Dragon on Ashland

I was out walking with Felix and spotted this cast stone dragon ornament on the entrance of a great apartment building on Ashland north of Pratt. There was another one on the opposite side of the entry, but it had even more electrical conduits running around it.


I had this idea for a Rogers Park booklet called, "Following Felix". I would walk through the neighborhood with Felix in his sling and take a photograph of everything that catches his attention. Ideally Felix should wear a helmet with a camera that snaps a photograph at regular intervals. Then I would work up line illustrations for as many as I could, and try to figure out what appeals to the eye of an 8 month old. There could be a huge market for this! Right? I imagine Felix would look alot like one of those Borg babies.

It's a dolphin. Sort of.

Believe it or not, this weird terracotta ornament is supposed to be a dolphin. Maybe you've see Neptune astride similar critters? I can only guess that people didn't see dolphins too often in classical times, and developed an unpleasant caricature of a dolphin in place of the actual, svelte version. The creepy, scaled version then entered the lexicon of architectural ornament.

This is from an apartment building on west side of Sheridan Road north of Greenleaf.