All in Cubs
Jazz is back in Chicago. It is great to hear and photograph live music in the clubs. I’ve been to Andy’s Jazz Club, the Jazz Showcase, and Winter’s Jazz Club, as well as to several street festivals, including Summer on State and the Wicker Park Street Festival. All the musicians are enthusiastic about performing before audiences again. And who wouldn’t be if it means getting out of the house?
I headed to the ballpark yesterday for the Cub’s opener. Here are a few images with my thoughts. Covid-19 has left its indelible imprint on everything.
Cubs fans who want to be memorialized as the die-hard can have their remains placed in one of the niches on the authentic bleacher brick wall at Bohemian National Cemetery on Chicago’s northwest side. I paid the wall a visit to today. Here are my thoughts and images.
I decided to ride the “L” today with my new Sony RX 100vii point and shoot camera. When I got home, I had a lot of junk—as I expected—and some gems.
Click on the photograph to enlarge it, and for Jack B. Siegel’s photographs and commentary.
Click on the photograph to enlarge it, and for Jack B. Siegel’s commentary and additional photographs.
[Click on the photograph to enlarge it and for additional commentary]
The Chicago Athletic Association Building now houses a boutique 241-room hotel, with a ground-floor Shake Shack, the Cherry Circle Room on the hotel's second floor, and Cindy's, a rooftop restaurant and bar, with an outdoor terrace. The interior is pretty snazzy.
[Click on the photograph to enlarge it and for additional commentary]
The Cubs will not be repeating this year thanks to a powerful LA Dodger team, but that is not the only tragedy befalling Wrigleyville, Cubs fans, and late night drunks at bar time. News broke in early August that the much beloved Taco Bell at 111 West Addison would be closing, to be replaced with a shiny new 39,755 square foot three-story retail development.
[Click on the photograph to enlarge it and for additional commentary]
Sunday afternoon, and this beer bottle is still so nicely balanced on the fire hydrant on Clark Street just a block south of Wrigley Field. I can only wonder if the person who put it there--presumably late on Saturday night or early Sunday morning--was as equally well-balanced.
[Click on the photograph to enlarge, read commentary, and view other photographs]
In one sense, a comparison between the aftermath of 9/11 and the Cubs' World Series Victory is inappropriate. I, however, was in New York City shortly after 9/11. The level of intensity I felt from those those around me at Ground Zero is similar to the the level of intensity that Chicogians are experiencing from the World Series victory. We see sports victory celebrations four or five times a year, but nothing I've ever seen rivals what is going on in Chicago. This is a big deal.
