A few days ago I mentioned in a blog that there was a short article in the January issue of Chicago Magazine about how various malls in and around Chicago are trying to attract customers at a time when malls are losing their popularity. One of them featured was Water Tower Place, which I used to visit on my day off from my job managing a Walden Bookstore in Chicago's western suburbs. I would walk a block from my apartment in Forest Park, board the "L" and be downtown in no time at all. I would then walk up North Michigan Avenue to Water Tower Place and have lunch at the McDonald's there. Then I would peruse Marshall Field's and the Rizzoli Bookstore before heading to Oak Street Beach and Lincoln Park. None of those stores are there anymore, and as far as I am concerned, that mall will never be like back in the good old days. I took the photograph on the left in 1978 showing the actual Water Tower (built in 1869 and famously surviving the Great Chicago Fire two years later), with the much more modern Water Tower Place in the background.
The nice thing about living in Forest Park, just west of Oak Park and only a block from the "L" stop at Harlem and Lake, was that you could head downtown even during a major snowstorm, and back in 1979, when I took the photograph on the right of the park around the old Water Tower, the snow never seemed to stop. Coming home from work each day, it was like driving though a canyon, with tall piles of snow on each side. Where I lived, we had to drive to a local elementary school with a plowed out parking lot in order to park your car. But on Fridays, my day off, I could head downtown without any hassles whatsoever, courtesy of the CTA. Granted, I lived in a studio apartment right across the street from the Daisy Hill Meatpacking Plant and the "L" train barn, but nothing is perfect in life, right? Just ask Donald Trump.
No comments:
Post a Comment