(Photo: You’re kidding, right? Brendan Reilly favors cars over transit in downtown Chicago.) I am strongly rethinking my support for Brendan Reilly, the allegedly progressive Democrat who earlier this year won Chicago’s 42nd Ward from longtime alderma…

(Photo: Nary a beast in Lakeshore East?) The title a beautifully incisive quote from New East Side resident Eric Frost, poobah of the nascent downtown discussion board WindyChat, when asked why his kids prefer to romp in the playground…

“Friends of the Parks has reviewed three museum proposals for a site in Daley Bicentennial Plaza and concluded that even after revisions, the latest design for a “20-foot-high, 3,800-square-foot glass entryway remains a building structure and does not conform” to court decisions governing what can be built in the park, the group said in a statement.”

“However, she said there’s no legal impediment to a building below ground.”

So do you interpret that as meaning Friends of the Park want children in a cave? hehe

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/581034,CST-NWS-mus30.article

It is the Children’s Museum’s designs which keep burrowing deeper underground to evade the legal covenants that make the reporter bring up the question as to what would be possible…

Again, I wasn’t there, but I don’t think it was that bad a question nor was there anything wrong with his reponse. Makes for a funny picture however

(Photo: Found in April at the Morton Arboretum. Best. Signpost. Ever.) Every now and then in my downtown Chicago life, I overhear something so ridiculous (yes, even more ridiculous than a Children’s Museum in a cave), that I wonder…

1. That he really wouldn’t consider the idea since in the next breath he denigrates it; and

2. That, perhaps, he really has no idea what kind of a compromise he might accept–if any.

While we’re on the subject, I found the Alderman’s stunt–giving out copies of Lois Wille’s “Forever Open, Clear, and Free” at this week’s City Council meeting, a bit ironic. As I recently told the Children’s Museum, if you want your audience to get your argument, the last thing you want to do is, ahem, throw the book at them. I’m not at all surprised that several of his colleagues left the tomes on their desks when they left.

What I wonder most of all, though, is whether Reilly had ever read the book or schooled himself on lakefront preservation issues before he ran for 42nd Ward Alderman. I would hope so, given this is the Ward where Grant Park lies. However, I very strongly doubt it.