My has downtown Chicago changed

Som pics I took around downtown Chicago yesterday!

I could literally cross Madison St from Chase Tower to the building on the North side of the street and find myself in the pedway system. Can't do it anymore, I don't remember when I noted that bridge over Madison street was removed.

Carson's on State & Madison closed just over two years ago. I miss being able to browse in this Louis Sullivan designed building. If only Carson's had chosen to instead just scaled back operations instead of just simply closing their store here. Also noted is that while this was considered Carson's flagship store, Carson's parent company no longer owned the building.

 

Again looking at State and Madison this is where Sears now has a store, but up until maybe 2001 or 2002 it was home to a Walgreen's. I've seen pics of this corner going back 50 or so years and Walgreen's was always there, but now there is no Walgreen's on this corner anymore. Just around the corner on Madison was Garrett's which is still on Madison but East of State now, but where ever Garrett's was it's merely windows for Sear's downtown store.

 

The city was finally able to find a developer! Well this is old news of course as construction has been ongoing for a while here on Block 37. Now this place is home to CBS2 you can see them on Dearborn.

This place was supposed to be home for a superstation for the CTA, but that project was cancelled because it was simply costing too much money. I don't know what else is supposed to be on this formerly vacant block however.

I can say this in the winter it was a skating rink, in the summer it was a place that provided work for talented students in the arts. It was called Gallery 37, and now the city has finally built on it. Once upon a time over 20 years ago, this was the site of some architecturally significant buildings that were razed by the city, unfortunately it took a long time before any development took place on this site.