Eastern Market Is Back Open!

Capitol Hill's Eastern Market was closed for two years because of a fire in 2007. There was a temporary structure (pictured below) set up across the street that housed businesses while the central structure was being rebuilt:



Market Lunch in the temporary Eastern Market tent:



Last month, the main building reopened, and it was packed when we visited last weekend. The refurbished building is impressive, but the wait for blue bucks (blueberry buckwheat pancakes) at Market Lunch has gone from about 15-20 minutes to over an hour.

Marina City Towers

Marina Towers, originally uploaded by Nat Hansen.

According to The Architecture of Parking, getting to a parking space on the 19th level of one of the Marina City Towers parking garages requires driving one kilometer each way up and down, "perilously close to a precipitous edge, steering wheel in a fixed lock" (p.225).

The parking structure, and the possibility of driving your car off the side and into the Chicago River, is on display in this clip from Steve McQueen's The Hunter.