The Blog

It don't look too good for the future of yet ANOTHER fine example of vintage Chicago architecture, 'cause we all KNOW what a 'no comment' from an alderman means, namely, "I, your alderman, am gonna ignore what you, my constituents, want, and do whatever my real boss, da mayor, tells me to do", which, of course, will be to give the 'money-man' what he paid for, namely, whatever the fuck he wants. In this case, it's 'permission' to make a shitload of moola from destroying this fine city's architectural heritage. Let's hope that, when these greedy fuckers die, they won't get a fraction of the respect that the buildings they've 'allowed' to be killed had.

When will we learn? We take trips to Europe and marvel at the architecture and character of the cities. At home, we build strip malls, 4+1s and concrete monstrousities where once there were places of inspiration. When did greed take over anyway? I don't see that greed was the main motivator back when these buildings were constructed. People back then were trying to prove that the US was no hicksville and could compete on the world stage. Somewhere along the line, greed seems to have taken over.

It took over when we citizens resigned ourselves to be controlled by a one party, default dictatorship, when we all chose to do nothing to prevent our individual ward representatives, our aldermen and alderwomen, from surrendering their inherent control over the mayor's office, when we all decided to give up on using the power of our votes to demand and require our elected representatives to represent OUR interests and WILL, by voting out those who fail or refuse to do so. In a phrase, it began when we all chose to live our lives as 'sheeple', 'two-legged rabbits' and frightened or apathetic 'little mice', instead of as the free human beings we all 'think' and 'claim' that we are. HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT.

Gee, Reilly didn't take a position on the demolition? Before he was even alderman and before there had been even a single neighborhood meeting regarding the proposed demolition? Before there was an alternative plan presented that would not only preserve the building from the wrecking ball, but also make good use of the building? That's shocking and appalling. What Chicago really needs is Aldermen who grandstand on issues, a City Council that makes decisions without all of the facts, and unplanned development. Jeez, I miss Burt Natarus.

Let's see if we can get our 'new' alderman, Brendan Reilly's attention, by showing up and voicing our objections to this impending travesty. "Gold Coast residents and activists from Preservation Chicago are fighting to save the building (they'll hold a rally at 850 N. Lake Shore Drive Sunday, June 3, at 1 PM.)" Will Brendan show up? Will he truly listen or just pretend to? Is he any different from his machine hack predecessor? Here's his chance to show us who and what he is. Do we dare to hope for proof that he's an honest man? Who places a higher value on our architectural heritage than on crass financial gain? Who has the wisdom and balls to say no to the big money? Who can prove he is worthy of keeping his job, come next election? Take a deep breath, Brendan, and understand that, if you get this one right, you will greatly improve your chances of keeping your job.

Brendan Reily did not win because he is so great or the great campaign he ran or that he is buddies with Rich Miller the blog man or patsy for Speaker Madigan. He won because Burt Natarus was so awful. It was an anti Burt Natarus vote. Reily has a lot of maturing to do and has a lot of questionable associates. He is arrogant and needs to grow up. He is not different, has no real ideas, and is beholden to certain business interests.

So, then his actions in this situation will show us who he is and be even more indicative of whether or not he is as awful as 'Burt the Skirt' Nasty-anus...... Maybe a large turn-out at this rally will take some of the 'puff-and-blow' out of Brendan, put him on notice that this ain't a ward of pussified sheeple. Let's show up in big numbers and make some noise, and see if Brendan shows up at all.

Since Northwestern University is the current owner, pending the completion of the sale, why doesn't this article bring up the question of Northwestern's civic responsibilities to not sell this historic building to a tear-down 'developer'? Or the question of whether or not Northwestern actively prevented the building from being granted full Landmark status in the past? And, if so, what part did Natarus play in blocking full Landmark designation? Sounds like Northwestern University is as much to blame for the impending loss of this true Landmark, as the developer is. I wonder how much money changed hands, between Burton and Northwestern officials, to prevent an obvious Landmark from being designated as such.

I see the great "censorship fairy" appeared overnight to purge the board. Glad to see this site is finally moderated.

Apparently not, as orion's still contributing his/her typical, 1 to 3 sentence throw-away 'comments'. At least he/she keeps them short, if consistently stupid.

Hey, get a room you two, I'm not old enough to witness this passive-aggressive love fest.

...or old enough to contribute a meaningful discourse.

Purge fan: Oh yeah, we would much rather the same old ranting about vote the incumbents out, and 2nd hand versions of Russ Stewarts' columns.

Wow, the concept of firing all incumbents is now "the same old ranting", according to the brilliant mind of orion, that bastion of complex, intelligent, coherent and innovative analysis of our local political animals. Keep up the good work, orion, you've built a reputation that even mayor mumbles can envy.

"...or old enough to contribute a meaningful discourse." Meaningful discourse? Don't flatter yourself. One guy cuts and pastes the same damn thing repeatedly in every discussion, and you whine about anyone who criticizes City government. you two deserve each other, actually.

Why is it "the same damn thing" and why do you think it's being "repeatedly" posted? Could it be that this "One guy" believes that many different people visit this board, not just a few fans of the political circus, and that the more people who hear about what you call "the same damn thing", the greater the chance that the idea will be talked about, thought about, considered and acted on? Or do you like things the way they are, here in the great state of Lincoln, the wonderful county of Crook, the fabulous 'city that works'? Could it b e that you're one of the many hogs feeding at the trough? Or that you relish only the entertainment value of our local, political cesspool? How about some "Meaningful discourse?" from you?

I've decided meaningful discourse is a waste of time here, as it gets lost among the repeatedly-posted "An Experiment" post. So bud, you are killing intelligent discourse, congratulations. Stop leeching off of the Reader's blog and make your own, this site isn't all about you, and one doesn't have to be a corrupt or honest city worker to see that.

Truly 'Intelligent' discourse cannot be killed, it can only be allowed to die. You are certainly free and able to post what you believe to be 'intelligent' discourse, whenever and however often you choose. The fact that you have failed to do so is on you. The "waste of time" you speak of is also on you, as no one is preventing you from composing and posting intelligent comments. If all you seek is a blog to pick at the many individual fleas infesting the body politic, feel free to "make your own" and "waste your time" as you see fit. Anyone who's ever owned a dog knows that you can't rid your dog of fleas by picking them off one at a time, you have to kill them all at once, and spray all living areas with insecticide to kill those not on your pet. My apologies to the humble flea, for comparing it to politicians.

as long as I don't have to scroll through the same cut-and-pasted rant, it's all good. but you missed my point - why is anyone going to take time composing anything of substance when it gets drowned out by a cut and paste? that's why "cutting and pasting" is looked at with disdain, duh, it takes no brains to keep doing it, and it drowns out people actually conversing with each other instead of just talking AT each other.

I appreciate your responding TO me, rather than just commenting ABOUT me. Thank you. As to my cutting and pasting, I may have wrongly assumed that repeatedly re-phrasing my strategy would give those reading it the impression that I felt they were too slow to understand it in it's initial form. It is a fairly simple concept, the mathematically focused application of the power of united voting to achieve a given goal, this one being to clean our political house by first sweeping out all the present occupants and putting the newly elected on notice that the same will happen to them, should they fail to satisfy. The essence is that incumbents enjoy the false presumption of both a true majority approval and what amounts to a free-pass on their activities which don't fall to the level of outrageous corruption. I'm trying to encourage a different perspective, one that presumes that incumbents, especially those who've been in office for 2 or more terms, have been proven, by their actions/inactions, to be unworthy of retention and that they must convince the voters to re-elect them. As there is a pathetic lack of substantive reporting on all but the most egregious conduct of our incumbents, I find it reasonable to determine the nature of same by the results I experience, namely, higher and higher taxes, more and more restrictions on my personal freedoms and privacies, little discernible improvements in city/county/state services, (considering the astronomical increases in taxes of all kinds), and just the general attitude our elected officials, and their minions, exhibit towards the average joe & jane citizen. The public's apparent acceptance of what I experience as abusive governing is, in my humble opinion, the result of skillful propagandizing and generational conditioning, which is purposely intended to discourage thoughtful consideration of politicians activities, to discourage any truly independent participation in the political process and to promote apathy and resignation in the majority of citizens. It has been all too successful. For far too long. Isn't it about time that we consider refusing to be led and insist on being honestly represented? And isn't it about time we develop strategies to effectively counteract those so successfully employed by the 'professionals' in politics, ie., professional manipulators, slight-of-hand artists and accomplished liars? I'm encouraged by anyone who is interested in exploring ways to by-pass the many tricks and traps created by those whose end goals are to effectively deny the citizens their right to control their lives and control the actions of those who claim to represent them. I wait your contributions to this conversation.

there's a few things that need to happen first IMO. moving the elections to the same cycle as national ones to increase turnout. It's a little fishy they are held on a nut-freezingly cold day on an odd-numbered year, don't you think? and instant run-off voting, to prevent people from voting for just more of the same under the fear that otherwise their vote will be wasted.

Nothing 'fishy' about it, it's purpose is crystal clear, to discourage voter turnout. As to being every 3? years, that may turn out to be a good thing, as it allows local elections to be the focus of the voters, not merely an afterthought. What is really important is for citizens to not need a national election to get off their asses and exert their hard-fought-for rights. The biggest part of my strategy of voting out all incumbents is to stimulate, encourage and inspire in the multitude of non-voters the 'fire-in-the-belly' to take back actual control of their own governance. So far, being raped in the pocketbook hasn't been enough of a stimulus, being played for chumps hasn't been enough of a stimulus, being lied to, cheated and treated as so much fodder hasn't been enough of a stimulus, so maybe the thought of an electoral tar-and-feathering might be enough to raise the almost-dead voters from their effective graves. It's worth a try, don't you think?

Don't blame Reilly if it gets torn down. Blame city oficials putting developers in the drivers seat in this city for so long. Developers walk in do what they want, when they want and got used to tearing down every old building in sight. FIFeild is just following through on promises made by Naturas.

"Don't blame Reilly"? Reilly was elected to represent the interests of the ward residents, not to keep corrupt promises made by the asshole who he replaced. Reilly has the authority, and the opportunity, to listen to his constituents and to honor their wishes. The whole point of the voters electing a challenger, thus voting out an incumbent, is to effect positive changes in governance, not enable continuance of the same old bullshit. This particular rotten deal is as much about Northwestern University's willingness to value money over the city's architectural heritage as it is about developer greed and an ex-alderman's corrupt promise.

Speaking of Northwestern: they basically have been letting the building run into the ground for a number of years, with minimal or no maintenance. Naturally, the student population in the dorm kept declining, from 500 occupied units to about 100, because the building is in such bad shape. Then Northwestern said, gee, guess what, it's not feasible to keep it going as a dorm because nobody wants to live there because the building is in such bad shape. So they closed it down. Now they are saying that it's not financially feasible to do any kind of preservation re-use because the building is in such bad shape. So they basically engineered the situation so there could be no other end result but demolition. Good work, Northwestern. That decision must have been made years ago, and was carried out to perfection. Saved you a ton of money by avoiding maintenance costs, and now you can rake in big bucks from the site.

And these are the cynically greedy fucks who are teaching our children exactly how 'the world works'? I guess I was under the mistaken impression that my kids were getting a 'higher' education. With the advent of the World Wide Web, fast enough connection speeds and the ever-increasing number of highly intelligent progeny, capable of the much more efficient and economical self-learning experience, we can only hope that the dinosaur of education, ie., colleges of 'higher' learning, will become as extinct as it deserves to be. These self-serving and self-perpetuating 'businesses' have out-lived their usefulness and their afford-ability, relative to the benefits received. In this day and age, they are merely the hostage-holders of the 'stamp-of-approval' authenticating and certifying a student's understanding of given subject matters. A much better and more efficient and more economical system of authentication would be to offer, for a nominal and reasonable fee, testing-for-competence exams, those passing said exams being 'certified' and 'authenticated' with degrees just as valuable and respected as any produced by these so-called 'institutes of higher learning'. Sure, there are some subject areas that truly need face-to-face, regular hands-on instructions, but, for those parts of a given subject that can be self-taught, and for those subjects that do not honestly need said face-to-face, hands-on experiences, think of how affordable a true higher education could be.

Pat got it EXACTLY right. All I can add is Northwestern also raised the dorm rents and drove students into similarly priced neighborhood apartments. Then they claimed they students had "voted with their feet". Pretty slick. People get clever with tens of millions on the line.

I worked all throughout that building on the last 6 months of it's active life as a Norhtwestern Facility. It really has mostly horrible views of the rest of Chicago and extensive damage to the the whole water pipe system. There were a bunch of useless areas and the dorm room conversion upstairs was horribly unsuable. So it was only pretty in the ballrooms inside and harldy anyone even saw those so I say good riddance. This is 2007 and all of streeterville still has no parking. The building was imploding anyway due to Norhtwestern's uncaring attitude applied to assigning managers of the buildings operations and upkeep. Some were crooked most were incompetant, so Shame On Northwestern for letting it fall apart. As for now it's more of a dirty haunted house deathtrap than a historical landmark. Something at that location would have only worked as a convention center and many of the folks in the neighborhood hated the amount of tourists they had in there area anyway.