Another hundred people...

"...just got off of the train and came up through the ground. While another hundred people just got off of the bus and are looking around at another hundred people who got off of the plane and are looking at us, who got off of the train and the plane and the bus maybe yesterday..."

Michigan Avenue was swimming through the sea of humanity today.

I could have taken photographs of the movement all day. In fact, a good portion of my day today was photographing this very thing. Such an urban day.

Tomorrow I get on an airplane and take one of a handful of very short weekend airplane riding excursions. I realize now that I have somehow managed to completely avoid getting on an airplane for five years. At least - since 9.11. I didn't really plan it that way, but I was happy to travel by auto or train... and happy to avoid the sea of humanity inside a metal tube, fired by jet fuel, above the clouds. Well tomorrow I leave the another hundred people who got off of the train in Chicago and join the other hundred people who get on the plane and go up in the sky.

Rest in peace - 630 S. Wabash

It was one of those buildings that I've kept my eye on over the years...

I figured it was a time capsule on the inside.

It was 6 stories tall and over 100 years old.

630 South Wabash Avenue sat empty at the Hiltons back door, on Wabash, and before this afternoon, it was ripe for condo conversion. Its brick shit-house facade seemed thankful for the small fortune of ancient red iron fire escape that climbed the street side of the building. Formerly "cold storage" on the upper floors, George Diamonds Steak House thrived on the street level in the 30's through the 80's. Best steak house in the city from the 30's through the 60's they say. Whoever they are. 630 South Wabash is protected as a Historical Landmark. And yet, it sat empty. Until this afternoon. 250 firefighters descended upon old 630 South Wabash.

Today I parked my car and snapped photographs of it burning itself into an inferno... CBS News says it's a five alarm blaze. That's 250 firefighters on the scene. Highest alarm possible. Traffic in my neighborhood ceased to move. Gridlock. Traffic controllers, in their day-glow green slickers, had even less than normal clues how to manage the rush hour madness. Doomsday does not look good for Streets And Sanitations version of traffic management.

What would George say?

R.I.P. 630

10.24.06