Forever Open, Clear, and Free
Why is the Grant Park Advisory Council so eager to let the Chicago Children’s Museum move in?
September 14, 2007 By Lynn Becker
Bob O’Neill, president of the Grant Park Advisory Council, jokes that his usual response to citizens concerned about new construction in the park is this: “Well, they’re actually out there building it right now, but thanks for the public input.”
It’s funny, as Homer Simpson would say, because it’s true. Or nearly. O’Neill is lobbying overtime to build a new Chicago Children’s Museum in Grant Park—the same Grant Park that, a century ago, A. Montgomery Ward fought a long, bruising, ultimately successful battle over. Ward was defending the 1836 mandate to keep Chicago’s lakefront public ground, “a common to remain forever open, clear and free of any buildings, or other obstruction whatever.”
The Children’s Museum is but the latest in a long procession of hustles seeking to circumvent that mandate. It’s looking to replace free access to open land with new construction and stiff admission charges, and Bob O’Neill is doing his part to keep those who don’t think it’s a very good idea safely on the sidelines.
O’Neill is a tireless advocate for Grant Park and a genuinely nice guy, but the way he runs the advisory council’s public meetings is a throwback to a time when most community organizations were little more than appendages of the Democratic machine. His sessions are stacked decks masquerading as public forums. They derail effective dissent.
Consider the case of Queen’s Crossing, the crosswalk linking Buckingham Fountain to the lakefront promenade. In 1995 the city spent over $9 million to restore Congress Plaza to its original Burnham Plan status as a grand pedestrian gateway, framed by Ivan Mestrovic’s majestic twin sculptures the Bowman and the Spearman. The gateway would draw visitors from Michigan Avenue along an axis proceeding to the fountain and then the lake.
But in the fall of 2005, without notice or discussion, the city erected storm fencing to shut down Queen’s Crossing, saying it needed to improve the flow of traffic on Lake Shore Drive. The promenade from Congress Plaza now ends abruptly at a barrier of chained bollards at Lake Shore Drive, beyond which the lake beckons inaccessibly.
At the advisory council meeting O’Neill called soon after the shutdown, O’Neill talked past the outraged. “We want to stay positive,” he said.
In the dog-and-pony show that followed, a young and eager Chicago Department of Transportation engineer dragged out a spectacular design for a bridge over Queen’s Crossing by Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish architect of the 2,000-foot-high Chicago Spire. It was the same bridge design the city had mothballed several years earlier.
By the city engineer’s estimate, it would take four to five years for the bridge to be constructed and the pedestrian crossing restored. But there was no actual commitment from the city to build the bridge, no new funding source to cover the estimated $30 million or more cost. The proposal was a phantom, but it served O’Neill’s purpose—it derailed dissent. (Lately newly elected 42nd Ward alderman Brendan Reilly has been talking about reopening the crossing again.)
Now O’Neill is working his magic for the CCM’s move from Navy Pier into Grant Park. A massive PR campaign that has to be costing the museum a pretty penny began with the March 2006 hiring of a stage manager, Jim Law, a 16-year City Hall veteran and long-time executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Special Events.
You may already have heard the warm and fuzzy radio spots. “Daddy, how do airplanes fly?” a child asks as an announcer talks about a museum that will be “friendly to the environment” and “let our children’s imaginations soar.” The spot directs listeners to the plans on the museum’s Web site, where the only rendering is from so wide a perspective that the new CCM building almost disappears within several blocks of surrounding parkland. Think Dustin Hoffman’s screen test in Tootsie:
Director: I’d like to make her look a little more attractive. How far can you pull back?
Cameraman: How do you feel about Cleveland?
This bird’s eye view is from so high that even the soaring sails of the Gehry bandshell look flat.
The Web site offers preaddressed e-mail to Alderman Reilly urging him to support the move. You can’t change the text, and Reilly’s address is hidden—if you want to write him with anything besides the CCM party line, you need to find it on your own.
Soon we should be seeing the release of a survey of area residents, which I predict will show overwhelming support for putting the museum in Millennium Park. How do I know this? Well, as an area resident, I was one of those surveyed. The questions offered a choice of opposing points of view: arguments against the museum stated tersely and arguments in favor that overflowed with positive buzz words—“not for profit,” “beautifully designed,” “great museum.”
Wouldn’t the new CCM be a better fit for the museum campus, by the Field, the Shedd, and the Adler? “We had suggested that area to them,” said O’Neill, “to see what their reaction would be, and they weren’t even considering it.” Of course not. Millennium Park is a smash hit, and CCM is looking for a way to tap into the three million people who visit it each year.
First up was the Art Institute of Chicago, with its plans to build a 700-foot bridge designed by architect Renzo Piano that runs from Millennium Park to the museum. (When you get to the end of the bridge, your only real choices will be to visit the museum or make the nearly two-block hike back where you came from.) Art Institute President James Cuno, in a March 2006 talk sponsored by Friends of Downtown, had the calculations at his fingertips. “If 3,000,000 people come to Millennium Park, if 20 percent of those go across the bridge to the museum, that’s 600,000. If half of them come to the museum, that’s 300,000. I think it’s a very conservative estimate.” That 300,000 would be 20 percent of 2006’s 1,441,000 total visitors.
Undoubtedly the Chicago Children’s Museum has made similar calculations and wants to get on the gravy train. The other park attractions are free—the Pritzker bandshell, the Lurie Garden, Cloud Gate, Crown Fountain—but it costs $7 for kids over 12 to get into the Art Institute, and the current fee for adults and children alike to get into CCM is $8.
The new museum alone would impose 100,000 square feet of new construction on the park, and an attached field house, replacing the Daley Bicentennial Field House at 337 E. Randolph, would add another 20,000 square feet. The museum is quick to assert that most of the footage would be below grade, but in a model of the design shown to community groups this summer an astounding amount was not.
There was an above-grade entry pavilion along Randolph Street, and behind it a series of pavilions extending into and soaring above the park, which is a story lower than Randolph. East of the museum was the new field house, tall enough to have a “viewing terrace” looking down on the park.
When the Grant Park Advisory Council held a public meeting on the museum’s move in May, O’Neill presided over it as if it were a personal press conference. He called on every questioner, but his responses often turned into rebuttals several times the length of the original question.
O’Neill desperately wants a new field house. “I believe we are disgraced by the condition of this field house,” he says. “This is not a personal issue. I have gotten complaints ad nauseam for a decade about this building. When it’s raining, it’s leaking. Where people are having birthday parties for their children, and water leaking on the birthday cake.” The CCM has offered to build it for him free of charge. To O’Neill, the offer makes the CCM deal a prime example of the virtues of public/private partnerships at a time when governmental units like the Chicago Park District are often short on funds.
A local resident attending the meeting felt otherwise. “I don’t think the Children’s Museum and the new field house should be talked about in the same breath. This is blackmail. If you don’t say yes to the Children’s Museum, I don’t get a field house.”
“It’s not blackmail,” responded O’Neill. “It’s an example that has been set in the success of a lot of public improvements [such as] those pavilions that are around Buckingham Fountain. There is a balance between commercialism and its impact on the park, both negatively and positively. The most visible is Millennium Park.... You’ll notice the BP bridge says BP very tastefully. Yes, that is commercialization. The Jay Pritzker Pavilion says Pritzker on it. Boeing Plaza. McDonald’s skating rink. But it’s done tastefully.”
“The difference between Millennium Park and the Children’s Museum,” said someone else in the audience, “is that I don’t have to pay $8 to go down and enjoy Millennium Park.”
“I’d really like to understand,” someone else challenged O’Neill, “where do you stand in all this? I’m not certain that you are really listening to people.”
“I am listening,” responded O’Neill. “I’m a good talker, but I’m also a good listener. This information will go back to the museum, early. It’s their museum. It’s not mine.”
“Seems to me you’re advocating the Children’s Museum,” countered an audience member. ““No,” O’Neill answered. “I don’t make a decision before an audience. I don’t make knee-jerk decisions.”
But on August 20 Crain’s Chicago Business published a letter from O’Neill that began, “The Grant Park Advisory Council has supported the proposed move of the Chicago Children’s Museum from Navy Pier to the north end of Grant Park for almost two years.” O’Neill’s organization, whose board, shared with the Grant Park Conservancy, is a who’s who of corporate and institutional heavy hitters, had made up its mind even before the debate began.
Millennium Park aside, past private-public partnerships in Grant Park have been a mixed bag. According to Lois Wille’s invaluable history of the battles over Chicago’s lakefront, Forever Open, Clear, and Free, the first questionable deal came in 1851. The city, as usual, was broke, and needed a breakwater to protect the homes along Michigan Avenue. Across the street, what was then Lake Park was little more than “marshy rubble.” After railroad lobbyist John Wentworth, a future mayor, argued for the benefits of “jobs for the jobless, lower prices for fruits and vegetables, [and] a saving in property taxes,” the city accepted a deal giving the new Illinois Central Railroad a 300-foot-wide strip of land along the lake from 22nd to Randolph, on which it’d be allowed to build a trestle in exchange for constructing a breakwater and creating landfill that would eventually become the site of structures like the Aon Building. In a short time the lakefront became a tangle of freight yards, depots, and debris. The curse of this deal persists to this day in the open ditch that carries the rails south of Monroe.
By 1890, mail order king A. Montgomery Ward was gazing out the window of his new building at Michigan and Madison, which is today being converted into condominiums. According to Wille, “The view across Michigan, towards the lake, turned his stomach: stables, squatter’s shacks, mountains of ashes and garbage... railroad sheds, a firehouse, the litter of one of the circuses that continually moved in and out.”
“Merrick,” Ward exclaimed, “this is a damn shame! Go and do something about it.” Merrick was Ward’s attorney. On October 16, 1890, Ward filed a lawsuit to clean up the lakefront. A battle lasting a dozen years pitted him against just about everyone else, because just about everyone had something they wanted to dump alongside the lake: a new civic center, a power plant, stables. Daniel Burnham wanted to put the Field Museum there, right about where Buckingham Fountain is now. When Sarah Daggett, a Michigan Avenue resident, blocked the building of the Art Institute in the park by refusing to sign her consent, her husband did it for her. Men could do that in those days.
Other businessmen lobbied Ward relentlessly, then shunned him when he wouldn’t yield. The Tribune reviled him, calling him “a human icicle.” It predicted anarchy if Ward were allowed to stop the building of an armory in the park to protect the city from labor agitators. Ward said he’d agree to the Field Museum if there were guarantees no further structures would be erected. His compromise was spurned. It wasn’t until 1912 that his victory was finally secured, and by that time he was an old and broken man.
“I fought for the poor people of Chicago, not the millionaires,” Ward said in the only interview he ever gave to a newspaper, in the Tribune. “Had I known in 1890 how long it would take me to preserve a park for people against their will, I doubt if I would have undertaken it.” After his death in 1913, the Tribune grudgingly acknowledged his contribution, publishing headlines that called him the “lake watchdog” who “won fight to save park” but putting the words “watchdog” and “save” in quotation marks.
Today another set of millionaires is supporting building the Children’s Museum in the park—you can’t put a donor’s wall on a tree. But more people have learned Ward’s lesson. Even the Tribune has come full circle. A September 2 editorial was headlined, “A museum in Grant Park? No.” Alderman Reilly has been holding a series of community meetings, at which he estimates opposition to the museum has been running at about 85 percent. The most recent was this past Monday evening at the field house.
“For neighborhood residents only,” the invitation read. But O’Neill was having none of it. That morning he sent out an e-mail asserting, “Grant Park’s success and international status are at stake. Grant Park is all of Chicago’s park, it is our front yard! It does not belong to any one community but to all of Chicago’s communities.”
Local residents showed up for the meeting and discovered that all but the back rows of the auditorium had been commandeered by museum supporters, many carrying professionally printed signs. A ham-fisted security detail even refused entrance to one of the project’s architects, Ron Krueck. Eventually sound was piped into the hallways.
“This was billed as a neighborhood meeting,” Reilly said when the noise of the crowd subsided. “Tonight you can see around the room, it’s not. . .” Krueck’s partner, Mark Sexton, presented a revised design that moved the project westward, with the new field house abutting Columbus Drive. The multiple pavilions and viewing terrace had disappeared. “Eighty percent of the museum is now dedicated to rooftop gardens,” he said. “There’s terraces that are part of the continuum of the park.”
Remaining was an enormous central courtyard lined by sometimes soaring skylights required to bring daylight down into the museum. Sexton sold them as “sculptured skylights,” bringing to mind the subterfuge that circumvented legal height limits in the park by labeling the metal billows of Frank Gehry’s Pritzker Pavilion “sculpture.”
Jim Law dramatically pulled from his pocket a letter from Lois Wille repudiating the Tribune’s editorial opposing the museum. Wille used to run the editorial page, and the editorial had quoted from her book. “I resent the selective use of quotes from my book, ‘Forever Open, Clear, and Free,’” wrote Wille, “to justify the editorial’s conclusions.” (For more on Wille’s repudiation, see Michael Miner’s blog, News Bites.)
Richard Ward was the only person allowed to make a presentation opposing the museum. Ward, the president of the New Eastside Association of Residents, or NEAR (and no relation to the captain of industry), zeroed in on the sections of the old Montgomery Ward court rulings most relevant to the current controversy. In particular, there was an 1897 ruling forbidding the “placing thereon anything... to which the public will not be admitted free” and one from 1902 decreeing that the area be held “in trust for the people of the State that they may enjoy... freed from the obstruction or interference of private parties.”
If the Children’s Museum project were actually “about” the children, it would be building in the museum campus to give visitors ready access to Grant Park’s other family attractions, and not a mile way. If it were about the children it wouldn’t make them burrow like moles. “I can’t understand why you want to put the children underground,” a resident commented back in May. “They should be outdoors.”
The debate isn’t about the architecture—Krueck and Sexton are among the best Chicago has to offer. It’s not about whether Grant Park is a park for the neighborhood or the city. It’s only tangentially about parking, pollution, and congestion. The debate comes down to this: are we still committed to open land? Consider the history of just the last five years—the Harris Theatre, the Pritzker Pavilion, the Art Institute bridge, and now the Chicago Children’s Museum. If Wille doesn’t think more parkland will continued to be gobbled up, she’s lost the tough reporter’s instincts that made her book such a marvel.
Take it from Daniel Burnham. Even at a century’s distance, writing in his 1909 Plan of Chicago, he said it best:
“Both the water front and the near-by woodlands should be brought within easy reach of all the people, and especially of the wage-earners. Natural scenery furnishes the contrasting element to the artificiality of the city. All of us should often run away from the works of men’s hands and back into the wilds, where mind and body are restored to a normal condition, and we are enabled to take up the burden of life in our crowded streets and endless stretches of buildings with renewed vigor and hopefulness.”  Send a letter to the editor.
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Monroe at 7:14 AM on 9/13/2007
Chicago needs more open space and more playgrounds, not less as the "museum" -- actually a child activity center -- would cause.
If the museum plans succeed, then we need to erect a plaque with the names of all the people with the museum and Grant Park council who are in on this conspiracy to place a private corporation in a public space. What a legacy for them: "I helped destroy Grant Park!"
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Jill Jermaine at 7:30 AM on 9/13/2007
Daniel Burnham also said, "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood .."
Open land? What about cultivating our most important community resource -- CHILDREN? I am all for open land and I think the children's museum did a noble job of giving us open land in their proposal. But why do all of us seem to forget that this is about children -- very small children -- who must be given precedence over all else?
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Patricia PArchem at 9:51 AM on 9/13/2007
Children First! We opposed to the museum in grant park are placing children first. In a time of overscheduled and overstimulated children, we are fighting to maintain open space where children can run and play. For city children, the playground and area surrounding Daley Bi is where they head daily to ride bikes, play on skooters, rollerblade, iceskate, sled, make snowmen and play freely with friends without adult directed activities. Imaginative and physically active play is essential to our children's growth and well being. This is where families bring their children and let them be kids. At no admission! Free to all people not just the residents. The park does not need another tourist attraction. Let it remain an open park where we as adults can relax apart from the congestion of the city and kids can play freely.
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Curt Knudsen at 10:02 AM on 9/13/2007
This issue is not about the children. Its about removing public park land. Moving the CCM to Grant Park will reduce the amount of public space. This space will become private. Why can't the museum stay at Navy Pier or move to the museum campus? There is no convincing argument for the public to agree to allow the CCM to relocate to Grant Park.
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Keisha at 10:18 AM on 9/13/2007
There are alternative locations for the
Children's Museum. There is NO alternative location for Grant Park!!!!!
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James at 11:57 AM on 9/13/2007
Lynn Becker's article is excellent. The proposal to relocate CCM to Grant Park is fundamentally flawed, and was twice rejected by Alderman Nataurus in favor of open space. Chicago Tribune writers and editors also recognized the proposal is devoid of merit. Yet CCM supporters are back again with an over-agressive, some might say arrogant campaign attacking anyone and any group daring to disagree. In meetings with Alderman Reilly over 90% of local residents voiced opposition. Last time CCM said it would not go where it is not wanted. Enough already!
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Emanuelle at 1:58 PM on 9/13/2007
The way it was explained over and over has been trading a building or another. As we speak there’s a field house falling apart and at the rate it's deteriorating it seems we won’t have a field house.
Where were all these people when Grant Park was a muddy, treeless patch of dirt by the lake? This was a place where cars, not Elm trees dominated the scenery. As I remember I didn’t see anyone complaining that something had to be done. We’re forgetting that due to many of these advisory groups, we can live and have our children play in and around the park
These advisory groups are aware of the words of Montgomery Ward, the great Daniel Burnham plan…if these advisory groups have taken Grant Park to international status; what make my neighbors think they know what’s good for the park? Please note, Grant Park is not a community park…it’s an international park. It is…Chicago’s front yard not really yours….
I have to consider…do I want my property taxes raised to rebuild a field house? Are we going to complain about that as well? Let’s look at the consequence of our actions.
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Paul at 2:02 PM on 9/13/2007
CCM is attempting nothing less than a brazen daylight theft of public land by wealthy private interests. If we even begin to allow the encroachment on the park by faux museums and other private attractions, where then will we draw the line? A shopping mall? An amusement park?
We do not need to relentlessly develop Grant Park for it to be a wonderful place for all to visit. Currently, it is as it was intended to be, a place of refuge, quiet enjoyment and refreshment of the spirit.
We must insure it remains that way.
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Dr. Reese Khan at 3:02 PM on 9/13/2007
I disagree. Because, in the winter, we need to have a new and exciting facility so we can have black tie dinners for various not for profit organizations, receptions, fund raisers, and parties. We are tired of doing this in the local hotels. Tents are super fun, but not feasible in the winter. This building, however, will be the perfect venue!! For a gorgeous dinner-dance! Like the Notebaert, the building is fabulous, the exhibits are worthless, but what a great place to have a cocktail reception or catered dinner. We need it for that! For the social life of the city's philanthropists. Additionally it will make for a great "tourist attraction."
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Uppili at 6:44 PM on 9/13/2007
A debate about open space and private building in Grant Park is one thing. The effort on the part of neighborhood residents in wanting to keep people(minority kids from poor neighborhoods) out of their neighborhoods, and traffic and noise pollution are made only more selfish and deceitful in their using montgomery Ward's banner in trying to make their case. I am not sure whether I support the museum's location in grant park, but I sure have considerable disgust for the people from the nearby communities making a claim on a park that belongs to ALL chicagoans. Listening to these NIMBYs from the "New Eastside" merely clouds the real debate that should be taking place.
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Eric Frost at 7:30 AM on 9/14/2007
We've been discussing and recapping most of the articles on this topic at WindyChat.com, I am no longer surprised every opinion I read now is against the move to the Daley Bi Plaza. Chicago Tribune, Chicagoist (another great article you should read which includes specific suggestions on where the Children's Museum should consider going in neighborhood's which would benefit economically and would likely welcome the museum) and now the Chicago Reader. This was the best article I've read so far by the way, good work Lynn!
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cathy at 8:57 AM on 9/14/2007
The CCM relocation group has done a wonderful PR job convincing so many that to be opposed to the taking of Grant Park is to be opposed to happy children, America and apple pie. Their secondary smear tells you that those opposed to the destruction of Grant Park are elitest snobs who want the park to belong only to them.
In fact, those opposed to the taking of Grant Park believe that there are other suitable locations for the museum and that the precious open space and view through Grant Park must always be preserved. Relocate the Children's Museum to museum campus (or elsewhere) and leave the park alone!
And, by the way, I also like children!
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cathy at 9:00 AM on 9/14/2007
The CCM relocation group has done a wonderful PR job convincing so many that to be opposed to the taking of Grant Park is to be opposed to happy children, America and apple pie. Their secondary smear tells you that those opposed to the destruction of Grant Park are elitest snobs who want the park to belong only to them.
In fact, those opposed to the taking of Grant Park believe that there are other suitable locations for the museum and that the precious open space and view through Grant Park must always be preserved. Relocate the Children's Museum to museum campus (or elsewhere) and leave the park alone!
And, by the way, I also like children, live nowhere near Grant Park and have never been called elitist before!
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Eric at 9:37 AM on 9/14/2007
Well put Cathy - and hey not just snobs but apparently the CCM is also now trying to label residents as racist. !
WindyChat.com
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Marguerite Riaz at 9:49 AM on 9/14/2007
I have reviewed the diagram and layout of the proposed CCM. I really wouldn't want to see children playing down in a bunker-like environment as the diagram shows in this article. At northerly island, a better location in my opinion, the CCM could conceivably build windmills, solar panels, grow gardens, have interesting outdoor program and offer summer camps in a safe, spacious environment. As a citizen of this community, I'd like to see what plans the CCM can come up with at alternative sights. (Like Northerly island, for example.)
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John at 11:18 AM on 9/14/2007
Open free and clear? Taking of park lands? Huh?
Where was all the protest when Millenium Park was built? Where was the protest when the for-profit garages were built? Where was the protest when the for-profit Bunkingham Fountain pavillions were built?
Millenium Park clearly did not 'take' park land but instead created it from abandoned industrial rights-of-way. Has any one explained exactly how much park land the CCM is proposing to 'take away'? Could they possibly be acutally introducing more viable park land?
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Carl at 4:07 PM on 9/14/2007
Well, no -- the area is in fact a real park right now, read the article above. Not sure about Millenium Park, but most of the adjoining area is office or commercial so I suspect that's why people didn't care as much. I agree it's unfortunate. Millenium Park is done now though.. also you're wrong, there was lots of discussion and debate even just about Millenium Park, but it's true there was not as much opposition. Now there is clearly a strong opposition and media opinions against putting the Children's Museum in Grant Park. See the other articles mentioned above by Eric, there are links to all on them on windychat
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Chris at 2:24 AM on 9/15/2007
Where Millennium Park stands now was once an open pit with railroad tracks below. There is no private institution that charges admission in order to enjoy Millennium Park. You are comparing apples to oranges. And as Ben Joravsky has written about extensively, your tax dollars through tax incremental financing, is paying for much of the Millennium Park, despite the considerable efforts to put the corporate names all over the place.
Dr. Khan's argument that we need another venue downtown for a black tie soiree for the city's philanthropist is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time (I hope he was being sarcastic, although if he were serious, that makes it even funnier).
I'm so glad they have resorted to the old stand by "what about the children"... this debate is like a good comedy sketch.
Seriously though, leave our open space alone, get all those philanthropist to pitch in for a new field house (you can hold the benefit during the summer since Dr. Khan doesn’t want to get any snow on his ass), and put the museum in another location outside of our precious little park lands. This is a pretty simple solution.
This is also a well written article.
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RG at 3:48 PM on 9/15/2007
The proposed children's museuem is a bad idea for many reasons that have already been outlined above. There is already plenty to do and see in Grant Park.
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Terry at 11:31 PM on 9/15/2007
I find the hysteria about taking away our pristine, serene, and open parkland disingenuous at best. How many of these protesters have been to the sight? There is already field center there to start with, and its a crumbling mess. It is an eyesore at best. However, the real issue if people are concerned about saving Grant Park for all the people to enjoy nature and relax in a pristine environment needs to start with all of the streets cutting through the park. Grant Park will never be the park it should be until some of the streets cutting it up are either removed or put underground. When I see a movement focused on that issue, I will know we are truly respecting Grant Park as a space "forever open, clear, and free." By comparison with the noise and pollution of those streets, the CCM proposal is a serene addition to the landscape. Let's get real!
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Sam at 4:45 PM on 9/17/2007
Regardless of what opinion one may have regarding the proposed relocation of the Chicago Children's Museum, it is unfortunate that some people are attempting to discredit the educational value of this and countless other informal learning institutions in order to build their case against the move. The perspective that hands-on learning is of lesser value than rote adult-driven lessons has led to the dramatic loss of physical education, art education, music education, and recess in our schools. Arguments based on outdated dictionary definitions of the word "museum" are off-topic, and degrading to what kids, grown-ups, and experts in child development know about the benefits of multi-sensory learning.
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BehavioralPsych at 11:20 PM on 9/17/2007
It seems like there is a simple solution to this problem that could address the concerns of two neighborhood groups, rather than just one.
Why don't the Daley Bi-Centennial neighbors agree to swap this site with the people in Aurora?
That way the neighbors in Aurora could welcome the Childrens Museum as an added amenity to the community, and they could take over and expand the 22,000 square foot facility that is already built, and which the City of Aurora may end up taking over, because the developer intentionally deceived the city planning and zoning folks there in order to get it approved.
Alternatively the Near East Side neighbors could welcome Planned Parnethood to develop their facility at the Daley Bi-Centennial site, that way they will not have to concern themselves with "their park" being over-run by children from outside the neighborhood.
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LoganSquareParksAdvocate at 1:48 AM on 9/18/2007
Chicago Children's Museum-- Logan Square, not Grant Park
Logan Square has a highest visibility 4 and 1/2 acre location, with outstanding multimodal transit access, that City Dept. of Planning and Development and the Chicago Park District have acknowledged is "compelling and intriguing" for a Park Campus / City Activities Center. This might be explored as a viable alternative for the new CCM.
We propose a Transit Oriented Development for a Park Campus / Community Center / City ArtSpace called "The CENTER at Logan Square". The plan transforms the entire 2500 block of N. Milwaukee Ave, directly southeast of the historic landmark Boulevard Square, into a vibrant public activities destination--
Park Activities Campus plus the new Chicago Children's Museum as anchor codevelopment partner. The MegaMall (TIF District Redevelopment RFP with City Council approved acquisition authority) plus adjacent CTA owned land is right next to the CTA Blue Line O'Hare to Loop Chicago transit gateway. The Children's Museum can develop it's new world class design space as Park Campus partner in parks underserved Logan Square, accessible to all the City's children.
The City issued a Milwaukee/Fullerton TIF District Request for Proposals to "Purchase and Redevelop the MegaMall." Four and 1/2 acres along Milwaukee Avenue plus airrights above the CTA Blue Line tracks and elevated will be transformed into a vibrant Activities Destination. The Museum / Park Campus will be at the heart of the Milwaukee TIF Redevelopment Corridor.
The MegaMall Logan Square location is high visibity and more accessible than Grant Park at East Randolph. The Childrens Museum / Park CENTER at Logan Square includes upper floors that span above and over the CTA Blue Line elevated tracks. Trains will literally pass thru part of the CCM / Park CENTER complex. Glass/steel world class design with sweeping open visual links can showcase Museum / Park attractions to millions of Blue Line riders passing just feet away on the O'Hare to Loop CTA transit gateway. 22 million passengers travel this branch of the Blue Line per year. Imagine the design opportunity for City visitors and residents to look out train windows on both sides and see the Childrens Museum 4 story ship exhibit and other attractions, plus park patrons swimming laps in a pool, playing on gym courts, fitness workouts, or scaling an indoor multistory climbing wall.....Imagine the wonder for children and families to look out from the Museum and see real trains passing.
CTA owned land directly southeast of the Boulevard Square will be greenspace at the walkable regional hub. 1.5 acres of new Park open space will be bermed on a steel / concrete framework spanning above and over the Blue Line railtrench and existing parking areas just like Millennium Park. The Children's Museum / Park CENTER replaces the MegaMall. The Park CENTER includes a Green Rooftop with running track, gardens and greenspace. TIF District business zone revitalization is embedded in the Museum / Park Campus. Vibrant public presence stimulates the business corridors. The CENTER at the Square is eligible for Transit Oriented Development $ from Federal and Illinois programs. A regional activities destination is the site's historical use. The original Logan Square Theatre was in northwest MegaMall building. Callahan's Baseball Stadium (Milwaukee at Sawyer) was a northwest Chicago ballfield for athletic club leagues from 1900 thru 1925. It was home to the legendary semipro team Logan Squares.
5,400 riders per day enter the Logan Square Blue Line underground station (top quartile in CTA system). The subway networks with 4 CTA bus routes: Milwaukee, Diversey, Fullerton, and Kimball. City street arterials and Kennedy Expressway links provide excellent vehicle access.
Our plan embraces the Square’s history as a regional hub and business zone. A vibrant yearround City Activities Destination will attract visitors about the Square day and evening. Public presence translates to patrons supporting diverse retail, restaurants, and professional offices. There's tremendous diverse support for the Park Center from Logan Square community groups, business chambers of commerce, churches, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Friends of the Parks, and our State Representative Maria "Toni" Berrios (IL 39). Over 3,000 Logan Square support signatures were collected in 2006. 35th Ward residents voted 75% YES for a "Park at the MegaMall" in overwhelming community support on the November 2006 Chicago election referendum. It's a compelling City vision for an amazing once-in-generations site opportunity.
Keep Grant Park "forever open, free and clear". Bring the new Children's Museum to a highest visibility neighborhood opportunity as codevelopment partner of a "world class" Park Campus. Build it in Logan Square, not "forever open, free and clear Grant Park".
Friends of "The CENTER at Logan Square"
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Jeff at 9:15 AM on 9/18/2007
ANY objective viewer would have to agree that the current Krueck and Sexton proposal would far exceed the existing conditions at that end of the park.
So what objections does that leave?
1. Traffic and Congestion. Well, again, any objective viewer would have to agree THAT is a red herring. This is the center of the best and one of the densest city's in the country. Combine that with the fact that practically ALL vehicle traffic will be using lower Randolph, and obviously this is a non-issue.
2. Setting precedence for more building in Grant Park. This is just fear-mongering and paper-selling. Remeber when the CCM was proposing building a new facility at the northeast corner of Monroe and Columbus? EVERYONE was against that one, including O'Neill and all the arhictectural enthusiasts that I am aware of.
Have some faith in the future caretakers of our city. Just because the Daley Plaza is replaced with a new underground facility does not lead to the paving over of the park.
What it will lead to is many more people and visitors visiting the park. This is what I believe is really behind all of the objections.
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Eric at 11:27 AM on 9/18/2007
Brendan Reilly has issued his decision - http://www.windychat.com/alderman-reilly-grant-park-remain-forever-137.html
He makes a very good case. It makes me remember during the race between Natarus and Reilly the posters or campaign materials from Reilly saying how he was looking forward to working with the Mayor :-) I wonder how different things would be right now - maybe this issue would already be dead - if Natarus has been reelected.
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w.k. at 12:04 PM on 9/18/2007
I am just wondering how many of you that are against the move have actually visited CCM at it's current location?
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klem at 3:51 PM on 9/18/2007
I am not a doctor and do not go to too many black tie functions. That being said I could care less about providing for somewhere Daley and his cronies could go during the winter "For a gorgeous dinner-dance!." How lame. The fact is that Grant Park is an open space and should remain an open space. Allowing the museum to go here will open the door to all kinds of other Daley pet projects "for our own good." Do not allow this administration to once again highjack the public good for the benefit of a select few. We have been scammed by this mayor in the past and the only ones who will benefit are those on the inside. He must have alot at stake if he is making this much of a deal about it. Please keep the park and the lakefront free and clear as intended, for the benefit of all of us and not just a few.
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Tony Johnson at 6:12 PM on 9/18/2007
I think they should put the Childrens Museum in the Arrigo Park at Lexington and Lytle. It would then be a "white yuppie" area, no racial overtones involved. It would also be very appropriate since this is the park that Bob O'Neil didn't want any black children playing in across from his and his parents house.
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Paul F at 11:16 PM on 9/18/2007
Why does the stupid thing have to be along the lakefront in the first place? Can't this just be moved inland and save all the worry? Kohl Children's Museum is inland after all. There are lots of better locales for a children's center in Chicago. Pick a Macy's. How about they use one of them to build upon.
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Carter at 10:21 AM on 9/19/2007
Millenium Park is at least free & open to the public - this is not.
This proposal is "putting children first?" People have got to be kidding. Put the Chicago Children's Museum somewhere actual City kids will make use of it, not in a tourism site.
I guarantee you less than 1% of Chicago's resident children will end up utilizing this Museum if it goes in Grant Park. Why not put somewhere on the West Side, or in Logan Square, neighborhoods starved for cultural attractions like this?
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softdog at 2:05 PM on 9/19/2007
"I have to consider…do I want my property taxes raised to rebuild a field house?"
I'd rather have my taxes go to a field house than one more dime go to building a privately held tourist attraction on public land to satisfy wealthy supporters.
The Children's museum doesn't have to be relocated in Grant Park, a small powerful elite who view the city as their pet project want to put it there.
If the Children's Museum was really About The Children, why didn't they take the millions they've spent trying to force this project on Grant Park and give it to the embattled neighborhood parks which are being forced to cut services due to a lack of funding?
If these donors are really interested helping Chicago, why don't the create a private foundation to help the CTA?
Also, the most distinguishing trait of the CCM is how not unique it is. It offers little which can't be found in similar museums in other cities.
It would bring much more honor for donors to have their names attached to any number of city services, and not the high end version of a Chuck E. Cheese.
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Kiaina at 8:26 PM on 9/19/2007
There is no need to place a children's museum in Grant Park. The green space in downtown is limited as it is and to take away more to build a new museum is senseless. What would have been the point to host numerous fund raisers and acquire private funding to construct Millenium Park if it is now going to be obstructed by a children's museum. This is an outrage and needs to be dissolved.
The residents in that area do need a new field house if the current one has structural problems, but to couple the new field house with the museum is "black male" as one resident put it. We all need to submit letters stating that the idea should be done away with immediately.
I am really surprised by O'Neills perpetual lies. First he states that he does not make "knee-jerk" decisions, but prior to that comment he is telling the press that he has supporters for the museum. How can one say that he has not made up his mind, but then tells the public he's found supporters. It does not make sense for one to lead a group (supporters) that he does not agree with. The supporters came from somewhere and he's obviously lured them.
Millenium Park is the new pride of Chicago and I visit the park on a daily basis to enjoy my lunch. There are plenty of attractions through out the downtown area that are indoors and why not let Millenium Park be enjoyed by many more as it was intended, outdoors.
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Chicago Mom at 1:33 PM on 9/20/2007
Yes to Museum AT SOME OTHER LOCATION. I'd love a bigger Childrens Museum but not at the cost of open space. Let's use Block 37 or some other big, open space, how about putting it near Museum Park? West Side?
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Chicago Parents at 1:35 PM on 9/20/2007
Let's keep the GRANT PARK A FREE and open space so our children can run, play, jump for free. Not a $8 per person admission charge.
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Parent and member of museum at 4:38 PM on 9/20/2007
I am just appalled at the direction this debate has gone. The museum, Mayor Daley, and his wealthy allies are to blame. I am a parent and a member of the museum. My daughter enjoys her time there. But don’t think for one minute that I am for the move to grant park. This is not a museum and it is not educational. It is pay to enter amusement for kids and it does not belong in grant park. And for all of you uneducated people who didn't attend any of the meetings. The east side neighborhood discussed TRAFFIC because every building east of Blue Cross/Blue Shield is residential. We have kids too and it is getting very dangerous to even cross the street on Randolph St.. We discussed the increase in cars, buses, and taxis. Never who would be arriving in them. These meetings were very diverse, as is the neighborhood. There were many races, ages, sexes, and religions all discussing the possible problems. Race was never discussed until Daley brought it up. It is disgraceful and he owes the whole neighborhood an apology. As for the museum, I will never again bring my daughter there. I am ashamed how they use the name of Children’s Museum to promote their business and political needs.
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More Families in Chicago at 10:14 PM on 9/23/2007
I run through Grant Park almost 3-4 times a week. Where are all the people who don't want to see the green space go away? I rarely see anyone. I would like to know how many of the people who have commented actually spend time in this park on a weekly basis.
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Rory at 1:07 PM on 9/27/2007
Kids today don't need green space. They do not want to run around in the grass and look at the clouds, and their parents don't encourage them to do so and don't want them wasting their time on such aimless pursuits.
Children must spend their time learning in structured, orchestrated but yet entertaining environments in which they are led from "interactive exhibit" to "hands-on activity." Children can't be trusted to provide their own stimulation -- it must be thrust upon them.
So what if Burnham advocated open space? What's the profit in grass? Empty space means wasted opportunity, and this is the 21st Century -- the era of pre-fabricated leisure.
Yes, this is sarcastic.
And by the way, I live in Chicago, am downtown every Saturday and spend time in Grant Park on a weekly basis.
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peggy at 11:34 AM on 10/5/2007
There is a great website www.savegrantpark.com ! Has lots of info on this issue and an online petition to sign.
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Eric Frost at 10:20 AM on 10/18/2007
Thanks Peggy. Here's a direct link
Save Grant Park
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Parks not Attractions at 9:41 AM on 11/15/2007
Bob O'Neill, President of both the Grant Park Conservancy and the Grant Park Advisory Council revealed at a Monday evening meeting at Daley Bicentennial, that all of Grant Park from Columbus to the Cancer Survival Park's Western wall and from Randolph to Monroe would be leveled in order to complete necessary repairs to the garage below. The meeting was designed to discuss what the citizens would like to see become of Grant Park. Apparently, however, the decision was already made. It was revealed that over 400 parking spaces, directly below the current dilapidated Daley Bicentennial Field House, were not leased out with the rest of the parking structure. This was done in anticipation of the Chicago Children's Museum taking over that entire northern end of Grant Park. Unless the Children's Museum is permitted to be built there, this rapidly increasing neighborhood would not get a replacement field house. Mr. O'Neill kept referring to the future of Grant Park as an attraction and destination, yet was very evasive as to what that actually meant. I think I speak for the majority of Chicagoans in saying that Grant Park is in and of itself a beautiful attraction and destination. We need this space to stay open, free and clear as upheld by the Supreme Court in four seperate decisions. This is a despicable land grab that is holding not just the neighborhood, but the entire city, hostage to the whims of a few philantropists and the Children's Museum. Where do Mayor Daley and Bob O'Neill get off thinking they can decide to do as they will with the city's park?!
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Deborah Johnson at 11:15 PM on 4/20/2008
Leave it out of Grant Park and identify, say, at least three other feasible locations where the CCM can be relocated. Then, simply decide from those three. Take a vote, whatever. AND MAY THE MOST VOTES WIN! This issue is too big for just a few to decide, but does the average citizen really have a say in this issue? Since Alderman Reilly has legitimate debate on this issue, I would think that all the other Aldermen would be jumping at this opportunity to justify why the CCM should be relocated within their wards. How about it, Alderman Dowell? Let's bring it to Bronzeville.
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