The lore of Library Tower's park

In the end, there are a number of winners. And the only thing lost was a little parking.

10/28/2009 10:00 PM

BONNIE McGRATH

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A rendering of the original design for Library Tower

A lot of people might be wondering why the residents of Library Tower are giving up that convenient guest parking lot they had at State and Harrison in favor of yet — yawn — another one of those under-used landscaped parks with paving bricks and shrubs that seem to be springing up across the South Loop.

I can just hear people sighing as they walk past, thinking about how parking at that corner is at a premium. Why would they give up those much-needed spaces, forcing guests to pay into the new parking meter system that drives everyone mad?

But I know what this new park actually represents in neighborhood history.

Here’s the story. When people moved to the Peterson Lofts and the Mergenthaler Building on Plymouth south of Congress years ago, many new buyers were promised that adjacent to the alley in back of their building a beautiful city park would someday emerge. So if you were inclined to buy a unit in the back of the building, facing east over the alley, you would ultimately be quite in luck.

Lo and behold, the years passed, and the park was never built because the city said it really had no money for one. They said they even had to sell the land to a developer. And sold it they did, to a developer who wanted to put up a tall thin white glassy high-rise exactly where the park would have been.

This change of plans had neighbors up in arms.

Those whose units backed up onto the lot either sold their units immediately or put up the fight of their lives. Even those with units that didn’t face the alley were upset, fearing that if some of their building’s units dropped in value, so would theirs.

Some people in the neighborhood — like me — were upset to see their neighbors betrayed by the city.

For a brief time, there was a glimmer of hope when the same developers who put up the University Center across the street toyed with the idea of buying the land themselves and building a low-rise full service community/university sports center on the site to match. That wasn’t meant to be.

After much consternation and meetings — not to mention some of the craziest antics ever displayed by our former alderman — the developers finally consented to build a shorter, squatter, red brick building to better match the character of the neighborhood. They agreed to install a small park on the south side of the property as well. No one was thrilled but no one was quite as upset. And after a time, up came the Library Tower that we know today.

Recently, on the South Loop Neighbors loft walk, a number of us visited a few empty units for sale in Library Tower. Loft walkers were delighted to see a variety of looks and layouts instead of cookie cutter spreads. One South Loop Neighbors board member also has a fabulous three-bedroom corner unit in the building, which faces the Harold Washington Library owls, and we love to have our board meetings at his house.

One of the most delightful moments on the loft walk was a visit to one of the Peterson Lofts units that, due to construction of Library Tower, had been due to lose its “light and air,” as they used to say. Instead, this unit’s windows seemed wonderfully flooded by daylight slicing and traveling between the buildings, reflecting off the red brick back of Library Tower and the back of the Peterson Lofts to form a magnificent shadow box effect within the unit.

So the ending of this harrowing piece of neighborhood lore is that the promised compromise pocket park is finally there, and no one I know seems to be up in arms suffocating in their alley-facing units.

But now, there is no more asphalt at the northwest corner of State and Harrison. And although the new green space doesn’t exactly look like it was inspired by something you’d find in Architectural Digest, there is a little park that warms one’s heart because it was fought for by people who felt they’d lost control, had been double-crossed.

In the end, there are a number of winners. And the only thing lost was a little parking.


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