Day Tripping: Wherein Your Humble Narrator Makes a Trek to Chicago To See a White Hen...er...see White Rooster

Having successfully inveigled someone to accompany me to Chicago to see a play, we headed out on a chilly Madison morning. I had no desire to try to find/pay for parking near the Magnificent Mile so we parked (for free) out in the exurbs and took the train into the city. A day pass for Metra and another for the CTA was less than $10, much cheaper than parking downtown would be. Plus the commute would be less stressful and more fun since we could just relax and watch the scenery go by. Or read. Or do a crossword puzzle.

We boarded at a terminus so the car was fairly empty.

However, at the first stop oodles of baseball fans boarded as the Cubs were playing the Mets that afternoon. When we disembarked at Union Station, the platform was full of people who were no doubt headed to the nearest Red Line L station where they'd catch a train that would deposit them just outside Wrigley Field.

This reminded me of something I heard several years ago when I inquired as to why Madison Metro Transit does not advertise its services as a way to get to Badger games. (This may have changed since then.) If you go to the Cubs' website you'll see directions for using public transportation for gameday. The CTA advertises itself as a cheap and convenient way to get to Wrigley Field.

On the other hand, the UW Badgers site avoid all mention of public transportation as far as I can see. What I heard several years ago was that Madison Metro is contractually obligated not to advertise their service as a way of getting to Badger games in order to lessen competition with for-profit shuttles. True? Still the case?

While there are bus stops on a couple maps at the Madison Foward FC site, their guide tells you how to get to Madison from O'Hare but nothing about using public transit to get to Breese Stevens Field from within Madison. Lame. Very lame.

Kudos to the Mallards for mentioning how to get to their games via the bus and for actually putting more - a lot more - than just "You can get to us via the bus - see Madison Metro's website for any and all info." They list the routes servicing Warner Park, the closest stops for each, etc.

While it was a bit cloudy out, it was much warmer than the last time we were crossing the Chicago River on Adams.

Our first stop was to be Elephant & Castle where my companion could indulge their love of meat pies with a flight of them just like last time. On the way there we again walked by The Rookery. It's a lovely building that was finished in 1888 and had its lobby redone by Frank Lloyd Wright 17 years later. I am told that my grandfather worked there.

Sometimes I get lost in thought as I walk around The Loop thinking about all of my family members that are no longer around who used to work and play and shop there. I can almost see my grandfather and great uncles walking down the streets clad in suit and tie wearing hats, taking puffs from cigarettes as they strolled along. I can recall many fond memories of my mother taking me to Marshall Fields at Christmastime when I was a boy, of my aunt taking me to the symphony as an adult, etc.

There is just so much great architecture in Chicago - downtown and elsewhere. We also saw the Chicago Board of Trade building with that statue of Ceres on top on our way to the restaurant. 

For lunch I had - quelle surprise - French onion soup.

When exactly I became enamored of this stuff has been lost in time but my love of it continues unabated here in 2026. Elephant & Castle has this faux English pub thing going on and regardless of the paucity of English beers on the menu it does seem to always have football on its TVs. That day all of the screens were showing a match between Manchester City and Arsenal. To one side of our table was a group of 20-something Americans enjoying themselves. Behind my companion was a table of two women from Aberdeen, Scotland who were very vocal about the game and let the TVs know what they thought of various calls by the referees. I am not a fan of soccer/football but it was made all the more tolerable with these two ladies and their loud, irate brogues nearby. And, I must admit that I kept thinking the crowd was going to start singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" at any moment for the entire time we were there.

Also, I got some big Dolph Lundgren vibes from Manchester City's resident Norwegian player, Erling Haaland. Tell me I'm wrong.

When we were finished eating, we headed to the nearest Red Line L stop and caught a train to the ultima thule of the Magnificent Mile. Lookingglass Theatre is in the Chicago Water Tower Water Works building which means we got to walk by the Chicago Water Tower which survived the Great Chicago Fire. It had been decades since I had seen it in-person.

The north end of Michigan Avenue was well-populated with folks clutching many a bag from a Magnificent Mile retailer. While I don't know if the street's stores and restaurants have fully bounced back from their Covid lockdown nadirs, the street looked quite a bit more populated than other sections of it did a few years back. The pavements teemed with intense energy, one might say.

The Water Works building seemed to still be operational.

It also housed what I presume is the tiniest branch of the Chicago Public Library which consisted of just a few shelves and was smaller than my living room.

The play we had come to see was White Rooster.

When I read about its mix of Chinese folklore, the Western genre, and Americana along with a puppet thrown in for good measure, I was sold.

It takes place in an old mining town where the golden veins have dried up and ghosts quite literally share it with the living. After an introductory song, the play began properly with a sheet dividing the stage in half with a young lady named Min on one side and another woman who proves to be a ghost living in the attic of Min's family's home on the other. Backlighting throws their shadows onto the sheet to an effective and mildly unnerving, er, effect.

Min falls for a young man named Pong who dies in a mining accident along with Min's father, John. Pong's grandparents convince Min to marry Pong's spirit which is in the guise of the titular bird. This bit about marrying a white rooster which is inhabited by a dead lover's soul is apparently a bit of Chinese folklore.

Hilarity ensues.

While there were many darkly comic aspects here there were also some really dramatic scenes too. The one where Min's mother Maria tells a ghost story was quite intense with its use of shadow puppetry, changing light colors, and backlighting which projected action onto sheets. I mean it was seriously good. It drew me into the dark tale with its visual splendor and its rhythmic dialogue in a frenzied manner similar to the juke joint dance scene in Sinners.

If a rooster puppet appearing at the end of act 1 wasn't enough, a rooster-man chimera is introduced in act 2. Is he Pong? Or another man from a couple centuries ago whose actions still hang over the town?

Just as the mines are tapped out, so too are the townsfolk. They are ragged and weary and it felt like the youthful Min was the only sign of life in a dead town where the past will not let go.

White Rooster was simply wonderful. "Amazing!" declared my fellow theater goer. I've gotta keep an eye on this Lookingglass Theatre Company.

After the show we grabbed dinner at a little hole in the wall Thai joint, Silver Spoon, over on Rush Street near Superior. It was a really nice little place in the basement of a building that had a sushi joint on the first floor making for a pan-Asian experience on the 700 block of N. Rush.

I loved the cucumber salad as it was not overly sweet.

My main course was Nam Tok Salad which proved to be much the same thing as the Crying Dragon at Thai Boat Noodle in Sun Prairie, though the beef was cut differently. It too had cucumber in the mix and, all told, I think I ate about 4 cucumbers at that meal. But I am not complaining.

Since we had plenty of time before our train left, we walked back to Union Station and took in the sights.

"I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" popped into my head as we walked by Marina Towers.

Walking west on Adams we were bathed in the warming rays of the sun but blinded too.

Water taxi!

The drive back to Madison was uneventful. My companion and I chatted about the play and how we both adored it. And now I am contemplating my next trip to Chicago.

Hic sunt Modern domus

While Madison is not a huge, sprawling metropolis, it's big enough to have neighborhoods that any given Madisonian may not be familiar with unless they purposely visited. Such was the Sunset Hills/Radio Park area for me until last week when I went on a tour of the neighborhood courtesy of  Madison Trust for Historic Preservation. I'd been in the area before as it is just south of Hoyt Park and I have been down Glenway Street but I had never been in the heart of the neighborhood with all the fancy Modern-style homes.

The tour started at Hoyt Park and it was a lovely evening. The nasty heat was still a day away.

A short walk later we were surrounded by all these homes built in the "Modern" style. 

The neighborhood was platted in 1953 and had deed restrictions attached to it: houses had to be in the Modern style, had to be of bespoke design by an architect, attached garages only, et al. I was reminded of by great aunt & uncle's neighborhood in South Barrington, Illinois.

I felt that, if I ran into a young person, it would take a lot of restraint on my part not to take them aside and say, "There's a great future in plastics." Maybe I could update it to "There's a great future in AI. Think about it. Will you think about it?" Then a look of horror would come over their face as they beat a hasty retreat.

We didn't enter any of the houses but I imagined that there was a sunken living room in most of them. I wonder if key parties were big in this area back in the day. I mean, weren't they all the rage with upper middle-class folks at that time? 

Aside from the neat houses, the neighborhood was oak central. This place was a virtual oak forest with every or nearly every property having at least one of the hardy trees. It was grand. There are several homes here designed by one of Frank Lloyd Wright's acolytes, Herb Fritz. Our guide noted that he also designed Telemark Lodge which I visited once when my great uncle, the one who lived in South Barrington, threw a shindig for the whole family up in Cable. Another notable architect involved in the neighborhood's creation was Elizabeth Mackay Ranney, Madison's only female architect during the time Sunset Hills was being assembled.

This place was once the home of a physicist who worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project. It was very nicely terraced. I cannot even begin to fathom the landscaping bills these people must pay. But I, for one, am glad they do because the yards in the neighborhood are gorgeous.

I have another neighborhood tour this week. This time, however, it's of one that I am quite familiar with.

The Corona Diaries Vol. 101: Indy Just Loves a Good War Memorial

(early-August 2023)

(Take a look at the prelude.)

Friday. Just after dawn. The sunlight squeaked in through the hotel room curtain. There was just enough for me to navigate my way to the bathroom without tripping over a suitcase and ignominiously faceplanting on a grocery bag full of potato chips and trail mix. My plan for the day was to have a mellow morning. I’d grab a cup of coffee from the hotel lobby (Starbucks - not good but decent), go get some postcards, mail them, and then head down to the convention. My wanderings yesterday took me away from the con and its hordes of gamers for most of the day so I figured, since I had no games planned, I’d buy some generic tickets that could be used to gain entrance to any event. You just show up at one that you want to attend but hadn’t registered for and, if a registered player doesn’t make it – usually because they are hungover – then you’re in.

Well, that was the plan.

My first destination was the Indiana State Library as their website indicated they carried postcards in their gift shop and I just couldn't recall where I'd bought them the previous time. It was a nice older building that kept up with the neoclassical motif I had seen on the courthouse yesterday.

 

It was adorned with various bas-reliefs(?) including one of a Native American smoking a pipe. Or is he offering it to someone? Regardless, he does not look particularly happy. Sad? Resigned? Maybe that's just some fine pipe-weed.

Not the type of art you’d see put on the side of a building these days, I'd wager.

 

I bought my postcards and realized I was on the west side of downtown and had never really been around these parts. And so I threw caution to the wind and just started walking north. It was a pleasant morning, after all.

 

I found that, sadly, the north side of the lovely Capitol building is just a sea of parking.

What a contrast to our Capitol here in Madison which is surrounded by grass and trees on all sides, inviting any and everyone to come visit the building to admire the architecture or hang out on the lawn with some fine local cheese for a snack. Indiana seems to treat their Capitol as just another office building, to some extent, anyway. It's just odd to see acres of blacktop like this in the downtown of a large city. Why not build a ramp and more buildings and use that no doubt value real estate better?

As I continued north, I found this mural of various local jazz musicians called “46 for XLVI” on the side of the Musicans’ Repair & Sales building. I did not recognize any of the faces of the players but this is not surprising. Other than Kurt Vonnegut, I don't know of any other famous folks from Indy, jazz musicians or otherwise. Regardless, it's good see locals honored whether they made it big on the national scene or not.

I turned east thinking I’d check out the war memorials that I’ve seen from a distance before but never up close and soon found myself before a Masonic temple. Immediately that episode of The Simpsons featuring that fine parody of the Masons, The Stonecutters.

"Who keeps the metric system down?

We do, we do"

Another really neat building in the neoclassical style. I think so, anyway. It does have columns. I wondered if the Masons had an outsized influence in Indianapolis. Regardless, the city has retained some very nice, old buildings.

Across the street the from the temple is the Scottish Rite Cathedral.

Scottish Rite is something to do with Freemasonry but I’m not sure exactly what. I have a friend who is a Free and Accepted Mason and has talked about other Masons that follow the Scottish Rite but has never explained what it all means, presumably because it’s a big secret and he’d have to kill me if he ever went into detail.

The cathedral was dotted with friezes or whatever you call them of bats and owls.

 

 

Now, I can understand an owl because it symbolizes wisdom but a bat? What do they symbolize? A thirst for blood? An acute sense of hearing? That I don’t know about. I guess that’s the Masons for ya, all enigmatic and such.

 

On the other side of the cathedral I found another stretch of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail which is a pedestrian/bike path that wends through the downtown and its environs. I presume it links up various area of cultural significance so, for instance, it will take you from an area with theaters to one with museums.

The stretch I was on had displays off on the side of the path dedicated to various historical figures and I investigated the ones for Thomas Edison and Susan B. Anthony.

Perhaps one of these trips I’ll rent a bicycle and investigate the Trail further.

I headed northeast to another neoclassical (columns!) building which turned out to be Indy’s central library.

On the west side of it was a piece of art that I call the Headless Slender Man statue. I give Indy credit for featuring a piece of public art that is a bit odd and uncanny if not genuinely disturbing.

It turns out that the library was at the north end of a several blocks long stretch of memorials, fountains, parks, and whatnot. The library faced the American Legion Mall lined with even more neoclassical buildings including the American Legion National Headquarters.

The memorial in the center here is for Hoosiers who served in “the World War”, i.e. – World War I. There were more memorials along both sides of the mall but I stuck to the west side and encountered the one for those who served in the Vietnam War.

Stepping into the space created by its semi-circular shape, one is confronted by a list of all the Hoosiers who died in that conflict. Walking around it, I saw that excerpts from letters home by those who never returned alive were etched into the concrete.

The mall was a lovely, peaceful spot. A great greenspace in the northern part of downtown.

There were Canada geese ambling around on the grass in the middle of mall as well as hanging out in the shade on the tree-lined sides. Oddly enough, I didn’t see one pile of goose shit.

Continuing south, I crossed the street and was at Obelisk Square which is home to a very large black obelisk with a fountain at its base.

It didn’t appear to be a war memorial and instead had these rather large bas reliefs at the bottom which illustrated…I don’t know…general virtues, maybe. The virtues that make a nation strong, perhaps. One with a cross must have represented religion. Another was of a woman reading to a child while holding a torch. Wisdom and knowledge? And there was one with a guy relaxing near a globe with a surveying telescope behind him and a familiar looking bird ahead of him.

An owl! The Masons are everywhere in this town!

Crossing another street to the south I arrived at the Indiana War Memorial & Museum. It’s a building I’ve seen from a couple blocks away previously but now I would actually see it up close.

Again, neoclassical (I think) with colonnades. The cornerstone indicated that it was laid by old Black Jack Pershing himself on 4 July 1925. It’s a rather imposing structure – like a fortress. The bronze(?) doors were rather neat.

They looked like they'd be right at home in Lord of the Rings and I could envision some king entering his fortress through these doors after a hard day of killing orcs and being greeted by an entourage bearing fresh clothes, some water to wash the blood off, and a big flagon of mead.

Out front was a statue entitled “For the Fatherland”.

When it doesn’t look like a fortress, it has the feel of a mausoleum. There wasn’t a welcoming entrance inviting me in and I felt like I was being asked to contemplate the sayings etched into the exterior walls instead. Checking out the museum would have to wait for another visit.

Continuing south was another wonderful bit of greenspace. Not only were there trees and flowers and grass, but also this beautiful fountain.

Men and women joyously dance as fish swim at their feet. At the top a woman plays a cymbal. Something joyous and a bit of revelry made for a nice contrast to the more serious and solemn things I'd seen on my way here.

On the east side of the fountain area was a statue of a woman holding a flower that looked like a water lily.

And on the opposite side of her was one of Pan playing his pipes, which means that figure above is surely a nymph. Pan is no doubt trying to convince her with a song to rusticate out in the country with him where he would plow her field, so to speak.

This reminded me of a statue that I had seen on my wanderings the day before which featured the Roman god Mercury. It was neat to see neoclassical architecture and Greek/Roman statuary dotting the cityscape. Man, Indy sure does love a war memorial! I wonder if anything commemorates the fallen from our invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq over on the east side of the mall that I didn't investigate.

During my perambulations I seemed to encounter very little auto traffic. There was some, of course, but it felt like I didn't have to go very far from the convention center to escape a constant stream of cars. Do a lot of the businesses there let folks work from home? Or do locals just try to avoid downtown to keep their distance from the unwashed masses of gamer dorks? I couldn't blame them if they do.

While there were cars parked everywhere, I saw relatively few people. The mall was populated mostly with the homeless, as I walked through. A gentleman came out to his car from the Scottish Rite church as I was admiring it and he chatted with me briefly. Indy is a very friendly city. Hell, even the geese don't shit in public, it seems.

And so I completely failed to spend more time at the convention this morning. But it was a fun and intriguing hike around the downtown.

********

Bonus photo. Cats! Here’s one from many years ago with Grabby grooming a very young Piper out on the porch of our apartment.

 

 

(Now get thee to the postlude.)

Building / Blocks: The Architecture of Chicago’s South Side

This looks to be a really neat look at the overlooked architecture of Chicago's south side. Host Lee Bey is a photographer and I believe he now writes a column for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Frank Lloyd Wright: America's Greatest Architect?

There's a documentary about Frank Lloyd Wright available for free online. For a local angle, it features Taliesin as well as the Johnson Wax building in Racine.

So Much for the "Hidden Gem" on East Washington

Earlier this year the McGrath Property Group proposed redevelopment of part of the north side of the 1200 block of East Washington. A couple of used car lots would be removed (amen!) and the Patriot Glass building, a quonset hut, would have the facade removed and the building re-purposed. Quonset huts are semi-cylindrical buildings made of steel and date from World War II when the Navy needed a lot of easy to assemble buildings. Someone at McGrath called the quonset hut at 1212 E. Washington a "hidden gem" while project architect Joseph Lee said "it would offer 'a striking appearance' and serve as 'a great space for office, retail, restaurant or a bar.'"

I recently changed jobs which necessitated taking a bus down East Washington and recently noticed that the hidden gem is gone. A couple of months after The Cap Times reported on the project McGrath filed a Letter of Intent (PDF) with the city which noted that the quonset hut would be demolished. That's too bad. I'm no Lee Bey or Blair Kamin nor do I have a great affinity for quonset huts but keeping it would have given the project something unique. As it stands now, we're going to get three storeys of "Modern Warehouse", whatever that may be.

Madison's Bland Skyline

The Guardian has a neat photo quiz of cities around the world. The skyline of Doha, Qatar really caught my eye.



It reminded me of just how bland Madison's skyline is by contrast.


(Photo found here.)

The Capitol and the convention center stand out but most of everything else is a boring box of 8-10 stories. I got my hopes up when I read that Curt Brink is looking to demolish some structures on the 900 block of East Washington. He proposed Archipelago Village back in the mid-aughts which featured a 27-story skyscraper and designs "influenced by the architecture of Stockholm, Sweden, and Central Park West in New York City." Ten out of ten for style, in my book. There is at least the prospect of some new buildings that are at least aesthetically interesting.

Perhaps the time has come to revisit the laws which limit building height around the Capitol. If Brink and his co-conspirators want to build a 20-story colossus on the 900 block of East Washington, let them. Is the view of the Capitol going to be more severely impaired than if the building were erected a block away where it would be legal? Let's keep the dome visible from some vantages but a blanket ban within a certain radius seems counterproductive. If density is efficient from various urban planning perspectives, limiting height uniformly limits density. Pack those people in, I say. In addition to a better skyline, it may spur improved and expanded public transportation and perhaps get that near east side tech corridor off the ground.

But don't forget the green spaces.

A Very Curious Gargoyle

The Paisley Abbey near Glasgow underwent some renovations in the 1990s and ended up with a really neat gargoyle, one that H.R. Giger would approve.