Hahaha, no photoshop necessary. Chicago dyes the river that color every year to celebrate St Patrick's Day. I agree it's off putting to people who have never seen it before.

It's not coloration of the photo. It's an endemic type of algae that lives in the Chicago river that causes it to turn green every St. Patrick's day.

:)

^LOL...and its badass.

I like it! I'm down with the green river.

Oh c'mon you never heard of the Chicago St Patty's tradition? LOL, I wouldn't have the patience to edit the water color. And for any haters out there, it's definitely not a pointless tradition. It brings big tourism dollars, just because the river dyeing is that awesome.

It is also environmentally safe too because it is only food grade green dye. This is the same stuff you eat every time you have a green jelly rancher.

Yeah, the amount of kayakers is really surprising. The bridge is crowded too, but that just looks like a normal Saturday to me (albeit in green).

The river dyeing has a couple of other connotations... the river is notorious among Chicagoans for its pollution, although in reality the water is now cleaner than it's been in a century thanks to Deep Tunnel and the decline of industry. Plus, a famous product of Chicago is Green River pop.

^ And it's now a Chicago export too: I remember an article a couple years ago about how cities from around the world send delegations to Chicago to study (or just hire Chicago experts to come and provide services for) the dyeing of rivers. Apparently there's quite a bit of know-how necessary to getting the dye spread out and consistent in a very short period of time. I don't know that it was London or Paris doing it, but I do recall a reference to some mid-sized East European or Russian city and maybe some Chinese cities.

Dublin dyed their river green a few years ago on St. Patrick's Day by the family that does it in Chicago every year, the Butler family. They originally used a green plumbers dye to color the river as they are members of the plumbers union.

The things you learn on this website. Very interesting! I honestly thought it was an edited picture. Then again, I kind of forgot it was St. Patrick's Day. At the same time however, I never imagined a river dyed green for a day :haha:

Great shot, amazing, and there's 500 N LSD in the distance.

Off thread, I know, but here's the river being dyed green.

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/2798/river2o.jpg

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6051/6...014c64c7_c.jpg
Fog rolls in by bradhoc, on Flickr

^ That is beautiful

3-26

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Did they decide not to build the parking lump at the base of this? I know we've heard nothing to indicate otherwise, but there are no tie-ins that I can see on the tower that would link it to the podium. Additionally the garage portion of the tower seems larger than I would have expected given the massive garage shown in renderings.

Could it be that they stuffed all the parking into the tower and are planning on making a smaller, more manageable, podium? The columns they are pouring for the base don't look very beefy either, I can't imagine those holding up more than a couple stories, let alone 5 or 6 floors filled with parked cars and the associated peak loading from them driving around inside.


Edit:

I'm going to go ahead and say they definitely changed at least something about the design. The images from the first page don't show that double high floor above the garage at all:

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/3525/500nlsd.jpg

This image also shows units along the East face of the tower next to the garage which clearly isn't happening at this point as the garage ramps in the tower definitely would make it impossible to squeeze units in there.

It does a little bit on the Southern edge of the tower as it meets the podium. Im guessing that the double height space will be a part of the amenities floor, being deck adjacent and all... and that the facade will simply be built out on the North, NE and NW side as if they were occupied by residences similar to the false residence look done on 600 N LSD.

Dont worry, we're definitely getting that big sexy lump smack on the Drive for everyone to gawk at.

^^^ Yeah, I was looking at it further and came to the same conclusion about the lump, but they definitely changed something about the design as the double floor wasn't part of the plan. Only time (or maybe Spyguy) will tell though.

April 5, 2012
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^ Good angles on that Michi

Here's a shot from today. It's too cold to go outside for a better angle.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7236/6...bc44e016_b.jpg

From this view, the lot next to NBC really needs to be developed. But I'm willing to wait. It needs to be something of very high quality design considering the visibility.

I was just thinking the same exact thing about that parking lot. I would MUCH rather see a large ice skating rink a la NYC's Rockefeller Center. Would be an ideal location for it and something much nicer to look at that that hideous surface lot, at least until it is ready to be developed into something that is deserving of that prominent location.

Would also be a great way to lure tourist off Michigan Ave. and help them branch out into different areas of the city.