Ravenswood Loft
"Loop Tattoo Mural" was designed and led by Johanna Poethig. The painting is a 6,500 square-foot (603 square meters) community mural that covers the side of a building on East Lake Street just off Michigan Avenue. She and a dozen artists from the Chicago Public Art Group painted the mural, which measures about 50 feet (15 meters) wide and 135 feet (41 meters) long, on 270 5-by-5-foot (1.5-by-1.5 meter) square mats, which were mounted to the wall.
The Couch Place is a name of an alley in the middle of downtown Chicago, just behind the legendary Oriental Theater. In present times it serves as a regular pass-through for pedestrians, but in the year 1903, this alleyway was the site of unimaginable horrors. The alley in downtown Chicago held the bodies of over 600 people after a fire broke out at the fateful Iroquois Theater. The fire lasted for only 30 minutes, but the majority of the dead weren’t found in the theater, but outside on Couch Place and it is believed that the bodies were piled six feet high. This tragedy bought around many changes in fire safety and protection around the world but strangely there is no memorial in Couch Place remembering the people who lost their lives in the tragedy.
Although not one of the country's larger 'Chinatowns', the main drag on Wentworth Avenue is worth the brief side trip from the Loop for the curious. You will find an assortment of shops, restaurants and the butchers with skinned ducks hanging in the windows. Fueled by an influx of money from wealthy Chinese developers looking to diversify their holdings outside of Hong Kong, Chinatown is looking to expand its boundaries. A new shopping center was recently completed, and Chinatown has reportedly been put on the Mayor's list of neighborhoods up for urban renewal and redevelopment.
Capping the end of LaSalle Street and all of its neoclassical buildings is the imposing art deco tower of the Chicago Board of Trade. Built in 1930 by Holabird and Root, this is the second Board of Trade building to be constructed on the site. (Its predecessor, was designed by William W. Boyington in 1885 when traders' needs outgrew the building's space.) High atop the building is a statue of Ceres, the Roman god of wheat, glorifying the largest futures market in the world. Due to heightened concern regarding terrorist attatcks, the CBOT Visitor Center is closed to the public, however pre-arranged visits are available.
