CHICAGO CARLESS

(Photo: Father and son velo-bond on a sunny Lake Shore Drive morning.)

The following is a Chicagoans Project guest post from Gordon Mayer, vice-president of Chicago’s Community Media Workshop. For the genesis of this project, please see here. To tell your story, email me at mike (at) chicagocarless (dot) com.

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Many have emailed me to ask if I am still covering the Gary Kimmel scandal. You may remember it as the case of Marina City’s alleged pimp dentist that brought unwanted attention to the towers in 2006.

I haven’t been following the story closely lately, but my good friends over at Marina City Online have. They are reporting today that, as many have long suspected would happen, Kimmel, a former corncob towers condo board member, pleaded guilty yesterday to charges of money laundering in connection with a national prostitution ring operated out of several of Kimmel’s Marina City apartments.

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(Photo: Would this face of celebrity ride the bus?)

The following is a Chicagoans Project guest post from local Chicago blogger Jasmine Davila. For the genesis of this project, please see here. To tell your story, email me at mike (at) chicagocarless (dot) com.

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Surprise ending’s here.
“I love you but you’ve lost me.”
He spoke. Words fail me.

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(Photo: My history with cars has never been an easy one.)

Chalk another victory up for car culture, I’m loathe to say. My recent driving lesson nothwithstanding, owning a car or living somewhere where I would need to use one has never been a goal of mine.

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(Photo: A giddy Yours Truly, looking over the top of Tribune Tower from a neighboring allium.)

[Note: Welcome to my readers today from Gapers Block and YoChicago!]

This year’s Great Chicago Places & Spaces, the Second City’s annual weekend orgy of behind-the-scenes guided architecture tours, gave me the best moment I’ve had in my entire five years in Chicago. On a sunny afternoon, Oak Park pastry chef Chris and I had a once-in-a-lifetime chance to literally peer under the skirt of Chicago. Well, really over it…from a surprise visit to the little-known observatory hidden in the onion dome atop Mag Mile’s historic Intercontinental Hotel.

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(Photo: And the sucking sound gets louder before a single weekend has passed…)

Just in from the Chicago Tribune:

“A cable fire near some Loop elevated tracks late Saturday forced the CTA to shut down all elevated train service in the Loop for almost seven hours.”

Oddly enough, I was wondering what would happen to ‘L’ service in the Loop if a problem forced the closure of the entire circle of elevated tracks. I was wondering that this weekend, thanks to the CTA’s bone-headed decision to eliminate ‘L’ service in the State Street subway and along the Lake Street and Wabash Avenue legs of the Loop

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