Breaking News: TV Station “Pollutes” Chicago Loop

Chicago’s downtown Loop has been undergoing a dramatic revitalization in recent years, capped by the unveiling of the lakefront Millenium Park and Frank Gehry’s towering bandshell. But the latest architectural addition to the Loop has some observers profoundly unhappy. The perpetrator is Chicago’s WLS-TV, which has constructed a 42-foot monolith that it says mimics some of the art found in Millenium Park. Alan Artner begs to differ. “[WLS’s creation] takes back the language into advertising and plays with it to pretend it, too, is art. But it’s not. It’s pollution that along with the rest of the frills added to the exterior of the building brings the sensory irritation of ABC studios in Times Square to North State Street.”