Tim is a teller of truth about Chicago and its glorious past. Tim is a seeker of truth about Chicago and its intimate details. Tim is Chicago’s Cultural Historian Emeritus. Tim is my friend. The order of importance in the above statements is irrelevant. By sheer coincidence, as I sit to write this entry to my blog about the building of my coach house, we are at the 1 year anniversary of a ceremony hosted by Mark Kelly, the then Chicago Cultural Affairs Commissioner, to honor

Keeping one’s crew satisfied, happy, fed, watered and respected is paramount for any project’s success. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 70 person crew for a custom show creation, covering 6 floors of a historic building in Chicago’s loop, or a crew of hard-ass workers, slinging brick and mortar in 35’ weather. I understand that the luxury of a coffee maker in a working kitchen and (even more important) a working indoor restroom is not in every GCs playbook. I am lucky as the day

Knowing that today begins the final push for the inner ‘block’ walls, (vs the outer pretty brick walls), 5:15 am found be bounding out of bed with an all too familiar combination of excitement and anxiety. Brickys, as they are referred to by other trades (not sure if they refer to themselves like that?) are responsible for what will be subconsciously, or consciously seen as the general aesthetic of the building. Is it symmetrical? Is it harmonious? How does the architecture ‘

Those of you who know me, and maybe even those who have simply started following my site, know that I am, generally speaking, ‘Vintage First’. What that doesn’t mean: It doesn’t mean that I only buy vintage at the expense of common sense. It doesn’t mean that I will contend with something that is just this side of being dumped in the trash, in terms of usability or lifespan, JUST for the sake of a vintage aesthetic (well, like 99.5% of the time that holds true.) It doesn’t me

We live in the 21st Century, I get it. I spend hours every day on my computer, filling out on-line applications, zipping out files in google docs, video editing, website updates, etc. When you have 5, you spend A LOT of time doing that. (shameless plug encouraging you, dear reader, to visit my resources page for a run down of the current other 4 projects). I am hardly a Luddite. That being said, there just isn’t anything like a good manual task that shows calculable results t

Wednesday December 14, 2021, I called up Rolando, my neighborhood scrap metal guy. “Rolando, meet me at my place in the morning- I have a pick-up”. I’m a waste not want not kind of gal. I keep things longer than I probably should ~just in case~, I find things in alleys, craning my neck at stacked shadows down side streets when driving through neighborhoods, shopping at ‘the big store’ as Collette puts it, very succinctly. I knew the demo was going to happen, and I knew that t

(To mix metaphors in games of chance) After having a seemingly unnecessarily long period of big fat NOTHING from the City of Chicago Department of Buildings, and looking at the extended forecast for Chicago on a daily basis, I simply couldn’t take it anymore. I was crawling out of my skin. ’Don’t grip too hard’ I kept telling myself. Relax your frame, while not turning into spaghetti, let the music take you, I would remind myself. Well, in terms of getting my building permit,

For those of you who have known me for better than 10 years, you will remember Rico. He was my first. He was my love, and my protector, and a rescue, although it’s hard to say who was actually rescued, between the 2 of us. He didn’t suffer fools, he danced, he was an acrobat, a worker, a champion. He was also bionic, having taken a header off of an overpass in the Blue Door days, chasing some tail (a rabbit, to be precise). After 19 years of life, 12 with me, Rico took his le

Whether it's Carey Bradshaw in 'Sex in the City' (big fan), Michael Jordan, or Ginger Rogers, backwards and in high heels, it's all about the shoes. The shoes are what keep you on the ground, or let you fly through the air. Dog knows if your feet hurt, you are miserable. If your feet look good while they hurt, it's MUCH more bearable. Sometime around 2001 I was working with a scenic company as a freelance painter turned sculptor, turned occasional ~whatever was needed at the

You may have notice that I will/have referenced my cousins throughout this journey. My cousins are, and have alway been ‘my seconds’. What do I mean by that? This is what I mean by that. When I have a need to source something A) obscure B) outlandish or C) something that may have never existed before, I look to ‘my seconds’, my cousins. When I need a hand, a boost, a distraction, or a coffee, I look to ‘my seconds’, my cousins. They are my second brain, my second hands. Abo

So, Cousin G, after having heard, on a covid daily basis, of yet another rejection for yet another bank, told me that she was listening to WGN radio, and heard this guy named (David Hockberg) on the radio with a show called “Home Sweet Home Chicago”, and said that maybe I should call the show. She had a partial website and a phone number. ‘What could it hurt’, thought I. So I called him. I left a message. Didn’t figure I would get anything but added to a spam phone call list

Gimi Ramos was one of the first humans that I remember in the Chicago Swing Dance scene in the mid 1990s. We were all young, pulsing with excitement over this ‘new to us’ form of entertainment that harkened back to the old movies that we had all been watching on late night TV in our youth, full of elegance, dripping with class, athletic and joy filled. Nothing has changed about that whole scene, since you’re asking. Gimi is a Chicago dance institution. Always with a smile, he

At some point in the 1990s I found myself in one of my 13 apartments in 10 years, and it was a coach house in Logan Square. It was on Albany, and the gunshots rang out regularly. Logan Boulevard, much less Milwaukee Ave, were streets you didn’t want to walk during the day, much less at evening. In fact, one night after a bar shift at The Dome Room (for those of you bar hoping in Chicago in the 90s), I took a taxi home, and the taxi driver REFUSED to take me down the alley to

March 3, 2021 When the stars come together to work with you, you follow the stars. When they work not so much in your favor….same thing. I am not going to say that the stars are working in my favor, or against, but they are there, and I feel compelled to follow them. As a working artists and small business owner working during and in the throws of a pandemic, and especially a working artists and business owner that finds comfort in perpetual motion, I knew that I was needing