The Uptown Broadway Building--a 1926 Spanish-baroque riot of ancient gods, weapons of war, ceremonial urns, feral animals and Gothic windows all framed in a block-long regiment of ram-horned Ionic columns and sealed in gilded terra-cotta--was at first by serendipity and eventually by a little bit of intent always within walking distance of every place I lived in Chicago.
An architect friend of mine in Chicago--an incredibly bright man with a world of knowledge and an adventuresome aesthetic--called the building "architectural porn" with a mixture of awe, fascination, guilty indulgence and appalled respect. And if you know me and my garish, vulgar tastes, you know I enthusiastically subscribe to the more-is-more-and-always-heap-on-more-more-more school of architectural ornamentation. And since we were always in the same ZIP code, the Uptown Broadway Building's garish, vulgar architectural porn was MY garish, vulgar architectural porn. And even though I lived by the Wilson stop on the Red Line, I often used the Lawrence stop--the next stop north on Broadway--just so I could walk by my garish, vulgar, architecturally pornographic building morning and night. And often photograph it. And post the photos all over Facebook, where they frequently pop up in my memories to give me happy little hellos from my garish, vulgar, architecturally pornographic old friend. (Didja notice all those Ands? MORE IS ALWAYS MORE!)
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