Customer Reviews

Unexpected Chicagoland

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Unexpected Chicagoland is a fascinating, if disfunctional book. The book does a nice job portraying the decay of urban infrastructure through pictures-when it sticks to "Chicagoland". Apparently, this geographic area extends all the way into Michigan (why?). For the money, the author could have stuck to Chicago proper alone and produced a much better book. It's not like you have to go out of the city to find these types of areas. The section on the Pullman district was especially good. The photos have a haunting quality to them. You can almost hear the trains roaring by and the bustle of the little enclave.

Worth taking a look at if you can find an open copy at a bookstore.

Unexpected Chicagoland is a gift to those devoted to the study of cities and surrounding areas and to those who worry about how fast the landscape and cityscape is changing. Though neither Camilo Vergara nor Tim Samuelson are rabid preserverationists, they know what symbols we are losing and do their best to memorialize them in text and pictures. Theirs is a unique partnership of artists with talent, concern, and reflection.

I've bought 6 copies for friends.

There indeed is much "unexpected" in this book, some good, some bad. The good news is, there are several glimpses into nooks and crannies you'd probably never find on your own. There's also an homage to some truly great and unique Chicago landmarks, like the huge old railroad bridges, and a fascinating study of disappearing turrets on buildings. The bad news is, the author wanders rather far afield geographically, into Indiana and even Michigan. That would be OK for "Unexpected Midwest", but when you plunk down your money for a book on Chicago, it's an inexcusable heresy. Also unexpected is, a lot of space is devoted to things you may not really care about. You'll spend time inside the Bohemian National Cemetery Columbarium, exploring niches full of urns, photos, mementos, et al. Several pages are devoted to "extinguished neon signs", and six pages show seven different modern billboards. Four pages go to a single whale sign on a West Chicago building. If you're mainly interested in old buildings and architecture in general, look elsewhere. Otherwise, I'd strongly recommend you check this book out of your local library and see if it's to your taste, before buying a copy.