Today's column looks at architect-turned-photographer Tom Rossiter's new exhibit emphasizing the nature surrounding the Mies van der Rohe-designed Edith Farnsworth House.

Man o man. Lee Marvin as Lt. Frank Ballenger, wheeling that big Ford down Wacker Drive past the old Sun-Times Building in this 1960 episode of M Squad.

I spotted a phone booth in the men's room of Bar Sol restaurant at Navy Pier today. Phone doesn't work tho.

The righteously polychromatic front entrance to Haven of Rest MBC's John L. Conner Fellowship Hall, 7901 S. Stony Island. Built in 1928 as Raphael's restaurant, designed by architect Frederick Stanton. Seen by me today when the good folks at Haven of Rest gave me a tour.

A cut from an album I bought way back in 1983, Warm Summer's Night from the NYC Peech Boys. Don't Make Me Wait was the hit, but the whole album is worth revisiting. Bernard Fowler kills on vocals.

My architecture column returns today (I'm back from two weeks off).

The former Cairo Supper Club building, 4013 N. Sheridan. Built in 1920 as a car showroom. Designed by Paul Gerhardt, seen by me 9/1/2025

A piano atop the old Bloomingdale's Trail, a few years before the former railroad line was turned into The 606. I can't remember what year I took this photo, tho. Maybe 2011.

Dominic Pacyga's latest book, Clout City, is out. It's a good one.

From earlier this year -- why my dad, FCC chairman 1961-63, criticized television for failing to serve the public interest but encouraged them to share opinions and made it clear the government would never try to censor the broadcasters. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

An early #robertredford role: playing a murderer in the 1961 detective series The New Breed, starring Leslie Nielsen. The show only lasted one season, but the intro is mighty cool. #quinnmartin

I'm giving a free talk next month in Lincolnshire on Chicago parks and open spaces. This is double-cool for me because I rarely get to show my photography of, well, parks and open spaces. Images will include photos from my upcoming (and not yet finished) book on the West Side.

Reebie Storage & Moving Co., building, 2325 N. Clark St., 1922. George S. Kingsley, architect. Fritz Albert, sculptor. As seen by me, 9/6/2025.

My architecture column today. "The city of Gary plans to seek proposals to reuse or raze the 44-year-old convention center. Our architecture critic says reuse."

My architecture column today looks at the Chicago Public School designed by Dwight Perkins. "You go in any neighborhood where his school buildings are, they stand out — in a city with tons of famous architects,” Chicago Architecture Center CEO Eleanor Gorski said.

Was in Graceland Cemetery today photographing brewer Peter Schoenhofen's Egyptian Revival monument for an upcoming lecture. While there, I met two women who were intrigued by the structure. "Do you have any connection to it?" one asked. I wanted to say "I used to drink beer when I was young."

Seen today: a beauty on East Bellevue Place.

A follow-up to my post on Goldstein, here's another odd 1960s filmed in Chicago movie, The Monitors. Here, Susan Oliver drives a Jaguar down LSD, and goes into the Monitors' futuristic HQ -- the UIC administration building. The movie has an interesting backstory. Read abt it in the link below.

I'll be giving a free talk Sept 11 at 7pm at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library titled: The Windy City Meets the Nile: Egyptian Revival Architecture in Chicago. I'll be showing my images of -- and talking about -- Egyptian-influenced Chicago architecture. Register at the link in the comments.

My architecture column this weekend. "The project is attracting a fair amount of onlookers. And why wouldn’t it? The postmodern building was stripped down to its structural skivvies when the original glass was removed. Now it’s being re-dressed."

The sold-out Bey-Steinberg/Steinberg-Bey architecture tour is tonight (a second one is Sept 4). Raise your hand if you're coming. And if you are, and you have a copy of Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago's South Side, bring it and I'll sign it.

My column today. "Every good city has some great buildings that are worth fighting for, I think this one is no exception," Justin Wortmann, architect and senior associate at Perkins & Will, said. "Chicago has a long history of showing the world what's possible."

My architecture column. The deal allowing Agora to remain in Hutchinson Field expires next August. Park district says the new Grant Park Framework Plan "creates an opportunity to think about this part of the park, including considerations for the sculpture to remain or for new visions of the space."

Apropos of nothing: I saw this 1973 Robert Blake movie years ago. I told a buddy of mine that members of the group Chicago have acting roles in it -- including Terry Kath in a surprising plot twist that I won't reveal here -- and he thought I was pulling his leg.

There is now a second Bey & Steinberg (Steinberg & Bey?) river boat architecture cruise because the first one sold out.

My architecture column today. “Our goal is to build a campus town kind of experience for the South Side,” CSU President Zaldwaynaka Scott said. “If you look at what the University of Chicago has done for Hyde Park ... I think our plans have the capacity to do that.”

A follow up to my post on the Grant Park Framework Plan. Sun-Times photographer and drone master @tylerplariviere.bsky.social comes through once again!

My column today: Could DuSable Lake Shore Drive go underground? That's one of the recommendations discussed in the new Grant Park Framework Plan. The plan is a list of big ideas to guide the park's development over the next 20 years and the funding the park district will seek to pay for it.

There's a link to this NOVA episode in my column this weekend, but it's really worth its own post. Great work, and it's fun to see Helmut Jahn, Tom Beeby, Dirk Lohan and a glimpse of Adrian Smith. And gritty downtown. Also I like Norman Ross' masterful summation near the end.

My architecture column this weekend. But the most fun things about it: Slipping in a North by Northwest reference, and including a link to watch Design Wars, the 1989 PBS Nova episode about the library design-build competition.

@neilsteinberg.bsky.social says "The cruise is sold out. A reminder: membership has its privileges. Didn’t see that coming — though I have coined a phrase to explain the wild popularity of the cruise: The Lee Bey Effect." Personally, I think it's The Steinberg Factor.

Today's column revisits the Sol LeWitt sculpture issue. Feds now say the work has deteriorated and needs refabrication. But the repairs haven't been approved or funded. Also, feds say they're working with LeWitt’s estate, but late artist's wife Carol LeWitt said she hasn’t heard from them in years.

Read an article by @leebey1.bsky.social about the First Church of Deliverance the other day, and it inspired me to draw this iconic streamline Art Moderne building. They were just awarded a grant that will help them complete a comprehensive preservation and maintenance plan for this amazing place.

My column on First Church of Deliverance getting a National Trust grant ran online yesterday but made the print edition today, with page one play.

My column today: Bronzeville's First Church of Deliverance, a streamline art moderne landmark featured in my Southern Exposure book, gets a $150,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Today's architecture column. Next time you’re on I-290 west of Chicago — a stretch of road that’s notorious for traffic tie-ups — there’s now a good reason to slow down a bit, courtesy of Ironworkers Local 63.

My architecture column today looks at the beleaguered Ford City shopping center. If keeping is a bridge too far, then why not build an industrial campus that can also accommodate worker housing, light retail — so that the result provides something better than trucks, vans and asphalt roads?

Train goes across 111th Street in Pullman last week.

Open up! It's The Police.

Today's architecture column looks at Jigzibik, an affordable housing development that broke ground last week. Marketed to Native Americans, its design uses the indigenous populace’s history, customs and colors of their historic dress to create something that promises to be fresh, new and unique.

My architecture column today: Landmarks Commission's permit review committee to weigh renovation/restoration plans for Field Building today. "It is an important moment for the project,” said Sara Beardsley, associate principal of SCB, the architecture firm handling the Field Building’s renovation.

My latest architecture column. Is the CTA pulling the rug out from under one of its cleverest examples of public art? Not quite. The agency, experts and Commuter Carpet’s creator, Brooklyn, New York-based artist Ellen Harvey, are working to figure out a new life for the mosaic.

In the @chicago.suntimes.com print edition today: My column about the South Side's Marynook community.

My architecture columm today: Marynook turns 70.

Marynook at 70: My architecture column (and photog Pat Nabong's great photos) in Monday's Sun-Times.

Bobby deserved better. And everybody else in the United States dealing with a health crisis deserves better too.

An old Illinois Central Gulf RR intermodal (piggyback) sign. Seen by me today on Damen just north of the Stevenson.

One sweet Deuce & A Quarter just east of Chinatown today.

Hung out today with Dr Anita Blanchard and Chicago-born artist Simone Leigh. We rolled around the South Side looking at architecture. And since Simone and I met for the first time -- and spent her youth on the South Side -- I had to lay a copy of A Certain Book on her.

Today's architecture column. The Chicago Park District gets — and deserves — all the smoke for the sad conditions of far too many of its buildings and green spaces on the city’s South and West sides. But credit is due here in Garfield Park.