Wow it’s been a year since David Lynch died. Whenever someone says they don’t “get” his work or that it doesn’t make any sense, you know what? Life itself doesn’t make sense. It’s surreal, mundane, strange, and kind of meaningless. Respect to him for capturing the horrors of this thing called life.

Richard Nickel took this photo of the Congress Street Expressway going over the Chicago River sometime around 1969, which is when Grand Central Station closed for good. It was entirely demolished by the railroad in 1971. The 6.5 acre lot between Harrison & Polk remained vacant for nearly 50 yrs.

It has been ten years since David Bowie died, and apparently, it was six years ago that I saw Michael Shannon & Sons of the Silent Age perform David Bowie songs at Chicago’s Metro, my last concert before the world shut down.

This architecture geek was so happy to see Walter Burley Griffin’s name on Jeopardy just now. Take that, Frank!

My 81-yr-old aunt: “I think the movie was called 1955. There was a lot of back & forth. It was confusing but cute. Michael J. Fox was in it.” Me: “Are you talking about Back to the Future?” Aunt: “Is that what it’s called? Have you ever seen it?” Me: “Many times. The *whole world* has seen it.”

Digging thru my archives and here’s one of my photos from February of 2021 - University of Chicago Law School's Laird Bell Quadrangle designed by Eero Saarinen in the late 1950s.

STELLAN! I’m not into reality shows, but I would watch a reality show about the Skarsgårds.

I took these photos during a visit to historic Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis back in 2009.

When a male stranger calls a woman “a bitch,” it says more about his character than hers.

Here’s a photo I took in January 2022 of the three-flat at 1542 North Wood Street in Chicago’s Wicker Park. It was originally built in 1889 by local architect Henry T. Kelly who lived nearby on North Avenue and did a lot of buildings in the area, including a couple of beauties on Hoyne.

You know your architecture geekiness has reached its ultimate peak when you are excited to look through a book about double houses. I bet you didn’t know Evanston has so many. Now you do!

Guys, please step outside if you can and enjoy this sunny 40 degree day. Less doomscrolling and more fresh air & touching grass in 2026.

My photo of New Mount Vernon Missionary Baptist Church at Lake & Central in Chicago's Austin neighborhood. The structure was originally built as a telephone exchange around 1900, then was used as a factory. In the 1960s the building got this new facade and became a church.

Back in the 1940s, my (step) great-grandmother started working for Teletype, which was first located at Southport & Wrightwood before it relocated to Central & Touhy. She earned a modest salary, but she also received shares in the company. Over time, she purchased shares from her coworkers.

I took these photos exactly 8 yrs ago when it was very, very cold.

Exactly six yrs ago, I went through a dumpster to see what my cousin had thrown out after my uncle passed away. Here’s what I found, starting with this Chicago Tribune newspaper from October 1993, when Michael Jordan (first) retired.

See a bridge, post a bridge Cherry Ave Bridge (although no longer in use) is one of two remaining asymmetrical “bob-tail” swing-suspension bridges in Chicago. It was completed in 1902 by the Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul Railway.

As I promised to share more architectural photos here, this is 77 West Wacker Drive, an early 1990s postmodern design by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura. I like the juxtaposition with Helmut Jahn’s Thompson Center. I took this pic exactly 8 yrs ago.

Someone recently said to me that Harry Weese-designed buildings didn’t give them any feelings. Excuse me? A prison w/windows that look like old computer punchcards is a visual delight! My photo of Weese’s skyscraper prison, the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago (1975), taken in Dec. 2015.

Who wants to purchase the top-floor unit in the Keck-Gottschalk-Keck Building (1937) for me? One of the earliest International Style designs built in Chicago, it served as residences for architects Keck & Keck and University of Chicago professor Louis Gottschalk. www.redfin.com/IL/Chicago/5...

It was exactly 14 yrs ago today that I went inside the former Anshe Kanesses Israel Synagogue (1913) with @ericallixrogers.com & others, right before its demolition. The structure later became the Friendship Baptist Church where MLK made a speech in 1965. Today the site remains a vacant lot.

At midnight I will be closing all my open tabs and getting ready for a brand new year of tabs that I’ll forget about and never read. Here’s to 2026!

Reading John & Paul by Ian Leslie. Paul makes me tired. In 1966, he's writing timeless songs, going on the last Beatles tour, attending art exhibits & music lectures, sharing a studio w/William Burroughs where they make cut-up techniques. Yet in an interview he says "I only read 20 books this year."

Going into 2026 feeling and looking like this.

Remembering Pops Staples on his birthday today with this photo of The Staple Singers performing songs in front of a giant photo of Carl Sandburg at a folk festival in NYC, July 1965.

I don’t know if you had to be there or not, but it was pretty cool being an angry teenager around 1994–95 and screaming, “Make me real, fuck you; make me sick, fuck you,” with your friends while listening to this album together in your parents’ basement. (Sorry if this album is Nirvana-related!)

Exactly 10 yrs ago, Christmas Eve 2015. “16 shots and a cover up!” “Rahm must go!” “Carol Marin amazing reporting!”

Happy Brickmas to all my fellow architecture nerds! May all your building wishes come true!!!

When you find yourself in Aurora, be sure to pay your respects to Goff.

I will say this is *NOT* my favorite time of year, but what’s really pushing me over the edge is that every time I look out my window, I see the flashing lights on the Christmas tree inside my neighbor’s unit. There’s also some kind of strobe light on the walls. I feel like I’m gonna have a seizure.

This is the exact same outfit my mom and I wore to my dad’s funeral when I was a kid. Tragic deaths are all about glitz and glamour, don’t ya know.

I know it has warmed up but I just saw the most ridiculous-looking person walking down Armitage. They were wearing a pom pom beanie, scarf, long winter coat, and…flip flops.

The Santa Claus decoration behind Peter Falk’s grandfather character makes The Princess Bride a Christmas movie.

This might seem like a random question but Ashland Avenue ends at 95th Street, right? But then I think that’s not correct after looking at a map and I see there is an Ashland Avenue between 108th Place and Monterey Avenue. I had no idea.

This is what I have looked like throughout the entire month of December. If it is still bitterly cold on Christmas Day, I will recreate this photo with my cousin, who eats all the dinner rolls, and my creepy annoying uncle. Happy Holidays!

It's pretty unsettling to see ICE agents around a public library, a place that provides equal access, safe spaces, and community connections to all people. FYI the Hispanic population in Palatine, IL is about 20%.

“The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and everyday confirms my belief of the inconsistencies of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.” - Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice

Yet they have $60 million to spend on a new basketball & athletics practice facility that no one asked for (besides the fact they have a parking lot on Fullerton). IMO you should not be allowed to demolish multi-unit buildings in a city neighborhood without approval through a public referendum.

I watched some old episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show yesterday in honor of his 100th birthday. Thanks to him and Carl Reiner for making me laugh more than 60 years later. A day later this upsetting news is the last thing I would have ever expected.

According to a poll of 200 civic leaders, these are the 10 GREATEST citizens of Chicago: Jane Addams, Julius Rosenwald, Carl Sandburg, Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard J. Daley, Marshall Field, Daniel Burnham, Cyrus McCormick, William Rainey Harper, and Robert McCormick. (Chicago Daily News, March 1968)

This is the kind of day to bring back an old post in appreciation of the mechanics behind an architecturally significant building.

Yay I saw a “shorts guy” crossing the street at Division and Hermitage. I was hoping I’d see one today. 🥶

I’ve always taken offense at the idea that architect Irving Gill worked under Frank Lloyd Wright while living in Chicago. Hardly. Gill was clearly influenced by Louis Sullivan. I mean, just look at these interior photos of his John H. Kleine House (1906) in Lakeside, California. Those arches!

Talk about a throwback! I just found my photos of the Prairie Avenue Bookshop taken right before it closed in August 2009. It first opened in the Elbridge Keith House at 1900 S. Prairie Ave in 1974. Then it moved to 711 S. Dearborn before settling at its final location (418 S. Wabash Ave) in 1995.

Everyone knows a Christmas tree is not complete until you hang the bacon and eggs ornaments. 🥓 🍳

Only if it captured my grandma’s overall non-maternal bitchiness. I don’t think that’s possible. But the AI would probably yell things like, “Stop being a pill!” “Get off your ass!” “How could you do this to me?” “LEAVE ME ALONE!!!”

My mom, who read Hamnet, went to see the film: “It was spectacular. I’m glad I saw it on the big screen.” My 81-yr-old aunt: “Shakespeare was a real person? I thought he was made up, like a fictional character. You said he wrote plays. Why didn’t he write books? Did he write this movie you saw?”

“Seasons greetings before corporate branding,” Terrace row houses in Moss Side, Manchester, 1970. 📸 Martin Parr

Oh, Frank Gehry died? Does that mean we can start tearing down his awful buildings now? I believe he once said almost everything built nowadays is “pure shit” and has “no respect for humanity or for anything else.” Projection much, Frank?

Is this piece suggesting that cutting the bloated police budget by $4.5 million would result in one less day of cops leaning against random buildings on downtown corners playing games on their phones? OH NO! HOW WILL THE CITY SURVIVE?