicago the greenest city in the country and he has done it. 88 building projects in Chicago have earned the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design–there now, didn’t you always wonder what the letters stood for?) with the nest closest city Portland, Oregon, having 73. The certification is done by scoring points in a system set up by the council. Our City Hall has a green roof that is only visible from office building windows that are higher than the roof and face in a direction that enables you to see it–a mistake I think I think the roof should be open to the public, at least on a limited basis, so we know where our tax dollars went and so we know what a green roof really is. It is nice to know that we are truly Number One in an area that is essential to our environment.
Need someone to talk Chicago Real Estate with? I am applying for the opening–just call me at 312-981-2360 ( direct dial) or 312-607-1306 (cell phone). And last but not least–e-mail me!
Other posts you might like to read:
Cool as a Cucumber Air Conditioning
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THE FLAG OF CHICAGO
September 2nd, 2009 categories: Chicago Events, Market Trends
Having lived in Chicago for most of my life, I have become a Chicago FANatic! My husband and I were with friends who have lived in Chicago their whole life, like my husband, (I am a Ruth-come-lately because I moved to Oak Park when I was 15) and we were discussing all the great features of our wonderful city. It is clean, the cultural life is vibrant, classical and non-classical music abound, the theater scene is extremely active, our architecture is world-class, our museums are many–so many things we were grateful to have available to us. Somehow we stumbled onto the subject of the flag for the City of Chicago. Not one of us knew why there are four six pointed red stars and two blue stripes and three white stripes. Briefly here are the main points of a wonderful Wikipedia article:
- The three white strips represent the North, West and South sides of the City.
- The top blue stripe represents Lake Michigan and the North Branch of the Chicago River. The bottom blue stripe represents the South Branch of the Chicago River and the Great Canal. The Great Canal was the Illinois and Michigan Canal.
- The first star represents Fort Dearborn.
- The second star stands for the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
- The third star symbolizes the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.
- The fourth star represents the Century of Progress Exposition (1933-1934) and was added in 1933
There is talk that if Chicago wins the Olympics in 2016, another star will be added. The addition of another star has come up several times–it hasn’t happened yet. If you would like to read the whole article, just click here.
Would you like a genuine Chicagophile to answer your questions about Chicago real estate? It would be my very gret pleasure to do so–just call me at 312-607-1306 (cell phone) or direct line is 312-981-2360. I like e-mail, too.
Here are several articles you might find interesting:
Vacation Home – Retirement Home?
Is Your Home A Money Pit, Sinkhole, or Drain?
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LEPRECHAUN GOOD NEWS
June 15th, 2009 categories: Buying, Chicago Events, Market Trends, New Developments, Real Estate Finance, Selling
Our jolly leprechaun has good news for us–at least according to Don DeBat’s column in last week’s Chicago Sun Times. As we know, our home prices have not fallen off the mountain as they have in California, Nevada and even Washington and Oregon. DeBats column says that there is an improvement in the downward slide of home prices from a steep decline to a more moderate one. The article is well worth reading because it clearly explains how the different statistics affect home prices and it quotes several excellent sources.
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HOME OFFICE 101
March 10th, 2009 categories: Chicago Events, Lifestyle
Tax time–what a great opportunity to clean out, organize, and make your home office a great space to work–and maybe even to keep track of the 2009 receipts and other documents you will need for your 2009 tax return. If you can do that, you will be spared the stacks-on-floor sorting method that so many friends and associates use. And your next year’s taxes just might be a whole bunch easier. Here are a few thoughts concerning your home office.
- How many hours per week or day do you use it? Do you work from home or do you use your home office mostly for taking care of household bills? A small desk in the corner of a bedroom or the kitchen may be enough space.
- What are your technical requirements? Do you do a lot of research on the internet–do you have an endless supply of gadgets? You will need to be sure of your power source for everything from your computer to any other gadgets such as an iPod that you can’t live without.
- Do you also need to do use the home office room as a guest room? Can you convert a closet into a home office. My husband and I have done this and it works very well. We have a shelf that holds the monitor, keyboard and printer. There is a two drawer filing cabinet under the right side of the shelf. Shelving above is used for storing records, bank statements and office supplies. A small shelf just above our printer has the most used supplies, stapler, stamps, rubber bands, etc. We also have a TV and a fold-out bed in the room so we can use it as a den or a guest room.
- Now for the organization part. Probably a good idea to create categories. A tax file is one of the first files to start–for all the receipts, donations, proofs of purchase–all tax related expenses should be stored in one file with categories for the different types of expenses.
- Other files for special interests such as travel, restaurants, hobbies can be created to help organize that stack of clippings, e-mails, and notes that we all accumulate.
- Having a file drawer or two for all of this paper work is ideal but you can do it with one of those A to Z expandable files from the stationery store. Just put in individual folders for the different items.
Hopefully these ideas will help you avoid the frustration of the messy file folders in the picture–I do have more ideas on this subject. Call me at 312-981-2360 if you would like me to share.
Related articles: Record Keeping 101 For Homeowners, 12-08; Clean Your Closets–A Great New Year’s Resolution, 1-09
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IT’S FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS TIME!
November 18th, 2008 categories: Chicago Events
Chicago’s holiday season begins with a grand and glorious spectacle–the Festival of Lights. Each year it happens on the Saturday before Thanksgiving–November twenty second this year. The whole wonderful potpourri of events starts at 11:00 a.m. All along the parade route, Michigan Avenue from Oak Street to the Chicago River, something is going on all day long–choir and theater performances, ice sculpting, and live entertainment. Mickey Mouse is the Master of Ceremonies and he leads the parade south on Michigan Avenue as a million tiny white lights are illuminated–truly a fantabulous sight! The parade has many, many floats–in between Mickey and, of course, the red-suited jolly old man–there are other Disney character floats, local TV and radio personalities on floats, etc. etc. etc. And everyone has a good time! People start lining the avenue in early afternoon and, naturally, the closer you get to the river, the more crowded it is because of the fireworks. The parade begins at 6:00 p.m. and the day ends with an incredible fireworks display over the Chicago River at 7:00 p.m.
With this year’s economic difficulties, there are three places where people can share along the parade route:
- Bring a non-perishable food gift to the Eli’s Cheesecake booth. You will get a free piece of cheesecake and The Greater Chicago Food Depository will benefit from the food.
- A warm pair of mittens can be dropped off at the Southwest Airlines mitten tree. The Salvation Army will make good use of them.
- Toys for Tots would love you to leave a toy at any Harris Bank branch. The branches closest to the parade route are at the corner of Oak and Michigan (the start of the parade) and 33 West Ohio Street.
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