CHICAGO CARLESS

(Photo: You never know where life will take you. Credit: Looper.)

Walking out my front door and into the remains of a bank robbery this evening brought to mind the absurdity of life. Never knowing where it’ll take you, it’s always best to be prepared for any eventuality. This eventuality brought six police cars, two paddy wagons, and an undercover police taxi to the foot of Marina City to arrest a pathetic-looking homeless man who had just robbed the Chase Bank beneath the House of Blues Hotel. Tried to rob, anyway.

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(Photo: Pardon me, could you move a little to the left? Original Credit: Terrapin Properties.)

Let’s be clear: it is not “the community of Printers Row” that is behind the newly created website SavePrintersRow.com, no matter what the website’s front page claims.

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Words, words, words. And three individuals with a great facility to use them. At the turn of three phrases, three angry people, two easy targets, and one bystander lost of his innocence. Words were thrown like daggers among three people online and offline Chicago Carless this weekend.

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(Photo: The East Loop’s best falafel shop returns to Wabash Avenue–but not to the Jewelers Mall.)

(Updated, Sept. 27, 2006: Thank you to the hundreds and hundreds of people who have read this entry in the past few days. I knew we all loved Oasis, but I am overjoyed to see just how much. What a thrill to be able to help get the word out that the East Loop’s favorite falafel is back in business a block away from their old digs.)

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(Photo: This and a map can get you far in Hogtown…if only you think to bring them with. Original Credit: Chicago Transit Authority.)

I’m judgmental towards tourists. Not all of them, just the gratuitously ignorant ones who arrive at their destinations with absolutely no clue how to get around once they get there. Harsh words, but I judge on the basis of the actions they take in my city versus how I’d act if I were funning through their town. I get flack from Devyn over it, he thinks I’m too critical. He thinks because I went to urban planning school it makes it easier for me to find my way around an unfamiliar place. He says other people don’t think like I do.

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[(October 5, 2006) Update: Now you can read Chicago Magazine's article on Gary Kimmel for free on their website, here.]

Kimmelgate has officially hit the fan, and score one for the blogosphere. The October issue of Chicago Magazine, hitting newsstands now, features a lengthy, scathing profile of Marina City’s alleged “pimp dentist”, Gary Kimmel (p108, “The strange tale of the dentist and the pimps”)–with several quotes from Yours Truly.

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(Credit: Jef poskanzer.)

Today, an end of sorts finally came to Chicago’s months-long big-box wage debate when, as expected, the City Council did not have enough votes to override the mayoral veto applied to the controversial new $10 wage ordinance earlier this week. The law, championed strongly by far-north-side alderman Joe Moore–of dubious foie gras ban fame–would have required all large retailers in the city to offer workers a $10 wage and $3 in benefits for every hour worked beginning in 2010. (Find background coverage in my Chicago Big-Box Wage Debate archive and del.icio.us newspaper article archive).

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