Hyde Park Blvd

Enjoy the inimitable voice of James Fitzpatrick and a reminder of how one explored the world pre-internet, -television, and -jet aircraft:  via a darkened movie theater waiting for the main attraction, or between double features, or as part of an all-newsreel program a compilation of short features offered downtown at the Adams Theater, a  special favorite of Abraham Rosenberg, grandfather).

Great perspectives:  the trolley cars still run and Old Heidelberg is the queen of Randolph Street.  Trains, bridges, pre-war skyscrapers, and no sign of modern architecture.  The tour heads south to Jackson Park and even stops at Lorado Taft’s Fountain of Time, but no mention of the University next door.

Thanks to WH for the link.

Happy birthday one day late.  With Big Mama Thornton (and a very Chicago stage set) in 1965.

Reader ASR points us to Julia Vitullo-Martin’s WSJ report on the Burnham Centennial, and the contention that the citizens of Chicago are ‘a population capable of indefinite expansion.’

She grows a bit overwrought in her praise of all things Chicago, but she digs the essence of 19th Century millenarianism by quoting Burnham:

The domain over which Chicago holds primacy is larger than Austria-Hungary, or Germany, or France; three thousand miles of navigable waters form a portion of its boundaries; the rivers flowing into the Great Lakes, the Mississippi, and the Ohio, give access to every part of the interior; the level prairies invite the railroad and the canal builder; the large proportion of arable land makes possible the support of an enormous population; and the abundance and range of the products of earth and forest furnish the materials for traffic.

Photo via spudart on flickr

“Must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?”

–Mr. Erskine in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Newbern Building, Kansas City

As usual, Hyde Park Progress provides a thoughtful take on our neighborhood and the role of MAC Properties.  They’ve done the legwork and connected the Hyde Parks — Chicago and Kansas City — providing insight and optimism.

There was no need to inform us of the protocol involved. We were from Chicago and knew all about cement.

-Groucho Marx, pressing his hands into cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, Hollywood

Via Spudart on flickr.

It’s finally warm enough to post this shot of Michigan Avenue.  Via spudart’s flickr site.

First in violence, deepest in dirt, lawless, unlovely, ill-smelling, irreverent, new; an overgrown gawk of a village, the “tough” among cities, a spectacle for the nation.

Lincoln Steffens, “The Shame of the Cities,” 1904

Hyde Park Progress is a local blog that provides a forum for what are, in more genteel circumstances, called ‘town-gown’ issues. It’s smart and thoughtful and a good way to keep up on the University and the community, especially for readers at a distance.

Current post is of particular interest, discussion of a ‘third narrative’ for the University and the South Side.