Matt Bergstrom
@mattbergstrom.bsky.social
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Chicago architecture and history, papercraft and postcards -
https://www.wurlington-bros.com/
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Matt Bergstrom
John Warner
5 days ago
Every one of us possesses a unique intelligence far more interesting than what passes for intelligence with large lanugage models. One part of my unique intelligence is wrapped up in the 1984 Chicago Cubs.
open.substack.com/pub/bibliora...
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In Appreciation of Unique Intelligences
"We" are definitely smarter than AI.
https://open.substack.com/pub/biblioracle/p/in-appreciation-of-unique-intelligences?r=88v1q&utm_medium=ios
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The answer to the mystery may or may not be important but the investigation is a fun read
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6 days ago
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Just topped 1900 items added to the Logan Square Preservation archive of neighborhood photos & other ephemera
hub.catalogit.app/logan-square...
15 days ago
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I was puzzling over one of these fun Earth sculptures in the playground by Soldier Field. The cities highlighted on the spiral path around the park seem to be in line N-S and E-W around the globe, but the hot dog icon does not represent Chicago...
18 days ago
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A new city to add to the list of miniature cities around the world
www.wurlington-bros.com/DC/minicitie...
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25 days ago
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55 years ago today, construction started on San Francisco's iconic Sutro communications tower
#otd
25 days ago
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Make your own miniature of Cleopatra's Needle, which debuted today in 1881 in Central Park, more than 3000 years after it was created in Egypt
buildyourownnewyork.com/free.html
25 days ago
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110 years ago today, the Palace Preservation League hosted a celebration to build interest in preserving the temporary Palace of Fine Arts after the Panama–Pacific International Exposition ended
28 days ago
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Spend Pancake Day with a pancake sketch tour across the USA:
mnmuseumofthems.org/Pancakes/ind...
about 1 month ago
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Matt Bergstrom
Colin Dickey
about 1 month ago
New from me, at
@vqr.bsky.social
: a few years ago two people contacted me about a TEDx talk I once gave, “The Art of Haunting.” When I replied I’d never given a TEDx talk, things just got weirder. On AI, ghosts, what it means to tell a story, and what Italo Calvino saw coming 60 years ago. Enjoy!
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The Art of Haunting
The email was innocuous enough. A woman wrote to me explaining how her partner had been talking about my work and how much he’d enjoyed it—in particular, he’d remembered me giving a TEDx talk about gh...
https://www.vqronline.org/fall-2025/essays/art-haunting
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Matt Bergstrom
Chicago Sun-Times
about 1 month ago
What is this, a skyscraper for ants? For more than 35 years, Columbian Model & Exhibit Works made miniature models of Chicago's planned architecture. But with leadership nearing retirement and advances in digital modeling tech, the longtime business recently shut its doors for good.
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Model shop that provided the first draft of many great Chicago buildings closes
https://chicago.suntimes.com/architecture-design/2026/02/13/columbian-model-exhibit-works-first-draft-chicago-buildings-obama-lakeshore-closes?utm_campaign=mrf-bluesky-chicago.suntimes.com&mrfcid=20260213698f3202a4e175754f1911f7
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Last minute to celebrate Abraham Lincoln with an outsized birthday cake for his birthday Feb 12, 1809
about 1 month ago
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Matt Bergstrom
ProPublica
about 1 month ago
1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken. Hundreds of kids are still detained. We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵
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More 45th Parallel markers are in an exhibit at the Minnesota Museum of the Mississippi
mnmuseumofthems.org/45th/index.h...
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about 1 month ago
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Matt Bergstrom
Adam Serwer
about 2 months ago
Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link)
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
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No-longer-standing Prentice Women's Hospital opened 50 years ago today. Rebuild a mini version at
www.buildyourownchicago.com/free.html
about 2 months ago
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Pinball trek to Galloping Ghost
2 months ago
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Matt Bergstrom
Present & Correct
2 months ago
From the 1960s, five London vehicles to cut out & make.
www.presentandcorrect.com/blogs/blog/c...
A double decker bus, a mail train, a black cab, a news truck & a post van.
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150 years ago today, photographer Joshua Beal climbed the east tower of the unfinished Brooklyn Bridge to shoot five overlapping images creating a spectacular panorama portrait of Manhattan
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-334...
2 months ago
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Today is the anniversary of the unusual meeting between Elvis and President Nixon in the Oval Office in 1970
3 months ago
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Happy 45th birthday to the National Building Museum, created by an act of Congress and signed by President Jimmy Carter today in 1980!
3 months ago
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A visit to the Rocks For Fun Cafe before Thanksgiving
3 months ago
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60 years ago today, 10-year-old William Blasio stole a motor boat from the dock below Marina City with a plan to return to Ohio where his family had once lived. Hard to imagine heading out on Lake Michigan if the weather was wintry like today!
4 months ago
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120 years ago today, the terrible Mataafa Storm began, sinking more than 20 ships on Lake Superior and leading to the construction of Split Rock Lighthouse to make shipping safer on the lake
4 months ago
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Lots of new additions to the Stone Faces Gazetteer tracking locations of anthropomorphic rocks around the world:
www.mnmuseumofthems.org/Faces/index....
4 months ago
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:(
add a skeleton here at some point
4 months ago
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Matt Bergstrom
Public Domain Image Archive
4 months ago
Edward George Bruton's velocipede. (1889) by Robert Pittis Scott, from Cycling Art, Energy, and Locomotion. Source:
@bpl.boston.gov
‬ / Internet Archive
https://pdimagearchive.org/images/42416fac-8760-470d-9f9d-179adddfa187
#patents
#technology
#bicycles
#engineering
#cycling
#vehicles
#inventions
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Cardboard 2-flat miniature spotted at Project Onward’s cardboard show. Love the little butterflies!
4 months ago
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All of Manhattan made of balsa wood and styrofoam
add a skeleton here at some point
4 months ago
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Missed this anniversary yesterday: On Nov 18, 1755, an earthquake hit Boston, knocking down the iconic grasshopper weathervane off Faneuil Hall
4 months ago
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Miniature room sculpture by artist Itzi Licona at Intuit Art Museum
4 months ago
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Last warm day till spring in Humboldt Park
4 months ago
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Matt Bergstrom
Vince Mpls
4 months ago
#OnThisDay
Nov 8, 1898: The Kensington Runestone is "discovered" on Olof Ohman's farm near Alexandria, Minnesota. Its engravings tell of Vikings who traveled here in 1362. Scholarly consensus classifies it as a hoax, but there remain true believers convinced the stone is authentic.
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On this day in 1910, excavation began for the 792-foot Woolworth Building, then the tallest in the world
5 months ago
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Happy Halloween! Would you ring the doorbell of this haunted paper house?
5 months ago
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Happy Halloween! Would you ring the doorbell of this haunted paper house?
5 months ago
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Matt Bergstrom
Jess Piper
5 months ago
I hear people all around me saying, “They are going to crash the economy. Surely they don’t mean to crash the economy.” I beg to differ. This is curated failure.
jesspiper.substack.com/p/i-know-exa...
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I Know Exactly What They Are Doing
Rural foresight
https://jesspiper.substack.com/p/i-know-exactly-what-they-are-doing
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Matt Bergstrom
Bo Bolander
5 months ago
was wondering why all the honeycrisps we bought the past two years, even from the fancy local grocer, were mushy, mealy messes and i guess this is a legitimate thing, unfortunately
www.seriouseats.com/how-honeycri...
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How Honeycrisp Apples Went From Marvel to Mediocre
An investigation into the Honeycrisp apple and how a complex string of events led to a decline in the quality of a beloved apple variety.
https://www.seriouseats.com/how-honeycrisp-apples-went-from-marvel-to-mediocre-8753117
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Matt Bergstrom
Jess Piper
5 months ago
My god. Look at the “Major Events Timeline.“ We are living in hell.
www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-wh...
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The White House Building
Every president since John Adams has occupied the White House, and the history of this building extends far beyond the construction of its walls. From the Ground Floor Corridor rooms, transformed from...
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/the-white-house/?fbclid=IwZnRzaANne5BleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHkAFcBALRaGo51e3SefHQFUZm9PClmO1bmCAKo7dXU06NtXvh-t6nRuf3Dtx_aem_Qwy9eCKjhaAW76D0kv1bKA
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A silly little papercraft project I designed for this weekend's upcoming International Paper Modelers Convention in Sterling, VA. Print one and build it at: ipmc-info.org/free.html
5 months ago
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Matt Bergstrom
Lady Topham Catt
5 months ago
In stunning development, sinking of Titanic no longer world’s largest metaphor
add a skeleton here at some point
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Out on the street among hundreds of thousands marching for Liberty
#papercraft
#papermodel
#statueofliberty
#nokings
5 months ago
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Matt Bergstrom
Robert Loerzel
5 months ago
A drawing of a “BRAIN WORM” on a street sign in Uptown
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Matt Bergstrom
Bro. B!O!F!
5 months ago
“There’s no indication that Vance has divested from AcreTrader, and there’s every indication that that investment remains in place.”
civileats.com/2024/09/18/j...
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JD Vance Funded AcreTrader. Here’s Why That Matters.
The real estate platform streamlines investing in US farmland. Now farms are fast becoming a portfolio staple for investors worldwide.
https://civileats.com/2024/09/18/jd-vance-invested-in-acretrader-heres-why-that-matters/
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reposted by
Matt Bergstrom
Vince Mpls
5 months ago
#OnThisDay
Oct 8, 1956: Southdale, the first fully enclosed shopping mall in the world, opens in Edina, Minnesota. Architect Victor Gruen, later realizing his invention had not lived up to his utopian vision of a car-free public square, became the biggest critic of malls until his death in 1980.
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Matt Bergstrom
Chris Thompson
6 months ago
a person at Treasury gave Defector a rundown of how this process—which appears to be against the law—was expedited in order to avoid public scrutiny
defector.com/treasury-dep...
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Treasury Department Has Plans To Mint Dollar Coin Featuring Donald Trump's Likeness | Defector
The United States Department of the Treasury has developed, to the brink of production, a dollar coin that features the face and likeness of President Donald Trump, according to a source within the Tr...
https://defector.com/treasury-department-has-plans-to-mint-dollar-coin-featuring-donald-trumps-likeness
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Matt Bergstrom
Chris Steller
6 months ago
Here is how the first Peanuts comic strip appeared in Charles M. Schulz's hometown newspaper, The Minneapolis Star, 75 years ago today, Oct. 2, 1950. With an accompanying introductory article but missing one panel of the strip.
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Matt Bergstrom
Comics in the Golden Age
6 months ago
The first Peanuts strip by Charles M. Schulz was published on October 2, 1950.
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Matt Bergstrom
Bill Grueskin
6 months ago
Chicago, Illinois, 2025: "They had the Black people in one van, and the immigrants in another van." "They was bringing the kids down, had them zip-tied to each other." "I kept asking, 'What is the morality?' One of them laughed. He said, 'Fuck them kids.'"
abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chi...
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ICE agents raid South Shore apartments; Trump says Chicago could become military training ground
ICE agents raided a South Shore apartment building overnight as the city braces for a possible military deployment.
https://abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chicago-federal-agents-surround-south-shore-apartment-building-dhs-requests-military-deployment-illinois/17908911/
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reposted by
Matt Bergstrom
David_j_roth
6 months ago
I wrote about the experience of government of, by, and for people who have been driven insane by screens. (This is a gift link, please Consider Defector if you are interested in subscribing to a website)
defector.com/the-united-s...
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The United States Of Snitches | Defector
On Saturday, the chairman of the Republican Party in Michigan’s Oakland County spent his afternoon directing his online followers’ attention to local businesses that had not lowered their flags to hal...
https://defector.com/the-united-states-of-snitches?giftLink=6f86ae05b7276bb7917c719c092745a0
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