Joan S.
Yelp
This is Chicago's jewel, like a resplendent white diamond that appears as a vision when it's first in your sights as you travel up Michigan Avenue. It takes your breath away.
Thanks for the great photos, Bill.
When I was a kid, my father's offices were on the 11th floor of the Wrigley Building. This was a loooooooog time ago, haha. Ima not telling you exactly how long, it's that long.
But I spent a lot of time at my dad's workplace when I was little.
We ate lunch in the Wrigley Building Restaurant, and I always got a burger instead of the fancy lunches on the menu. A burger and a Shirley Temple, if my dad had a martini. I felt like a big shot. And we often saw local celebs eating there, and I always got autographs.
My father was a flamboyant type, an artist. He wore yellow suits and pink shoes but not together, he had better fashion sense than that. He was a character with an exuberant personality. One day, we waited to cross the street in front of the Wrigley Building (I don't recall where we were going) and the traffic was so annoying that my father lost patience and hailed a cab. He told the driver to take us across the street. Haha, the cabbie made a harrowing U-turn and got a big tip. Chicago cab rides are not for the faint of heart under the best of circumstances. I used to offer to pay extra if they would slow down.....
Anyways, back to the Wrigley Building.
My father was a commercial artist, and had artists in his employ. I was a devoted artists' groupie. I watched them draw and paint & they taught me how to clean and care for sable brushes, and I learned techniques of watercolor, and more.
In those days it was not done on computer, it was all done by hand. Just ask my dad's old acquaintance, (the late) Walt Disney....another story.
So my father's firm had accounts like Coca Cola, for whom they designed billboards. And Marshall Field's, for whom they designed Holiday boxes. Field's department store boxes had different designs every year, like reindeers, snowflakes, etc. I saved many of the mock ups. They're packed away in my storage unit, as a fond remembrance of my father. Brach's candy was another client of the lithographing firm. Their candy wrappers were designed by the very artists I idolized.
I guess it should be no surprise I grew up to be an artist myself. It never occurred to me to do anything else and never crossed my mind that I couldn't make a living at it. And I did.
I spent many hours staring out the 11th floor windows at the Chicago River that runs next to the Wrigley Building. This area is as historically classy as any place can be.
One day I will dig out old photos, one in particular that I remember of my mother, all dolled up, crossing the Michigan Avenue Bridge next to the Wrigley Building.
And the building at night.....lordy, what a sight.
And in the dead of winter, as you cross the river engulfed by a sub-zero hard wind off Lake Michigan, you will understand why I left my beloved Chicago behind in favor of Cali beaches.
But my heart, my home, is right there, and always will be.
