Sox, Szechwan and Stainless Steel

Downtown today I saw several White Sox World Series championship banners already hanging from buildings, though the banners outside City Hall still referred to the team as American League champions. Also, I noticed that the Chicago Picasso is wearing what looks like a plywood Sox cap.

Noticed a few other changes walking through the city, such as retailers than have vanished in the last few months, or shops that have opened, plus a building or two that have vanished. On East Water Street, I noticed that the former site of Asian Express has become, when combined with the space next door (which at one time did passport and green card photos), became a steakhouse. It’s a name-brand steakhouse, but I’ll bet it doesn’t have a Szechwan chicken like Asian Express. There was a time when I ate that dish two or three times a month.

Just west of the Cultural Center on Michigan Ave. is a recently completely condo tower, and on the sidewalk nearby on Randolph is a new piece of public sculpture, “We Will” by Richard Hunt. It’s stainless steel, branching up like a fire, or seaweed, or a metal tree with peculiar branches. I had to look Hunt up, since my knowledge of sculptors is vanishingly small. Turns out he has something similar on LaSalle (“Freeform V”) that I’ve seen many times, but it’s over a building entrance and not at street level like “We Will.”

I had to wonder about that title, and how it would be worlds different with just a little punctuation. We Will! isn’t much like We Will? or even We Will…