LTH Home

Illinois Tourist Attractions No One Knows About

Illinois Tourist Attractions No One Knows About
  • Forum HomePost Reply BackTop
  • - November 17th, 2010, 12:34 pm
    - November 17th, 2010, 12:34 pm Post #121 - November 17th, 2010, 12:34 pm
    happy_stomach wrote:
    skess wrote:
    delk wrote:Down the street from me....
    Image


    As a Lincoln fan, this post intrigued me so I sought it out on Monday. Online information puts the plaque at 1238 W. Washington, but it seemed more like 1234. Fun to seek out, but made worth the trip by a visit to nearby Grazianos afterward for a sandwich and some groceries--my kind of a One-Two Punch.

    Being a Lincoln fan, have you read Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation? I had a brief hospital stay this past summer, and a friend brought it for me to read and pass time. The topic seemed pretty morbid, particularly to be reading in a hospital bed, but the book was/is hilarious. From the chapter on President Garfield's assassination:

    Sarah Vowell wrote:No plaque marks the spot where Guiteau gunned down Garfield--zip.

    I am pro-plaque. New York is lousy with them, and I love how spotting a plaque can jazz up even the most mundane errand. Once I stepped out of a deli on Third Avenue and turned the corner to learn I had just purchased gum near the former site of Peter Stuyvesant's pear tree. For a split second I had fallen through a trapdoor that dumped me out in New Amsterdam, where in 1647 the peg-legged Dutch governor planted a tree he brought over from Holland; until a fatal wagon accident, it bore fruit for more than two hundred years. To me, every plaque, no matter what words are inscribed on it, says the same magic informative thing: Something happened! The gum cost a dollar, but the story was free.

    Another historical plaque and somewhat food-related, this image by Matt Maldre appeared yesterday on Gapers Block:

    Image

    Located on the river walk by the Wrigley Building, it reads:

    FIRST WHEAT CARGO

    Near this site stood Newberry and Dole's warehouse on the Brig Osceola, in 1839, they shipped the first cargo of wheat from the Port of Chicago.

    Erected by Chicago's Charter Jubilee
    [Chicago Historical Society]

    1937

    Also, it wouldn't be a walkable one-two punch, but I think a visit to Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Catherdral would be a lovely prelude to dinner at the architect's eponymous restaurant, Henri. I chose my apartment to live on the same street as this building.

    Image

    Photo by Eric Allix Rogers

Contact

About

Team

Advertize

Close

Chat

Articles

Guide

Events

more