Friday, October 12, 2012

The Ugliest Utility Pole in Chicago


I’m lucky in all sorts of ways.  One particularly piece of good fortune is that I have found the Chicago Architecture Foundation as a source of satisfaction in the years following my retirement.  As a bonus I get some exercise most of the days I lead tours because I can jump on my bike and ride the lakefront path to the river or to Jackson and Michigan where my walking tours start.

Every time I ride west on Jackson Street toward the Railway Exchange Building, I think the same thing between Lake Shore Drive and Columbus Drive.  Here I am in one of the great open spaces in Chicago, halfway across the space that breaks the north-south axis of the 319-acre Grant Park into two halves.

To the south there are the majestic jets of water rising from Edward H. Bennett’s Buckingham Fountain.  The park surrounding the fountain is filled with flowers, shrubbery, and trees.

And right in the middle of it all, sitting on the south border of Jackson Boulevard is a big, honking utility poll with wires of every size and description hanging from it.

I call it the ugliest utility pole in Chicago.

How much better would it be if this:

JWB, 2012

could somehow be turned into this:

JWB, 2012

Just thinking . . .

3 comments:

Jill said...

I think you should send this blog to the Mayor and see what can be done!

Anonymous said...

You know what those standard issue '60s, '70s and forever lightpoles were called? Cobras.

Nice thought lining your streets with Cobras, isn't it?

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