The company I keep outside the Riverside Public Library as I get ready for my 7pm talk there this evening.

At Greater Union Baptist Church this morning, 1956 W. Warren Blvd, 1886, William Le Baron Jenney, architect.

I'm off this week, but the architecture beat doesn't sleep. Will be talking about the architecture of the West Side (and showing images on that subject from my next book), 7:00pm – 8:30pm, Riverside Public Library, 1 Burling Road, Riverside, IL

The backside of the Pullman National Historical Park Visitor Center, 111th & Cottage Grove. Originally the Pullman Factory Administration Building, designed by Solon Beman, 1880. (song is Get it up for Love, by Tata Vega, 1979)

My architecture column this weekend. “People are going to be amazed by the work,” the Rev. Reshorna Fitzpatrick, chairperson of Friends of Sears Sunken Garden’s board, said.

I gave an architecture talk at the Admiral residences on Foster Avenue tonight. At dinner there, I met Garçon, the robot server. I'd never saw one of these before.

My architecture column today. "The university’s decision places in limbo a landmarked 1,400-seat Beaux Art playhouse designed by Benjamin H. Marshall, one of Chicago’s preeminent architects."

Now on Blu-ray: 1969's Marlowe, starring James Garner. I've seen this movie a dozen times and can't fully explain the plot ... and it doesn't matter. Jim's an absolute blast bluffing and wisecracking his way through a missing person's case that throws everything at him but the kitchen sink.

The first Richard Kimble searched Chicago for the One-Armed Man, too.

Another day, another event. Getting ready now for an artist's talk at Soho House with my bud, the remarkable photographer Howard Simmons. (You can see him in the back on the left.)

Happy birthday to #herbiehancock!

The Glasshouse Theatre, a new venue at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) in Brisbane, Australia

For the first time in 30 years, one of the extremely unusual Market Square buildings in Pullman is for sale. Four matching buildings were constructed a decade after the original Pullman factory town, initially housing guests of the Pullman Company during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

About 10 mins before showtime at the Beverly Arts Center last night. The place wound up almost filling up. Big thanks to the Ridge Historical Society for inviting me to talk about the architecture of the South and Far South sides.

The good folk at the village of Dolton asked me if I wanted a tour of Pope Leo's childhood home. Who could say no to that? So I checked it out today. Kids from one of the local high schools crafted the benches.

If I do a new version of my Southern Exposure book, the late and woefully unsung Bill Pavlecic's St Simeon Serbian Orthodox Church 3737 E. 114th is in. Did quick shots for a talk I'm giving today, but want to revisit. Modeled after a 15th century Serbian monastery ... but built in 1968.

These birds ain't loyal.

Over the Calumet River at 106th Street this afternoon, the city flexes its big shoulders once more. (Song playing is "She Wants to Move," by N.E.R.D.)

Drinking coffee at my favorite spot again this morning, watching the turbine at the Method Soap factory on 111th in Pullman. (And the song is "Function at the Junction," by Shorty Long.)

My weekend architecture column looks @ the Obama Presidential Center's full-size Oval Office reproduction. "Virtually everything that was in the Obama-era Oval Office — furniture, books, carpet, artwork down to the smallest detail — will be created in the new space."

Returning from an errand a couple of days ago, I had to stop by the Greenstone UMC bell tower restoration here in Pullman, which is just starting. What a beautiful building. (And I happened to be listening to Eighties, the 1985 tune by Killing Joke. Don't judge me.

My architecture column today. If approved this afternoon, the building’s most significant features including the complex’s dazzling Jazz Age first-and second-floor lobby spaces would be protected.

FREE HENRY MOORE! lost in the debate over city hall has been the fate of “three forms vertebrae,” aka “the dallas piece,” the long-neglected site specific henry moore sculpture that has long sat in a cage of security barriers on city hall plaza. www.dallasnews.com/arts-enterta...

My architecture column today. The 24-foot gold statue, erected in 1918 to commemorate the 1893 World's Fair, will get re-gilded for the first time in 33 years.

Today's architecture column. "The project is the first substantial exterior repair Greenstone Church has seen since its 1882 construction."

August 1954. Cottage Grove Avenue looking north from the train station. The Trianon Ballroom marquee at right, the Midway Theater marquee peeking out at far left. This entire built environment (except one Com Ed substation) was demo'd in 1967 for a U of C-backed urban renewal makeover.

For some reason, now and again I like sitting behind the U.S. Bank Tower at 111th & Doty for a few moments in the morning, drinking coffee, listening to music and watching the Method Soap factory's wind turbine go 'round.

Nice work in today's @chicago.suntimes.com from colleagues Stefano Esposito and photog Pat Nabong

Three beauties from the Volo Auto Museum that I spotted yesterday at Navy Pier.

My architecture column this weekend. "The thoroughfare is the focus of a city study aimed at helping bring new retail, housing and other activity to three miles of Madison Street, stretching from the shadow of the United Center to the heart of K-Town."

I'll be in Beverly next month, speaking the Ridge Historical Society fundraiser and showing my architectural photos of the Far South Side and Southwest Side -- new stuff I've shot since Southern Exposure was published. It's a worthy cause! Come on through and shake my hand!

Good morning from the 112th Street Circle in Pullman.

I love how Frank Main broke this down so literally anybody can understand the process. He LOVES a story that takes him into the lesser known courtrooms: chicago.suntimes.com/the-watchdog...

Judy Pace in The Young Lawyers, a 1970 tv movie about attorneys helping poor clients in Boston. Became a tv series that lasted a single season.

"If they can dye this river green today, why can't they dye it blue the other 364 days of the year?"

Spoke at an event tonight honoring Herbie Hancock. As a son of the South Side, it felt good to lay this particular bit of literature on a fellow son of the South Side.

Today's architecture column. "Pride Cleaners is the kind of attention-grabbing roadside modernism found in places like Palm Springs, California, and not often in broad shouldered Chicago. A building like that is bound to fire-up an artist’s imagination."

Print edition of my latest column. Right next to Andriana Furs, letting me feel the warmth and luxury that I deserve.

My latest architecture column. "The organization is calling for architects, designers, neighborhood groups, artists, innovators and interdisciplinary teams to submit visionary ideas that explore what Chicago could look like in 2050."

The song "Return of the Mack" is 30 years old today. Which means it's as old now as the Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" was in 1996. I gotta go lie down somewhere now.

Today's column looks at what will be the final resting place of the Rev. Jesse Jackson: 19th Century landscape designer Adolph Strauch's solemn and picturesque Oak Woods Cemetery on the city's South Side.

My architecture column today. Art Institute tells the Sun-Times no decision has been made on the old CSE trading room, but adds "the east side of the building — where the Trading Room is located — represents the area where gallery space could increase the most."

A new book, “Sirens in the Loop: A History of the City News Bureau of Chicago,” gives you a raucous story. Like a massive high school yearbook, it's peppered with the names of kids-who-made-good: Mike Royko, Seymour Hersch, Pam Zekman, even Kurt Vonnegut www.chicagotribune.com/2026/03/03/s...

Surprise, surprise. The battle over whether to save Dallas's IM Pei-designed city hall is less about the cost for repairs as it as about giving up the land to appease still another billionaire sports owner, in this case casino magnate Miriam Addison.(paywalled) www.dallasnews.com/news/2026/02...

My architecture column today. "Pride Cleaners closing creates an uncertain future for one of Chicago’s most unique modernist sites — an absolute showstopper of a building with its original sign, neither of which are under city landmark protection."

Tyler knocks it out of the park again today with his photography of Metropolitan MBC in the @chicago.suntimes.com

Today's architecture column. Metropolitan MBC — once documented by photographer Gordon Parks and listed on the National Register of Historic Places — gets a $500,000 grant to help fix up the 125-year-old building.

The Archbishop Quigley Center, 835 N. Rush St. Gothic Revival to the bone. Completed in 1920, and designed by Zachary Taylor Davis. As seen by me today.

Jim Brown and Fred "The Hammer" Williamson chase a bad guy down Wells Street in the Old Town neighborhood in 1974's "Three the Hard Way."

Today's architecture column. "The 132-year-old Eugene S. Pike House might end up happily ever after, as the first phase of stabilization and repairs — initial steps toward turning the building into an arts center — is likely to begin this spring."