Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Alexis de Toqueville.

What he said.

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/805328.html

posted by The Grants @ 3:07 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Wrigley Rooftops

As part of their continuing quest to ensure that people can't do what they want with their property, Preservation Chicago has decided that the Wrigleyville Rooftops are now an endangered feature.

Mind you, NOW they don't complain that the rooftop clubs are bad -- why, they add to the neighborhood character! (Of course, if the underlying buildings had been landmarked in the first instance, you would never have rooftop clubs in the first instance, because that would have been a facade alteration that you could see from the street, and hence prohibited. But no-one ever brings up those inconvenient little facts on the benefits of freedom, it seems...).

The back story is essentially this. Several years ago, the Cubs' owners sued the rooftop clubs, saying that they were siphoning off millions in revenue from the Cubs by allowing people to watch the games for free. (This was driven, in part, by the rooftop owners' concern that the expansion would put them out of business). Lots of lawyering going back and forth, with an eventual settlement in which some rooftop owners agreed to divert roughly 17%ish of their revenues back to Tribune & Co. as "compensation".

Now, the Cubs also want to raise their bleacher numbers, which would obstruct the rooftop views; so the obvious proposed solution is to let the rooftop guys build higher. Then everyone wins, right? Cubs get more bleacher seats, and more people get to enjoy the Cubs experience each season. Rooftop owners' investment in the rooftop clubs won't be wrecked. Alderman Tom Tunney gets to call himself a miracle worker.

But Nooooooo, says Preservation Chicago. If they allow THAT, why they might build some really high steel and glass structures, which are prima facie UGLY, and now we won't have charming brick and stone to look at as the outfield backdrop anymore! Tragedy! Stop the presses! Danger, danger, danger! One of the 7 most endangered areas in all of Chicago!

Ummm, shall we take a deep breath, think, "calm, blue lake," and consider that when the Cubs raise the heights of the walls of the friendly confines for bleacher space, what Preservation Chicago thinks they'll be looking at? Is the brick and stone going to magically levitate to satisfy their aesthetic pinings??? And what, pray tell, is the safest material to use to ensure that you don't have the rooftops caving in on the original 100+ year old walls?

Can't we at least agree that maybe the whole effete elitist thing is getting a bit out of hand when a good chunk of the affected area involves a rooftop-wide "Budweiser" beer ad?

Their constant theme is anti-change, freeze everything. That is not what our city is about.

Sheesh. It's a good thing Mr. Fine didn't accompany the soldiers occupying Fort Dearborn. With the Preservation Chicago mentality, we would never have had the glorious buldings along Michigan Avenue just south of the river; rather, we would be listening to speeches about the beauty of the wood grain in the stockades...

posted by The Grants @ 3:16 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

The farce, continued. Pity the residents of West Town.

So, surprise, surprise, the Landmarks Commission voted to landmark a good chunk of West Town. And what did they base it on?

Well, apparently the area exhibits the "theme" of what was termed "ethinic succession." That is, its multiple architectural styles and building types that were popular in the 1880-1920 time frame is reflective of the residences constructed in Chicago's German, Polish, and European immigrant working class neighborhoods. (Next up: landmark the CTA's housing projects on the South Side, as evidencing the compelling theme of misguided attempts by 1960s "activists" to bring about socially-engineered utopia).

The Landmarks Commission arrived at this conclusion via the City of Chicago's preservation expert. This "expert" conceded that he had never testified that there was not a landmark-worthy area when retained by the City of Chicago. Hmmm, no bias there.

He testified that he had NOT compared early photos of the properties in their original construction to the properties in their present form. This is a critical issue, for one of the landmark challengers introduced proof that her home's so-called historical features had been added to her home AFTER she bought it. It was ignored. As such, even though the Landmarks Commission legally cannot approve a landmark district unless the original integrity of the struture has been maintained, they voted to landmark anyway.

Oh, and the City's expert admitted that he only spent three, maybe four days wandering the neighborhood to arrive at his opinions. Even if we assume that the guy was a little trouper, and didn't stop to eat lunch or take bathroom breaks over the course of his eight hour days, and we assume he did this over four, not three days as he first stated, that means that his analysis of homes within the area under consideration deemed landmark-worthy averaged less than 7 minutes per home. (4 days x 8 hours x 60 minutes/hour = 1920 minutes; approximately 300 properties are in the scope of the district).

Think about that for a second: People's property rights (to at least their facade and beyond) are permanently GONE, based on a seven minute walk around by some hack academic. Does that sound like the homeowners were given Due Process of law??? Nope.

And now the proposal goes to City Council, where if they don't vote to reject it within a year, it becomes an effective district (guess how often they vote to reject...). Oh, and the average Joe citizen can't exactly stand up and move the City Council to vote to reject it. And I don't think Manny Flores is really up to the job either; I think he'd rather start laughing as his campaign coffers start to fill from everyone who will need him to sign off with approval on their building projects.

Proof yet again that the totalitarian impulse is everywhere.

posted by The Grants @ 3:46 PM 0 comments