Cabrini's Illuminated Fall

On March 30, the wrecking ball swings into the building at 1230 N. Burling St., the last of Cabrini-Green's high rises.

Built between 1942 and 1962, Cabrini became the poster child for failed public housing. It was an anti-oasis, a 70-acre patch of 15,000 poor, black residents bordering but segregated from Chicago's richest neighborhoods in the Gold Coast and Lincoln Park. Cabrini's collapse into drugs, gangs and violence made it infamous - as did the 1970s TV show Good Times, in which the opening credits play over the blighted landscape.

Developers have been demolishing Cabrini bit by bit since the late 1990s, moving residents to mixed-income housing across the city and suburbs. The building on Burling is the last to go. You can watch the event in real time at Project Cabrini Green. The Museum of Contemporary Art and several youth-oriented Cabrini nonprofit groups have turned the demolition site into a lighted artwork that will have a beautiful demise.

Chiclone Remnants

The great 'Chicago Cyclone' blew through yesterday, making the Windy City windier than usual. You probably heard the hype:

•    The storm's barometric pressure was equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane
•    60 mph winds in the city, 20-foot waves on Lake Michigan
•    More ferocious than the storm that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975 (admit it: you're humming the Gordon Lightfoot tune right now)
•    Gusty enough to close the Willis Tower (nee Sears Tower) 103rd floor observatory 

That's all nice in theory, but here's how it hit home - literally. An inventory of what the gales of October dropped in my yard:

•    Eureka vacuum cleaner (box only)
•    Neighbor's roses
•    Orange ball
•    White cat (who wouldn't sit for the portrait)

Crown Fountain's Faces

The city has flipped the switch and turned on the water at Crown Fountain, as it does every year around this time. Gotta hand it to the Crown family, who funded Jaume Plensa's Millennium Park waterwork. They didn't even giggle when he mentioned gothic architecture, sports stadiums and dental equipment in the same breath.

The fountain's two screens are sporty Jumbotrons, and they flash a thousand different faces. The people shown are all native Chicagoans, and they agreed to strap into Plensa's special dental chair, where he immobilized their heads for filming. Each mug puckers up and spurts water, just like the gargoyles atop Notre Dame Cathedral. A fresh set of non-puckering faces appears in winter, when the fountain is dry.

Roosting at the Rookery

The Rookery Building (209 S. LaSalle St.) is landmark that makes architecture buffs all weak-kneed. Burnham and Root built it in 1888, and Frank Lloyd Wright remodeled the atrium 19 years later. Its magic is that while it looks like an imposing fortress on the outside, its interior is just the opposite – as bright and airy as a spring daisy.

The building inherited its name from the previous structure on-site, which was a favorite of roosting pigeons. The architects incorporated the bird motif. Check out the crows carved into the arched front entrance.

Learn more about it on the Chicago Architecture Foundation's tour today at 12:15pm. Actually, CAF runs sweet 45-minute tours every Monday through Thursday at lunchtime, which provide access into famous buildings' nooks and crannies you wouldn't get if you strolled in on your own. The price is a mere $5.

Cardinal George's Crib

Poor Cardinal Francis George. He should be eating cake, celebrating his 12th anniversary as Chicago's Archbishop (Pope John Paul II appointed him on April 8, 1997). Instead, George is fending off bad press from the Notre Dame debacle, when he said President Obama should be banned from giving the university's commencement address due to his unholy views on abortion.

Ah well. George can always lay low in his mansion 'til things cool down. A sweet perk of being the 'Bish is living in the $15 million, Church-owned abode at 1555 N. State Pkwy. The house is famed for its chimneys. There are 19 of them, which makes Christmas-time stocking-hanging a real chore.

George considered selling his crib a few years back, saying it was more than a humble servant of God needed. But jeez, if he sold, how would he entertain? Everyone from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Pope John Paul has crashed here over the years. And they're not going to like moving down the road to the Comfort Inn.

If You Don't Swing, Don't Ring

Hugh Hefner just put his Los Angeles home next to the Playboy Mansion on sale for $28 million. The two-story, 7300-sq-ft, English Manor-style pad has 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, and a butler's pantry. That's tiny compared to the Mansion itself, which is 22,000 sq ft with 29 rooms and an onsite zoo.

Remember, though, that the whole "Playboy Mansion" thing started right here in Chicago. The First Playboy Mansion, as it's known, was a 70-room colossus at 1340 N. State St. A brass plate hung over the door warning "If You Don't Swing, Don't Ring.”

Hef not only lived and partied here, but published Playboy magazine here. That's how the whole jammie-wearing thing came about. Hef was working around the clock from home, so he just quit bothering to get dressed.

By the mid 70s, Chicago had gotten too square for Hef, so he split for L.A. He donated the Chicago mansion to the Art Institute. It was a dorm for students until 1993. Then developers carved it into $3 million condos.