Tuesday, June 2, 2009

A Good, if Meteorologically Schizophrenic Day

Yesterday was bright and warm so I biked along the lake to The Loop to the Cook County Recorder of Deeds to get some condo documents. Along the way I passed by my old neighborhood, and saw a building transformed.

On the corner of a busy street is an old building that used to be an auto-repair shop. You could see that is used to be beautiful; tall decorative cement sculpted ornaments adorned the front, but its windows had been covered with plywood and it housed broken cars.

Now it had a new brick exterior, a lovely blue-grey, and the cement ornamentation had been cleaned. It look gorgeous, although not completed. I crossed the street to get a closer look at the permits posted to see what it would be. A woman stood looking up at it.

"This place is beautiful," I commented. "What a difference."

"Thank you," she said. 

"This is yours?"

"Yes."

The designer was also there, and she introduced me. He gave me his card and they told me the plans for the place: it's going to be an art gallery and public space, and the city is going to bump out the curb so that people can sit. It sounds great.  They told me I could come back and take a tour of the inside; the way they described it, it's fantastic.

Then to the bank, then to the lake. After a short ordeal with a microfilm machine and city bureaucracy, I headed to my old building to meet a former co-worker, who had agreed to scan the document for me and email it to me.  We're having lunch tomorrow. 

I headed back, enjoying the bike through The Loop towards the bike path, which is far less death-defying when it's not rush hour. I stopped  at a women's restroom along the bike path. Chicago still maintains its old brick public park bathrooms, and can I just say, the place was clean, and there were soap and paper towels.

When I emerged, it was raining. Ok. I kept biking, turing off at Foster to head up Clark. At Devon I went to Clark-Devon Hardware to get some sanding supplies, and when I got out the temperature had dropped 10 degrees. It was CHILLY. I pedaled home as fast as I could, freezing in my tank top, shorts and Tevas.

Finished one of SP's birthday presents, ate some watermelon, and now it's time for bed. 


2 comments:

SP said...

See? I told you you should never move north of Hollywood.

Anonymous said...

Did you get any pictures of the transformation of that building?
I DREAM of doing that kind of stuff, and, having a cool gallery for the 4th floor artists!
MM