The parallel lives of NATO in the South Loop
Big dangerous protests here, dinner out with friends there; a Karzai sighting and lots and lots of cops
05/20/2012 0:10 AM
So many cops around everywhere you look, it takes your breath away
Brasserie by LM on South Michigan was doing a brisk business Saturday night, while a block away a huge protest was underway surrounded by breathtaking numbers of cops
Met out of town friends tonight for dinner at Houlihan's on Wacker Drive just east of Michigan. Walked there and back from my house at Roosevelt and State. It was like going from one movie set to another. Lots of action. Lots of different kinds of action every few feet.
In front of the hotels, there are men in cheap black suits that don't fit. And they have cords around their necks. And they talk into their hands on little walkie-talkies. It's hard to hear what they're saying. But I wonder if I need a ladies' room on the way home if I will be out of luck using the trusty hotel bathrooms I'm used to at the Palmer House and the Hilton, for instance. Will these Secret Service guys let me in?
Office buildings and apartment buildings have lone security guards out on the sidewalk--and I wonder if a group of protesters--or anyone else for that matter--stormed their bastilles what they would do.
There are people having dinner out on the sidewalk along South Michigan Avenue like nothing is happening--when what's happening a block away is an almost-riot.
Some of the cops are in full blown riot gear. Some are losing their cool.
"What are you doing?" One shouted at me and my daughter as we approached an enormous police line in the street across Michigan Avenue at Van Buren.
"Just walking home," I told him.
"Look what's going on here," he shouted. "You can't walk home here."
We walked around him and we did walk home on the west side of Michigan and everything was fine.
Some cops look bored and tired. There are more around every corner. Some are hiding in cars slumped down; you don't notice them until you get real close and realize the door is open and a leg is hanging out.
There are pockets of protests breaking out all over the South Loop--according to news reports--but you can't see the protesters because the cops have them surrounded. Huge groups of police dressed in riot gear await orders on street corners. CPD Superintendent Garry McCarthy says herding protesters is like herding cats--and that because the protesters are from out of town, they don't know which way to go on the protest route so the cops explain it to them and push them in the right direction.
The police are taking breaks in the room north of the Hilton entrance, ironically. And there are many stationed across the street in the park--which brings back shades of 1968. There are barriers in front of the Hilton but everyone is walking through them. One friend I saw eating outside at Oysy shouted to me that he just saw Hamid Karzai walk by. The barriers were probably being enforced for him just before we arrived.
Mei's KItchen, which rarely has any customers anyway, is completely boarded up at 11th and Michigan. Several huge picture windows are behind the plywood, which we are getting used to from the river going south. Notes on the plywood say "Mei's kitchen is still open/Entrance is on 11th Street."
It's a fact that the downtown visiting population is way below a normal Saturday night, but at 9 PM on South Michigan Avenue you''d never know it.
When we got to Roosevelt, we walked a little out of the way to see the barriers east of Michigan Avenue preventing people from getting to the Museum Campus. There is black fencing across Roosevelt at Indiana, beyond which there are little white tents that make the whole scene look a little like a street fair or a carnival.
-Bonnie McGrath
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By Judy Marcus from Palatine
Posted: 05/20/2012 11:58 AM
Your comments are more informative than what I've heard from the local TV news media. Thanks for the first-hand reports!