For months I dismissed Foursquare, the popular GPS check-in game, as a marketing gimmick. But a whirlwind day chasing down Chicago’s official tourism badges showed a friend and me how addictive it can be–and taught us a lot about our own city that we never knew before.
I’m happy to say this is the first time in eight years I didn’t see 9/11 coming. I forgot almost completely about the anniversary of that infamous date until a few hours before this writing. It’s a sense of normalcy that I haven’t felt in eight years.
We live in a photogenic city here in the nation’s architecture capital. But there’s a subset of Chicago bloggers who prefer to snap shots of a seldom-seen Windy City. These photobloggers concentrate on the urban ruins, forgotten buildings, and unsung spaces well off of most people’s radar screens. Here are six local photoblogs that take a look at things from a decidedly different perspective.
Take a look at this video of 2008’s State Street Christmas windows and decide for yourself whether Macy’s firing of longtime window dresser Amy Meadows was really such a bright idea.
Chicago’s long-awaited Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial was dedicated this morning just across the river from my house, on Lower Wacker Drive between Wabash and State. I shot a bunch of pictures of the ceremony as I was walking to work.
Open your mouth about the impending corporate murder of the Marshall Field’s nameplate by the evil retail overlords at Federated and some heartbroken local will immediately insert their foot and claim the real Marshall Field’s is no more. Is that so?