Day 124 HOLY TRINITY/OCMC AND THE HUNT CONTINUES

HOLY TRINITY ORTHODOX CHURCH

Pleep said we needed to go en masse and pray for guidance to make certain the right condo is located and time to do a little OCMC work. He told Alex to pray extra hard so he would have a great place to stay in the future.


Founded in 1892, Holy Trinity Cathedral is home to the oldest Orthodox parish in Chicago. This beautiful church was designed by the famous American architect, Louis Sullivan. It was consecrated by St. Tikhon of Moscow in 1903 and built under the leadership of St. John Kochurov of Chicago, who was martyred in the Bolshevik Revolution.

Located in the heart of Chicago’s historic Ukrainian Village-Wicker Park neighborhood, Holy Trinity has been a vital part of the community for more than a century. It’s an official City of Chicago Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, it’s the center of religious life for hundreds of Orthodox faithful and their families.

We enjoyed the wonderful service officiated by Father John and the warm welcome by the parishioners. Keith points out Holy Trinity is a supporter of the OMCC Group mission work. We look forward to meeting with Father John again this week.




THE HUNT CONTINUES

Pleep did a bit of research on Streeterville and uncovered interesting stuff. Streeterville is a neighborhood in the Near North Side community area of north of the Chicago River. It is bounded by the river on the south, the Magnificent Mile portion of Michigan Avenue on the west, and Lake Michigan on the north and east. Thus, it can be described as the Magnificent Mile plus all land east of it.

The original maps of the city of Chicago show that Lake Michigan once came ashore near what is now Michigan Avenue north of the Chicago River. In 1834, a 1,500-foot pier was built where the mouth of the river once was. Silt and sand accumulated north of this pier, creating usable land that was later nicknamed "The Sands". Squatters and a vice district encroached on the district causing angst among the property owners. In 1857, Chicago Mayor John Wentworth evicted these trespassers from the land. In the late 1880s, George Streeter began his efforts to steal shoreline land from its rightful owners. He persisted in these efforts for decades, lying, stealing, forging and killing in his scheming. (This tradition continues today; just check out the sweet deal our Prez got on his house.)

Streeter claimed that his boat hit a sandbar just off the Chicago shoreline during a storm. Then he and his wife made the stranded boat their new home. Meanwhile, landfill dumped in an effort to create land on which to build Lake Shore Drive by the Lincoln Park Board created 186 acres of new land along the lake front, which Streeter attempted to claim.

Streeter clearly lied about his discovery of the "District of Lake Michigan". A storm did not smash Streeter's ship into a sandbar on the night of July 10, 1886. Weather reports for that night make no mention of a storm. Streeter did not really believe that he could fill in the shoreline and legally claim the new land; a witness in Streeter's 1902 land fraud trial testified that Streeter had purposely set out to contest the claims of the wealthy shoreline owners. Contractor Hank Brusser told the court that Streeter asked him to fill in portions of the shoreline in order to create confusion over land titles. According to Brusser, Streeter said that: "They (the owners of the shoreline) will have to buy us off" and that "We'll get a million out of it". The local press became enamored with the story of Streeter's brash personality and his self-proclaimed district. Mayor William Hale Thompson tried to evict the Streeters for selling liquor,and after several eviction attempts and gun battles, Streeter landed in jail. In 1918, the courts invalidated his claim of sovereignty.

Today, the district is home to some of the most expensive real estate in Chicago. Pleep thinks he would fit right in as he is a very expensive monkey. He really liked the exercise rooms and rooftop party spaces. He started partying with these boys and we had to pull him out before he convinced them Alex would be a good neighbor.


Another unique feature in one unit was this very unusual Japanese toilet. This is the latest generation of Japanese toilets -- super-high-tech sit-down models with a control panel that looks like the cockpit of a plane. The toilets basically look like a standard American model, except for the control pad, which sometimes comes with a digital clock to tell you how long you have been in the bathroom. Some of the buttons control the temperature of the water squirted onto your backside. The bottom-washer function, combined with the bottom blow-dryer, is designed to do away with the need for toilet tissue. Other buttons automatically open and close the lid; the button for men lifts lid and seat; the button for women lifts the lid only. Some toilets even have a hand-held remote control: a clicker for the loo.

Many people say once you get used to these toilets -- which cost $2,000 to $4,000 -- it's hard to do without them, especially the automatic seat warmer. Pleep thinks it would be interesting to see how house guests would react to using it. He was still baffled by the colorful array of buttons on the complicated keypad on the toilet. So he just started pushing.

He hit the noisemaker button that makes a flushing sound to mask any noise you might be making in the john. He hit the button that starts the blow-dryer for your bottom. Then he hit the bidet button and watched helplessly as a little plastic arm, sort of a squirt gun shaped like a toothbrush, appeared from the back of the bowl and began shooting a stream of warm water across the room and onto the mirror.

And that's how Boca ended up frantically wiping down a bathroom with a wad of toilet paper. Pleep was sorry for the miscue but he thinks the automatic seat warmer would be very nice in the cold Chicago winters for keeping his monkey but nice and toasty.