I love my little apartment here in Chicago. It's on the 49th floor of Marina Towers which has been a Chicago landmark since 1962. I remember as a kid growing up in Hometown, Texas (pop 1,700) watching the Bob Newhart Show and seeing the funky, oh-so-hip-and-modern Marina Towers. I wanted so badly to live in a city up north where it snowed, like Bob Newhart and Mary Tyler Moore got to do. I wanted to run down the city streets with my mouth agog at all the lights and tall buildings like Marlo Thomas did in That Girl.
Mainly, I just wanted to get the hell outta Texas where it was hot and high school football was an all-encompassing, fascist religion.
I moved to Chicago in January, 2001. A year-and-a-half ago, I was walking by Marina Towers downtown and thought I'd just ask to see an apartment there, just for fun. It was much more affordable than I thought it'd be. Hey, neat.
I signed a two-year lease. I hadn't even looked at a single other apartment in all of Chicago. I was going to be living in the Bob Newhart building, the George Jetson building, the "corn-cob towers", the That-Girl Building.
It definitely has an early-60's kitsch thing goin' on. Big time. The bathtub and toilet are yellow the bathroom wall tiles are chocolate and aqua. The kitchen has yellow-green metal cabinets. I keep meaning to buy an aqua rotary-dial Trimline wall phone for the kitchen, you know, to go with the yellow-green metal cabinets.
Anyway, my biggest pet peeve are these tourist boats that go up and down the Chicago river right outside the building. I'll be walking to work, crossing the bridge and a tourist boat will pass under with the tour guide bull-horning: "And on your right are the sixty-story Marina Towers, a Chicago landmark completed in 1967. . . . "
I'll scream down, "Nineteen Sixty TWO!!"
A few heads will snap up, but they never listen.
The very next week, another boat will have the narrator announcing, "And on your right are the sixty-story Marina Towers, a Chicago landmark completed in 1967. . . . "
"It's Nineteen Sixty TWO!!"
One of these days, I'm going to take the river-tour and when it floats by Marina Towers, I'll be ready to leap up, grab the microphone and set everyone straight.
Meanwhile, there are probably people all over the world talking about this crazy guy in Chicago that does nothing but shriek "Nineteen Sixty TWO" from the State Street bridge.
*LOL*
ReplyDeleteYou are SO "that girl"!! *hee hee*
Love ya', dooder! :)
Love,
Poodle :)
It is abundantly cool that you live in the Bob Newheart building. Does your living room look like Bob and Emily's? Do you and the Hag ever play "Bob and Emily"?
ReplyDeleteAnd I think, for the sake of your reputation, you should call the river tour company people and tell them they have their facts wrong, the bastards.
The Hag is too young for Bob and Emily. We mostly play Jerry and Elaine since we both know every line from Seinfeld. I also do a lot of Chandler.
ReplyDeleteI never thought of calling the boat tour companies! I'm hopping on the phone this instant.
Just a thought, but even though the buildings were up in 1962 is it possible that they weren't actually COMPLETED until 1967? You know, like doorknobs and stuff.
ReplyDeleteJP - construction on the building began in 1959. I'll re-check my facts before continuing to shriek at the boats.
ReplyDeleteEven if you're not right, you should still shriek at the boats.
ReplyDeleteThink of other things to shriek. like you could shriek your favorite recipes.
Your apartment has those colors, and you're bothered by some people on a boat?
ReplyDeleteBless your heart... :0)