Lynn Becker
@cmgiulini.bsky.social
drifter/writer on architecture, culture and Chicago, photographer specializing in out-of-focus images. there will be posts on opera, apologies in advance.
Like two floundering swimmers dragging each other beneath the waves. Saks bought Neiman Marcus. Little more than a year later, Saks is veering towards bankruptcy. Will it take down both stores in Chicago? Losing even one would be a major blow to Michigan Avenue.
www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...
www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...
Saks to sell Neiman Marcus property in S.F.’s Union Square as bankruptcy fears mount
Faced with bankruptcy as a result of its acquisition of Neiman Marcus, Saks Global has sold a major property in San Francisco’s Union Square that was acquired as a result of the merger.
www.sfchronicle.com
January 3, 2026 at 12:42 AM
Like two floundering swimmers dragging each other beneath the waves. Saks bought Neiman Marcus. Little more than a year later, Saks is veering towards bankruptcy. Will it take down both stores in Chicago? Losing even one would be a major blow to Michigan Avenue.
www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...
www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...
Will be posting more pics next week, but what makes the Chicago Architectural Biennial annex at 840 North Michigan even more spectacular is seeing it within the bare-bones remainder of the razzle-dazzle build-out for the short-lived Uniqlo flagship.
chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/sites/840-n-...
chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/sites/840-n-...
January 2, 2026 at 10:33 PM
Will be posting more pics next week, but what makes the Chicago Architectural Biennial annex at 840 North Michigan even more spectacular is seeing it within the bare-bones remainder of the razzle-dazzle build-out for the short-lived Uniqlo flagship.
chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/sites/840-n-...
chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/sites/840-n-...
Vinci-Hamp's rescue of the Portland Art Museum www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/179...
An Intervention at Oregon’s Portland Art Museum Spans Two Landmarks and Mends Old Wounds
The Rothko Pavilion—designed by Vinci Hamp Architects with Hennebery Eddy Architects—positions the museum as a crossroads between art and the urban context.
www.architecturalrecord.com
January 2, 2026 at 6:20 PM
Vinci-Hamp's rescue of the Portland Art Museum www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/179...
Notice anything? Like the peak years for Chicago homicides took place under Sts. Daley I and II? Barely noticed, because it clashed with the narrative. Just like now, with crime dropping, social media trolls amp crime as a cudgel promoting their disinformation.
blockclubchicago.org/2026/01/02/c...
blockclubchicago.org/2026/01/02/c...
January 2, 2026 at 3:57 PM
Notice anything? Like the peak years for Chicago homicides took place under Sts. Daley I and II? Barely noticed, because it clashed with the narrative. Just like now, with crime dropping, social media trolls amp crime as a cudgel promoting their disinformation.
blockclubchicago.org/2026/01/02/c...
blockclubchicago.org/2026/01/02/c...
Trump has made the White House a Den of Thieves, protecting their own. His white nationalism extends to not prosecuting white collar swindlers, money launderers, drug dealers, bribe makers and takers - and pardoning them if convicted, no matter how egregious their crimes.
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Trump Administration Upends Prosecution of White-Collar Crime
The Justice Department has shifted away from several areas of enforcement while President Trump’s pardons have undone prominent convictions.
www.wsj.com
January 2, 2026 at 12:16 AM
Trump has made the White House a Den of Thieves, protecting their own. His white nationalism extends to not prosecuting white collar swindlers, money launderers, drug dealers, bribe makers and takers - and pardoning them if convicted, no matter how egregious their crimes.
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
From Chicago, Happy 2026!
January 1, 2026 at 7:21 AM
From Chicago, Happy 2026!
"Japanese tradition holds that on New Year's Eve, foxes gather at a specific tree ... On their way there, the foxes produce distinctive flames, which local farmers use to predict the harvest..."
May the flames of all you foxes point to a bountiful, saner 2026: Happy New Year!
bit.ly/3Npldoj
May the flames of all you foxes point to a bountiful, saner 2026: Happy New Year!
bit.ly/3Npldoj
December 31, 2025 at 10:30 PM
"Japanese tradition holds that on New Year's Eve, foxes gather at a specific tree ... On their way there, the foxes produce distinctive flames, which local farmers use to predict the harvest..."
May the flames of all you foxes point to a bountiful, saner 2026: Happy New Year!
bit.ly/3Npldoj
May the flames of all you foxes point to a bountiful, saner 2026: Happy New Year!
bit.ly/3Npldoj
Have a Puritan New Year! Free live audio stream of opening night of I Puritani tonight, Wednesday,from the Met: Oropesa, Brownless, Rucinski, Van Horn, Armailliato at the podium. Starting 4:55 p.m. CDT.
www.metopera.org/Season/Radio...
www.metopera.org/Season/Radio...
December 31, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Have a Puritan New Year! Free live audio stream of opening night of I Puritani tonight, Wednesday,from the Met: Oropesa, Brownless, Rucinski, Van Horn, Armailliato at the podium. Starting 4:55 p.m. CDT.
www.metopera.org/Season/Radio...
www.metopera.org/Season/Radio...
Kyle MacMillan for the Sun-Times looks at the everfresh Chicago imagists on their 60th anniversary, with Gladys Nilsson adding a mural to the Art Institute's Modern Wing just this past June.
chicago.suntimes.com/art/2025/12/...
chicago.suntimes.com/art/2025/12/...
December 30, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Kyle MacMillan for the Sun-Times looks at the everfresh Chicago imagists on their 60th anniversary, with Gladys Nilsson adding a mural to the Art Institute's Modern Wing just this past June.
chicago.suntimes.com/art/2025/12/...
chicago.suntimes.com/art/2025/12/...
Sometimes eclipsing the two dailies, Block Club Chicago has become essential to understanding what's going on in our city, and a prime example is this epic history of the Trump invasion spreading terror throughout the city this year.
blockclubchicago.org/2025/12/30/c...
blockclubchicago.org/2025/12/30/c...
Chicago Under Siege: How Operation Midway Blitz Changed Our City
Federal agents arrested thousands during an unprecedented immigration mission in Chicago. They also killed a man, shot a woman five times, tear-gassed a 1-year-old, separated families and brutalized p...
blockclubchicago.org
December 30, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Sometimes eclipsing the two dailies, Block Club Chicago has become essential to understanding what's going on in our city, and a prime example is this epic history of the Trump invasion spreading terror throughout the city this year.
blockclubchicago.org/2025/12/30/c...
blockclubchicago.org/2025/12/30/c...
Your American Health Care System, II: Private equity now owns almost 500 hospitals, cutting care, loading up on debt to pay themselves dividends. After being acquired by private equity, short-term nursing homes saw deaths increasing 11%
newrepublic.com/article/2035...
newrepublic.com/article/2035...
The Private Equity Firms That Gobble Up Hospitals and Spit Them Out
Looking to turn a quick profit, the firms buy medical facilities and then unload them just a few years later, often leaving devastation in their wake.
newrepublic.com
December 30, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Your American Health Care System, II: Private equity now owns almost 500 hospitals, cutting care, loading up on debt to pay themselves dividends. After being acquired by private equity, short-term nursing homes saw deaths increasing 11%
newrepublic.com/article/2035...
newrepublic.com/article/2035...
Your American Health Care System: Private ownership sells off hospital real estate, then rents it back at doubled rates, cuts staff, stiff vendors, reduces care, loads up on debt on road to bankruptcy.
Are we no longer capable of being shocked?
www.sfchronicle.com/projects/202...
Are we no longer capable of being shocked?
www.sfchronicle.com/projects/202...
‘This business killed my son’: A California hospital empire rises as patients suffer
Signature Healthcare Services has rapidly expanded through financial maneuvers that have imposed enormous strain on its own hospitals.
www.sfchronicle.com
December 30, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Your American Health Care System: Private ownership sells off hospital real estate, then rents it back at doubled rates, cuts staff, stiff vendors, reduces care, loads up on debt on road to bankruptcy.
Are we no longer capable of being shocked?
www.sfchronicle.com/projects/202...
Are we no longer capable of being shocked?
www.sfchronicle.com/projects/202...
Unlike most of journalism, The New York Times is highly profitable, up 26% last quarter. So of course they're treating their subscribers as suckers, raising monthly rates 20%. I cancelled the New Yorker, which I loved, years ago when they showed similar contempt.
December 30, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Unlike most of journalism, The New York Times is highly profitable, up 26% last quarter. So of course they're treating their subscribers as suckers, raising monthly rates 20%. I cancelled the New Yorker, which I loved, years ago when they showed similar contempt.
It's "best-of 2025" time, and I must comply. It's the law - I think it's a federal law. I took over 60,000 photographs this year. Selecting "the best" is nuts, so, at the link, some I liked best. There's no accounting for taste.
Click, if you dare.
arcchicago.blogspot.com/2025/12/best...
Click, if you dare.
arcchicago.blogspot.com/2025/12/best...
December 29, 2025 at 5:47 PM
It's "best-of 2025" time, and I must comply. It's the law - I think it's a federal law. I took over 60,000 photographs this year. Selecting "the best" is nuts, so, at the link, some I liked best. There's no accounting for taste.
Click, if you dare.
arcchicago.blogspot.com/2025/12/best...
Click, if you dare.
arcchicago.blogspot.com/2025/12/best...
Fire and fury, signifying nothing: Elon and his merry band of DOGE saboteurs lied through their teeth about savings. It was never about saving money; it was about ruthlessly consolidating power.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/u...
How Did DOGE Disrupt So Much While Saving So Little?
www.nytimes.com
December 29, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Fire and fury, signifying nothing: Elon and his merry band of DOGE saboteurs lied through their teeth about savings. It was never about saving money; it was about ruthlessly consolidating power.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/u...
I’m hungry. I know it appears to be a stupid thing to proclaim, but I haven’t been for the past two months.
December 28, 2025 at 11:51 PM
I’m hungry. I know it appears to be a stupid thing to proclaim, but I haven’t been for the past two months.
Madness. Saudi Arabia exhausted its ground water growing crops like alfalfa, so it banned those crops and bought farmland in the U.S. to grow alfalfa for export to Saudi Arabia. Groundwater depleting 10x replenishment rate, land sinking up to 2 inches a year.
www.latimes.com/environment/...
www.latimes.com/environment/...
Where a Saudi company pumps desert groundwater, Arizona considers imposing limits
Fondomonte, a subsidiary of a Saudi dairy company, grows hay in the Arizona desert by pumping groundwater. State officials are considering imposing regulation and limiting pumping.
www.latimes.com
December 28, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Madness. Saudi Arabia exhausted its ground water growing crops like alfalfa, so it banned those crops and bought farmland in the U.S. to grow alfalfa for export to Saudi Arabia. Groundwater depleting 10x replenishment rate, land sinking up to 2 inches a year.
www.latimes.com/environment/...
www.latimes.com/environment/...
Trib architecture critic Edward Keegan looks back on 2025 as a series of who-would-have-thoughts, including Landmarks soiling itself landmarking a junk tower, "a laughably nonsensical move by the city to help the developer tap into public subsidies."
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/28/c...
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/28/c...
Edward Keegan: This year in Chicago architecture wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card
2025 included a few head scratchers: a papal pilgrimage site in suburban Dolton and an entire wing of the White House demolished.
www.chicagotribune.com
December 28, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Trib architecture critic Edward Keegan looks back on 2025 as a series of who-would-have-thoughts, including Landmarks soiling itself landmarking a junk tower, "a laughably nonsensical move by the city to help the developer tap into public subsidies."
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/28/c...
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/28/c...
There's an entire city beyond these balconies. The fog ate it. (And now, rumblings of thunder.)
December 28, 2025 at 4:35 PM
There's an entire city beyond these balconies. The fog ate it. (And now, rumblings of thunder.)
Will law enforcement become a rolling advertisement for Elon Musk's recall-prone, hulking Cybertrucks? Musk billionaire techbro buddy donates fleet of 10 to Las Vegas police: "far bigger than just a police car. These are badass."
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
How Las Vegas police ended up with a fleet of free Tesla Cybertrucks
Mysterious donors gave a fleet of 10 of the vehicles – which have had a number of recalls – to the police earlier this year
www.theguardian.com
December 28, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Will law enforcement become a rolling advertisement for Elon Musk's recall-prone, hulking Cybertrucks? Musk billionaire techbro buddy donates fleet of 10 to Las Vegas police: "far bigger than just a police car. These are badass."
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Fascinating story on how Hitler cast Europe's churches into silence, seizing and melting down 170,000 bells for the Nazi war effort, and then the long road back post-war.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/27/a...
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/27/a...
The Nazi Plunder of Church Bells Changed the Sound of Europe
www.nytimes.com
December 28, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Fascinating story on how Hitler cast Europe's churches into silence, seizing and melting down 170,000 bells for the Nazi war effort, and then the long road back post-war.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/27/a...
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/27/a...
Sears should have been Wal-Mart - it was a retailer with global presence. It should have been Amazon - it started out as a mail-order powerhouse. Instead, obtuse management threw it into the clutches of vulture Eddie Lampert, who destroyed it.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/b...
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/b...
Why Sears’s Last Great Hope Was a Promise That Never Materialized
www.nytimes.com
December 27, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Sears should have been Wal-Mart - it was a retailer with global presence. It should have been Amazon - it started out as a mail-order powerhouse. Instead, obtuse management threw it into the clutches of vulture Eddie Lampert, who destroyed it.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/b...
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/b...
"A must-have catalogue"
artlyst.com/product/kerr...
artlyst.com/product/kerr...
Kerry James Marshall: The Histories - Artlyst Book Review - Artlyst
Kerry James Marshall: The Histories arrives as the most comprehensive publication yet on one of the defining artists of the past half-century. It offers not only a survey of Marshall’s career but a cr...
artlyst.com
December 27, 2025 at 8:42 PM
"A must-have catalogue"
artlyst.com/product/kerr...
artlyst.com/product/kerr...
By all accounts, a great retrospective of Kerry James Marshall's work. From London, it moves on to Zurich and Paris, but apparently not Chicago, his home city. There is a catalogue, though.
wapo.st/4sgCyji
wapo.st/4sgCyji
Review | To see America’s greatest living painter, you’ll have to cross the pond
A Kerry James Marshall retrospective traveling across Europe reveals the extraordinary power of his art.
wapo.st
December 27, 2025 at 8:34 PM
By all accounts, a great retrospective of Kerry James Marshall's work. From London, it moves on to Zurich and Paris, but apparently not Chicago, his home city. There is a catalogue, though.
wapo.st/4sgCyji
wapo.st/4sgCyji
Reposted by Lynn Becker
Excited to see one of the best modernist buildings in Memphis, the 1956 Rust Hall by Roy Harrover, under renovation to reopen in 2026 as the home of the National Ornamental Metal Museum!
December 26, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Excited to see one of the best modernist buildings in Memphis, the 1956 Rust Hall by Roy Harrover, under renovation to reopen in 2026 as the home of the National Ornamental Metal Museum!