On a shockingly atypical day in January, I spent a near 60 degree Saturday at the Fullerton Beach lakefront taking in some of the sites that have become so familiar to me in the last four years.

Driving down LakeShore Drive anytime you don’t have a timetable is literally the best time to drive down Chicago’s most iconic highway. The road winds along the Lake Michigan waterfront, through Lincoln Park and then right up to the heart of the city, before veering sharply around and into Millennium Park which is often where the traffic usually thickens. Lucky for me, my destination was right at the end of Lincoln Park before the Magnificent Mile began. 
In small neighborhood nicknamed the Gold Coast lies a remnant of a much older Chicago. In the years prior to the devastated Great Chicago Fire, it was common place to find wood as the predominant material used in the pavement of the city’s walkways. Now than more one hundred and ten years later very few of these wooden cobblestones still exist. While I was shooting these pictures, I could not stop pondering the millions of men and women that walked those same cobblestones over the last century.
At the northern edge of Lincoln Park, stands the Elks National Veterans Memorial built in 1926 as a monument to the honor the members of the Elks Lodge that died during World War One and each American war since. It’s monolithic structure and massive dome, tower over the cityscape as a magnificent memorial to those that have fallen. Along the sides of the memorial friezes depict on one side the “The Triumphs of War” and on the opposite side, “The Triumphs of Peace.”

Just north of my own neighborhood of Rogers Park, lies Evanston, Illinois the home of Northwestern University and some of the most serene beaches and parks in the area. While the beaches and parks of downtown have their own majesty the tranquility of Evanston’s beaches and parks is a welcome change from the hubbub of America’s third largest city. 

Best,