Park has no corner on public space

A rapidly growing neighborhood in a financially strapped city needs alternative ways of building community and a richer public life.

06/02/2010

Spring was officially delivered to the West Loop in early May. It came in the form of big burlap bundles of blooming fruit trees and shrubs trundled off trucks and planted by landscapers in Adams-Sangamon Park. With each delivery, it became easier to imagine this long fenced-off lot growing into a long-promised park.
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Noting the legal notices

People like me are probably making a big mistake not going to zoning committee meetings, where the decisions get made.

05/26/2010

Ever get one of those zoning change notices from a lawyer named John George? He always sends the notice on his personal stationary, as thought he’s just some little old solo lawyer sitting in his lonely little Clark Street office slaving away for some little builder who wants to build some little building somewhere near little old you.
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Moving a loved spot

Cancer Survivors Garden needs a fresh start

05/26/2010

During a recent walk around north Grant Park, a Chicago Journal reporter came across the following scene in Cancer Survivors Garden, just east of Daley Bicentennial Plaza: a woman was using one of the stakes in the garden’s Positive Mental Attitude Walk as a brace for her exercise routine.
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The future of buses

05/26/2010

Our story this week about Chicago's proposed bus rapid transit pilot program is one of those citywide stories with a very local potential impact. One of the streets slated for bus rapid transit is Halsted, which cuts through Greektown and University Village.
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Making mixed income work

05/26/2010

The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) Plan for Transformation redevelopment called Roosevelt Square that is taking place in our community presents a unique opportunity.
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Seeing red at Buckingham Fountain

05/26/2010

Can someone tell me why Buckingham Fountain’s nighttime lighting this season is so strikingly mundane and unimpressive? Since I first became a South Michigan Ave. high-rise resident and an avid admirer of its Grant Park and lakefront dazzling views two years ago, the fountain’s dramatic multicolored, ever-changing, light shows have been a constant source of delight to me and have drawn certain “oohs and aahs” from my evening guests — until now.
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Grades for city, sunshine on the aldermen

Voters need a reliable scorecard to grade the performance of city government and a way to track the mayor and the aldermen.

05/19/2010

Less than a year from now, Chicagoans will decide whether or not to re-elect Mayor Richard M. Daley - assuming he throws his hat back in the ring one more time - and the incumbent aldermen who take another shot at city council.
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Redo the SLS working group

05/19/2010

We are writing to protest the manner in which the South Loop Working Committee members were chosen. We do not believe it was a fair or transparent process, nor did it follow the guidelines you set out in advance.
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West Loop T-shirts Threadless could sell

There is plenty of material for new Threadless T-shirt designs to be found in the West Loop

05/12/2010

Although some West Loopers were sad to see the condo development proposed for 1260 W. Madison go defunct, I don’t think we need more empty condos in our economically challenged midst. And so I was terribly excited hear that the T-shirt company Threadless wants take over the 1260 parcel.
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The forest and the trees

05/12/2010

It was unexpected. No, we weren’t expecting Ald. Burnett’s two-pronged broadside Monday at the finance committee. He demanded his constituents get access to new schools funded by tax increment financing dollars coming out of districts that overlap with his ward, and he critiqued about how the Daley administration distributes TIF dollars for “their” projects but not aldermanic ones.
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