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Elevator Lobby Flowers #3: The Power of Levitation

Some readers have wondered about the reason for these weekly flower posts. The short of the story is a condominium association at Marina City that appears to be of the opinion that it’s doing residents a favor by allowing a volunteer floral terrorist-cum-arranger to plop awful, phoney flower arrangements in our main elevator lobbies every week. Like these.

Marina City Taps Run Dry Once More, New Water Pumps to Blame

You West Tower residents, you think you’re so high and mighty, laughing and lording it over us East Tower folks just because we’ve been the ones stuck with most of the fires, floods, and water pressure poop-outs lately. Well chuckle no more, you ne’er-do-well neighbors. It’s your turn now, do you hear? It’s your turn!

Deep Stem Strikes Again: Marina City Elevator Lobby Flowers #2

Marina City’s controversial and shadowy floral arranger, Deep Stem, has struck again. This week, just in time for Independence Day, Deep pulls out the patriotic stops to take us on a trip to…Tuscany?

Tower Dour Flower Power: Marina City’s Elevator Lobby Flowers #1

For the better part of a year the elevator lobbies in both Marina City towers have been graced with officially sanctioned rotating floral displays. Lucky for us Marina Citizens, to keep costs down, instead of using the services of a floral designer, or of an actual flower for that matter, these budget bouquets are created in-house by Marina City’s stealthy florist, let’s call them Deep Stem, using plastic parts in place of pistils and petals.

Beating the Odds at Marina City Craps

Last night, Marina City was full of crap. Literally. Barely one month after suffering through three days of water shutoffs in order to replace the 60-story condo complex’s aging high-rise water pumps with new equipment, at least one of the brand-new pumps began to fail yesterday morning…taking the toilet turbo-flushers with them.

Ode to a Floating Rat

With great surprise did I see you last Wednesday as I crossed the State Street bridge towards my riverside tower home, bobbing in the murky water, belly up, tail splayed out behind you, triangular snout pointing forever forward, like a dead furry arrow.

Marina City Celebrates Official May Apartment Fire

You didn’t think we at Marina City could let the month of May pass without having our regular, monthly apartment fire, did you? Last night East Tower unit 4527 burned, attracting yet another contingent of festively dressed firemen and their dozen jauntily illuminated emergency vehicles to the plaza below. Sooty footprints extend from the unit this morning, as does the stench of recently burned possessions.

Definition of Stupidity

As we enter Memorial Day weekend 2006, I leave you to ponder the above photo, or perhaps the below one which affords a better view of the object in question. Indeed, that’s a trampoline. On a 38th-floor balcony. Three feet from the edge. Three-hundred and fifteen feet above the pavement.

Pea Soup with Birds and Bugs

Yesterday afternoon I had just settled down in a newly cat-hair-cleaned window seat to slog into The Subterraneans when the fog rolled in. I decided to take the chance for some real-world escapist fun and headed to the roofdeck to watch the city play peek-a-boo through the clouds.

Bottomless Woman Found in Endless Hallway

Earlier this month during a raucous late-night party at Marina City, one resident forcibly ejected from his apartment a woman naked from the waist down. The woman proceeded to knock on doors around and around the circular hallway, crying and begging for help until building security and the Chicago Police Department arrived. And that’s par for life in the corncobs.