We came across this Paris-style Metra entrance in Chicago the other day. It is based on the famous Art Nouveau Metro entrances by Hector Guimard. The entrance to the Van Buren station was given to Chicago by the city of Paris in 2001. The cast iron entrance was taken from the original molds.

Here is the original in Paris (photo by adfoto), which was introduced to Paris in the early 1900s.

There is also one in Montreal. I wonder if there are any anywhere else.

There’s a new eyeball in town, and it’s three stories tall! The art installation by Tony Tasset can be found at Pritzker Park at State and Van Buren in Chicago, from July through October 2010. It is called Eye and Cardinal.

It’s a bit creepy, if you ask me. Looks like a giant got his eye poked out by the spikes on Sears Tower Willis Tower.

The Cardinal-part of Eye and Cardinal is in the form of 156 vinyl banners on State Street. The banners have flying Northern Cardinals on them, the state bird of Illinois.

The three-story eyeball sculpture is part of the Chicago Loop Alliance art collection. For more information see Chicago Loop Alliance.

Today we went down to Chicago again to see more of the filming of Transformers 3. This time we saw a huge action scene with explosions, lots of gunfire and a bus and cars flying in the air. We also got good looks at Shia LaBeouf, Michael Bay, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson. Today’s action took place on E Wacker Drive between State and Wabash. We had a great place to stand across the river from the action, where hundreds of people had lined up to see some of the movie magic.

Some impressive set pieces as if they had fallen off the building

Note the damaged awning and the destroyed news stand

Tyrese Gibson

Josh Duhamel, who was limping around the set today after injuring himself yesterday

Here’s a video (from someone else) of the action scene we saw:

After the explosions there was a huge fire and a fire truck came immediately to put it out.

You can see director Michael Bay in the background here directing the soldiers.

We saw Shia LaBeouf from pretty close this time, but only got pictures from the back

Optimus Prime was parked in an alley

Under protest from the crowd workers cover up Optimus Prime to keep him shiny