Monkey Wards Building...

Made this photo on a recent architectural boat tour of the down town along the Chicago River. It's the old Montgomery Wards distribution building. I forget the name of the architect who designed it and the date it was built. It's old. Note the bend in the building. That's following the bend of the river. So many things here that take you back to  different time. 

This floor footage was so large that the employees filling orders wore roller skates to get around inside. And unlike business today there were many employees. Anything you ordered from that old Monkey Wards Christmas catalog came through here.  I had kind of a cosmic thing going on as I sat in that boat on the river taking a photo. I thought about the old 15 horse power Sea King my dad bought in the early 1960s. It was what we ran the East Texas Rivers with. From one river to another it came through this building to be shipped brand new to our little Wards distribution center in our home town. 

There were many buildings along the river like this. Dating back as far as the turn of the century they were impressive places where every day people worked and made America great. Most still in use and changing hands like money every decade or so. They have been chopped up inside to house many small firms employing fewer people. Brought to mind a Walmart distribution I recently passed on the highway.  It was big, flat, tin shining there in the middle of an open field. I think I could still smell the cow patties pushed out of the way to make it a place. Probably few folks working inside driving fork trucks with mounted computers filling orders as an unheard of rate. At the end of the shift they jump in cars and race away. Be nice to take a leisurely walk along a river after work with great views all around. A good way to relax.