Today’s featured photo of the day! The feature is: Architecture – Vintage Architecture

Here is the final featured photos of the second segment of architecture photos–and today’s featured photo. As stated in for all this spring, I have been featuring fine photos in Part 2 of the beauty of Vintage Architecture, so we could continue to honor the brighter side of life this year, and let the spring months shine! So to end on an excellent note, I am featuring photos one of the oldest and very stunning pieces of architecture left in the great City of Chicago–The Old Chicago Water Tower, now known as Water Tower Place. Water Tower Place is located at 806 North Michigan Avenue, along the Magnificent Mile shopping district in the Near North Side community area. It is across the street and down a half a block from the very tall 875 N. Michigan Avenue Building formerly the John Hancock Building of which the third photo captures their beauty together. The tower goes back to before the Great Chicago Fire. built in 1869 by William W. Boyington, an architect who had great experience using yellowing Lemont, Illinois limestone. The building standing tall at 182½ feet tall, was equipped with a 138 foot high standpipe to hold to contained water. It was used for water distribution and firefighting, and the pressure in the pipe was able to be regulated to control water surges in the area. In the day with the adjacent Chicago Avenue Pumping Station, it was able to draw clean water from water cribs in located on Lake Michigan. The tower became all the more popular, after surviving the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The fire notoriously associated with a cow owned by Mrs. O’Leary. A lantern was said to be kicked over, and so the story goes that this cow could have been the cause of the fire. The tower was not the only building to survive the fire, as a few other buildings in the burned district survived, along with the tower–but is the only public building in the burn zone that is still standing to the current date. The tower had become a symbol of old Chicago and of the city’s recovery from the Great Chicago Fire. In 1918, then Pine Street was widened and the plans were altered in order to give the Water Tower a featured location. The tower has undergone two renovations–1913 to 1916, where many of the limestone blocks were replaced. The second renovation occurred in the year 1978 under former Mayor Jane Byrne, which consisted mostly of interior changes, and only minor changes made to the exterior of the building. In 2014 the south section of the park surrounding the tower was named in honor of former Chicago mayor Jane Byrne. The Chicago Water Tower’s castle-like style had also inspired the design of some White Castle Restaurant buildings in past days before the company’s latest newer renovations. The Tower was finally named an American Water Landmark in the year 1969. This is one of the most beautiful pieces of architecture in the whole world, by all means! Very, very beautiful!

Photo 1 taken with a tripod mounted Nikon EM-through a Nikon 26 mm lens, filter=NONE, Aperture=8 f/stop, shutter-speed 4 seconds, loaded with loaded with Konica Fast ISO (ASA) 400 Color 135-20 Negative Film processed with C-41 Processing Chemicals, and a Type C Print using the RA-4 enlargement paper process, onto a 4X6″ semi-gloss print.. Date – July 1981.

Photo 2 taken with a tripod mounted Nikon EM-through a Nikon 26 mm lens, filter=NONE, Aperture=8 f/stop, shutter-speed 8 seconds, loaded with loaded with Konica Fast ISO (ASA) 400 Color 135-20 Negative Film processed with C-41 Processing Chemicals, and a Type C Print using the RA-4 enlargement paper process, onto a 4X6″ semi-gloss print.. Date – July 1981.

Photo 3 taken with a Nikon EM-through a Nikon 26 mm lens, filter=Polarizer, Aperture=22 f/stop, shutter-speed 1/125th second, loaded with Kodak Plus-X Black & White 135 Negative Film ISO (ASA) 125 (fine grain) processed with D-76 Processing Chemicals, and a fiber paper print using the Kodak Professional “warm-tone” enlargement paper developed with Kodak Dektol chemicals onto a 3½x5″ matte-gloss print. Date – June – 1981.

Photo 4 taken with a Minox camera strapped onto a tripod through the factory lens, filter=NONE, Aperture=factory, shutter-speed maximum length of 1/2 a second, loaded with Minocolor 400 15/36 exp ISO (ASA) 400 Color Negative Film in the camera with non-European format so that the negatives were exposed laterally, meaning only 15 exposures, but better resolution. Processed at the lab specializing in Minox (Watland’s Camera), on silk grained paper, 3½X5″ bordered semi-gloss print.. Date – November 1983.

☼FACT:  Minox film was the smallest feasibly printable film in those times, and the cameras and film were considered micro sized. The quality of Minox film’s grain–being only 8 x 11 mm, was lower than the small 110 film format. The quality was questionable because of the coarse grain in photos, but because of its camera size, the format was not at all visibly obvious-especially at a distance, so the Minox camera made notable use for intelligence purposes widely, used abroad and internationally. ☼

Starting in June–Architectural photography continues: Feature – Part 3: The Buildings of Chicago, Illinois!! It is going to be quite a summer, so join Versatileer ALL summer long!

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