Architecture critic Lynn Becker is not pleased with 42nd Ward Ald. Brendan Reilly’s proposal for the triangular park at Chestnut, Rush and Wabash. Becker calls it the “tea house that ate Connors Park” and concludes:
This is the urbanism of exhaustion and surrender, a declaration that the third largest city in the United States, in one of its most traveled and wealthiest districts, with security cameras up the wazoo, cannot figure out how to adequately patrol a park next to an extremely popular seafood restaurant, several ultra high-end condo towers, and a five star hotel, to prevent that park from being repeatedly vandalized and overrun with vagrants.
If this is Chicago’s future, it has none.
I’ll give Lynn Becker points for an interesting turn of phrase.
Also bonus points for the whole square footage discrepancy and his comments on it.
That being said it seems Brendan Reilly is trying to make the best of a bad situation. City services, to include the Park District, have badly deteroriated over the past few years. As have my spelling skills apparently.
Now my lack of love and respect for Aldercritter Reilly is documented in the archives here. Hell, one of his slackeys even attacked me here. I was deeply hurt. Not really, it amused me.
https://yochicago.com/was-the-alderman-misquoted-on-the-proposed-gold-coast-apartment-tower/23012/#comments
Instead of just pointing out the problems with this solution it would be nice if Lynn Becker also pointed out a reasonably likely different solution.
Does the city or park district have the resources to put a 24 hour guard there? Even cameras have to be watched to be effective.
So I offer praise for Alderman Reilly for this plan. Now perhaps he can go back to annoying me by telling property owners that they shouldn’t expect to be able to fully utilize their legal property rights and trying to keep sick or injured children from being flown by chopper to the future Children’s Hospital site.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day and this was one of those twice daily events in the public life of downtown Brendan Reilly.
Irishpirate,
No praise is due Alderman Reilly. His description of his involvement in the process is another classic of aldermanic imperiousness …
Alderman Reilly detailed the 42nd Ward Superintendent
Alderman Reilly determined that the best hope
Alderman Reilly is pleased
Alderman Reilly’s office has worked extensively with the owner of Argo Tea
It has been a pleasure to work with the Park District to secure a concessionaire
etc. The message is the same as always: the Park District has no legal rights just like private property owners have no legal rights. The alderman rules over everything within his ward.
Other neighborhoods have used SSAs to address similar problems. Given the wealth of the businesses surrounding the park, and the fact that the concession is likely to drain business from some of them, one has to wonder why that path wasn’t pursued more aggressively.
And, of course, “vagrants” won’t be harassed by security when they sit in the Argo pavilion to enjoy the formerly-public fountain. I’m an old school guy who believes that bums are as entitled as the rest of us to enjoy public parks.
Aldermaniac imperiousness?
That’s just how pols are.
I did this.
I detailed that.
My plan.
Etc Etc Etc
They almost always claim credit for the good and scapegoat someone for the bad. The second “Mare Daley” was rightly infamous for that.
That is an extremely busy location and the area is filled with tourists and all their lovely out of town money. I haven’t been on that block for about a year, but the description of overflowing garbage cans and a vandalized park strikes me as probable.
It’s also likely the vandalism is being caused by the hordes of drunks who party around there. The “bums” may be annoying and smellerific, but generally they lack the energy and motivation to do any physical damage.
I really have less problem with Reilly taking on the park district than I would a private property owner. The SSA is an interesting idea, but it’s essentially a tax and a patronage haven for connected types. Of course perhaps the hotel could have been given some naming rights to the park and they could have been convinced to send their cleaning staff over there a few times a day.
There’s a reason the downtown area gets more street sweeping etc than the rest of the city. It’s imperative to our local economy that it remain a clean, safe place to visit.
Were there other solutions besides sending in the Godzilla Sized Tea House? Certainly.
The one thing I’m certain of is that leaving the park as a trashed out mess is not acceptable.
Tens of thousands of local jobs and the ensuing lovely tax money depend on non locals coming in and spending their cash in our lovely, crime free, and trash free greater downtown area.