iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Am digging the Audi RS6 Avant that Henry Da Souza drives in MobLand.

Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This weekend's architecture column. "Other highlights over the last 100 days: four marriage proposals at the center; three bald eagles sighted; 11,424 Obama Burgers served up at Tafari’s Kitchen restaurant and 150 people dancing the Electric Slide on the John Lewis Plaza."

chicago.suntimes.com

Obama Presidential Center's price tag: Almost $1 billion

The construction price was among a score of new figures released by the Obama Foundation to mark the center's 100th day of operation.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Some late breaking reporting this evening on the MSI carbuncle: "But the park district must now review final construction drawings — a step that could represent a potential firewall in the museum’s path toward constructing the arch-backed, 458-foot wide limestone and glass structure."

chicago.suntimes.com

Is the planned Griffin MSI 'carbuncle' a done deal? Not yet, says Chicago Park District

The agency, which owns the museum, said it has "not given final construction approval" for the project.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

In a letter to the editor in today's Sun-Times, the distinguished author and city historian Tim Samuelson said the MSI's "current proposals to significantly alter both the building’s north and south elevations display gross disrespect for a masterpiece."

chicago.suntimes.com

Griffin MSI's new design proposal is an affront to Chicago history

Plans to build an entry pavilion would disrespect this architectural masterpiece. Also, why restaurant careers should be more accessible and the paradox of AI in education.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Got an email from a publicist telling me about an upcoming biopic on architect Louis Kahn, called Joy Will Prevail. "The film offers an intimate exploration of the professional and romantic relationships that inspired Kahn’s final residential commission. Griffin Dunne plays Kahn. I'm interested.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

My architecture column today. "The new hall would be almost 30-feet tall and a whopping 458-feet — nearly three-quarters of a city block — in length: A big old wide-brimmed hat blocking the screen at the movie theater."

chicago.suntimes.com

Griffin MSI's new design must go back to the drawing board: 'Carbuncle in the park'

The two-story, 458-foot long entry pavilion threatens to visually overpower the landmark museum's historic entrance and great lawn.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Today's architecture column. The building was designed by David Haid "whose most recognized work is the auto pavilion where Cameron Frye’s dad kept that ill-fated red Ferrari in the 1986 movie 'Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.' The architect supervised the repair of the pavilion’s glass after the scene."

chicago.suntimes.com

Chase bank shouldn't demolish its modernist Evanston branch

The bank wants to demolish the 47-year-old building designed by an architect whose work appears in a pivotal scene in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Back on the architecture beat today after a month off to work on the West Side book and start another project. So I'm resuming gawking at buildings. Like the old Rand McNally HQ, 536 S. Clark by Holabird & Roche from 1912. Offices & printing plant, then. Federal offices & immigration court now.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Where the meat industry in this country seems to be headed.

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Me crossing beef off my shopping list …

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Spotted earlier this afternoon. St. Anthony's church, 300 E. Kensington, 1960, Saverio "Sam" DiMaio architect.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Why did I like this sitcom, given I was only 9 years old when it premiered in 1974? Lasted 15 episodes and I can't remember a single one. But the opening credits of Paul Sand lugging his double bass past some of Boston's finest architecture stayed w me.

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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 04/09/2026

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com “The twin towers were a product of their time, the mid-1960s, and what has replaced them is still, sadly, in too many ways a product of that same time,” the former architecture critic Paul Goldberger writes on the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

nyti.ms

Opinion | What Ground Zero Should Have Been

25 years on, some regrets.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Off the grid on South Torrence Avenue.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Here's a nicely restored version of Steely Dan's "Second Arrangement," the famously lost track from the Gaucho album. I've heard scratchy and incomplete versions. This is one sounds good.

music.youtube.com

Steely Dan - The Second Arrangement (Restoration New Cassette & DAT Mix)

YouTube video by Andreas Mixes

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Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Cool to look at the Obama Presidential Center through the eyes of the typographers at Pentagram (Michael Bierut and team) who did the big letters (5350 point Gotham Bold) up top. www.pentagram.com/work/the-oba...

pentagram.com

The Obama Presidential Center

The typographic installation on the façade of the new museum in Chicago features an excerpt from President Obama’s 2015 ‘You Are America’ speech.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I was re-watching this last night, and it holds up really well: V for Vashon, the 1972 three-part episode of Hawaii Five O. The pampered scion of a mob family decides to pull off scores like his grandfather did in the olden days -- and sets off a chain of events that ruins everything.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

The ending of The Wildman of Wildsville, a 1962 ep of Beany & Cecil that embraces and pokes fun of midcentury hipster/beatnik culture. Tons of puns and wordplay, Jackson Pollock-inspired backgrounds, jazz, and Lord Buckley (look him up) voicing the Wildman.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Took a break this morning in one of the coolest spots in the city, the Pullman Club Coffee shop, 605 E. 111th

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

A follow-up of sorts to yesterday's post on the Lou Grant show: The only other print journalism tv series of the era that I can remember is The Insiders. It was ABC's answer to Miami Vice. Lasted just a season.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Printers Row Lit Fest is coming up next month. I'll be there Sunday Sept 13 in discussion with Trygve Thoreson about his excellent new book, Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan: Personal Histories of Two Icons of American Architecture. We'll be on Center Stage at 4pm.

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Chicago Sun-Times Guild @cstguild.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Today our members showed up to bargaining to once again tell Chicago Public Media we're asking for real protection: • No layoffs due to generative Al • No cutting hours or pay because of GenAl • No eliminating future jobs to make room for GenAl • GenAl can't write or create our editorial content

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

The 1976 movie Monkey Hustle, filmed largely in Woodlawn and on 63rd St between Cottage Grove and Dorchester, a strip that was demo'd in the 1980s and 1990s. Everything in this scene from the building they're in to buildings outside --including this section of the CTA Green Line -- gone.

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Lauren FitzPatrick @bylaurenfitz.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Our readers and members deserve reporting from REAL HUMANS!

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Chicago Sun-Times Guild @cstguild.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The Chicago Sun-Times Guild is fighting for generative AI protections at the bargaining table. Follow along as we continue to push for a fair contract.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Ran across this image from 2022: a much-appreciated co-sign from @josephsikora4.bsky.social, the actor who plays Tommy in the Power series universe.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

This is a cool slice of Old Skool from 1980. And I'd like to hear Michael McDonald take a run at this too.

music.youtube.com

Hot City

YouTube video by Shadow - Topic

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ridgehistorical.bsky.social @ridgehistorical.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

After you read this wonderful profile, make plans to come celebrate with Mati at the Ridge Historical Society on the evening of September 11th. If you haven't already grabbed your copy of his fantastic new book, you can get one there. See you soon!

An invitation to an event. Invite features a photo of a book, The Architecture of Chicago's Beverly Hills/Morgan Park by Mati Maldre. Next to it is a black and white photo of Mati. Text of invite reads:

Ridge Historical Society
Friday, Sept. 11 at 7pm
The Architecture of Chicago's Beverly Hills/ Morgan Park

A slide lecture by Mati Maldre and demonstration of his large format camera plus book signing.

RIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 10621 S. SEELEY AVE., CHICAGO
FREE EVENT
Park on West side of Seeley Ave.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Thank you for posting! Great to see, eh @kaminblair.bsky.social ?

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Been waiting to get my hands on this book. Can't wait to dig in. Mati is the man.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

My architecture column today. "What we now see of the 857-foot tall glass building is what we’ll get. Crews are now building out the interior and surrounding grounds." BTW: I'm taking a month off to work on some stuff. My column will return in September.

chicago.suntimes.com

One down, one to go: Exterior construction wraps up at the first of two towers at 400 N. Lake Shore

The site was best known for its 75-foot deep crater, left when the 2,000-foot tall Santiago Calatrava-designed Chicago Spire project went belly up in 2008.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Today's architecture column on Trinity UCC's Imani Village senior residences. "The latter years of your life, you need to be comfortable. You need to be in a nice surroundings," Imani Village Executive Vice President Patricia Eggleston said. "And so that’s why we decided that we wanted to build it."

chicago.suntimes.com

Imani Village brings senior housing with style to Cottage Grove Avenue

Built by the South Side's progressive Trinity United Church of Christ and designed by architectural firm Johnson & Lee, the five-story building wakes up the street with a dash of color and a bit of ve...

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

In my recent column on the Bell Federal weather sign getting a big refresh, the developer said the device -- which also forecast the weather -- had a manual control in the building's basement. Here's the control, courtesy of a source of mine who took this pic while visiting the building this week.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Hotel Florence, 11111 S. Forrestville in the Pullman neighborhood yesterday. Designed by Solon S. Beman, built in 1881.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Cat Stevens/Yusef Islam's birthday is today. Much respect to all the music he's created -- especially this 1977 electro jam.

youtube.com

Cat Stevens ~ Was Dog a Doughnut 1977 Disco Purrfection Version

YouTube video by DJDiscoCat

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

At the OPC with library commissioner Chris Brown and OPC branch librarian Marcus Lumpkin to sign a copy of Southern Exposure for the Obama Presidential Reading Room. Chris said the branch gets 3000 daily visits -- almost as much as the Washington Library gets. I can see how. It's pretty packed now.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I'm looking forward to being in conversation Aug 5 with my good friend, the talented Dawn Turner, about her new book, Majestic Hills. We'll be at Call & Response Books, 1390 E. Hyde Park Blvd. Come on through!

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

"Some people say Casablanca or Citizen Kane. I say Jason and the Argonauts is the greatest film ever made." Tom Hanks, 1992.

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Lee Bey @leebey1.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Canadian Smoke. Sounds like the name of a band that woulda played an all-ages show at the Cabaret Metro in 1984.

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Shane @mcclellandshane.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

There’s poop on the lettuce. There’s worms in the beef. There’s glass in the bread. What kind of Upton Sinclair timeline is this

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