Lisa E Freedman, My Journal Through Life, is the Home Base & Blog for LF Media Ink, a Boutique PR/Marketing Company specialized in the Arts, Entertainment & Travel Industries. Enjoy!
Lisa E Freedman, My Journal Through Life, is the Home Base & Blog for LF Media Ink, a Boutique PR/Marketing Company specialized in the Arts, Entertainment & Travel Industries. Enjoy!
Where Chicago turned public space into an outdoor museum, featuring The Bean, Crown Fountain (also known as the spitting towers) and a 24.5 acre celebration of public art Following our visits to Macy's and The Chicago Cultural Center, we took a short walk to Millennium Park to experience a different kind of art site. The Park sits directly across from the Art Institute, which one could also combine a visit with. After a morning spent indoors...
A former public library, two monumental stained-glass domes, and the best free afternoon in the city Having just spent an afternoon admiring the Tiffany dome tucked above the cosmetics counters at Macy's on State Street, we were perfectly content believing we had already seen Chicago's greatest Tiffany masterpiece. We hadn't. The Chicago Cultural Center, a few blocks away on Michigan Avenue, proved us wonderfully wrong. It holds...
A Gilded Age masterpiece hiding in plain sight above the cosmetics counter, in a building that will always be Marshall Field's at heart Given my background cataloguing decorative arts for the auction world, I have a soft spot for masterworks hiding where shoppers least expect them. There may be no better example in the country than the Tiffany dome inside Macy's on State Street, Chicago — a building that, no matter what the signage says, will...
A childhood memory from 1965, and the strange comfort of finding it exactly as I'd left it My mom (left) & me (right) listening to the story of Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle on the handsets at the Exhibit, Summer 1965 photo credit: My Dad, Edwin J. Freedman Some exhibits you visit out of curiosity. This one I visited out of memory. I have a distinct recollection of standing in front of Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle on a family trip to Chicago...
Housed inside the last surviving building of the 1893 World's Fair, on the shores of Lake Michigan Most museums ask you to imagine the past. This one puts you inside it. The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, set in Jackson Park on Chicago's South Side, occupies the last remaining building from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition — and that alone made it worth the trip out from downtown, before a single exhibit was even in view. A...
Chicago's first liquor license, a nickel beer, and 127 years of Loop history After spending several hours wandering through the galleries of the Art Institute of Chicago, we were ready for something entirely different. Rather than another contemporary restaurant or chef-driven menu, we walked a few blocks to The Berghoff, where more than a century of Chicago history awaited us. It turned out to be the perfect transition from an afternoon of art...
Where an Arts Aficionado could happily spend an entire morning or day and still not see everything they wanted to I have spent over forty years as a professional immersed in the art world, from international art auction houses to high-end art galleries and fine art publications. Old habits have stayed with me. In fact they have become an integral part of me and my writing. I still read provenance labels before I admire the painting, linger over...
If Monteverde was the lunch we found through a Netflix episode, Ever was a dinner we organized our week around. Tucked into Fulton Market in the West Loop, Curtis Duffy's tasting-menu restaurant has spent the past several years quietly establishing itself as one of the most refined dining experiences not just in Chicago, but in the country — and a single evening there made the case better than any review could. A...
The West Loop pasta house that earned its spot on our list from a Netflix episode — and earned it all over again at lunch. After a morning aboard the First Lady Architecture Cruise and a leisurely stroll along the Chicago Riverwalk, we weren't looking for just any lunch- we wanted somewhere that would encourage us to slow down and savor the afternoon. Monteverde proved to be exactly that place. A Streaming Cameo, Earned Honestly We found...
Chicago's second shoreline, and the perfect way to extend an afternoon on the water. As we stepped off the First Lady Architecture Cruise, we weren't quite ready for the afternoon to end. Instead of heading back toward Michigan Avenue, we followed the gentle curve of the Chicago River, joining locals lingering over lunch, cyclists weaving past outdoor cafes, and visitors pausing every few steps to admire another remarkable skyline view. The...
