Lee Bey

Chicago

Architecture Critic at Chicago Sun-Times

Sun-Times/ABC7 architecture critic. Arch prof @ IIT. Author, Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side, @ https://t.co/c4s6AyCtfk

Articles

Downtown’s Big Red gets new flavor

1 week ago | wbez.org | Lee Bey

You’d think a big, red skyscraper couldn’t go relatively unheralded, let alone one that’s stood downtown for more than 50 years. But that’s the case for 333 S. Wabash Ave., originally CNA Center. The 44-story tower is the only downtown skyscraper with that distinctive color, and it’s a fairly good-looking modernist building with its grid of slitlike windows. The building would be standout in any other city.
Conservation group seeks better protection for city's iconic lakefront

2 weeks ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Lee Bey

When the Chicago Bears revealed plans last April to build a big domed stadium just south of Soldier Field, the most ridiculous thing about the announcement wasn’t its hyped, pep rally-like unveiling, or even the $1.5 billion in public infrastructure funds the team had the effrontery to request. It’s that the project was proposed for the lakefront at all. And that the city’s lakefront protection laws are likely elastic enough to allow it to happen.
Downtown’s Big Red gets a new flavor

2 weeks ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Lee Bey

You’d think a big, red skyscraper couldn’t go relatively unheralded, let alone one that’s stood downtown for more than 50 years. But that’s the case for 333 S. Wabash Ave., originally CNA Center. The 44-story tower is the only downtown skyscraper with that distinctive color, and it’s a fairly good-looking modernist building with its grid of slit-like windows. The building would be standout in any other city.
Will a new development return the bloom to Roseland’s Michigan Avenue?

3 weeks ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Lee Bey

If there’s a Chicago retail corridor that deserves a proper reversal of fortune — a “glow up,” in the current parlance — it’s Michigan Avenue in the Roseland neighborhood. For most of the 20th century, Michigan Avenue between 115th and 107th streets was a vibrant mile of retail that was magnificent in its own right, with department stores, banks, car dealerships, housing — virtually everything.
A wronged Wright on Chicago's West Side could receive long-needed repairs

4 weeks ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Lee Bey

The Walser House — a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed residence in the Austin neighborhood — is finally in line to receive the urgent repairs the historic, but dilapidated home has needed for years. The bank holding the mortgage on the vacant 122-year-old home, 42 N. Central Ave., told Cook County Circuit Court Judge Lisa Ann Marino earlier this month that would begin repairing the house to correct a raft of long-standing building code violations.
Colorful new Humboldt Park wellness center is also an Rx for architectural blahs

1 month ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Lee Bey

The Humboldt Park neighborhood’s Division Street is one of the city’s liveliest thoroughfares, with restaurants, public art, and people celebrating the community’s Puerto Rican heritage. You’d might expect the street’s vibe to come to a halt, or at least take a rest, at Division and Richmond, the site of a new community health center, a building type which tends to produce functional structures that fade into the background.
What’s That Building? 311 S. Wacker Drive

2 months ago | wbez.org | Dennis Rodkin |Sasha-Ann Simons |Erica Thompson |Lee Bey

Ryan Ori, a veteran commercial real estate reporter at CoStar News, dropped a bombshell last month: A 65-story tower on Wacker Drive might be headed toward demolition. If — and it’s a big if — this news comes to pass, 311 S. Wacker Drive, only 35 years old, would be the world’s tallest building demolished voluntarily, Ori reported. (Taller, but demolished in the terrorist attack on Sept.
Searching for reasons behind opioid deaths of Black men born 1951-70

2 months ago | wbez.org | Alden Loury |Lee Bey

The Chicago Sun-Times has long been known for its headlines. They’re often clever, catchy and bold. But the one I read for a story published in December grabbed my attention for other reasons. “Opioids have been killing the same generation of Black men in Chicago for decades,” it read. I was deeply intrigued, so I read on. “Black men born 1951-1970 always have had the greatest risk of dying of overdoses, even in their 20s, 30s and 40s,” the story continued. Immediately, I stopped reading. I was frozen.
Frank Lloyd Wright house is one of two homes given to Loyola by Pritzker family member

2 months ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Lee Bey

When the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Emil Bach house and its stately Arts & Crafts next-door neighbor, the Lang residence, were built a century ago, Chicago’s Sheridan Road was a lakeside thoroughfare lined with fine homes for the very well-off set. And it’s shameful — to this day — how much of this fine old architecture on Sheridan Road north of Hollywood Avenue was erased and replaced by Midcentury high-rises built to take advantage of Lake Michigan views.
Taxpayers are out more than $30 million on University of Illinois’ scuttled South Loop project

2 months ago | wbez.org | Tim Novak |Mohammad Samra |Lee Bey

Seven years ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner invited dignitaries to a 62-acre plot of land in the South Loop and offered a bold promise: The long-vacant property would be transformed, with a high-tech research facility to be built there that would give a massive economic boost to the city of Chicago. The University of Illinois would operate the proposed $285 million facility, dubbed the Discovery Partners Institute.