Status Update: Deconstructing The Deconstructed

Work continues on the Thompson Center (100 West Washington Street) where the granite panels were found to be deteriorating and in danger of falling off of their posts.

The panels are arranged around the perimeter of the block, outlining where the building might have gone if it were square and not a series of balconies surrounding a curved glass atrium.  The granite panels get smaller and more deconstructed as they get father from the main body of the building.  Now demolition crews are deconstructing the deconstruction so people don't get bonked on the head by Helmut Jahn's creative expressions.

Although it hasn't been called the "State of Illinois Building" in a decade, certain media organizations (*cough*WGN-TV*cough*) continue to use the outdated name which has since been assigned to another building across the street.

Slice of Life: The Pigeon Warming Center

Every winter there is a migration of television microwave trucks from the garages of channels 2, 5, 7, 9, and 32 to the City of Chicago's official warming center at 10 South Kedzie.  But what about the city's pigeons?  Where do they go when the weather outside turns frightful?

The answer is Daley Plaza.  Unnoticed by most of the millions of people who wander through the plaza during the city's frigid season, pigeons huddle around the gas-fed eternal flame.  It's a war memorial that our feathered friends use as a means of survival.