Evening Scene

From my balcony.

Morning Scene

Here's a really cool view of my apartment building. 

This photo also makes for a nice desktop background. 

Click here if you'd like to see some photos of various residents' apartments. Some of them are pretty amazing. (Mine was not featured. I completely missed out on the interior decorating gene and am a disgrace to My People.)

Happy 50th Anniversary, Marina City

Fifty years ago last week, construction began on my apartment building at Marina City.

I’ve lived here for 5 ½ years now and I still love it. About six years ago, I was downtown walking by these goofy buildings and, on a whim, decided to see what the apartments looked like and asked to see one. The leasing agent showed five of them to me and I signed a lease soon after.

I get to live in a true Chicago landmark. Whenever anyone asks where I live, they always smile when I tell them.

“Are the apartments really wedge-shaped?” they ask.

Yes, a little bit, but not as much as you’d think.

A realtor friend of mine has recently been encouraging me to buy a condo. I’d really like a two-bedroom place but there’s no way I could afford the half-million dollar price tag for one at my beloved Marina Towers. I don’t want to give up living here either. My studio apartment on the 50th floor suits me fine.

This place looks like a 1960s comic book rendition of futuristic housing. One can practically envision George Jetson and Astro flying their space-car onto one of the balconies. I don’t want to give up my comic-book apartment, especially to live in a normal, non-descript two bedroom condo. No way.

Oh, check this out. Here are two 10-minute films of Marina City being built during the early sixties. Be sure to check out the stylish clothes in second video. (I love the soundtracks to these films - - they’re a hoot.)














Here are some photos I’ve taken through the years:

From my balcony:

From the roof. (That tall building is where I work)

A night view from the balcony:

A Chicago winter is pretty brutal out on the balcony:

And a summer thunderstorm can be pretty rambunctious:

An artsy black & white view:

Happy 50th anniversary, Marina City!

Another Photo

I'm having fun with this black & white photography. This photo would really be cool if the railing wasn't there:

Photo

I took this photo last week from my balcony and converted it to black & white.

I'm not at all knowledgeable about photography, but I do appreciate it. Anyway, I've now got this photo in a 10 x 8 frame and I love it. 

Morning Scene

You know, I'm sort of captivated by this photo. . .

Evening View

Yesterday evening, we had some whopper thunderstorms here in Chicago. The tornado sirens sounded off twice as the storms passed through and it got pretty rambunctious up here on the 50th floor. The sun was setting just as things were clearing up, causing it to reflect pretty brilliantly on the remaining clouds. I'd really never seen anything quite like it.

Here's what it looked like from my living room:

Looking to the northeast:

Due north:

Toward the building across the street:

Toward the twin building beside me:

And, finally, the setting sun:

My grandmother, Budgie, always loved sunsets and city life. She would have really loved the sights this evening.

The Balcony of Extra Terror

My apartment building is getting a little face lift -- just having the outside of it cleaned and repaired. Anyway, I got off work early and the workers were right outside by 50th floor balcony on their suspended scaffolding. Cool! They posed for photos. This photo is really for JP who, for a long time, has referred to my balcony as the Balcony of Terror.

Morning Scene - Spring

After several months of freezing, dreary, winter, windy, weather, we finally got a clement, clear day.
I still don't like warm, sunny weather (it's just so invasive and smelly)
But I have to admit that today's cool sunny stuff was sort of nice.

The view is from my balcony.
You can imagine what it looks like at night (which I prefer.)

B&W

Here's my attempt at artsy-fartsy photography.

My balcony in black-n-white.

Number 11 on the List

Oh, lookie here.

Here’s a list of the 20 Weirdest Apartment Buildings of the World.

Mine is number eleven!

How cool is that? Being on a list of "the weirdest" anything is what I LIVE for.

Here’s a little tour of my dwelling-place, from the speedy elevator into my apartment and then out on the balcony.

50th Floor

Whenever friends or guests come to my 50th floor apartment at Marina Towers, they always seem to comment at how fast the elevators are. Ears pop. Tummies get that weightless feeling.

I guess I’m used to it, but on researching Marina Towers (wikipedia) it did mention that we do have some really speedy elevators.

So, I recorded it for you.

This is the elevator ride going from the lobby to the 50th floor and then, into the apartment where I live.

Is it really that fast? Maybe I’m just used to it.

It's an icy-foggy day outside. Definitely a good example of Winter in Chicago.
My windows definitely need cleaning, too, but it’s windy, nearing 10 below zero and 500 feet up in Chicago. Dirty winter windows are inevitable.

Morning Scene - West Tower

Doncha think this is a pretty cool shot of the west tower of Marina Towers? -- where I used to live. Yawn...
Isn't that sort of neat how the sunlight makes such a clean line along the balconies? I woke up this morning, ambled among the chaos of moving boxes, and just sort of saw this as I munched on some dead, leftover anchovy pizza.

Time to Get Moving

I’ll be the first to admit that I know nothing about interior decorating or design.

Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

Left to my own devices, I’d be content to live in an underground box as long as it had cable and broadband. I really am a disgrace to My People.

Since I’ll be in a new apartment by the end of this month, I decided that it was finally time to live in a dwelling consistent with someone in my demographic. Things are moving along nicely.

Two friends of mine who know everything there is to know about interior design graciously spent three hours at my new apartment yesterday. It was a blank slate for them and they easily took the situation in hand.

Subsequently, seven gallons of paint in four different colors will be arriving on Saturday – colors with names like “Van Deusen Blue” and “Hazelnut Cream” and "Burlap".

My idea of decorating seems to be stuck in the 1980s according to Speck. She had quite a laugh when I told her that I wanted to paint a wall apricot and install track lighting. Apparently, that’s just not done anymore.

Of course, I also know absolutely nothing about what to do with the paint. So, in accordance with my demographic, I’ve hired a painter to do all that. I refer to this hired hand as “My Boy” even though he’s in his early 30s. M.B. will be spending most of Sunday afternoon painting walls and trim according to the specifications laid out by my designer friends.

Then, I get to move. Since I’ll be moving from the 49th floor of one tower to the 50th floor of the other tower, this move will either be done with careless ease or it will require sedatives.

At least I won’t be in a hurry – I’ve got until the end of the month to get it all done. Right now, it’s pretty neat to have two residences going on. More than likely, I will resemble a sloth slowly ambling from one tree to another.

Here is my new kitchen as it is right now – complete with its original 1964 yellow metal cabinets. By next week, the kitchen walls will be festooned with creamy hazlenuts and the section above the counter will be Van Deusen Blue. There’s no way I’d get rid of those yellow cabinets.

I just love the original stove that’s there. Yellow, with push-button controls just like the one I cooked on when I was seven years old.

Morning Scene - Icebound

It looks like the boats at Marina City won't be going anywhere soon.

Here's the Chicago River this morning:

Morning View - The Balcony of Terror

JP once referred to my balcony as "The Balcony of Terror"; a name which has stuck among our blog friends.

So, this morning, I decided to take a particularly terrifying photo from the notorious balcony.

This is looking straight down while sort of reaching over between my balcony and the one next to it.

I figured this out one day -- my 49th floor balcony is 440 feet above the street.

Morning Scene - Marina Towers

I’m blatantly stealing this idea of posting “Morning Scene” photos from another blogger; only he lives in New York City and calls it “morning view”.

Each day, there will be a photo (taken in the morning) of something in Chicago.

I say “each day” when I really should be saying “each day when I feel like it or until I get tired of doing this.” There are some Saturdays when I don’t get up until the crack of noon.

Here is today’s Morning Scene photo. Marina Towers, or rather the towers at Marina City (where I live). I took this photo as I walked out of the building this morning and thought it was pretty cool.

Designed in 1959 and completed in 1964, they rise 61 stories, the first 20 of which are for parking. I live on the 49th floor and, fortunately, don’t face into one of the other towers.

My Kitchen

Here is a photo of my kitchen.

Yes, it's yellow.

I love to cook and I really love my kitchen.

Yes, it is tiny.

And, you're vision is not deceiving you;
It has yellow metal cabinets.

But I love my kitchen.

See that harvest gold Trimline phone hanging on the wall?

It’s 46 years old, has a rotary dial and it still works perfectly. Whenever my radar-operated, push-button, Vonage-phone-thing- dies, that old rotary Trimline is always there and ready to let me holler on a line when I need to.

Whenever I REALLY want to call Miss Healthypants, I know I can 'crank that number' when necessary.

Can't you just hear that dial?

It’s also connected to the doorman downstairs.

See those yellow metal cabinets?

Why would you ever need to replace them?

Yes, they’re ugly;
yes, they’re horrible;
but, my god, they are entertaining!

Every time I walk into that kitchen, I am struck with what “The Modern 60s” tried to do.

I love knowing that those designers failed so horribly to make kitchens colorful and functional back when I watched Mary Tyler Moore make a life for herself in Minneapolis on TV.

Every time I walk into my little kitchen, I'm reminded of that.

Whenever I prepare a meal in this screaming yellow kitchen, I connect with some obscure Scandinavian designer who has probably long since passed; perhaps it was some interior decorator from Mölndal who was a failure back in 1955.

My kitchen connects with them. I like knowing that!

The other thing I like about my kitchen is that it sits 49 floors above the Chicago River; five hundred feed above prime real estate.

My dinky apartment may be only 560 square feet (plus a 160 square foot circular balcony); However, I locked into a long-term lease four years ago.

The Trump Tower just opened up across the street with condos averaging $1,200 per square foot.. . . . That’s forty-rectillion Euros per square liter to foreign investors!

. . . I’d love to think what a sublet on this place would bring . . .

In the meantime, I’ll enjoy my little yellow kitchen.

I also like my living room. One whole wall is glass.

Here’s a happy snap of the view.

That’s my big honkin' foot at the end of the sofa.

Making Memories

Yesterday, I was walking home from work, totally exhausted from the work week.

Grrr. . . Grrrr. . . .

I was standing across the street from my apartment building, waiting for the light to change. Then, I overhead a dad enthusiastically explaining to his two kids about MY apartment building. He was pointing up to my apartment building and I overheard him explaining that it was designed in 1959, that two movies were filmed here in which a car was shot out of the parking garage and into the river, etc.

I heard the two boys say, "Wwwooowww!!""
They were about ten and twelve years old.

I piped up and said that I lived on the 49 th floor and that I witnessed the filming the Allstate Insurance commercial that Sunday morning last October.

It turned out that the dad was a science teacher from a small town in Ohio and he and his wife and kids were in town for the weekend. The dad was an architecture buff and he knew more about my building than I did.

Seeing that he was with his wife and kids, I said, "Say. I live here in this building. We've got a great observation deck on the sixty-first floor that most tourists don't get to see. Would you guys like to come up and see it?"

The dad readily took me up on my offer. The boys seemed enthusiastic about it too.

We got into the express elevator; I told the younger guy to hit the RF button in the elevator and warned them that the elevator was really fast and that their ears might pop. (they did).

We all tumbled out onto the roof deck and, of course, the kids went, "WWWoooowww!" as they circled around being surrounded by the Sears Tower, the John Hancock Tower and Navy Pier.

It was a very clear day and I was so glad to give this family a sight of Chicago that so few people see.

They didn't have a camera, but of course, the older kid knew how to work the camera on his dad's cell phone. Lots of photos were taken.

I left them on the observation deck, telling them that they could spend as much time as they wanted.

What was really nice, is that both boys gave repeated "Thank You's" for letting them up there. It's so good to hear kids actually being polite these days.

As I was leaving, the dad told me that he really appreciated my gesture and that whenever they see Chicago on TV, they'll always remember getting to go up on the roof at Marina Towers and having this special trip.

I gave him and his wife a warm handshake and showed them where the toilet was on the 61st floor. (As a tourist, I know it's awfully hard to find clean public toilets! - - especially for the women)

The boys gave me another "Thank you!" as I left. . . .

Now, isn't that a nice story?

My glum day turned out to be one of my best days in Chicago.

I've always been proud of this city and especially the goofy building in which I live. I finally got to show it off and help a small-town family have a great time.

I know that whenever this family sees Chicago on TV, (and inevitably they'll see Marina Towers), they'll holler out, "Hey! We went up there!"

I may not have a family, but it's really good to know I helped a family make some memories.

My Little Neighborhood

As I was heading out of my apartment building this morning, I looked up (something I rarely do) and thought this would make a great pic. The tall building in the background is where I work, just five blocks away.

And just a block away is where Iwanski and Miss Healthypants live. (It's the building with the blue "Condo" banner on it).

How lucky can a guy be? Getting to live just a block away from such nice people. . .