The Olympic committee was here in Chicago this week as da mayor tries to convince them to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. Around the city in various poster kiosks is a poster pointing people to www.chicago2016.org and has an image of a runner and his reflection. I found the following poster installation outside of Union Station where I catch the bus.
Somehow I don’t think this is helping.
In the morning while preparing to leave we normally have the tv on to catch the weather and a quick blast of news. As usual, because we’re in their home market, an Empire commercial came on. When the familiar 588-2300 jingle came on, my daughter just sang along with it.
Its both a proud moment and one that is kinda scary. However, my child is now officially identifiable as a child of the Chicago area.
At least, I saved digital pictures of them. After reading in the tribune how a new condo building will eventually hide the whale mural that is on the back of the InterContinental Hotel, I thought I’d take the three block walk from work and snap a few pictures.
There are more up on my gallery.
When RachelleB used to work nearby, the soon-to-be Trump tower was on her path to work. She often did updates of what the tower was looking like. As she works elsewhere now , there aren’t the regular photo updates. I’ll try to fill in where I can, but I’m not that hot of a photographer yet. I also need to take photos from somewhere other than the boat. The last one, though, wasn’t from the boat.
For some really I really like the following staircase. It could be because when I first passed it, it was closer to lunch time and there were a ton of guys going up and down it.
After months of seeing Vincent on our local NBC affieliate affiliate I finally got curious enough to do a web search to see what his deal was. Not knowing his last name made it difficult but my first search on Google gave me excellent results using the search phrase “vincent chicago suit”.
Last month, NBC5 posted an article about Vincent on their web site. So, the mystery is solved now. I’ll definitely be keeping my eye open for the documentary being shot about him.
I liked the picture of him doing his job as a programmer. It reminded me of my friend Larry who is also legally blind and looks exactly the same when laying down the code. Except for maybe the flashy suits. I think I’ll recommend that to Larry. He can become Boston’s Vincent.
Now if we could only solve the mystery of The Walking Dude.
Tonight, during their pledge drive Channel 11, WTTW, Chicago’s PBS station aired two very cool programs put together by Geoffrey Baer. Sarah and I ended up watching both of them.
The first was called Chicago’s Lakefront that was filmed 5 years ago or so. It covers the lake front of the city and many of the sites and pieces of architecture along the lake. It was well worth the time to watch and I recommend it if you get a chance to see it.
The other was called South of Chicago: Suburbs, Steel Mills, and Shorelines. It started in Gary, Indiana, and traveled up Lake Michigan, and then down the Calumet river, to the Cal-Sag Channel, and then south when the Channel starts to cut west. It was really interesting and I know a lot more about the southern suburbs then I did before I watched it. I also recommend watching this one if you get the chance.
One reason we decided to watch this one as well was to see if it mentioned South Holland and its history. We were interested in South Holland for a number of reasons. One reason is that South Holland was the onion set capital of the world . The most important reason is the fact that the Peter Peerbolte Company was there. The Peter Peerbolte Company was an onion farming company. They even had their own train cars, which you can now find as models.
In any case, Sarah is a descendant of Peter Peerbolte. He was her great-great grandpa. What we’ve been told is that with the onion company, he owned most of the land that is now the town of South Holland. Unfortunately, the Great Depression took its toll and he had to sell everything. Its worth nothing that he did not end up buried in debt as he managed to pay back everyone he owed money to with the proceeds from selling off the company. He had enough money to buy a farm in Kankakee, which is how my wife’s mom’s family ended up there. But I digress…
In any case, during the discussion of South Holland, the Peerbolte family wasn’t mentioned. Sarah was upset about that. However, its caused us to question how big the farm was, and if they were the only farm in South Holland. I think we may be visiting the South Holland historical society to do some research as we’re both interested. Why are we interested? I’m not sure, it might be only so we can tell Dinah more of her family history when we get that far.
Baer is currently working on a new documentary about the North-West suburbs that I’m looking forward to seeing when WTTW airs it.
[Update 5/26/2011: Sarah was doing some web searching and came across some found film footage of Peter Peerbolte and his family in 1929.]
