LaSALLE STREET. near Jackson

LaSalle Street midway between Jackson Boulevard and Adams is one of those perfect time capsules that make history easy. The neo-classical Eagles of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Illinois Merchant's Bank stand face to face. The Deco Eagle of the Chicago Board of Trade is perched to the south. (See Entry Below) And to the north, John Wellborn Root's masterpiece of Architecture and Sculpture, the Rookery. Completed by the firm of Burnham and Root in 1888, this building exemplifies the Chicago School.

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"LaSalle Street." No one has "said" it better.
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BATCHAWANA BAY

Gone fishin. Sorta. On Vacation thru the Summer Solstice. Then Back to work.

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LaSALLE STREET. The LaSalle Street Eagles

The three eagles of LaSalle Street hover over the intersection of LaSalle Street at Jackson Boulevard. Two are Neo-classic and one is Deco.

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The meanest belongs to the Board of Trade (1930). The biggest to the Illinois Merchants Bank (1924). And the most sedate? To the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (1922).
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HENRY HERING. Marquette Park

By the time Henry Hering was commissioned by W.P.Gleason to sculpt Father Marquette for Marquette Park, in Gary, Indiana, he had been "on the road" for some forty years. Hering had made his first mark at Chicago's Columbian Exposition in 1893. Then, the Field Museum, the Michigan Avenue Bridge Towers, and the Civic Opera Block. But, by 1931 the Beaux Arts style, in which he had been trained, was giving way to Art Deco. And beyond this, the world of figural sculpture was about to change forever. Few figural sculptors would outlast the Depression and the War. At the time of this commission, Hering's work was almost hopelessly out of date. And commissions were few and far between.

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Who would have guessed, after a life of accomplishments, his finest work would belong to Marquette Park? The Victorian fussiness of the Palace of Fine Arts is gone. And the stilted classicism of the Field Museum. The touch of Deco experimentation at the Civic Opera block is nowhere to be seen. Nor the hints of the Arts and Crafts glimpsed on Edward Bennetts' Bridge Towers. Father Marquette steps firmly forward, lips parted, cross defiantly, realistically lifted to the smoke filled skies of Gary, Indiana in a style and vision that clearly belongs to Hering alone. And another era.

Note the Father Marquette's Crucifix. Take another look at it at Images in the Loop