Mr. Sullivan, thank you for your gifts.

Walking around today on this, Louis Sullivan’s 150th birthday.

I ducked into his

to say hello.

Carson’s department store entrance looks like the entryway to a modern middle ages cathedral, doesn’t it?

The light through those quatrefoil shaped windows above, changed my mood.
Took me on a trip, at least to France, if not beyond.
Like the German expression, I felt as comfortable “as G-d in France!”

I looked through the glass and felt the generations of urbanistic thought filtered through one artist – Louis Sullivan. His French ancestry came through, as did the nature-based spirit of his contemporaries from Transcendentalist New England.

Blues and yellows penetrated the glass,
the ornament was alive and curved sinuously, like

Jane Avril dancing at the Moulin Rouge

I danced, back outside, to State Street.
Chicago in the late summer air
but only along Louis Sullivan’s building,

felt very Parisian. State Street, ‘Boulevard de l’Etat’.

A street musician blew jazz into the air.
The notes swirled around Louis’ facade.

I gave him a dollar, and asked him to play ‘Happy Birthday.’

-Edoardo