This week’s Creature from the Desk is a photograph I bought at Architectural Artifacts, a building salvage operation that I think obtained the picture from a discarded exhibit at the Chicago Historical Society. Written in grease pencil on the back of the photo is “Social Security Building & Gerald Lee.” The photo is signed artist-style by Ron Gordon and dated 1982. And while I think it’s a fairly thought-provoking photo for the casual viewer, it has a cascading effect on me.
The subject of the photo is an apparently homeless man—whom I assume to be the Gerald Lee from the inscription—in an empty lot on the outskirts of the Chicago Loop. Gerald, with a scruffy salt-and-pepper beard is looking up from a book he’s reading, his eyes barely a sliver either trying to adjust to the difference of light intensity or from some ailment or exhaustion or all of the above. It’s a bright day, but probably cold, given all the layers he’s wearing. He has a half-pound bag of Lay’s potato chips at his feet and is wearing a ‘Mack Trucks’ knit cap.
In the background you can see the Social Security Administration Building, a glistening post-modernist glass-and-steel box amongst old and crumbling brick buildings. On the right hand side of the photo there is a sign on a lamp post that reads “End Blasting”—something I always found interesting given the bombed-out landscape.
Just behind the man is a sign for the Polk Brothers outlet store. Polk Brothers was fairly large regional appliance and electronics chain that folded in the early ‘90’s. I witnessed the symbolic end to Polk Brothers in 1987 when their headquarters, warehouse and largest retail store burned to the ground in a spectacular fire just across the street from the community college I attended.
In front of the Social Security Building is a giant baseball bat—a 100-foot-tall sculpture that was installed in the late ‘70’s with great fanfare. I remember arguing with a friend that it was a White Sox bat, not a Cubs bat.
In the early ‘80’s a guy who went by the name of Spider Dan scaled the bat wearing a Spider Man costume. He went on to scale the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Building—respectively the world’s tallest and second-tallest buildings at the time—then went to New York and climbed the World Trade Center, and on to Toronto to climb the CN Tower. He was a bit of a nutter and attention seeker, to be sure, but he had his reasons and they were noble.
So you see there’s all this going on in this photograph for me, but it’s simple too. It’s the look in Gerald’s eye, his right eye, the good one. On one hand sad, but somehow content—I think…or hope, anyway.
PS - If you click on the photo the pop-up is larger than usual, to see the detail.
5 comments:
Kansas City has a giant shuttlecock.
Indeed they do, dear anonymous reader, and it was in fact created by artists Claus Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen who did the baseball bat above as well as a giant clothes pin in Philadelphia and other art objects of ginormous proportions.
If not for being so bright
that could very well be an image
from the book I just finished.
I can't remember reading a book
so quickly (2 days)
& one so very numbing.
~ lou
My brother was playing t-ball in little league over at Elmwood Park High School the evening Polk Bros. burned down, and he remembers ashes falling onto the playing field (their game was canceled, obviously). We lived right off the Circle in Elmwood Park, and I still remember seeing the huge plumes of black smoke over the store rooftops, even from that distance two miles away.
I remember that fire well...I was a student at Triton College in River Grove at the time and actually covered the fire for the student newspaper. Biggest conflagration I've ever witnessed. The guys at the liquor store in the strip mall next door were actually out front roasting hot dogs on a grill watching the fire. Classic. Anyway, the site in the picture is from a downtown Chicago location (Des Plaines and Admas area) owned by Polk Brother's, not where the fire happened.
I wanna play t-ball.
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