Chicago's Posh Magnificent Mile

Chicago Skyline from Navy Pier

Chicago is a big city up and down and all around, but I managed to see a little bit of it this week. I'm here for the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference, and I managed to wander away from the scholarship a couple of times to explore. Mind you, I didn't bring my big camera and its collection of lenses on this trip, so what you are seeing are iPhone shots. I'm happy with them...for now.

After my presentation was delivered, applauded, and scrutinized, I took off through the strong wind to visit Navy Pier for some lunch. This pier dates back to 1916 and juts out into Lake Michigan. This is a cool place where you would bring your family if you have one, and enjoy the shops, IMAX theater, and inexpensive restaurants where I consumed a yummy chorizo burrito. But wait, there's more!

The Crystal Gardens

Climb those white steps and you'll enter a humid wonderland of palm trees with silly fountains that squirt water from one garden to the next just overhead. It's a tropical oasis in this windy, cold city called the Crystal Gardens. The Chicago Children's Museum is up there, too. Just beyond the palms are the Ferris wheel, motorized spinning swings, mini golf, the Shakespeare Theater, and the museum of stained glass. Not all of this is open in April, and I imagine the Ferris wheel was out because of the wind. The place is a popular spot nonetheless.

Turn around for great views of the city:

Here's the Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower, and formerly the tallest building IN THE WORLD.

So you should know that my hotel and my conference are on Chicago's Magnificent Mile. It's an upscale neighborhood centered around Michigan Avenue with posh designer boutiques, fancy hotels (mine was on a side street and not fancy), and many restaurants I was too chicken to try. The 1869 Water Tower is a landmark at the northern end of the Magnificent Mile. It's one of the few buildings that survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

The 1869 Water Tower

It's the week before Easter and one fancy hotel fixed up its official Mini Cooper:

Each morning on my way to the conference, I crossed Michigan Ave. and gazed south in eager anticipation of my upcoming symphonic adventure which is featured on my other blog here. This is looking south on the Magnificent Mile on a bright and windy April morning:

Marking the southern end of the Magnificent Mile Is the Wrigley Building. It's impossible to capture the coolness of this building in one photo. It's partially modeled on the Giralda Tower in Seville, Spain. It's actually two buildings, North and South, linked by three walkways.

And then, just south of the enormous Wrigley Building, is the Chicago River. Next time I'm here, I will definitely sign up for the famous Architectural River Tour and cruise through this skyscraper gorge!

The Bridges of Trenton

The main reason we headed to the Delaware River today was to take photos of the ice. Every day for weeks I've been enjoying the view of the choppy white ice and wondering where to stand for the best views. Today we did some exploring, and I managed to shoot all the bridges of Trenton. Enjoy the trek!

The "Trenton Makes" Bridge (1928)

The current bridge was installed in 1928, replacing a series of bridges at this crossing including the first bridge to span the Delaware. (Before them, in the eigtheenth century, there was a ferry here.) The first letters spelling out "Trenton Makes the World Takes" were added in 1935 and replaced in 1981. In 2005, those letters were replaced with brighter neon ones which are usually lit when I drive by at night.

The "Trenton Makes" bridge has a convenient sidewalk, but you'd better walk your bike.

The Trenton sign from the inside of the bridge.

Looking north: not all the river is frozen. (That's Trenton back there.)

I've been wanting this shot for years. (From the PA side looking north.)

Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge (1908)

Trains used to cross the river on a predecessor of the current Trenton Makes Bridge, but then the Pennsylvania Railroad built this masterpiece of a stone arch bridge, downriver from the Trenton Makes Bridge.

Standing under the U.S.1 bridge to shoot the Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge

Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge in the icy river

Calhoun Street Bridge (1884)

This bridge is an oldie, about a mile north of the Trenton Makes Bridge. It's 1,273 feet long and opened in 1884, replacing an older, wooden bridge that burnt earlier that year. The older bridge was built in 1861 to replace a ferry crossing. The present bridge was built on the original bridge's piers and abutments. 

The Calhoun Street Bridge

This is where the Calhoun Street Bridge came from

The Reading Railroad (West Trenton) Bridge (1913)

My favorite, the Roman aqueduct-style Reading Railroad Bridge from the NJ side looking southwest

Reading Railroad Bridge from New Jersey looking northwest

I celebrated the 100th birthday of this bridge by blogging about it on another snowy winter day: Click here to read more details and see photos from the Pennsylvania side.

Well, We Still Have Central Park

We were in New York City to tour historic Harlem, part of my research for a Harlem Renaissance course I'm teaching soon. However, because of a misunderstanding about the meeting place, we missed the tour and ended up back in Midtown strolling around Central Park. This is not a bad way to spend an afternoon in New York, and I made the best of this photographic situation. We did ultimately take an Uptown bus tour that included Harlem, but that tour guide was more interested in telling us where to eat and where famous people live(d). We did learn about Hell's Kitchen and stopped at an inexpensive bar & grill there (Smith's) before getting on the train to go home.

It was a cold, foggy day, and in the morning the top of the Empire State Building had vanished!

Shoot! Where did the top of the ESB go?

The buskers were out in force on this Saturday, and we tipped them after photographing them, I promise.

He was playing a Bach Cello Sonata.

He was fiddlin'.

Rockefeller Plaza has the more photographed ice skating rink, but Central Park's makes quite a nice foto:

I'm always up for a bridge picture:

So we did make it onto a late afternoon bus tour of Uptown which included Harlem, but picture-taking was near impossible from behind our Plexiglass shield on the upper level. We got off the bus to inspect the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the ONE place in Harlem I had visited before (!!), but this was relevant because the Aristocrat of the Harlem Renaissance, Duke Ellington, had his funeral there in 1972. (More recently, James Gandolfini's funeral was there.) So here are most of the Harlem pictures I came home with:

Part of the facade

St. John the Divine lectern

Lectern detail

From behind scratchy, cloudy Plexiglass, I attempted a Hail Mary pass of a picture as we cruised past the famous Apollo Theater:

I think that last one is fun and kind of represents the kooky chaos of this day. In the end, the organizer of the initial tour took responsibility for the mix-up and will fix the problem on his website. He's going to refund my money (Yay!) and send me a voucher for a free tour (Yay!) so that there will be a Harlem Renaissance blogpost sometime in the future (and after the course is over, Boo!).

Zoo Faces: Cape May County Zoo

I love this zoo. I remember when it was mostly farm animals and gumball machines filled with feed for a nickel.

A couple of roaring big cats were added, and a house full of reptiles, and lots of big birds, and then the African Savanna with Giraffes, Zebras, Bongos, Scimitar-Horned Oryxes, and Ankole Watusis.

These are Ankhole Watusis having dinner.

In the warmer weather the zoo is filled with colorful flowers and flowering bushes. but today, the last day of November, we're more likely to see berries and ornamental grasses.

In the cooler weather today, I found faces...

The over-the-shoulder peacock look

The I'm-pretending-to-eat-this-really-short-grass-for-your-picture look

"Whaddya want? My parents are trying to eat here."

And the Great Blue Heron asks, "Got any fish for me?"

These three snow leopards had their faces on something outside their fence...

And elsewhere in the zoo, these ducks were having a pond party. We weren't invited, so we shot some photos and politely left.

Autumn Baywalk

Gladys the Sheltie wanted me to show you what we saw on our walk this afternoon at the Delaware Bay. It was low tide, so the beach looked like this:

and we saw lots  of things washed-up on the sand.

Coral

A claw

And, of course, shells

There was a recently-deceased or napping horseshoe (I'm told not to call them crabs because they are more like spiders, actually),

and a gull looking for lunch hiding just under the sand.

Since it was super-low tide, I got some close-up shots of this jetty which is usually under the water. Who knew so many critters lived under there?!

The Cape May-Lewes Ferry made an appearance after the HOOOOOONNNNNK HONK HONK HONK warning signal.

The ferry is leaving the canal.

 Gladys had had enough by now,

...so we headed home to rest while our crepe myrtle tree is doing this because it is autumn!