Friday, June 4, 2010
Politics / Clout City / News Frustrated in Washington Park
Posted by Mick Dumke on 06.04.10 at 08:20 PM
I heard a Washington Park resident express frustration with the condition of his south side neighborhood minutes after I stepped off the train there Thursday evening.
The block at the southwest corner of Garfield and King is dominated by empty lots with knee-high weeds, and as I walked toward it from the nearby Green Line station a couple groups of young men were milling in them. A man was carrying groceries up the front steps of the one home that still stands on the half-block facing King Drive. When he got to his front door he paused a moment and watched cars slow down to veer around a sinkhole in the street. Someone had laid a bus stop sign over it, pole and support base and all, in an apparent attempt to warn drivers.
- The sinkhole in King Drive
The park that gives the neighborhood its name is across the street. A park employee taking a break saw the man and shouted something while pointing at the sinkhole. The guy on the porch set his groceries down and hollered back that he'd contacted the office of Fourth Ward alderman Toni Preckwinkle about it.
"The woman I talked to said they called it in," he said. "They just can't get the streets people down here to fix it."
They shook their heads. I proceeded into the park field house for the community policing meeting for beat 234, where for the next hour other residents went over a long list of concerns about crime, crumbling infrastructure, and the lackluster response they said they were getting from elected officials and the city government.
It's the time of year when Chicagoans have come to expect a spike in violent crime to accompany warmer weather, and beat 234 has had its troubles. One of the officers leading the meeting Thursday noted that someone had been shot and killed in the park a couple weeks ago. She said police were still investigating.
"It's very unfortunate but we're working through it," she said.
None of the dozen residents at the meeting asked any questions about the incident. Instead, they moved on to the other things that were troubling them: men drinking in the park all day, drug dealers and drinkers loitering in a vacant lot on 55th Place, prostitutes working on Prairie.
I've noticed this before at CAPS meetings in areas recently hit by shootings: people alarmed by the violence but far more anxious about the day to day things that make them feel they don't have control of the neighborhood. I don't want to overgeneralize and I certainly wouldn't suggest that the shootings don't matter to those who live near them (not to mention the victims and their families). Yet it's clear that lots of people view violence as the result or companion of wider dysfunction and neglect, and that maybe they can do more about the dysfunction and neglect than the violence.
For example, a few days after a pair of shootings in Auburn-Gresham, residents at the beat meeting spent much of their time discussing how to deal with rowdy parties thrown in the street and in abandoned buildings by neighborhood teens whose parents were never around. In a Garfield Park beat where police made dozens of battery, assault, and armed robbery arrests last month, I recently heard an exasperated woman tell police that every time she called 911 about the guys dealing drugs in her front yard they scattered before the cops arrived. It was evident that they were tuning in to a police scanner.
One of the big concerns at the meeting Thursday was a drug market in an alley off Calumet where dealers have been pretending to work on their cars.
"There's a steady stream of traffic there all day," said a woman who lives nearby.
"And none of them are getting their cars worked on?" said one of the cops present, a tactical officer in a bulletproof vest.
"That's right," said the woman. "I don't know what they're selling but the word is out. I mean, they get to work every morning by ten."
The police said they'd check it out. They went on to suggest that residents contact their alderman for help determining who owns the problem vacant lots. If they could get the names of the owners they might be able to hold them accountable—in court, if necessary—for not maintaining the property.
Several of the residents said they'd contacted the office of 20th Ward alderman Willie Cochran, who represents most of the neighborhood, but hadn't gotten any help.
"I never see the alderman," said a woman in the front of the room.
"He should be here or at least send a representative," said another.
"We elected him to do something for us," growled a man in the back. "We'll get him out of there if we have to. Look at the neighborhood—he hasn't done anything."
It was a harsh charge, but no one in the room disputed it.
I left a message for Cochran on Friday. He didn't get back to me.
Comments (33)
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Here are some videos I took around the area a while back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvzEvBYcBjE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9nMb4M4-Oo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36fG_JWWubc
like
dislike
Washington Park only mattered when Daley wanted the Olympics. If that sinkhole were on Daley's South Loop street or in Bridgeport and it would be fixed within an hour.
Cocharan is giving you the response the mayor gave you when requesting an interview : fuck you.
You should be used to it by now.
Welcome back, Oreo. I see you haven't become any brighter or classier in your time away.
In defense of the city, it has rained a lot lately and there appears to be sinkholes all over the place. On the other hand, I would bet that most of the vacant lots around there went tax delinquent a long time ago and are owned by the city, so the cops are playing dumb or actually are dumb. Concerned citizens can go to the Cook County Recorder of Deeds and get a definitive answer.
FGFM
I live in East Garfield and have experienced first hand the geographic inequity of city services. I followed the links from your Reader comment and watched. All three were a waste of time.
I know what a vacant lot looks like. I know the Olympic bid failed. I know Washington Park is fucked up. Random speculation and finger pointing does nothing to help.
Do some research or quit wasting bandwidth.
tcorourke, look at this from my point of view. When he is wasting bandwidth on his silly little videos that make no sense to anyone but himself, at least he's occupying his time with something. God knows he's not capable of holding down any type of a job.
"God knows he's not capable of holding down any type of a job."
Guess that's why I got up at 5:30 today. And tcorourke, I deeply enjoyed this video contribution of yours.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIVpp01RGs4
And needless to say, with all the problems around there, this is the guy who gets the TIF money.
http://www.chicagorealestatedaily.com/cgi-…
McKinsey vet seeks TIF to get project cookin’
By Andrew Schroedter, Nov. 05, 2009
(Crain’s) — A former McKinsey & Co. partner who worked with food industry clients hopes to land a $3-million city subsidy for his plan to provide better restaurants and produce in the Bronzeville neighborhood.
Bernard Loyd — whose five MIT degrees include a doctorate in aerospace engineering — quit his job six years ago at the consulting powerhouse to pursue his dream of a commercial development in Bronzeville. He wants to convert a vacant building into a produce market and restaurants serving American soul food along with African and Caribbean cuisine.
The project, called Bronzeville Cookin’, would occupy a 17,000-square-foot building he owns at 300-314 E. 51st St., about a block west of Washington Park. Mr. Loyd, a Bronzeville resident who grew up in Germany and Liberia, has lined up four restaurant tenants and is looking for someone to run the produce market.
Guess that's why I got up at 5:30 today.- FGFM
The only reason you ever get up at 5:30am is to get to the bathroom. You haven't worked in many years which is why you spend your days trolling the Internet. The good news is that your medication that you won't take not only can help with your paranoia, it can also help with those grandiose delusions.
"You haven't worked in many years which is why you spend your days trolling the Internet."
I don't see why working and supposed trolling are mutual exclusive, but do you have anything to say about Uptown Update tossing a link to a racist article by someone who refers to gays as "fudgepackers" down the memory hole?
http://www.uptownupdate.com/2010/06/apolog…
Even as a little 5 year old spoiled brat, you tried to get out of spankings by telling me Johnny next door behaved far worse than you did. It's this escaping accountability for your own childish behavior that makes it so difficult for you to hold down any type of a job. For God's sakes, they fired you for being the ticket taker at the Davis Theatre because you argued with the patrons over the choice of movies they saw.
"It's this escaping accountability for your own childish behavior that makes it so difficult for you to hold down any type of a job."
I think you have me confused with Richard Thale.
So FGFM is claiming the Uptown Update website is racist?
This coming from a guy who celebrates the life of a racist, genocidal dictator by using his photo as an avatar?
Yeah, that really stings.
*As your favorite President used to say, "There you go again!"*
I've never voted GOP in a national election.
*This coming from a guy who celebrates the life of a racist, genocidal dictator by using his photo as an avatar?*
Nobody's perfect.
Son, you were an out Republican and now you're just a closet Republican. You're still a goddamn Republican. I wish the hell you'd take down that taped photo of Reagan above your bed.
"Son, you were an out Republican and now you're just a closet Republican. "
See you at the Organization of the North East convention tonight.
Well, God knows I'd live in a better neighborhood if I didn't have to support you. I wish there was a pill my son could take for his bad attitude.
Well Mr. Bad Attitude. I hope you can make your child support payments this month. If that don't beat all that a mother gives her son money so that he can make his child support payments.
Well then stop whining that you need my money to make your child support payments. Sweet Jesus!
What's with no photo now? Are you hiding from the FBI again? Well you can't stay at our house this time. Your father won't have it and we changed the locks.
It’s either paranoia or obsession. Mommy dearest thinks it’s a little of both. Either way, you're one screwed up dude and Mommy dearest blames herself for her avoidance of wire hangers when she got pregnant.
James, why did the Reader take down that picture of your deadbeat partner Richard Thale that I was using if you or someone associated with you didn't complain about it?
There is medication for the paranoia. Really. Who knows, if you start taking your meds, you may be able to get a job again, providing you deal with that bad attitude of yours.
Sounds like the Reader can pick up on weirdos. I think you've become such a mess that no one really cares whose picture you use. Is there anyone reading your crap who doesn't know you're some whack job with no life?
Never mind dangerous sinkholes on the south side, good news is here from today's (6/10) tribune (chicago breaking news):
"The city will provide as much as $488,844 in tax increment financing assistance to the Lyric Opera of Chicago....(to)restore the deteriorated ornamental doors and storefront windows.....visible to thousands of rail commuters who walk to the nearby Ogilvie Transportation Center."
Half million $$$ in TIF money to fix the blighted Civic Opera House doors. How nice for the commuters and North Shore opera-goers. Fix a sinkhole on the south side? Sorry, no money for that. Not important. Thank you, honorable mayor, Richard "Mr. TIF" Daley!
I can top that.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-06…
On Tuesday, the city's Community Development Commission approved $2.3 million in tax increment financing funds to subsidize renovations to the offices of Nico Holdings LLC, a proprietary trading firm in the Loop, and for recruitment and job-training expenses. The project has to be approved by the City Council before it's finalized.
Without the money, Nico Holdings would have relocated to the suburbs instead of leasing a full floor at 222 W. Adams St., which is more than double its space at 311 S. Wacker Drive, according to a report by the Department of Community Development. Nico did not return calls for comment...
For instance, in 2007, when Infinium Capital Management LLC threatened to leave, the city offered $1.4 million in tax increment financing to help pay for the firm's relocation from the Chicago Board of Trade building to 600 W. Chicago Ave.
In October 2009 the city pledged $15 million in TIF assistance to Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. for renovations to the Chicago Board of Trade building. In exchange, CME committed to retaining 1,750 full-time positions and creating at least 683 jobs in the city over the next 10 years...
The Department of Community Development said that without the money CME wouldn't have been able to raise its bid for the Chicago Board of Trade against Atlanta-based IntercontinentalExchange, which would have moved the headquarters and many CBOT jobs to Atlanta.
---
Of course, that CME/CBOT merger actually took place in 2006.
