(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

A few days ago, a blog I follow called Chicago History Today posted a piece about the last cow path in Chicago, a ten-foot-wide alleyway in the Loop that couldn't be built on because of a cattle easement. Essentially, a farmer sold the "you can walk here" rights to a fellow farmer, whose descendants refused to sell the "you can walk here" rights to the developers who wanted to put up an office building on the site.

The office building did make a court case out of it but they couldn't have been too terrible sports about it, because when they lost the case they ended up building the offices with a passageway, ten feet wide and eighteen feet high, should you need to drive some motherfuckin' cattle from Monroe to Madison and traffic's backed up on LaSalle (you can't drive them up Clark, Clark is a southbound-only one way at that point).

At any rate, eventually the cattle path was blocked off by a building to the north of Monroe, but in the spirit of the thing they diverted the cattle path to an alley. Which smells quite nice after the rain and before the trash is put out.



Chicago: we literally have not stopped being under construction since the cows went home.

So I decided to visit and walk the last surviving cow path in Chicago, and it was a short damn walk. I thought I'd stop by Wendy's and get a burger after, but I had a Social Anxiety moment when I couldn't figure out their new menu (it's all pictures and apparently they don't just sell a goddamn hamburger anymore) so I faked an urgent text and left. But I did end up at the Chicago Loop Synagogue, which has a sculpture over its doors that looks like the fever dream of a very religious typesetter.



That was cool. And surreal. Mostly surreal.

Comments

[galwithglasses.livejournal.com]

I saw your tumblr of this pic and didn't realize you were looking up at it. Very surreal indeed. Are those hands reached out for a blessing? There's one in the text. The hands look like the hand signs that Leonard Nimoy copied for his vulcan hand sign thing.

I love the idea that you could still guide cows through Chicago.

[minkrose]

They are the same hands -- I've been in other Jewish temples that had similar (and more articulated) hands in the same formation. That's actually where I first learned about the connection to Star Trek (I was a UU kid visiting & learning about other religions).

Video about Nimoy borrowing this gestures from Judaism here: http://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/video/live-long-and-prosper-jewish-story-behind-spock-leonard-nimoys-star-trek-character

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Cool!

You'd think the Last Cow Path would be a touristy thing near the Stockyards...

[tabaqui]

That is a very weird sculpture.

And i was hoping for a crooked, meandering cow path! Ah, well. It's the spirit that counts. :)

[iamshadow.livejournal.com]

Once you go out west from the coastal cities in Australia on the east coast, a lot of small towns have super wide main roads because they were stockroutes. I know in Kurri Kurri, the last place we lived, they had a a double row of 45 degree angled parking up the middle of the main road, as well as a traffic island with trees, in addition to the regular kerb-side angled parking on both sides, and there was still a generous single lane each way for traffic. Fifty or sixty years ago it all would have been open space, but with the advent of most people being able to afford cars (and the transition from moving stock by lorry instead of on foot) they decided parking was the way to go.

Living out bush now, as we do, we semi-regularly have to stop for stock, whether it's merino sheep or angus beef. A farmer will often have to move stock over or down the road to take them to a new pasture, so it's not uncommon to meet a ute with its hazard lights flashing, a person on horseback and a couple of sheepdogs moving fifty to a hundred sheep on what's usually a 100km/h road.

[iamshadow.livejournal.com]

Oh, and that sculpture does rather resemble what happens when you mash your whole hand down on a typewriter. In an artistic way, but.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Wow. This is brilliant. Also I love you faking an urgent text....! :D

[lavinialavender.livejournal.com]

Yay Sam post!!! Yay Sam, telling us Chicago's secrets!

This confused me, though:

The office building did make a court case out of it but they couldn't have been too terrible sports about it, because when they lost the case they ended up building the offices with a passageway, ten feet wide and eighteen feet high
Do all of those plural pronouns refer to the office building? They lost the case but built the office anyway? Was it in a different location?

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, sorry -- the people who wanted to build the office building sued for the right to build on the cowpath, but they lost the case. So they built the office building on that site ANYWAY, they just left a tunnel through the building for the cow path. They left enough room that should you need to still drive cattle down that path, you could. At this point it mainly resembles a very generous alleyway.

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Hey sorry that last reply was me, forgot to log in.

[lavinialavender.livejournal.com]

I figured! Thanks for the clarification. It's a pretty hilarious solution.

[jo02]

Are they 'jazz hands' in that second photo ?!?

[not-hathor.livejournal.com]

I thought they looked like doves at first....

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

It's always fascinating to find out these little bits of local history. Now if you need to drive cattle through your city you know where to take them. Always good to be prepared!

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I do live in the Prairie District....

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

There's a kraken hiding in that sculpture and I think it's going to give me nightmares. Also, the post I just read also involved involved cows. Is it Theme Day on LJ and I missed the message?

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I've been missing your Chicago posts! I don't always comment because I don't know what to say, but this time at least I have an idea: please keep posting the cool stuff you find and learn about Chicago!

[gement.livejournal.com]

"so I faked an urgent text and left"

Hearing you be candid about that just helped me with a remarkable amount of my own anxiety, so thanks. I tend to think of you as a very Together person. It's good to remember that Together people are often also faking it, because everyone is.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

Random cow path reminds me of London, a city that never eve stops building but GOD FORBID you change the road layout that didn't make sense 800 years ago, let alone now. You sense city planners are convinced that any day now the geese drivers will be back and although they'd be fine with avant grade glass skyscrapers they couldn't handle taking a different path...

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

BUT WHAT IF KING ARTHUR DOES RISE AGAIN? HE WON'T KNOW HIS WAY AROUND! :D

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

Verily sire, we know this most noble path down Cheapside and Poultry! Yet it doth appear to be the centre of what they calleth 'the banking sector'