While walking down North Avenue this week, I glanced up Wolcott Avenue and spotted this bleak mid-winter scene: 
So many of the new homes being built in Bucktown have either too many windows or too few. This white, nearly finished building at 1611 N. Wolcott just has oddly placed windows, which for some reason the architect paired with large orange rectangles. It's as though the developer said, "This home needs some flair!" and the architect obliged with a few dashes of color. The facade would have been uglier with only windows on the lower half, but it's still one of Chicago's ugliest. A closer look at the building's north side reveals an odd assortment of windows and reminds me of my biggest pet peeve regarding new "high-end" homes in the city: 
Too often, they seem to be constructed mainly from cinder blocks -- or "masonry," as the building permit posted on the fence surrounding the property notes. Of course, eventually there will be a building next door to hide the drabness, as this advertisement's rendering shows: 
Maybe it was the treacherous sidewalks in front of the future five dwellings, or maybe it's just that I don't like random orange dashes lining streets, but I read this sign and thought: I do not want to play, work or live in this sandbox, and I bet the neighbors across the street in old two-story brick bungalows don't want to either.