![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Mar. 10th, 2012 02:43 pmYesterday, I got to tour a one-time bank building that's being converted into a Walgreens in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood.
My history professor's husband is an architect who does work with Walgreens converting older buildings into retail spaces. Since I've talked to her about my interest in architecture, she got me in touch with him. We've exchanged a few emails, and it lead to him inviting me to see one of the buildings they're working on now.
Since I was staying in Chicago with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lisagems I asked her along and we drove out to the building. I was a touch late getting there, but we managed to get the attention of the guys in the building and found the way in. The guy I'd been corresponding with was there, along with a business partner and said partner's son, a Columbia graphic design student who was also taking pictures.
It was a wonderful space! Big a triangular, with a beautiful plaster coffered ceiling, big windows, marble sheeting, and some classic metalwork. I got to wander all over, up and down the stairs to the second floor in back and up above the plaster ceiling where the catwalks were. I climbed up the scaffold under the giant skylight in the middle, where I could lie on my back a few feet under the ceiling and compose photos.
We went into the basement where we got to see the bank vault. It's going to be converted into part of the retail space, with the door there and open and glass over the rows and rows of safe deposit boxes. I even got to move the door around. That was a really neat experience! The door was circular, about a foot and a half thick and around seven or eight feet in diameter. I have no idea how much it weighed. The hinges were enormous, and the door moved freely on them; it just needed a lot of force to get moving. I leaned my whole body weight into it, and it slowly, slowly began to swing around. Stopping it involved the same effort. It must weigh several tons at least. But the balance on this near-hundred year-old machinery was so fine that, once moving, there was very little resistance. There's just a lot of inertia to overcome.
I'm entranced by these sorts of giant mechanical things from gilded and up through when things moved from mechanical to electro-mechanical. These giant machines are relics from another age, and it's a real pleasure to see them up close. It made me think of the steam powered pumping engine up in Iron Mountain with it's twenty-plus-foot flywheel.
So climbing up, down, and around an empty building was tons of fun, and it was a novelty to do it with permission from appropriate authorities! My professor's husband was a cool guy, and suggested he might be able to take me to other construction sites in the future, so I'm pretty excited at having him as a contact.
Later, Lisa and I went to Half Price Books, where I spent half an hour walking around holding a book of photography or Art Deco architecture in the US before deciding I didn't need to spend money on it and put it back. *sighs* Maybe once I bring all my books in to trade. I also nearly bought a book in Spanish just as a source of interesting vocabulary. It was a book on, I think, interpreting erotic dreams (sueños eroticos). *grins*
Today, I'm in Aurora withdanaeris where we playing board games and generally being lie-abouts. We may go out to some open-gaming at a nearby game store this afternoon. We snuggled in late this morning, enjoying each other's company, and I'm just feeling very relaxed, happy, and loved, despite the looming spectre of school work that needs to be addressed this weekend.
---
Oh, one other bit worthy of note. For a history major at UW Parkside, there are a few different sets of 'core' classes one can take before pursuing electives. The set I decided on are two courses on US history, and one on the pre-modern Western world; ancient and medieval civilizations. I'm finishing the second US history course this semester and figured I'd take the pre-modern Western world course this coming Fall. But looking at my transcript, I realized I've already taken it! It was about ten years ago during my first attempt at college, and I really don't remember much of it, and I only had a C+, but I did take it. Which means, I guess, that in the Fall I can take the 200 level Sources and Methods in History class. The C+ may bring my overall history-related GPA down, but so far I'm doing well enough that I don't think I need to worry too much about that. So, one more down. I'm going to do more planning over the Summer, but I think I can make this double major thing work out!
My history professor's husband is an architect who does work with Walgreens converting older buildings into retail spaces. Since I've talked to her about my interest in architecture, she got me in touch with him. We've exchanged a few emails, and it lead to him inviting me to see one of the buildings they're working on now.
Since I was staying in Chicago with
lisagems I asked her along and we drove out to the building. I was a touch late getting there, but we managed to get the attention of the guys in the building and found the way in. The guy I'd been corresponding with was there, along with a business partner and said partner's son, a Columbia graphic design student who was also taking pictures.It was a wonderful space! Big a triangular, with a beautiful plaster coffered ceiling, big windows, marble sheeting, and some classic metalwork. I got to wander all over, up and down the stairs to the second floor in back and up above the plaster ceiling where the catwalks were. I climbed up the scaffold under the giant skylight in the middle, where I could lie on my back a few feet under the ceiling and compose photos.
We went into the basement where we got to see the bank vault. It's going to be converted into part of the retail space, with the door there and open and glass over the rows and rows of safe deposit boxes. I even got to move the door around. That was a really neat experience! The door was circular, about a foot and a half thick and around seven or eight feet in diameter. I have no idea how much it weighed. The hinges were enormous, and the door moved freely on them; it just needed a lot of force to get moving. I leaned my whole body weight into it, and it slowly, slowly began to swing around. Stopping it involved the same effort. It must weigh several tons at least. But the balance on this near-hundred year-old machinery was so fine that, once moving, there was very little resistance. There's just a lot of inertia to overcome.
I'm entranced by these sorts of giant mechanical things from gilded and up through when things moved from mechanical to electro-mechanical. These giant machines are relics from another age, and it's a real pleasure to see them up close. It made me think of the steam powered pumping engine up in Iron Mountain with it's twenty-plus-foot flywheel.
So climbing up, down, and around an empty building was tons of fun, and it was a novelty to do it with permission from appropriate authorities! My professor's husband was a cool guy, and suggested he might be able to take me to other construction sites in the future, so I'm pretty excited at having him as a contact.
Later, Lisa and I went to Half Price Books, where I spent half an hour walking around holding a book of photography or Art Deco architecture in the US before deciding I didn't need to spend money on it and put it back. *sighs* Maybe once I bring all my books in to trade. I also nearly bought a book in Spanish just as a source of interesting vocabulary. It was a book on, I think, interpreting erotic dreams (sueños eroticos). *grins*
Today, I'm in Aurora with
danaeris where we playing board games and generally being lie-abouts. We may go out to some open-gaming at a nearby game store this afternoon. We snuggled in late this morning, enjoying each other's company, and I'm just feeling very relaxed, happy, and loved, despite the looming spectre of school work that needs to be addressed this weekend.---
Oh, one other bit worthy of note. For a history major at UW Parkside, there are a few different sets of 'core' classes one can take before pursuing electives. The set I decided on are two courses on US history, and one on the pre-modern Western world; ancient and medieval civilizations. I'm finishing the second US history course this semester and figured I'd take the pre-modern Western world course this coming Fall. But looking at my transcript, I realized I've already taken it! It was about ten years ago during my first attempt at college, and I really don't remember much of it, and I only had a C+, but I did take it. Which means, I guess, that in the Fall I can take the 200 level Sources and Methods in History class. The C+ may bring my overall history-related GPA down, but so far I'm doing well enough that I don't think I need to worry too much about that. So, one more down. I'm going to do more planning over the Summer, but I think I can make this double major thing work out!
