Dr. X's Free Associations

Alley Shot

While out walking the dogs, I cut through an alley and came across a window washer who scoffs at OSHA's 3-point contact rule for ladder safety.

Golden Hour

Saturday CTA

Near Edgewater,Red Line North

April 16

Bad shot, but it's what I got.

Suicide Prevention

I just noticed this sign on a transit platform. Obviously, it's about preventing suicide by train. I hadn't noticed these signs before and wondered if I just hadn't been paying attention. A google later. Nope. They're a new addition to platforms. Story.

A few snow and light shots

I snapped a few shots walking to the grocery store this evening.

More from the memory card purge

Cafe Brauer Winter 2016-17

Below: Today.

You've got to be kidding

A teenage boy with an inflated raft stood at the door to this bus, talking with the driver for a couple of minutes. I couldn't hear the conversation.

Green River

The river was dyed green yesterday for the St. Patrick's Day parade. It's still deep green.

Digging For Bones In City Cemetery

In the 1840s, what is now Lincoln Park, was the location of Chicago City Cemetery. The southernmost portion of the cemetery, where one may now find two large baseball fields (the area in the photo above), was the location of the potter's field section of the cemetery. More than 15,000 people, among them 4,000 Confederate soldiers, were buried here on the marshy land bordering Lake Michigan. Many more, with families that had a few bucks to spend, were laid to rest to the north, in marked graves and tombs. 

At some point in the 19th century, there was an attempt to relocate all of the bodies interred at the cemetery. A couple of the tombs still remain. I've heard variously that the relocation was because of city expansion, and because of bodies surfacing in the marshy land, and because of fear of disease and contamination. There was a cholera epidemic with many of the victims buried here, and Lake Michigan was and is our water supply, thankfully filtered these days.

Over the years, human bones keep turning up with alarming frequency, like every time someone does a little digging with a backhoe, so it's presumed that many bodies are still under the park to the north, and beneath the baseball fields. Today, the dog was doing some intense sniffing and mad digging all over the ball fields, which inspired me to shoot this photo and tell the story of the hidden cemetery.