This park's world class
Park No. 542 gives us reasons to smile.
10/08/2009
In 1999, I was living in Lake View, making $15,000 a year managing the Victory Gardens Theater and working part-time at Michael Reese Hospital to pay the bills. It was around that time that the idea of a park in the West Loop formed. Read more...
Remember Leon
One View
09/30/2009
On September 23, nearly 100 people gathered at the Glessner House Museum on South Prairie Avenue for a program called Leon Despres: A Celebration of His Life. Co-sponsored by the Glessner House, Landmarks Illinois and the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the event brought together a distinguished group of panelists who spoke of Despres’ enormous contributions to Chicago during his twenty years as alderman of the 5th Ward. Read more...
Make no small obsession
09/23/2009
OK, I admit it. I am totally obsessed with Daniel Burnham. If you live in Chicago in 2009, how can you not be? The Plan of Chicago’s 100th anniversary has a way of drawing even the most blasé no-interest-in-history-or-city-planning types into the life of the man who made no small plans. Read More...
Two white elephants
09/16/2009
In may be a shock to learn that an important part of the western edge of the Loop is officially considered blighted. That precise definition, however, is the legally required justification for the Canal/Congress Tax Increment District. Read more...
Surrounded by clout
09/09/2009
Clout controversy surrounds me.
The University of Illinois, where I work, and Whitney Young Magnet High
School, where I serve on the local school council, are both being
investigated internally and by federal authorities for the part clout
may have played in their admissions practices. It is not my role with
either institution to assess admissions procedures, but I do have an
opinion.
Read more...
The photos of our lives
08/26/2009
Two bulldogs in front of a garage on 8th Street. A dim-lit swimming pool in green surrounded by red brick. A bird’s-eye view slice of Printers Row from a nearby rooftop. These were the winning images in the annual South Loop Neighbors photo contest, as announced last Friday at a well-attended reception at Chicago Community Bank. Read More...
News and notes
08/05/2009
August, traditionally marked by stultifying heat and a generalized slow-down in news and public affairs, promises to be neither this year. Here’s a few stories I’ll be following, and other recent news and notes. Read More...
The students, they just keep coming
07/29/2009
When a lot of my friends started getting a little concerned recently about another new dorm in the neighborhood, I simply tsk-tsked. Read more...
Recovering river needs protection
One View
07/22/2009
The "Great Coyote Hunt" series (Chicago Journal, July 2 and July 9) was a wonderful reminder of the natural legacy of the Chicago region. The much maligned coyote living along the river at the South Branch meander site reminded me of the Chicago River itself - a critical part of our natural landscape that was mistreated for over a century that is starting to recover. Read more...
Hey, buyer. Beware!
07/08/2009
I was set to close on a condo in the West Loop at the end of May. It was to be an upgrade with an extra bedroom, some green space and an end to the guilt that by renting I was “throwing money into a bottomless pit.” Things started out nice enough. When we left the showing, Read more...