B12 Solipsism

Chicago Sun-Times reports:

It’s a visionary idea for beautifying Chicago and lifting a community’s property values whose time has never come.

But might it come at last? There’s still an allure here for making no little plans, even if they are arguably unwise.

The idea is the Kennedy Expressway cap, a green oasis that could be built on a deck over the highway as it cuts its swath west of downtown. It would cover that unsightly traffic, diminish its roar and provide open space for a West Loop region that teems with new residents, offices, hotels and restaurants. Think of it as Millennium Park replicated about a mile and a half west.

Capping the Kennedy is a notion that’s been out there for years, always with a dream-like quality to it. It was included in the city’s 2003 Central Area Plan, its first comprehensive look at the downtown region since 1958, and it also was featured in a 2009 “action plan” update that cheerily set a goal of completing it by 2020.

(click here to continue reading ‘Cap the Kennedy’ plan, dormant for years, still has backers – Chicago Sun-Times.)

I whole heartedly still support this project 100%! Or more, if possible. 

This is especially a good time to discuss it as there is a large development project in this exact location that will probably start work this spring, and last for three years. The developers would probably like to have a park adjacent to their health club/hotel/apartment buildings, maybe they could even have input on the plan and contribute towards it?

As a friend said on Twitter, Chicago covered up lots of railroads, why not highways too?

Seems like I’m not the only to think those thoughts:

I was at a meeting last week called by Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th) and the West Loop Community Organization where residents offered comments about a new hotel and apartment tower connected to an office building on the block just west of the Kennedy between Washington and Randolph streets. People liked the project overall, but talk inevitably turned to traffic management and lack of park space for an area that now has many young families. Residents said the closest parks, Mary Bartelme and Skinner, can be overrun. 
That’s when Burnett brought up capping the Kennedy. I asked him about it later. He said the project could tap into funds in his ward’s tax increment financing districts that may be close to expiring. “If we don’t use it, we lose it,” he said. “That money has to be distributed back to all the taxing bodies, so let’s use it while we can.’’

…

Sarver said he still believes in the cap. If the experience of Millennium Park is a guide, the Kennedy cap “would generate billions in tax revenue for the city. It would be wonderful. That stretch of roadway is a real fissure in our city.’’ He said other cities, such as Dallas, have done well by relegating a highway to a tunnel and creating attractive public space above it.

“I think this really would be the kind of project that TIF dollars were intended for,” Sarver said.

The cost? Sarver estimates it at $50 million per block. If you did the stretch between Randolph and Adams streets, that would get you to $200 million. Others may suggest capping only two or three blocks.

The West Loop and Fulton Market has drastically changed in recent time, but there is dearth of greenspace. More greenspace is more better…

The New York Times reports:

Boeing employees mocked federal rules, talked about deceiving regulators and joked about potential flaws in the 737 Max as it was being developed, according to over a hundred pages of internal messages delivered Thursday to congressional investigators.

“I still haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year,” one of the employees said in messages from 2018, apparently in reference to interactions with the Federal Aviation Administration.

The most damaging messages included conversations among Boeing pilots and other employees about software issues and other problems with flight simulators for the Max, a plane later involved in two accidents, in late 2018 and early 2019, that killed 346 people and threw the company into chaos.

The employees appear to discuss instances in which the company concealed such problems from the F.A.A. during the regulator’s certification of the simulators, which were used in the development of the Max, as well as in training for pilots who had not previously flown a 737.
“Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t,” one employee said to a colleague in another exchange from 2018, before the first crash. “No,” the colleague responded.

In another set of messages, employees questioned the design of the Max and even denigrated their own colleagues. “This airplane is designed by clowns, who are in turn supervised by monkeys,” an employee wrote in an exchange from 2017.

…

In several instances, Boeing employees insulted the F.A.A. officials reviewing the plane.

In an exchange from 2015, a Boeing employee said that a presentation the company gave to the F.A.A. was so complicated that, for the agency officials and even himself, “it was like dogs watching TV.”

Several employees seemed consumed with limiting training for airline crews to fly the plane, a significant victory for Boeing that would benefit the company financially. In the development of the Max, Boeing had promised to offer Southwest a discount of $1 million per plane if regulators required simulator training.

(click here to continue reading Boeing Employees Mocked F.A.A. and ‘Clowns’ Who Designed 737 Max – The New York Times.)

Boeing has a real mess on its hands. Any future aircraft malfunction already has plenty of evidence of malfeasance ready to be presented in court. 

Would you feel comfortable flying a Boeing 737 Max? I know I wouldn’t.

Boeing “expresses regret” about the communications being made public. Err, their PR team told them to say this:

Boeing on Thursday expressed regret over the messages. “These communications contain provocative language, and, in certain instances, raise questions about Boeing’s interactions with the F.A.A. in connection with the simulator qualification process,” the company said in a statement to Congress. “Having carefully reviewed the issue, we are confident that all of Boeing’s Max simulators are functioning effectively.”

 
“We regret the content of these communications, and apologize to the F.A.A., Congress, our airline customers and to the flying public for them,” Boeing added. “The language used in these communications, and some of the sentiments they express, are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response. This will ultimately include disciplinary or other personnel action, once the necessary reviews are completed.”

Ok. Crisis solved!

Oh joy. 52 stories…

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

With principal tenants signed up, the developer of a mixed-use project on the block east of Halsted Street between Randolph and Washington streets said he hopes to start construction this summer and finish the complex in three years.

…

Related, one of Chicago’s most active developers, is proposing a 550-foot-tall tower at 725 W. Randolph St. with an Equinox hotel and fitness club, plus 370 apartments. The Washington side, currently a Bank of America branch, would get a 250-foot-tall office building. Bailey said Bank of America and a Soul Cycle fitness club will anchor that building’s retail portion.

A four-story building at 737 W. Randolph St., home to the Haymarket Pub & Brewery, would be kept.

(click here to continue reading West Loop project: Related Midwest aims for summer start – Chicago Sun-Times.)

Three long years of construction related irritations with traffic flow, contractors skirting laws, clouds of diesel smoke, extra wear and tear on the local infrastructure and so on. Can’t wait to be woken up at 6:30 AM some Saturday mornings with the sound of pile drivers or whatever.

Elaine Chen, Chicago Tribune, reports:

Finishing touches were made Monday on a yellow brick road in the Humboldt Park neighborhood to commemorate L. Frank Baum, who lived in the neighborhood when he wrote “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and other Oz books.
Spanning 200 feet of the sidewalk at the corner of Humboldt Boulevard and Wabansia Avenue, the brick road surrounds a group of affordable housing town houses managed by Bickerdike Redevelopment Corp. that are on the site where Baum lived when he wrote the children’s novel in the late 19th century.
Bickerdike also plans to install a tile mosaic mural on a low wall engraved with a line from the movie adaptation of the novel: “There’s no place like home.”

(click here to continue reading ‘There’s no place like home’ at yellow brick road honoring L. Frank Baum, author of ‘Wizard of Oz’ – Chicago Tribune.)

I need to go there one sunny afternoon and take some photos. 

I didn’t know this when I moved to Chicago, but my grandfather lived in an apartment in Humboldt Park. I have always meant to take my own photo of the specific address (1627 North Humboldt Boulevard, Chicago, IL).

A photo of mine made into Flickr Explore

Click to embiggen

Christmas day was very warm, I had to go outside for a walk, and snapped this photo of Wolf Point and the Chicago River by resting my camera on the railing of a bridge.

A photo of mine made it into Flickr’s Explore

Click an image to embiggen…

Labor Day weekend visitors Honoria and Knut explored Chicago with me (and on their own).

For instance, the Virgil Abloh show at the MCA

 
You’re Obviously In The Wrong Place

Some other photos from that weekend’s fun…

Knut After An Aperol Spritz

Tai Chi on Sedgwick El Platform (Knut’s photo)

Memorializing An Aperol Spritz

Cannabis is legal for adults to consume in Illinois as of this morning. Amazing. I’d visited Amsterdam for a week in early 1990s, so I knew it was theoretically possible for governments to allow citizens the freedom to chose whether to consume plants, but I did not think it would happen in America in my lifetime. Happy to be proven wrong.

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton purchases edible gummies as Sunnyside Lakeview opens in the first minutes of legal recreational marijuana in Illinois.

…

Dispensary employees at Rise took orders from customers outside in line to speed up the process. There were outdoor heaters, and free coffee hats and gold bead medallions.

The dispensary also hired a steel drum player to play outside, adding a little “Red Red Wine” to the proceedings.

(click here to continue reading Legal weed in Illinois: First day of recreational marijuana sales begins – Chicago Tribune.)

and this is among the good outcomes to Democrats winning elections:

On the day before recreational cannabis becomes legal in Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced he was pardoning more than 11,000 people who had been convicted of low-level marijuana crimes.
“When Illinois’ first adult use cannabis shops open their doors tomorrow, we must all remember that the purpose of this legislation is not to immediately make cannabis widely available or to maximize product on the shelves, that’s not the main purpose, that will come with time,” Pritzker said to a crowd at Trinity United Church of Christ on the Far South Side. “But instead the defining purpose of legalization is to maximize equity for generations to come.”

…

The 11,017 people pardoned by Pritzker will receive notification about their cases, all of which are from outside Cook County, by mail. The pardon means convictions involving less than 30 grams of marijuana will be automatically expunged.
 
 Pritzker and other elected officials said they believe Illinois is the first state to include a process for those previously convicted of marijuana offenses to seek relief upon legalization of cannabis.

(click here to continue reading Pritzker pardons 11,000 weed convictions in Illinois – Chicago Tribune.)

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Shortly after 6 a.m. Wednesday, Renzo Mejia walked into Chicago’s Dispensary 33 and, after perusing a menu, bought an eighth of an ounce of Motorbreath OG.

With that, the West Loop resident made the first legal purchase of recreational marijuana in Illinois history.

As soon as the order processed, a cheer permeated through the small showroom floor and employees and customers embraced.

“To be able to have [recreational marijuana] here is just mind-boggling,” said Mejia, who paid about $80 for his purchase. “ … To be able to now make the first purchase in Chicago, it’s just surreal.”

To be the first, which Dispensary 33’s Abigail Watkins said was confirmed a short time after the sale by state officials, Mejia rang in the New Year in line — literally.

He took his place outside the store at 5001 N. Clark St. at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday — when the temperature was already below freezing.

(click here to continue reading 1st man to buy legal recreational pot in state history rang in New Year in line, braved freezing temps – Chicago Sun-Times.)

Block Club Chicago reports:

They began lining up at 2 a.m. in the cold, with fold-up chairs and blankets in tow. By 6 a.m., when Dispensary33 in Andersonville opened, the line, composed of people from all corners of the city and beyond, stretched for more than five blocks.

Trevor Seyller of Lakeview was first in line to buy legal recreational weed as it went on sale for the first time in Illinois. He waited four hours in temperatures below freezing for “the fun of it” — and for history.

“It’s been a long time coming, this is an historic moment,” Seyller said.

Charlie Wells drove three hours from Madison, Wis. to be among the first few in the line. He said he skipped celebrating New Year’s Eve to take part in the state’s legalization of recreational marijuana.

“It’s the end of prohibition and it’s a lot safer than drinking,” Wells said. “I’m here because my state doesn’t have it yet.”

Dispensary33 — named for 1933, the year the prohibition on alcohol was lifted — is located at 5001 N. Clark St. To help patrons battle the cold, Dispensary33 put out a few propane heating lamps along the Argyle Street.

(click here to continue reading Legal Recreational Weed Goes On Sale — And Chicagoans Line Up For Blocks In The Cold – Block Club Chicago.)

More photos of the big day at WBEZ, for instance.

Personally, had plans to go join the party and photograph people in line, but decided to wait until tomorrow or even next week to visit a dispensary. My days of being an all day smoker are long gone. Don’t get me wrong, I plan on purchasing something from a dispensary in the near future, but I didn’t feel enthusiastic enough to brave the below-freezing weather to be first in line or anything. By spring, the supply shortage should be addressed, presumedly.

Kudos to Illinois! Time to queue up the Reefer songs!

Speaking of exploring Oak Park, coincidentally, I ran across this Curbed Chicago walking tour guide today on Twitter:

Before Frank Lloyd Wright became an internationally-recognized name in the world of design, the architect spent many years in Oak Park, Illinois, designing homes for Chicago-area residents. Wright got his start working for the famed Sullivan & Adler firm from 1888 to 1893, and it was under the tutelage of Louis Sullivan specifically that Wright began to explore the elements that would eventually lead to the Prairie School movement. For the rest of the 1890s and the first decade of the twentieth century, Wright continued to live and work in Oak Park and designed dozens of structures here.

Oak Park’s federally designated Frank Lloyd Wright/Prairie School of Architecture Historic District boasts the world’s largest collection of Wright-designed homes, and by studying his work in Oak Park, we can get a good read on the architect’s evolution.

…

For fans looking to explore on their own, here’s a rundown of the 25 buildings in Oak Park that were designed or remodeled by Frank Lloyd Wright. Map points are listed by direction, starting from the north and heading south.

(click here to continue reading A walking tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park.)

Good to know! I have a tentative re-visit scheduled for mid-January 2020.

In honesty, I don’t know much about Paul Vallas’ campaign for Mayor, but any idiot who spam texts me at 12:33 AM should not be allowed near public office. There is now zero chance I will vote for this jerk.

embiggen by clicking
https://flic.kr/p/2dCipCd

I took Paul Vallas Lost My Vote on December 20, 2018 at 11:50PM

and processed it in my digital darkroom on December 21, 2018 at 07:56AM

update: IFTTT posted this image 5 times, so far. Sigh.

I always thought that Sam Zell was the worst owner the Chicago Tribune ever had, but Michael Ferro seems much worse.

NPR reports:

Several months after taking control of the troubled Tribune Publishing Co. in 2016, Chicago investor Michael Ferro convened a session of corporate leaders from within his own news empire, including chief news executives from such storied papers as the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and The Baltimore Sun.

The group of about 20 people trooped from Chicago’s iconic Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue to an upscale restaurant nearby. In a private room, participants dined on seafood and steak while Ferro, then the company’s chairman, held forth on his plans.

His own net worth was newly in the nine figures. Associates and peers say Ferro held ambitions that were wide-ranging, even audacious, given the newspaper industry’s stiff headwinds.

At the dinner, as at other moments, Ferro railed against those who he felt were impeding him — including perceived rivals and competitors. Among them: the Southern California billionaire and civic leader Eli Broad, whom Ferro called part of a “Jewish cabal” that ran Los Angeles.

(click here to continue reading Tribune, Tronc And Beyond: A Slur, A Secret Payout, And A Looming Sale : NPR.)

Yeah, and this:

Early this year, however, Tribune Publishing made the first in a series of secret payments to total more than $2.5 million to avert a threatened lawsuit filed by a fired newspaper executive, according to three people with knowledge of the deal. That had the effect of keeping Ferro’s anti-Semitic slur out of the public spotlight.

…

The company agreed to secretly pay Maharaj more than $2.5 million, in installments, according to three people with knowledge of the pact. That financial obligation was not disclosed in corporate filings to shareholders and analysts. The payments started in the first quarter of this year, for which Tribune Publishing reported a net loss of $14.8 million. The loss was attributed to the company’s decision in December 2017 to pay Ferro $15 million in consulting fees even as he served as chairman and was the company’s controlling owner.

…

Even as the company cut back jobs in traditional newsrooms, Levinsohn and other executives acted to create a separate staff apart from the LA Times and its other newspaper properties. He planned to draw upon outside writers, some uncompensated or who would even pay for the privilege of being associated with the newspapers’ brands. Plans included a consolidated entertainment website called LA.com and the outsourcing of Washington coverage to the digital news service Axios. Neither of those initiatives came to fruition. (LA.com still says “coming soon.”) But the digital strategy, gravitas with scale, sparked distrust among journalists.

The kicker is Michael Ferro still owns 25% of the Tribune, or what’s left of it as Ferro’s hand picked lackies furiously fire writers and jack up executive compensation to pull whatever profits they can off while the Tribune still exists.

Chicago Tribune:

City nears takeover of North Side rail line, in move to create new public transit route.

Chicago is close to assuming control of abandoned railroad tracks that run through Goose Island, a key step toward creating a public transit route along the Chicago River on the city’s North Side.

On Wednesday, the City Council is expected to vote to take over rights to the Chicago Terminal Railroad line. The former freight train route could eventually become part of a transit way for buses or trains that the city wants to create from the edge of Lincoln Park and Bucktown to commuter trains at Ogilvie Transportation Center.

The route would boost public transportation options between downtown and an area of the North Side expected to see a dramatic influx of residents and office workers. The plan has the potential to reduce traffic and relieve crowding on the CTA’s Red, Blue and Brown Line trains.

A trip from Lincoln Yards — on land along the river between Webster and North avenues — to Ogilvie could take as little as 12 minutes under the preliminary plan, said Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, whose ward includes much of the proposed transit route.

(click here to continue reading City nears takeover of North Side rail line, in move to create new public transit route – Chicago Tribune.)

Hmmm. More public transit options is more better, right? 

Cook County Record:

In the wake of a vote to approve a sale that would reportedly pave the way for the largest condos-to-apartments conversion in Chicago to date, a group of condominium owners in the River City complex have filed suit to block the more than $90 million sale, accusing the condo association board of working with the would-be buyers to essentially target and bribe certain unit owners to persuade them with secret “side deals” to vote to approve the sale.

The collection of condo owners, including owners on both sides of the vote to sell the South Loop condo complex to developer Marc Realty, filed their complaint in Cook County Circuit Court on Oct. 3 through attorneys with the firm of Chuhak & Tecson, of Chicago.…

According to the River City owners’ complaint, River City voters rejected two initial offers from Marc Realty for about $83.1 million and $92.2 million, respectively. In December 2017, unit owners appeared to approve a sale worth $100 million, with 79 percent of owners voting yes.

However, in May, Marc Realty terminated the sale, and then came back with an offer worth $90.5 million. About 77 percent of owners purportedly approved the sale at the lower purchase price in balloting that closed at the end of August.

However, opponents of the sale cried foul, and, according to the complaint, conducted an audit of the votes cast. They assert their audit indicates the purchase deal actually received only 72 percent of the vote.

Further, they alleged their information indicates the River City board worked with Marc Realty to hold the vote open, even though more than 90 percent of owners had voted, to allow the buyer to “bribe” as many as 35 owners with “additional consideration not set forth in the contract,” to change their votes from no to yes.

The complaint asserts this maneuver stands as a violation of the law, and should invalidate the vote, which they said “was the result of substantial misrepresentations .. to induce the owners to vote against their best interest.”

(click here to continue reading River City condo owners sue to block $90M sale to Marc Realty, say board conspired to ‘bribe’ holdouts, skew vote | Cook County Record.)

Wild. 

Unless this settles, I’d think this could drag out for years.

I wish I had time to listen to podcasts, this one sounds fascinating…

Chicago Tribune’s Steve Johnson:

“Anytime you see anybody drive over (to) a vacant lot in a limo, you know it’s no good.”

When you’re a reporter trying to bring a complicated story to life, quotes like that — wry, sharply worded, evocative of a much larger scenario — are pure gold.

And in the promising, new Chicago-focused podcast “The City,” chronicling the battle over vacant lots in North Lawndale that became illegal dumping sites in the 1990s, lead reporter and narrator Robin Amer recognizes that quote for the gem that it is.

It comes from Gladys Woodson, one of the residents who tried to fight the illegal dumps, a story that would lead to FBI surveillance, court cases and a picture window into city corruption during the early years of the reign of the second Mayor Daley, the podcast asserts.

The first episode of “The City” debuts Monday, under the auspices of USA Today and available there and on iTunes, Stitcher and the like. In it, the host promises the first season’s Chicago illegal dump story will be one of “corruption, apathy and greed,” a story dark enough to stun even hardened city dwellers.

(click here to continue reading Review: ‘The City’ podcast tells sordid tale of illegal dumping on Chicago’s West Side – Chicago Tribune.)

Politicians and other elite from the dinosaur era (i.e., pre-internet) escaped being judged for a lot of bad behavior. I can just imagine stories like this becoming viral in today’s hyper-focused era. 

Chicago Tribune:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration and a group of aldermen vigorously defended a clout-heavy scrap yard on Tuesday, brushing aside neighbors who shared stories about noxious pollution and loud noises from one of the last industrial operations in a fast-gentrifying corridor along the North Branch of the Chicago River.

One of the neighborhood’s elected representatives, Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, introduced a measure months ago to revoke a special waiver that allows General Iron Industries to collect flattened cars, used appliances and other scrap metal around the clock and operate massive shredders from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

City rules normally restrict scrap yards to operate from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

(click here to continue reading Emanuel, aldermen block attempt to cut hours of troubled North Side scrap shredder – Chicago Tribune.)

If I lived near here, I’d be really pissed too. 5 in the morning is way too early to be making such a racket. 

The place sounds like a menace anyway. 

After Hopkins forced colleagues to call his measure for a vote, Tuesday’s long-delayed hearing quickly devolved into heated personal attacks from a former federal prosecutor hired by the company’s owners, and repeated interruptions of neighborhood residents by Ald. George Cardenas, 12th, chairman of the city’s Health and Environmental Protection committee.

Hopkins, Ald, Michele Smith, 43rd, and community groups in Lincoln Park and Bucktown contend the scrap shredder is a menace to the public, citing clouds of metallic pollution that routinely waft into nearby residential areas and three crackdowns on General Iron by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the latest of which came in July.

…

Georgia Nicholson, who lives across the street from General Iron, says she hoses metallic particles off her patio several times every day. “I don’t know why the city doesn’t see these things,” she said.

…

“My job is to represent the people of my neighborhood who have been telling me since before I got elected about the explosions, about the noise, about the dust, about the oily film that they find on their cars, on their sidewalks, on their wading pools,” said Hopkins, who along with Smith and Ald. Scott Wauguespack, 32nd, is calling for the city to turn the site into a new park. “There is absolutely no question that General Iron is a nuisance and is a health hazard to the neighborhood.”