B12 Solipsism

Hey, why not? Not sure exactly what specific benefit to the city we can expect, but we can hope nonetheless

President-elect Barack Obama will be the first White House occupant in years to hail from a major city, which is stirring hopes that he’ll deliver a boost to urban areas.

Chicago-area governments, like cities and states across the nation, are facing budget crises and cuts in federal money as the economy slumps and revenues fall. Officials said they hope an Obama administration will help improve the situation despite the grim federal financial picture. Businesses of all sizes hope to capitalize — as does the effort to lure the 2016 Olympics to Chicago.

Mr. Obama “has lived and worked in a city and understands the urban issues,” said Mayor Richard M. Daley. “He understands how important education is — it’s the cornerstone of building our cities. He doesn’t need to be educated about urban America. He’s already educated.”

Federal funds for urban programs were slashed during the Bush administration. The financial crisis is further straining city budgets, pushing them to look toward

plus there is this more important aspect

Chicago’s hopes aren’t confined to government. Second City, Chicago’s popular sketch-comedy theater, expects to see an increase in ticket sales, particularly from overseas visitors who planned trips after seeing thrilling scenes from Grant Park.

“Barack has been our meal ticket for two years,” said Second City Vice President Kelly Leonard. “Being a Chicago institution, it can only mean good things for us.”

A Second City show that ran last year called “Between Barack and a Hard Place” was the best-selling show ever for the theater. Mr. Leonard has aspirations of bringing the troupe to Washington for a special performance. “Our goal is to be the official sketch comedy troupe of the White House,” he said.

[From Chicago Officials Hope a Favorite Son Can Lift City's Fortunes, Lure Olympics - WSJ.com]

[Digg-enabled link to article for non-WSJ subscribers]

Candid, point-and-shoot camera shots of the Obama and Biden families watching election night returns at the hotel and on stage at Grant Park. Very cool.

[if the photos won't load, use this URL]

MillerCoors¹ is moving headquarters from Milwaukee to Chicago:

[Chicago River just south of Jackson]

MillerCoors announced Wednesday that it has signed a 15-year lease agreement for nearly 130,000 square feet of office space for its new headquarters location at 250 S. Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago.

In July, following the closing of a transaction to combine the U.S. and Puerto Rico operations of Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing Co. and Coors Brewing Company of Golden, Colo., the newly formed MillerCoors selected Chicago as the home city for its corporate headquarters.

MillerCoors selected the West Loop high-rise office building because of its “dynamic environment for employees and visitors, access to public transportation, green space, and surrounding amenities,” MillerCoors management said.

The new location provides a unique opportunity to establish MillerCoors identity as a beer company in downtown Chicago, MillerCoors chief executive officer Leo Kiely said.

“We are a beer company and you’ll know that as soon as you walk through the doors of our Chicago headquarters,” said Kiely. “The offices will showcase our brands and create a work environment that inspires our employees’ passion for beer.”

MillerCoors will be the largest tenant in the building housing nearly 400 employees on eight floors. The headquarters will house a majority of MillerCoors senior executives, as well as marketing, human resources, legal, finance, information technology and communications divisions.

Chicago-based architecture and interior design firm VOA has been selected for the interior design and construction of the headquarters.

As part of the project, VOA will develop sustainable and environmentally responsible designs.

[From MillerCoors selects Chicago headquarters site - The Business Journal of Milwaukee: ]

(h/t Colonel Tribune’s twitter feed)

Minor quibble, I consider the Chicago River the demarcation between the Loop and the West Loop, and 250 S. Wacker is on the east of the river, not the west.

View Larger Map

[Chicago River, near Jackson and Wacker]

1. what a lame-o name [↩]

I signed up for notification for a ticket to go to this rally, weather notwithstanding.

James Janega and John McCormick write:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign Tuesday offered online applications to Illinois supporters to attend an Election Night rally in Grant Park, as Chicago officials gave every indication they were bracing for an enormous turnout.

The decision to limit tickets to Illinois residents—at least so far—reflects a desire among campaign officials to pack in a raucous crowd while also limiting the rally’s potential for leeching campaign volunteers from voting battlegrounds in Indiana and Wisconsin.

City planners face their own balancing act: a desire to showcase Chicago as inclusive, while also making sure that the presidential candidate and the attendees are safe.

“That night will be a celebration, and we are asking the families and everybody to come together. And of course security is very important whether it’s a presidential candidate or any grouping you have for the people,” Mayor Richard Daley told reporters. “This is going to be a night of celebration. You can feel it in the air.”

Last week, the city said the south end of Grant Park can hold up to 70,000 people.

On Tuesday, Daley said he expected an overflow crowd of up to a million.

[From Tickets needed for Obama rally -- chicagotribune.com]

and looks like I cannot bring my standard camera bag with other lenses. I’d like to bring both a wide angle lens and my fastest lens, a 50mm prime lens.

It appears that people attending the rally will need to pass through metal detectors to gain entry, similar to going through security at the airport.

The Obama campaign’s invitation required photo IDs and prohibited bags, signs, banners, chairs and strollers.

The electronic invitation for next week’s rally, sent exclusively to Illinois supporters, says gates will open at 8:30 p.m., well after the end of the downtown rush hour. After providing a Web address for ticket applications, the invitation states that “an official printed ticket is required for entrance” and that each ticket will be valid for two people.

Doesn’t look like there are any tickets left either. Want to buy mine? Leave a compelling reason/offer in the comment field, and we’ll see.

–

Update: election day. Unless somebody makes an insane offer, we’re using the tickets.

Chicago’s Oldest Italian Restaurant, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

allegedly.

[to best see the lovely 'grain', view large or click here www.b12partners.net/photoblog/index.php?showimage=147 ]

Personally, I think Spiaggia is much better, and apparently President-elect Obama agrees with me.

“Casino (Widescreen 10th Anniversary Edition)” (Martin Scorsese)

I actually didn’t much care for Casino when I saw it many years ago, but apparently it was based on the real life story of Lefty Rosenthal.

On the evening of Oct. 4, 1982, Lefty Rosenthal, the talented professional gambler and gangster-when-necessary who had brought sports betting to casinos in Las Vegas and illicitly run an empire of four hotel casinos, walked out of Tony Roma’s on East Sahara Avenue with an order of takeout ribs. He had just finished dinner with some fellow handicappers, and he was bringing the food home for his two children. When he got into his car, it blew up.

Mr. Rosenthal survived the explosion — later he could not remember whether he had turned the ignition key — but the attempt on his life, for which no one was ever prosecuted, ended his career as one of the most powerful men in Las Vegas. He left the city early the next year and on Monday, at home in Miami Beach, he died. He was 79 and had lived in Florida since the late 1980s.

His death was confirmed by Eric Yuhr, assistant chief of the Miami Beach Fire Department, which removed the body. He did not give a cause.

Mr. Rosenthal’s rise and fall in Las Vegas, which took place over a mere 14 years, was at the center of Nicholas Pileggi’s 1995 book “Casino,” and the subsequent film of the same name, directed by Martin Scorsese, though in the movie, the account was somewhat fictionalized. (Mr. Rosenthal’s character, played by Robert DeNiro, was named Ace Rothstein.) He began his career as a horse player, oddsmaker and studiously disciplined sports bettor in Chicago, where his nonviolent but illegal enterprises were protected by the mobsters he made money for.

[From Lefty Rosenthal, Kingpin in Las Vegas, Dies at 79 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com]

Mr. Rosenthal is one of those old-timers who were seemingly larger than life:

Frank Rosenthal was born in Chicago on June 12, 1929; his father was a produce wholesaler who also owned horses, and young Frank hung out at the track and devoured the Racing Form. He learned sports betting, he said, in the bleachers at Chicago’s baseball stadiums, Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park, where spectators bet on everything: “Every pitch. Every swing. Everything had a price.”

His nickname, from childhood, was of the simplest origin; he was left-handed. Nonetheless, the story persists that it resulted from his testimony in 1961 in front of a Congressional subcommittee on gambling and organized crime, during which he invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself 37 times, refusing to answer the simplest of questions, including whether he was left-handed.

He was a clothes horse whose closet was said to contain 200 pairs of pants; a whiz with numbers, especially savantlike in figuring odds; a notorious egomaniac who at one time wrote a subliterate gossip column for The Las Vegas Sun; and was host of a late-night talk show on local television, on which he interviewed celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Wayne Newton, O. J. Simpson and Minnesota Fats, and railed against the Nevada gaming commission.

He was an obsessively detail-oriented businessman who made sure that every blueberry muffin coming out of the Stardust kitchen had at least 10 blueberries in it, and, Mr. Pileggi said in an interview Friday, among other innovations, was the first casino operator to seek out and hire women as dealers.

The Chicago Tribune has been a Republican-leaning newspaper for what seems like forever. The Chicago Tribune has not previously endorsed a Democratic nominee for President, ever. However, they did endorse Barack Obama for president, quite strongly, in fact.

On Nov. 4 we’re going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.

The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States.

On Dec. 6, 2006, this page encouraged Obama to join the presidential campaign. We wrote that he would celebrate our common values instead of exaggerate our differences. We said he would raise the tone of the campaign. We said his intellectual depth would sharpen the policy debate. In the ensuing 22 months he has done just that.

Many Americans say they’re uneasy about Obama. He’s pretty new to them.

We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.

We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.

The change that Obama talks about so much is not simply a change in this policy or that one. It is not fundamentally about lobbyists or Washington insiders. Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. His opponents may say this is empty, abstract rhetoric. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we are going to deal with the grave domestic and foreign crises we face without an end to the savagery and a return to civility in politics.

This endorsement makes some history for the Chicago Tribune. This is the first time the newspaper has endorsed the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.

As a companion piece, a bit of newspaper history:

The most famous was the long-running feud between Tribune publisher Col. Robert R. McCormick and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

McCormick complained bitterly that Roosevelt’s New Deal was a socialistic boondoggle that he feared would destroy Americans’ personal freedoms and rights. At one point, the Colonel, as he was known around the Tower, had a photo “cooked up to argue that soon the Social Security plot would have every working man tagged and numbered like a prisoner of war,” according to historian Frank C. Waldrop.

In the 1936 presidential campaign, McCormick instructed telephone operators at Tribune Tower to answer all calls with a declaration of how many days remained to “save the Republic” by turning Roosevelt out of office.

The feud was very personal. Once, reported historian Richard Norton Smith, McCormick showed a Tribune financial writer a headline clipped from another newspaper. The story was about a nationwide series of fund-raising balls for a polio foundation organized by FDR. The headline: “President’s Balls To Come Off Tonight.”

“I suppose,” sighed McCormick, “that is rather too much to hope for.”

FDR once said of McCormick: “I think he must be a little touched in the head.”

The high–or low–point, depending on your point of view: In 1942, a livid Roosevelt briefly contemplated sending the Marines to occupy Tribune Tower because of a report in the newspaper that naval officials feared would tip the Japanese that the U.S. had broken their military code. Goaded by an adviser, FDR also briefly pressed for a charge of treason against McCormick, knowing a conviction could bring the death sentence. An investigation later cleared the Tribune and two of its staffers of violating an espionage law.

[From Behind the scenes: 'Was there shouting?' 'Who really decided?' -- chicagotribune.com]

Fascinating stuff. Perhaps Colonel McCormick paid closer attention to his hemp farms than we know…

Fascinating¹ article published in the Chicago Reader, circa 1990, about the man John McCain is trying his best to link to Barack Obama.

[The Haymarket Riot Memorial plaque that was placed at the Haymarket Riot location, 147 N. Desplaines, Chicago, IL 60661, after Bill Ayers (link to his blog) blew up the memorial to policemen. Now replaced by yet another memorial]

The students are already seated, quiet and polite in perfectly aligned rows of chairs, when Bill Ayers walks into the classroom.

It’s a Monday-evening political-science class at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a class devoted to the study of the “impact of the 60s on the 90s.”

“We’re very lucky to have Bill Ayers here,” says Victoria Cooper-Musselman, the instructor. “Bill was an active player in the 60s. You read about him in all the books.”

Ayers smiles, a boyish grin, and steps to the podium. He’s 45, but doesn’t look much older than most of the students. He wears his curly blond hair over his ears, with a rattail down the back. His T-shirt reads: “America is like a melting pot: The people at the bottom get burned and the scum floats to the top.”
He wears shorts.

“To me it’s funny that the 60s are studied,” Ayers begins. “I get rolled in like a Civil War veteran. I feel strange.”

The students laugh. As he continues, they fall quiet. His voice is raspy, sexy, a little mesmerizing. He’s completely at ease.

The story he tells, a condensed version of his life, is a tale of extremes. He wasn’t just any all-American, suburban-bred boy; his father, Thomas Ayers, ran Commonwealth Edison. And he didn’t just rebel; he was a leader of the Weathermen, the most radical of all 1960s revolutionaries, who among other things bombed the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol and sprung Timothy Leary from jail.

For three years Ayers’s wife, Bernardine Dohrn, was on the FBI’s list of ten most wanted criminals. They spent nearly 11 years as fugitives, living on the run “underground.”

“We were anarchists,” he tells the class. “We were willing to get thrown out of school. We were willing to go to jail. I make no apologies. There comes a time in your life when you face a moral challenge. You have to ask yourself: ‘Will I bow to conformity and accede to the world as it is, or will I take a stand?’”

These days, he takes his stands aboveground. He’s an assistant professor of education at UIC. He works in the university’s elementary teacher education program. His specialty is school improvement. He’s written one book on early childhood education, and he’s writing another about teaching. He publishes regularly in scholarly journals. Each year he trains dozens of would-be teachers for private, public, and parochial schools.

[Click to read more from Reader Archive--Extract: 1990/901109/The Long, Strange Trip of Bill Ayers He wasn't just any suburban-bred all-American boy; his father ran Commonwealth Edison. And he didn't just rebel; he was a leader of the Weathermen, the group that bombed the Pentagon and sprung LSD guru Timothy Leary from jail. Now he's an assistant professor of education at UIC and an influential thinker in the school reform movement. And yes, he would do it all again]

Personally, the McCain smear is so weak to be laughable. I mean come on, Obama was 8 when Ayers was on the lam. Not every politician is Billy Pilgrim, able to look into the past of everyone they meet like the past was a Chinese New Year parade float. Now, McCain’s guilt by association trick actually works quite well on connections between McCain and Keating - actually as some wag put it, the McCain Keating connection is more of a “guilt by guilt” association.

(h/t Whet Moser via Twitter)

1. albeit horribly formatted [↩]

Austin cycling legend Lance Armstrong is joining SRAM as an investor, and as a user of their parts. I could care less that disgraced investment firm Lehman Brothers is also involved, but that’s just me.

Here’s one unexpected fan cheering Lance Armstrong’s return to professional cycling: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

The collapsed investment bank recently agreed to make a large investment in a high-end bicycle-components maker. That manufacturer stands to benefit from Mr. Armstrong’s plan, announced Wednesday, to join a Kazakhstan-based racing team next year.

Team Astana uses components made by a Chicago company called SRAM Corp. That is big news in the cycling world, given that Mr. Armstrong spent much of his career using gears, brakes and other components made by Shimano Inc. of Japan.

…

Mr. Armstrong is investing several million dollars into SRAM, where he will serve as a technical adviser. He has agreed to use SRAM components when he races. A full set of top-of-the-line SRAM road-bike components retails for about $2,000.

[From Business - WSJ.com]

I believe I’ve passed by 1333 N. Kingsbury before (near Division and Halsted), but cannot seem to find any good photographs in my files.

Received this letter in the mail the other day.

In accordance with the requirements for an amendment to the Chicago Zoning Ordinance, please be informed that on or about September 3, 2008, the undersigned will file an application for a change in zoning from DC-12 Downtown Core District to a DX-12 Downtown Mixed-Use District and then to a Residential-Business Planned Development on behalf of JRC 108 Jefferson LLC, whose address is 401 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1300, Chicago, Illinois 60611 (the “Applicant”), for the property located at 108 North Jefferson Street, Chicago, Illinois (the “Property”). The Property is owned by the Applicant and JRC Jefferson DAS, LLC, JRC Jefferson JJO, LLC and JRC Jefferson EMP, LLC. …

The Property is currently improved with a non-accessory surface-level parking lot. The Applicant proposes to construct a 41-story building on the Property containing ground floor business uses, five floors of office space, accessory off-street parking spaces and 311 dwelling units, which must be processed as a Planned Development pursuant to the Chicago Zoning Ordinance.

[108 North Jefferson, Chicago, IL 60661]

Oh boy, more people are moving in, Ma. Where does all the cash come from to convert every single parking lot into a 40 story high rise? I thought real estate development was in a down-turn? There is the Catalyst, right across the street from this newly proposed building, R+D 659, the Emerald, and probably others. An amazing boom happening in my zip code.

First I heard of this, was there prior notice?

Starting Thursday evening, Sept. 11, and continuing for a week, the Michigan Avenue Bridge over the Chicago River will be closed to all traffic during the overnight hours.

The bridge will close from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. the following day. The closures will allow crews to work on the new river-level walkway beneath the bridge—the first connection for the Chicago Riverwalk.

During the closures, crews will install sheet piling under the bridge to create the space needed to build the walkway.

Pedestrian traffic will be detoured to Wabash and Columbus streets. CDOT will post signs and information boards to direct pedestrians.

To accommodate pedestrians, local tour boat operator Wendella Sightseeing will provide shuttle service across the river during the closure on an as-needed basis.

The new under-bridge connection will provide an uninterrupted path from Lake Michigan to Wabash. The project is expected to be complete by year’s end.

[From City of Chicago - Michigan Avenue bridge to close during overnight hours]

Brendan Reilly’s office adds:

The project includes removing and replacing all the limestone from the stairway, much of which is cracked and deteriorated. The area will be closed to pedestrians during construction.

The Chicago Department of Transportation will be working on the bridge nightly from approximately 11 pm to 6 am. Work the evening of September 11th will involve preparation for the sheet pile driving operations that will take place the evenings of the 12th through the 18th.

Because of the evening hours and location of this construction project, CDOT will make every effort to reduce noise and traffic impacts. CDOT has directed its crews to mute audio signals to reduce noise disturbances, but the vibratory hammer that will be used for splicing sheets for the pile driving operations will produce noise that will likely impact neighboring buildings.

United Airline engine trouble, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Our flight out of O’Hare was delayed by a couple hours, but once we left the ground, all went smoothly.

eventually had to change planes. Looked to me as if the same plane was still at O’Hare when I got back three days later.

Nice. I suspect there was some shady doings when our building was turned into Condo, circa 1997. Over the years, we’ve discovered all sorts of not-to-code problems (wrong size electrical conduit, faulty plumbing, etc.), I would be curious to see who the inspector was who signed off on the obvious not-code elements.

A one-time City of Chicago plumbing inspector testified Tuesday that he took bribes “almost daily” from contractors and passed a cut of some of the payoffs to his supervisor in the Buildings Department.

Travis Echols, testifying at the trial of the supervisor, Gregory Toran, told a federal jury how Toran reacted when he was promoted and became an office-bound boss unable to conduct inspections in the field.

“He said, ‘Throw me a bone,’ ” testified Echols, adding that meant to cut Toran in on bribes Echols would receive to sign permits that landed on Toran’s desk.

…

Toran went on trial Tuesday at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on charges of attempted extortion, accused of pocketing hundreds of dollars in bribes that Echols told him was coming from contractors who wanted subpar work overlooked. Turning a blind eye to violations was just part of the job and meant hundreds of dollars in extra cash, Echols said.

[From Former city inspector testifies he took bribes and gave a portion to his supervisor -- chicagotribune.com]

[Skull and Concrete]

No wonder the housing market is in such flux.

Houston is famous for having a patchwork quilt of zoning regulations, and a subsequent crazy mess of an urban jungle. If Chicago Aldermen don’t watch out, we’ll end up in the same dire predicament: having a city without rhyme or reason, loved by nobody except developers, and their politician puppies.

In the ongoing “Neighborhoods for Sale” series, the Tribune has documented an insiders’ game in which aldermen rake in millions of dollars in campaign cash from developers, zoning lawyers and architects while often overriding the concerns of homeowners and city planners. Out-of-scale buildings leave existing homes in their shadows, the result of nearly 6,000 council-approved zoning changes in the last 10 years that have transformed neighborhoods.

The results of this patchwork approach to development have been jarring, with mini-mansions replacing modest bungalows and condo blocks rising over increasingly traffic-choked streets.

The Tribune has found that zoning rules have been ignored or changed to make it easier for developers and harder for residents to have a meaningful say in what gets built on their streets.

Developers commonly fail to put up signs required by law to notify neighbors of proposed zoning changes. Neighbors frequently don’t get letters notifying them of nearby projects.

And if they manage to learn of pending proposals and attend the City Hall hearings, they may find themselves prohibited from asking questions of developers and aldermen.

For a street-level view of how the code really works, look at the 50th Ward and the story of the proposed seven-story senior housing complex the City Council recently approved at the behest of Ald. Bernard Stone.

[From Who calls the shots in your back yard? Not you. -- chicagotribune.com]

[A now-destroyed building, replaced by a 20 story residential building, still being constructed, called R+D 659]

There are rumors that a a large building¹ is being planned on the NW corner of Jefferson and Randolph: large enough that the historic Crane’s Alley might be appropriated. Our Alderman, Brendan Reilly, claims to know nothing about it. We shall see.

1. either a hotel, or a 40 story structure, I’ve heard both [↩]

I have never been fond of the pageantry of the Chicago Air and Water Show¹. Apparently, I’m not alone, though for different reasons. Colin McMahon is an Iraq vet, and thinks the display is sickening.

Here we were, toasting our firepower even as young American men and women were dying at sickening rates in a foreign land. Oohing and aahing on the beach while the very types of warplanes we were celebrating were inflicting horror on some good, innocent people—not merely on the bad guys.

It seemed beyond anachronistic. It seemed perverse. And it was freaking me out.

That was a couple of years ago. But even if the roar of the Blue Angels no longer bedevils me, I remain convinced that the militaristic aspects of the Chicago Air & Water Show should be accorded honors and laid to rest. Especially today, with jet fuel costing what it does and all of us trying to consume less energy.

[From Ground military air show -- chicagotribune.com]

If you want to see a photo gallery of the display², Frank Hashimoto created a public Flickr group.

1. or other similar displays in other cities [↩]
2. which is actually quite aesthetically pleasing, in an abstract way. Airplanes are beautiful feats of engineering. [↩]