The greatest intersection in the world: 58th Street and Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago

The excellent 57th Street Books.
on, er, 57th Street

The University of Chicago gave the world the atomic bomb and Milton Friedman. Its peacefully isolated campus in Hyde Park also contains what must be one of the world's most aesthetically elevating intersections, that of 58th Street and Woodlawn Avenue, whose northeast corner is home to Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, and whose southwest corner houses the Museum of the Oriental Institute.

Robie House, 1908-1910, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Wright was one of the twentieth century's great architects, maybe the greatest, and the Oriental Institute houses one of the world's best collections of Near and Middle Eastern antiquities. And it doesn't just show the treasures, it excavated many of them.  On top of all this dizzying cultural wealth at 58th and Woodlawn, you can get a terrific pizza just two blocks away. What intersection in what city can match all this?

(Photos by your humble blogkeeper, who will now get some sleep because he has museums to visit tomorrow.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

Detail from the decoration at the palace
 of Sargon II of Assyria

Hand-wringing Mesopotamian priest.