Slice of Life: Quigley's Niches

A row of saints secreted in their niches gaze down on Chestnut Street from the building that was until recently Quigley Seminary, built in 1919.  It's now the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Chicago as the Archbishop Quigley Center.

You can read more about the Quigley Center (103 East Chestnut Street) here.

Aftermath of a Skyscraper Fire

Here's what it looks like at The Plaza on Dewitt (260 East Chestnut Street) a couple of days after a fire on the 36th floor of the 43-story building killed an elderly German woman.

If you click to enlarge the photo, you can see the windows have been boarded up on some of the units on the 36th and 37th floors.  Meanwhile, the streets below are clogged with an army of carpet cleaning and other disaster repair service vans.

The last I read, the fire was caused by a kitchen appliance and is being called accidental.

Second Skyscraper Fire This Month Kills A Woman

By now you've heard about the fire that broke out at the Plaza on Dewitt (260 East Chestnut Street).  Here's a picture of the aftermath from the outside:

According to the Chicago Tribune, the fire on the 36th floor of the 43-story tower killed an elderly woman who lived in the condominium where the fire broke out after midnight.  About a dozen people were hurt.

The Trib quotes people at the Chicago Fire Department as saying the flames went out the 36th floor window and up and into the unit on the 37th floor.  You can see in the photos how that might happen, especially considering how windy it was last night.

Coincidentally, a few hours before the fire, the Chicago Fire Department conducted a fire evacuation drill at another residential skyscraper just two blocks away.

North Side Sonic Boom Warning

That noise you're going to hear this morning (Friday, September 18, 2009) echoing across the Gold Coast and Near North Side is a 21-gun salute at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Chestnut Street.  In the photo above we see Chicago police officers preparing for the event in front of Fourth Presbyterian Church (125 East Chestnut Street).  It's part of a series of events all week honoring veterans, especially those who received the Congressional Medal of Honor.  The photo below is from an event at Daley Plaza (55 West Randolph Street) yesterday.

Join the Culti

Milan fashion house Culti is wasting no time getting its Chicago house in order.

Just days after Crain's (we think) broke the story of Culti coming to a little spot just off the Magnificent Mile, work began gutting whatever used to be in the space between Rochester Big and Tall and the "dental spa" next door on Chestnut Street.

Yes, we did write, "Chestnut Street."  That's because even though Culti will use an address of 840 North Michigan Avenue, it's actually around the corner and about half way down the block.  (Big shout out to the girls at the Starbucks across from Ditka's!)

With so much vacant retail space actually on Michigan Avenue, it's a shame that such a high profile Italian brand has to stoop to such tricks for a little Midwestern cachet.  And it means another corner of the Gold Coast will become clogged with confused tourists.

Update: No Nuts on Chestnut

Just a quick update with a new photo showing the now shuttered Nuts on Clark store in Water Tower Place.  As we mentioned last week , other store owners in Water Tower are telling us that the confectionary shut its doors because of the higher rent being asked of it.

We'll miss the warm smells of the place wafting across the street, welcoming us home after a hard day's slog through the Chicago snow.

No More "Nuts" at Water Tower Place

A Chicago institution is closing up shop at its Water Tower Place branch.

Today employees of Nuts on Clark were seen packing up the merchandise, taking down the shelves, and disassembling machinery as the historic nut, popcorn, and chocolate shop shuttered its Gold Coast outlet.

Employees of other shops in Water Tower Place tell us that Nuts is bailing on its location in the Ritz-Carlton's port cochere just across from the John Hancock Center because its rent was raised.

If anyone reading this lives in the Wrigleyville area, please check on the Nuts on Clark location there and e-mail editor@chicagoarchitecture.info to let us know everything is still OK at the mother ship.  We'll pass it along here.

Diagrams: Best Buy's Impact on the John Hancock Center

Last week a resident of the John Hancock Center told me almost breathlessly that the plans were out for the design of the Best Buy going in on the ground floor of the landmark building.  With a mix of fear and indignation she stammered, "it's going to have neon."

The truth is a lot less awful than it sounds.  I managed to get my hands on a copy of the plans, and they don't look bad.  They're certainly a magnitude of order lighter and more colorful than what men's clothier Paul Stuart did with the space before it moved to 107 East Oak Street last year.

The designs by Experience Development Group show the main entrance will see the addition of a smallish "Best Buy" sign above the doors, flanked by blue awnings over the neighboring windows.

There will be illuminated signage, and that might be what had the Hancockers worried.  But the specs show signs will be three feet tall, four feet wide, and only placed at the corners of the building.

Far more visual appeal is planned for upstairs where the equipment racks and merchandise shelves placed against the windows will be backed by large-scale photos of happy neutral people enjoying the benefits of technology.  The Best Buy signs will once again be relegated to the corners.

Whether these displays end up looking garish, or adding much-needed color to an otherwise drab block remains to be seen.  We'll find out in May, 2009 when the grand opening is planned.

The residents of the John Hancock Center are notably concerned.  Many of them have lived in the skyscraper long enough to remember when "Boul Mich" was compared to the great boulevards of Paris.  Since then it's gone through a period of neglect, a period of growth, and now it's something closer to an outdoor mall than the Champs-Élysées as most of the boutiques have fled for the side streets and neighborhoods north.  Most Chicagoans don't realize or remember that the Hancock Center was where Cartier had its Chicago store for many years.

Still, Best Buy is better than nothing.  And considering the state of nearby buildings like Chicago Place, the Peninsula Hotel block, and the Esquire Theater, "nothing" could have been a real possibility.  And surely, people who patronize L'Appetito, the wanna-be Italian deli staffed by the least-friendly stone faced Russian robot chicks in the Midwest, cannot be all that picky, right?

North side NIMBYs at it again

Just in time for Halloween, the old ladies of Chicago's Near North Side are at it again.

Back in the 60's and 70's they bought their plush homes in the sky on streets like Delaware, Chestnut, and Clark.  Now that a new generation wants a taste of that life, it's all hands on deck for a fight against change.

The latest target of their elderly invective is the proposed residential tower at 111 West Chestnut Street.  A recent article in the Chicago Journal outlined the typical bogus grievances about congestion and neighborhood character and oh... a new one -- sewer capacity.

It's the usual crowd of people who already have their high-rise lifestyles trying to keep anyone else from having it; or worse -- marginalizing their view!  

It's hard to argue that a building with just 59 residences will have much of an impact on traffic, but the geriatric gentrifiers have dragged that old saw out of the complaint toolshed.  They're also claiming that the building's residents will clog the buses and subways, too.

But most of the complaints are about "neighborhood character."  The old ladies are afraid that if anyone else is let in things might change.  Because, you know, the neighborhood has never changed before.  And it's exactly the same today as it was before all those old ladies got their dee-lux apartments in the sky-high-high.  

So what are they trying to preserve?

A quick look at 111 West Chestnut's current state reveals... plastic Walgreen's bags.  A brick.  Sand.  Dirt.  McDonald's cups.  And what maybe an adult diaper.

If that's the neighborhood character they're so desperate to cling to, I say bring on the cranes and bulldozers.  We're a movin' on up!