South Loop Wild-erness

The area around my property has the equivalent of a National Park

08/25/2010

I really wanted to sit out a lot on my decks (big and small) and in my yards (back and side) this summer but it all came to naught. The truth is, I am terrified of the outdoors at Roosevelt and State.
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Revolutionary change

08/18/2010

Next year, the Chicago City Council will be different. Jerry Morrison, Executive Director of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), foresees a turnover of 15-20 aldermen, the largest in modern political history. New aldermen with different bases of political support will create a new council.
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Lolla over the ages

One View

08/11/2010

I attended the Lollapalooza Music Festival for the first time in the early 1990s. At that time, the fest was still in its infancy — only a few years old. Organized by Jane’s Addiction’s frontman Perry Farrell, the festival was like him, a young, restless beast, roaming the country bringing what was then known as “alternative” culture to those tuned to such wavelengths.
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An eye for the ages

07/28/2010

At least 10,000 people will have asked this question this week, so one more time won’t matter: What the heck is a giant eyeball doing in the middle of Pritzker Park?
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How to challenge the mayor

07/14/2010

Reading the tea leaves suggests Mayor Richard M. Daley will run for reelection this fall, asking for a seventh term from Chicago voters. He hasn’t announced his intentions yet, but the mayor is unlikely to decline taking another shot to sit in the big chair on the fifth floor of city hall for a simple reason: getting out now means leaving the city’s top job and leaving Chicago in the lurch.
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Target practice

The economy of the past several years has reset many of the best-laid plans, and Target seems on its way.

07/07/2010

When I was a kid, my dad always seemed to be in the middle of a renovation project. We’d go on frequent excursions to Sears and The Crafty Beaver Lumber Store just east of Lincoln Square to pick up a specific saw, bolt or cut of wood. I flashback to those projects, like the picket fence he built around our house, every time I smell lumber.
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Storms hurt our good trees

Although it wasn’t the first violent storm we ever experienced, it was the first one that caused permanent damage to the local landscape

06/23/2010

Something changed at Roosevelt and State after the deluge last Friday. Even before the second rainfall of the evening, after a huge branch of a big tree blew over, it was apparent.
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In the backroom at Cook County

Time to rein in corruption in county government.

06/16/2010

The colonnades that grace the exterior of the City-County Building at Clark and Randolph are a reminder that the structure is the seat of two local governments, an architectural gesture to the classical republican traditions of Rome.
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Sports well played equals being well paid in the West Loop

Last week I actually stood in a line to get into West End to watch game one of the finals with friends.

06/09/2010

My friend Mike is the general manager and coach of a Canadian junior hockey team, the Flin Flon Bombers. The team, which has picked up steam during Mike’s tenure, is actually owned by the city of Flin Flon and its residents. It is a big source of community pride, and is also counted on for revenue.
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Park has no corner on public space

A rapidly growing neighborhood in a financially strapped city needs alternative ways of building community and a richer public life.

06/02/2010

Spring was officially delivered to the West Loop in early May. It came in the form of big burlap bundles of blooming fruit trees and shrubs trundled off trucks and planted by landscapers in Adams-Sangamon Park. With each delivery, it became easier to imagine this long fenced-off lot growing into a long-promised park.
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