Segway

I took one more look at the baffles that soar above the Pritzker stage, this time loving the shadows from the rigging in the sky. And then I was learning how to stand on the Segway, push with the toes to move forward and with the heels to stop, and off we went.
Here I am on my vehicle, posing at Buckingham Fountain.

Pritzker Pavilion

I took my closest look at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, the highly-regarded outdoor music theater at the east side of Millennium Park. I was headed around it and looked at the soaring sculpture that serves to help baffle noise and promote acoustical clarity.

I was almost to the start of the Segway Tour of the lakefront.

Millennium Park

I walked through Millennium Park on the road, though stretching the concept a bit. I had done a regular shoot in the morning in Naperville, and I was on the way to another shoot. The stretching comes in because the "other shoot" was on a personal fun trip, which will be the subject of some days coming up in this blog.

Meantime, here are two of the staples of the park, the fountain with the photos and the beautiful shape often called "The Bean," actually named "Cloud Gate." In this image it looks less like a bean than it looks like a silver egg in an evergreen nest.

The Nichols Bridgeway

The walkway that bridges a street and attaches the Art Institute's Modern Wing is a work of art itself, interesting to look at and fun to walk over. Park visitors can climb to a roof garden above the museum, can eat at the restaurant up on the roof, and can enter the museum to see the many works of art.

Interestingly, though, the climb to the roof only allows entrance to the museum by taking an escalator back down to the ground floor. It would have been easier to walk across the street and enter the building. Easier, but nowhere near as pretty!

Even a Place for a Nap

About to leave the park and head over the bridge to the Art Institute Modern Wing, we see how highly this park is valued in the huge organization of the Chicago Park District. As far as I know, no other park has classy pennants with a park logo. This is not to say the attention is undeserved, because this park is exactly what every park in every town should be or at least would like to be: it is a people magnet. People come to ooh and aah, they come to eat at a great restaurant, they come to take pictures and to see flowers and to visit and to throw Frisbees.

Oh, yes, and some come to take an nap in the warm sunshine. Sleep well!

Flowers, Present & Future

Visitors to Millennium Park are always graced with beautiful flower beds, changed as appropriate for the flow of the seasons. My spring visit featured a two-tone collection of tulips in full bloom set in an immaculate bed, attractive from every side.

Meanwhile, the new bridge crossing the street to the Art Institute's Modern Wing allows a peek over a service area wall to see stacks of the summer plantings standing calmly on Sunday afternoon, likely waiting for Monday morning and planting.

Big Tall Neighbors

The Sunday I was at Millennium Park was totally sun-kissed. Why I would write that, I have no idea, as the two photos would certainly speak for themselves.

Millennium Park is at the northwest corner of what has long been Grant Park, right at the foot of the Prudential Building. As everyone in Chicago is aware that the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center are both well over 90 stories, it is a bit surprising to know that fifty years ago, the Prudential Building was the high-rise, with a popular observatory on an upper floor -- the 47th floor, I think; about half as high in the sky as the observatory at the Hancock. Long closed, that would be a neat vantage point to see this wonderful new park.

Cloud Gate, or The Bean

Following the rock and roll of the Taste of Glen Ellyn, the photographic weekend continued on Sunday with a visit to Millennium Park, the striking new configuration of a portion of what was once called Grant Park along Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago.

The day of statues of generals on horseback or of statesmen giving speeches seems rooted deeply into the past. Modern statuary is much more often a form of so-called 'Modern Art,' some of which I love and some of which I confess not to understand much. The key location in Millennium Park is titled 'Cloud Gate,' but I doubt if the majority of Chicagoans would have any idea of that official title. Most everyone calls it 'The Bean,' and since you see the sculpture here, that nickname needs no explanation.

Striking, interesting, reflective: this work is so alive and so interactive that it is hard to image how anyone would dislike it. The highly-polished surface reflects the surrounding skyline, the blue of the sky on sunny days, the clouds . . . and the people visiting the park. Day and night, one of the things you see constantly is the amateur and the professional photographer, armed with upscale DSLRs or simple point-&-shoots or, for that matter, camera phones, each getting a creative viewpoint on the eye magnet called The Bean.

Some even like to take photos of people taking photos. We will look back in on the Park in some upcoming posts.