Moving a loved spot

Cancer Survivors Garden needs a fresh start

05/26/2010 10:00 PM

Editorial

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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.

Hardly the way to honor cancer survivors, we’d argue.

Those stakes, of course, are meant to hold up plaques with inspirational sayings. Most have been stolen, meaning the stakes hold up nothing. At the southern end of the garden, a nonfunctioning computer monitor is encased in a concrete box.

We raise these points because at a recent meeting of the Grant Park Advisory Council and during the first of four planning sessions about north Grant Park, more than a few residents made it crystal clear they don’t want Cancer Survivors Garden to move from its present location.

We argue that Cancer Survivors Garden, a lovely space with nice flower beds, could fit in well at many of Grant Park’s formal spaces. That the plaques have been left in a vandalized state for at least two years suggests to us that the garden needs a new start elsewhere.

Residents should starting facing up to that possibility.


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