Chicago Tribune architecture critic Ed Keegan looks at Wheeler Kearns's redesign of a former plumbing warehouse in Summit into a new Community Center for Catholic Charities. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/05/31/o...

Some fascinating visuals on how, as GDP increased about 3.7% over the past few years, multibillionaires have more than doubled their share of the U.S.'s treasure -and pay taxes on nearly none of it. AI is, above all else, a wealth -and power- transfer mechanism. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Meanwhile, news from the hellhole... www.wsj.com/economy/chic...

Everything is fine. www.wsj.com/finance/stoc...

Madame Butterfly in Grant Park

And in case you've forgotten, here's the scandalous story of how Richard M. Daley wantonly bulldozed the historic buildings and tore out the beautiful Sasaki landscaping of the Michael Reese campus for a pile of dirt in his failed campaign for a 2016 Olympics. lynnbecker.com/repeat/reese...

Failing upward? Bob Dunn, failing to convince legislators to pick your pockets, dear taxpayer, for $6.5 billion in subsidies for his One Central pipe dream, looks to expand his empire of dirt to the Michael Reese campus, bulldozed for RMD's Olympics pipe dream www.chicagobusiness.com/government/o...

Chicago under construction: Pearl memorial building, 227 West Chicago. 56 units, $30 million. Viewing platform at Brown Line Chicago stop. www.chicagobusiness.com/commercial-r...

San Francisco -and its mayor-is looking to double its number of protected landmarks and hiring 7 planners to survey historic properties citywide, something Chicago hasn't done for over three decades - buildings constructed since 1940 are excluded from the Historic Resources Survey. bit.ly/4nUBGPN

Second Hand News at Tiny Tapp. Thursday evening concerts return to the Chicago Riverwalk! www.2ndhandnews.com

It's fine for @ABC7Chicago and other media outlets to cover a photo-op created so a bunch of politicians can get their pictures taken., but it's just sloppy to parrot "Centennial Fountain was turned on today" when it's been flowing and spewing since early this month.

"As a dog that returns to his vomit," techbro fascist returns to the refuge of his Nazi forebears. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/28/w...

As much as Trib Tower or the Wrigley Building, the Jewelers Building is a visual icon on the Chicago River. Until now, to enjoy the upper terraces, you had to be a pigeon, but Crain's Danny Ecker reports Prime Group has some big plans for changing that. www.chicagobusiness.com/real-estate/...

Sorry, we forgot. Mies's 140th birthday was yesterday, and we missed it, but here's a flashback to our link to the landing page for our richly illustrated stories on Crown Hall, Farnsworth House and the IBM Building. But wait - there's more! lynnbecker.com/repeat/mies/...

AI is an illness and an addiction, swallowing up the lives of developers who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for "tokens" and go without sleep to play with agents that generate million of lines of code to generate photo frames and book restaurant reservations. bit.ly/432wu2z

...and speaking of essential books on Chicago and its architecture, Joseph M. Siry's Chicago Auditorium Building is on sale for less than half price at the U of C Press website. (use promo code SALE2026). A true epic of a building, its city, and its times. press.uchicago.edu/resource/Sal...

Engaging and informative Driehaus-affiliated tour yesterday evening with Brick of Chicago's Will Quam, whose volume Fire and Clay has joined the shelf of essential books on Chicago, it's architecture and history. brickofchicago.com

Nearly four hours later and five blocks on, they make it to the State Street and Wabash Avenue bridges.

Wednesday bridge lift, six sailboats making their way up the Chicago River to Lake Michigan. Wells street bridge not going up, so I came home

The hands of Sharifa. (Simone Leigh, Art Institute north garden.) www.artic.edu/articles/112...)

Spring planting on Wacker Drive

Fantastic photos by DC Post's Allison Robbert for Ted Muldoon's look inside the spectacular embassies in Washington, DC, most of which began life as mansions for the city's wealthy. wapo.st/4f3ItnR

Left Coast symphony orchestras round out their dance cards, LAPhil names Air France Pilot as its next music director. apnews.com/article/dani...

In Memoriam: Schlitz, expired with the brewing of last batch on Saturday, age 177. blockclubchicago.org/2026/05/26/c...

And here's our own story on saloon keeper John Raber and the Italianate house he built in 1870. An official landmark, owned by the city, it remains empty, hermetically sealed, amidst vacant lots. I wrote this in 2011. Nothing's been done since. arcchicago.blogspot.com/2011/04/our-...

It's inexplicable, the forgetting disease that overtakes Chicago's government (see also: Clarence Darrow Bridge) when it lets rot a no-brainer civic asset ripe for redevelopment and benefit to the community. Lee Bey has an update on the 1870 Raber House. chicago.suntimes.com/architecture...

Memorial Day, Vietnam War Memorial on the Chicago Riverwalk

Beach day, Chicago Ohio Street, boats in the playpen, skyline on the shore

Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago’s Millennium Park on a perfect spring day.

When archeologists, thousands of years from now (or maybe a decade or two), work to piece together an understanding of the long-lost American civilization from its surviving artifacts, Buc-ee's will have its own PhD area of study. share.inquirer.com/FXUlqQ

Incoming CSO music director Klaus Mäkelä is leaving his post at the Oslo Philharmonic one year early. An AI search says "relations between Mäkelä and the orchestra musicians have deteriorated significantly in the past year" but with AI, who knows? moto-perpetuo.com/klaus-makela...

Absolutely astonishing day, perfect weather, downtown Chicago packed with people, from the Memorial Day parade, Suenos, Cloud Gate, and Dan Kiley's Uber-green south garden of the Art Institute filled with graduates and their families, the satisfaction of achievement and hope for the future.

So I was looking in the window of the new Bye Bye Chicago superstore, and wondering why they were selling shot glasses with Jeff Bezos in a fedora stuck to them, and then I realized it was part of their Al Capone merch shrine.

Snow plow immortality for Stephen Coldbert

The Chicago Tribune sent photographer E. Jason Wambsgans on a trip down historic U.S. Rte 66, all the way to Santa Monica. The result was this stunning gallery of images. Check it out. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/04/26/r...

Wow, San Francisco certainly knows how to do a new Music Director unveiling right.

Scenes from a mall: Textures and patterns of the Thompson Center, under reconstruction for Google.

Did you know (I didn’t) Richard J. Daley, near the start of his long reign as Chicago’s mayor, appeared as a contestant on the then very popular CBS quiz show, What’s My Line? (Via Forgotten Chicago) youtu.be/LjqKUdItzsM?...

So right about now, Stephen Colbert may be taping his last show. Hard to believe it was less than two years ago, he was riding high with his shows at the Auditorium (last pic courtesy Pam Pietrowsky). His Chicago desk was long on display in the CBS2 lobby, but it's gone now, goodness knows where.

The fact that the same management that hired her has been the source of many of the orchestras recent problems could presage trouble ahead, but for now, great news: the immensely talented Elim Chan named the San Francisco Symphony's new music director. www.sfsymphony.org/About-SFS/Pr...

From 2009, David Woodhouse at Dusable Harbor. lynnbecker.com/repeat/dusab...

Iker Gil continues to carry forward the invaluable legacy of Betty Blum in a fascinating new oral history with architect David Woodhouse, who rejected big firm dynamics for his enriching portfolio of human-scaled urbanism. Many great stories: Tigerman, Bryan, etc. mascontext.com/dialogues/di...

Graduates defying gravity

Graduates with law books

So this is what we're expending trillions of our treasure, endless GWs of power, and oceans of water on AI for? -a user asks AI Mode through the Google app to keep them “updated when any of my favorite athletes announce sneaker collabs or signature drops.” www.wired.com/story/google...

Apparently Cybertrucks boast about something called "Wade Mode". When an owner decided to test it out driving into a shallow lake, he had to be rescued after his car starting taking on water. www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/a...

Wow. For the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, the entire surrounding area to the east of will be under a cordon sanitaire, streets closed, and residents requiring a placard to get to their own homes. blockclubchicago.org/2026/05/19/o...

Wednesday bridge lift, 9 sailboats making the journey up the Chicago River to Lake Michigan

I first encountered Limmie Pulliam through his powerful Othello with Cleveland. A spectacular voice, an exceptional artist, he has died at 51, just days after singing Mahler 8 with Dallas. A great loss; he had so much more to give. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ1E...

Just what we need - still more U.S. media controlled by the Murdochs.