Okay friends, we’re getting on an airplane soon, and staying on it for 142 hours, or something ridiculous like that. I’m going to miss a lot, but won’t be left in the dark, if you’ll be the Eyes of the Blog for the rest of October or so.

Here are a few things to watch for:

• There’s a tower-crane stub planted at The Van Buren. **The tower crane is going up today, I’m told! (Weather permitting, of course.)   And Hayden West Loop looks like it could get one at any time. Those are within a couple blocks of each other. They could be assembling tower cranes any day now.
• A few other projects have permits, but no stubs. 3833 North Broadway and the Home2 Suites hotel at 110 West Huron are in the throes of foundation work. The Bentham, at 146 West Erie, has a permit, but demolition has just wrapped up, so we’ll have to wait a while for any signs of a crane there.
• Wolf Point East foundation work is still ongoing, and spectacular to watch. Plus that trestle bridge. It’s going to get a tower crane permit soon, but I can watch for that remotely. Likewise, GEMS World Academy Upper School is in the midst of caisson work but it should be receiving a tower crane permit too.
• Foundation work should start up very soon at 61 East Banks. That’s a 60-unit apartment building designed by Booth Hansen for Draper & Kramer. And it will require a tower crane in the future.
• Renelle On The River could be in full-fledged construction mode soon, if it isn’t already. I haven’t been by in a good while. Site prep might be done. It too will get a tower crane eventually.
• Demolition may have already started on 56 West Huron. Then site prep and construction will begin for…56 West Huron.
• I should stop trying to guess when tower cranes are going to be taken down. But I will anyway: Eleven40 started coming down this week; No. 9 Walton *has* to come down some day soon; McDonald’s Headquarters has dropped one crane, and the second should be soon; The Simpson Querrey Biomedical Research Center has a permit for a derrick that will remove its 2 tower cranes, but the first one isn’t likely to come down until I’m back in town.

Of course, you can take voluminous photos of everything going on in Chicago’s construction boom and send them my way, if you’d like. It is, after all, about keeping everyone informed and entertained.