Trib Gets Loopy, Part II

By Margaret Lyons in News on Jul 27, 2004 6:50PM

Today’s Trib Loop info is called “Curiosities,” but it seems more like a leftovers. Start off the fun with a quiz, which we’ll admit kind of kicked our ass. Good thing they didn’t ask us about the property at 22 East Jackson, the former Pickwick Lane. There’s still a 19 x 19 stable house there, and it might be up for sale as an “office building with character or even as an office/residence.” Let’s see…it’s 361 square feet, built in 1857 with a third story added in 1907, and no one can find it on the first try? Think it’s already wired?

Something else you might be curious about: exclusive clubs in the Loop. Even though “they've long since opened their doors to women and minorities,” the whole fancy club thing still seems a little archaic to us. Maybe that’s just because we’re not in one. The Union League Club of Chicago, whose motto is “Defining What a Club Should Be,” didn’t admit women until 1987. Yow. The Standard Club has an on-site tailor and the best club food, and its website tells inquiring minds that “It has always been, and is presently, the policy of The Standard Club in selection of its membership not to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age or national origin.”

The Chicago theater scene has its share of curiosities, including Del Close’s skull at the Goodman Theatre. OK, we’ll grant that that is definitely a curiosity, and it’s cool and interesting, but pigeons? Again with the pigeons? And what the hell is an “aural tattoo”? Is the L really a curiosity? Not like a skull, that's for sure.

Perhaps as you wander the Loop, you get curious about movies and TV shows that were filmed there. The Blues Brothers, The Fugitive, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Untouchables, and Running Scared make the Trib’s top five, but they’re really missing out on the big one: Adventures in Babysitting. How curious!

Rounding out today's run-down is a list of things kids like to do in the Loop. It closely resembles a list of things tourists like to do in the Loop, except maybe cheaper and with less booze.