March 22, 2004
A Visit With Gerry Vitale in Chicago
I have a class to do for Pervasive this week at BP Fuels out in Warrenville. The class will be Wednesday through Friday, but I have decided to come up to Chicago early on Tuesday so that I can spend the afternoon and early evening with Gerry Vitale. If you want to see the business-related pictures that I took on this trip, you can use the Index for 2004 to access the business trips page, and then use the index at the top of that page to access the pictures for BP Fuels.
On this page, I am placing all the pictures I took coming into Chicago and spending time with Gerry.
Landing in Chicago
This will be the first time that I have flown into Chicago when I had a camera capable of taking movies, and so I guess I went a little wild, here. I took quite a few of them, almost continuously after reaching the far southwest suburbs, but not all of them were interesting enough to include here. Actually, unless you are a Chicago native or resident, many of these won't be interesting either. So all I am going to do in this section is include players for each of the eleven movies that I thought at all interesting, and a short description of each one. Please watch as many as you care to by using the appropriate players:
(1) Crossing the western suburbs and approaching the Illinois Tollway (I-294)
(2) Northeast along the Eisenhower Expressway over the near western suburbs, heading towards downtown
(3) Passing just north of downtown, with views of the near northwest area adjacent to downtown
(4) Over North Avenue, passing the city center and right over my old condo building; an excellent movie showing downtown Chicago
(5) Coming west over the lakeshore north of downtown, after a 180-degree turn over Lake Michigan; we cross the lakeshore at approximately Addison
(6) Coming west between Lakeshore Drive and the Edens Expressway; a view of the northern suburbs- including the Chicago Ship Channel
(7) Coming over Mid-north & the Edens Expressway; the Kennedy-Edens Interchange (the Kennedy Expy west to the airport and the Edens Expy north to Milwaukee)
(8) On a route south of the Kennedy Expy; Ravenswood, Park Ridge and Des Plaines; approaching the airport area
(9) Approaching the airport, going over the hotel and convention area adjacent to the airport
(10) Descending to the west over the Illinois Tollway as we approach the airport for landing
(11) Touchdown at O'Hare Airport
Driving into Chicago from the Airport to The Parkview
The next series of movies was taken as I drove in from the airport. My route (marked on the map at left) took me from the airport rental car area onto the Kennedy Expressway. This highway goes east and the angles south to meet up with the Edens Expressway that goes to the northern suburbs.
I took the Kennedy Expressway all the way down to my exit at North Avenue. There, I turned east on North Avenue towards Lake Michigan. This series of movies ends with me at the stoplight at North Avenue and Wells Street, with a view looking across the block on the northeast corner to The Parkview- the building I had been living in when Grant and I decided to make the move from Chicago to Dallas.
I am going to mark the map at left with numbers that will correspond to the movie list below, so that you can see where each one was taken and perhaps get a better feel for what this part of Chicago is like.
(1) On Kennedy Expressway towards downtown; just passing Fullerton Avenue
(2) Approaching the North Avenue exit from the Kennedy Expressway
(3) Gas prices at the corner of North Avenue and the Kennedy Expy (4 years later, the price will have more than doubled
(4) Driving east on North Avenue between the Kennedy Expressway and the Des Plaines River
(5) East on North Avenue; looking at the new stores and shopping and residences that were not here when I left in 1985
(6) New condos, apartments, townhouses and shopping along North Avenue between Clybourn and Larabee; we are approaching Wells Street
(7) Coming to a left turn at Wells Street; views of the intersection of North Avenue and Wells Street
(8) The intersection of North Avenue and Wells Street and The Parkview, my home before moving to Dallas
Visiting with Gerry Vitale
I found a parking place along Eugenie Street, about where I used to park before I had a garage space in my building. Then, I walked over to Gerry's building at 1640 Wells Street. Of course, I talk to Gerry frequently, and even more so now that he is going to be doing my investment management for me, so I know that he has purchased a new condominium down on Delaware Avenue about ten blocks south of here. Right now, he splits his time between the two places, doing most of his work here on Wells Street and living in the condo further south.
Anyway, I had his building concierge ring him and he came down to get me. He did not seem to have changed much since I last saw him, which had to be at least eight years- perhaps more. We went up to his apartment and sat around and yakked for a while. I just took a couple of pictures here- one of
Gerry on his sofa
and one of the newest
model car
he has put together.
Gerry was done for the day (he manages his own and other folks' investments) and so he took me down to show me his new condominium on Delaware Place- one that I had not seen before. We got in the car and drove down LaSalle, with me marvelling at all the new stuff all around, and a lot of the old schlocky stuff that was now quite gone.
Gerry's new condo is in a building called Newberry Place, probably because it is across Washington Square Park from the Newberry Library (one of the oldest private libraries in the country). He has purchased this new place not only because it is in a better location, but also because he needs more space- living and working in the same apartment has gotten to be too claustrophobic.
I took quite a few movies while I was getting the tour, and perhaps you would like to watch some of them with the players below:
Building Entry and Lobby
Kitchen and Office
Bath
Living Room
Bedroom
Gerry has a balcony off the living room, so I went outside to see what the view was like.
Gerry's balcony view looks towards the park in front of his building- Newberry Park. You can see the view using the movie player at left.
I had to coax him out onto the balcony (I think he may have just a touch of acrophobia), so I could get a picture, looking northeast, of
Gerry on his balcony.
I also took a still picture of Washington Square Park and the buildings north and east of it as seen from Gerry's balcony, and you should take a look at that picture
here.
Well, our plan was to go have dinner back up by Gerry's other dwelling at a restaurant called Marcello's, which is on North Avenue just around the corner from his condo on Wells. So we went back downstairs to the car (which I had conveniently parked in the spacious entry drive), and I got a still picture of
Gerry in front of Newberry Place.
I also took one last movie of the front of Gerry's building as well as the area surrounding it, and you can watch that movie with the player at right.
We had an excellent dinner at Marcello's, and a really good visit. I should not let it be nearly so long before I come back for another one. I walked Gerry back to his Wells Street place, picked up the car and headed out to my hotel at the Best Western in Westmont.
Flip Filipowski's House in Warrenville
There is really no good place to include this last picture that I took while here in Chicago. On the second morning of my class, as I was driving out Warrenville Road to BP Fuels, I passed a small development that looked extremely familiar. At work that day, I did some Mapquest searching and some thinking, and realized that the area was where Flip Filipowski (one of Culinet Corporation's star salesmen and later multi-millionaire entrepreneur) had lived when he was married to his wife Janet and we were all working at Culinet. So, on the morning of my last day of class, I took a short detour off Warrenville Road to
1518 Burning Tree Court
and took this picture of Flip's old house.
You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.
