CHICAGO CARLESS

(Photo credit: Looper).

It’s officially been a year since the love of my life, Devyn, began “Looper”–an architectural photoblog of downtown Chicago. In that short time, he’s managed to take more than 10,000 photos of the Loop and its environs, post 1,000 of them on what has become one of the best photographic records of the heart of Hogtown on the web today, and get interviewed by Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin, to boot. So congratulations D. I love you.

[Read more →]

(Photo credit: Looper).

If you’ve lived in one Chicago high-rise, you’ve lived in them all? Not by a longshot. While residents of Marina City allege deeply entrenched condo board mismanagement in the wake of board member Gary S. Kimmel’s federal indictment on prostitution-related money-laundering charges, the situation couldn’t be more different for residents of Chicago’s other midcentury modernist residential skyscraper: the John Hancock Center.

[Read more →]

Much has been said about Gary Kimmel and his federal indictment on money-laundering charges for allegedly helping a national prostitution ring operate out of Marina City. An informed opinion is always a better opinion. So for the sake of fairness, here are links to the U.S. Department of Justice documents relating to the case. These PDF files contain the full text of the complaint and indictment against Dr. Kimmel. You be the judge…

[Read more →]

(Photo: Marshall Field’s State Street Christmas hordes. Credit: Looper).

(Update 1/30/06: Federated rebuts Crain’s claims in today’s Sun-Times).

Yours Truly just tipped Gapers Block and the rest of the local blogosphere to the unreported story of the weekend…

First the Sox win the World Series, and now this.

[Read more →]

(Photo: Marina City’s new rooftop lighting scheme. Credit: Looper).

Resident discontent stemming from last week’s high-rise hooker scandal involving former condo board member Gary Kimmel continues to grow here at Marina City. A “Security Meeting” last night–the first for well over a year–billed in advance as a “Q & A Session” with Marina City’s security contractor allowed for no questions until an hour into the meeting when residents pointed out the “oversight”. The evening’s hit query: why had there been no security meetings for so long? The answer, according to our security contractor: because Gary Kimmel, formerly the condo board’s head of Screening and Security, told the contractor in September 2004 that there would be no future need for them.

[Read more →]

Such was the description that arose last night at Marina City to describe the prostitution bombshell that earlier this week shocked residents and scandalized the condo board of this twin-towered, 60-story apartment complex. Lobbies, elevators, and hallways were abuzz with residents trying to gossip some sense out of now federally indicted dentist Gary S. Kimmel’s alleged high-rise hooker ring. The general consensus: you’d have to drill pretty deep to find enough reasonable doubt to save poor Dr. Gary.

[Read more →]

(Photo Credit: Looper).

Gary S. Kimmel is a longtime Marina City resident, a prominent condo board member, a respected family dentist, and a (several floors) upstairs neighbor of mine. Yesterday, he was indicted for laundering money for a nationwide prostitution ring that he allegedly allowed to operate out of nine Marina City apartments, in return for more than $400,000 in kickbacks. Although he did fix the prostitutes’ teeth for free. OK, say it with me now…are you kidding me?

[Read more →]