(Photo: In memoriam Cygnus. Credit: kellyhaffermann.)

My favorite benches never get any respect. Last year, the Buckingham Fountain plaza renovation eliminated the spot where for years I used to sit and ponder my life in Chicago. Now the Lincoln Park Zoo’s $12 million rehab of Lincoln Park’s South Pond has done the same to the bench where I heretofore loved to ponder how silly people look in swan-shaped paddle boats. My main perch has given way to the wooden walkway of the “Nature Boardwalk,” the wildlife preserve serving as the pond’s new incarnation. But my bench isn’t the only thing gone forever. Apparently, so are those paddle boats.

Until the zoo got its hands on my bench, recreational boating on the South Pond had been a popular, longstanding tradition. How longstanding? Below is an 1885 photo from the Chicago Park District archives showing old-style swan and row boats on a “lagoon” in Lincoln Park that looks very much like the South Pond:

And here’s a 1907 photo of row boats (admittedly without swans) definitely taken on the South Pond, as evidenced by the Grant monument in the background, from the archives of the New Orleans Public Library:

While not evidence that recreational boating on the South Pond has always used the same water craft, these photos do demonstrate such boating to have been a South Pond tradition for more than the past 100 years. The zoo’s outdated PDF visitors guide still says the boats are there, but the new fence in front of Cafe Brauer and elevated walkway surrounding and crossing the South Pond seem proof to the contrary–so, too, does the lack of any mention of recreational boating on the zoo’s South Pond and Nature Boardwalk web pages. Recent news coverage of the opening of the Nature Boardwalk  has quoted zoo planners waxing on about how environmentally healthy and turtle-laden the pond is now–but curiously, without mention of the loss of the paddle boats.

I thought I’d been paying attention to news stories about the renovation over the past two years, but I don’t remember any that called out the demise of recreational boating on the South Pond. So I went searching for some mention of where the paddle boats went and why. Lincoln Park Zoo’s 2008 press release (PDF) originally announcing the rehab plans made no mention of the boats. Neither did a 2009 Chicago Tribune news story I remember reading about construction delays caused by heron nesting, or a Medill Reports story on approval of the rehab project by the Chicago Plan Commission.

In fact, I’ve been able to track down the end of the swan and paddle boats mentioned by zoo officials in only three places–two in 2008 and one this year. First, a March 13, 2008 WBBM-TV piece quoted Marybeth Johnson, Lincoln Park Zoo’s vice-president for communications and public affairs, saying that recreational boating on the South Pond was definitely gone for good, saying:

“The swan paddle boats will be replaced. The concept for whatever will replace them is to provide a nature tour for visitors rather than a recreational one.”

Johnson goes on to tell WBBM those replacement boats would be larger, exhibit-oriented tour boats, but that their exact concept had not been decided yet. However, a Tribune story published the same day based on discussions with other zoo staff noted the project very specifically to include “a 20-person flatboat, along with a fleet of paddleboats.”

After hours of searching, the next mention I managed to find regarding the end of South Pond recreational boating made by a Lincoln Park Zoo official came in June–this June, 27 months later–and not in major media, either. The June 2010 issue of alternative monthly Mindful Metropolis (<— warning: outdated, awful electronic document “reader” ahead), quotes Lincoln Park Zoo public relations director Sharon Dewar with this masterfully hedged line:

“The zoo is planning to return paddle boats or some other kind of recreational boat experience in the years ahead.”

I guess if the zoo can go from no specific concept to “20-person paddleboats” on the same day, I shouldn’t be surprised that it went from “a nature tour for visitors rather than a recreational one” back to a “recreational boat experience” in two years. But given that South Pond boating of any sort is now planned for some unspecified time in “the years ahead,” I won’t get my hopes up just yet.

Perhaps the boats–whatever boats–didn’t appear this year in order to give the newly renovated pond a chance to find firmer ecological footing. Or maybe last year’s severe budget shortfall at the zoo led to their curtailment. The zoo isn’t saying and, frankly, at this point I’m learning not to expect specifics on the matter.

In fact, there’s actually a fourth, independent mention of the end of the South Pond swan boats out there–if you know where to look. It requires a trip to the Chicago History Museum. Their current Lincoln Park Block by Block exhibit notes the (now perhaps not really, or maybe, who knows?) passing of the swan boats and displays a last remaining example. Visiting the exhibit last month was the first notice I encountered regarding the end of recreational boating on the South Pond, prompting this post and the hours of Internet searches that preceded it.

Mind you, I’m all for improving the ecological fortunes of Lincoln Park. As noted in the above-referenced Medill story, so were 43rd Ward Alderman Vi Daley, the Chicago Plan Commission, and the Chicago Department of Zoning and Land Use Planning when they all gave their support to the rehab plan, which according to Medill was “unanimously approved with no comments from the public.”

How well the public may have been notified in the first place about the plan and ts specific elements–such as the potential demise of a century-long tradition of recreational boating on the South Pond–is an open question. Either way, it’s too late to save the swan boats–much less my beloved bench.

But I can’t help thinking those must be some clouted turtles.

(NOTE: See an update in the comment thread, as well as a link to my blog about another recent time Mayor Daley sold out Chicago commuters for a film shoot–that time in 8-degree weather…)

Where is the civic pride in accepting money from a Hollywood production company to film a movie that will glorify the destruction of your city’s downtown and the death of many of its rank-and-file citizens? This is not a rhetorical question, it’s one I’d love to ask the Daley administration since this summer, several major Chicago Loop and West Loop streets have been cordoned off and given over to the Transformers 3 movie shoot.

Sure, Chicago’s budget has lately teetered on the edge of the abyss, and director Michael Bay and star Shia LeBeouf could just as easily be setting siege to midtown Manhattan right now instead of forking over $20 million for the right to disrupt Chicago’s pedestrian, automobile, and bus transit traffic every weekend from now until Auguat 23. Is that the going rate to cede all control over how your city is portrayed by major media? Twenty million in exchange for letting a movie studio make money off of images of a destroyed LaSalle Street littered with the bodies of dead Chicago office workers, shoppers, and visitors?

Yes, according to local news media, which have been fawning over the shoot since it began last weekend, not to mention the crowds of locals who flocked to the barriers blocking access to LaSalle, Randolph, and Washington. Hurray, burned-out cars littering a burning, apocalyptic streetscape! Yippee, screaming hordes of terrified extras running for their lives!

This is obviously not your father’s Blues Brothers shoot.

Our town’s done a lot to become Hollywood-friendly since the bad old days of Daley-pere when the idea of closing a street to film anything was an anathematic idea. And we sure can use the money. But is this really the way we want to portray Chicago to the world?

As a kid, I loved disaster flicks. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tended to shy away from films where senseless violence is the main attraction, and I’ve seen enough of the Transformers franchise to know how well this film series fits that bill. But I know many, many other people love entertainment like this and they have a right to it, too.

I also know our town’s seen cinematic death and destruction before, though usually as a stand-in for somewhere else. New York in Spiderman 2. Mythical Gotham City in The Dark Knight. But this time, the mayhem will be fully owned–lock, stock, and gory demises–by the City and citizenry of Chicago. Call me old-fashioned, but there’s something about the idea of the Windy City being laid to ruin that makes me feel uneasy.

My reticence to see my fellow Windy Citizens chewed up and spit out by exploding machines has nothing to do with my 9/11 experience, as I’m sure some readers might think. However, I’ll fully admit there may be some sour grapes at work here. If I had a nickel for every weekend that Danny Devito or Helen Hunt had my Brownstone Brooklyn neighborhood turned upside-down in the 1990s for a film shoot, I’d be able to afford the old ‘hood again.

Like New York neighborhoods that get hit with frequent movie shoots, Chicago neighborhoods deserve to have their pedestrian access protected and their transit routes unimpeded, too. There are currently half-a-dozen time-wasting reroutes of major east-west CTA buses planned every weekend from now until late August affecting thousands of downtown residents and visitors. Most of them are taking the delays in stride for a chance to see a real-live film shoot. I happen to resent City Hall making money off of the glorified destruction of the city I love and the death of innocent Chicagoans like me and, likely, many people reading this post.

I’m reminded of the episode of Bugs Bunny where Daffy Duck drinks nitro glycerin, swallows a match, and explodes in order to show that he’s the better showman. As he said when his ghost was floating up to waterfowl heaven, “I can only do this trick once.” The same can be said of several other things City Hall has sold-off lately. The Chicago Skyway. Parking meters. Midway Airport (almost.)

Does Mayor Daley have to attach a dollar value to civic self-respect, too? That’s a hard thing to get back once you blow it.

(Photo: There’s more to life than meets the eye in this aerial photo of Chicago. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory.)

One of the things I shouted loudest when I first began Chicago Carless four-and-a-half years ago no longer applies. Back in mid-2005, I still carried around my New-York-native anti-surburban bias. On recent reflection, it’s time to let the suburbs have their due. At least in Chicago.

Before 2003, when I still thought I’d be a lifelong New Yorker, the suburbs were almost a dirty word. There it’s no wonder why. It’s hard enough to make your way across congested Gotham, much less strike an equally passenger- or traffic-jammed path out into what New Yorkers consider to be the unwashed hinterland. For some Manhattanites, that hinterland begins at the water’s edge before you even make it into the city’s four other boroughs (where most of the city’s population actually resides.)

Worse, once you make it from NYC to points elsewhere, a glaring fact slaps you in the face. You’re no longer in the city many people (not me) consider to be the center of the known universe, so wherever you are at the moment and whatever you intend to do there will never be a.) interesting, b.) relevant, or c.) worthy enough to have justified the trip.

In June 2005, my second post ever on this blog was Suburbasaurus. Written weeks after I made my move from an outer Windy City neighborhood into downtown Chicago, in the piece I bitched about the ability of suburban and out-of-town tourists to slow and clog Loop sidewalks and repeatedly ask the same newbie questions. (I do admit the most frequent question of all still makes me want to hand the person a map and walk away: “How do I get to Union Station from here?”)

It’s taken me seven years in Chicago to finally admit the city-suburban contract doesn’t work quite the same way here as it does in New York. As it turns out, sometimes I actually enjoy the Chicago ‘burbs. And sometimes I really enjoy having my fellow regional citizens come downtown to share the fun of my high-rise neighborhood with me. (Again, I do admit, not those who stand 40 floors beneath my apartment window and yell into the early morning sky when staggering from the House of Blues to the nearest taxi stand.)

All digression aside, compared to where I’m from, it’s easier to travel between city and suburb in Chicago. Locals can’t conceive the truth of it, but transit and traffic congestion are far less punishing in this town, making it a relative breeze to travel across Chicago–or out into the suburbs.

And maybe it’s due to that subtle Midwestern way of avoiding disagreement, but the Windy City and its nearby neighbors seem a lot less prone than NYC and not-NYC to tear into each other and publicly defame each other’s relative worth. Of course, this relative good-neighbor policy could also be due to the giganticism of Cook County. Chicago and many close-in suburban towns tend to have a common enemy–the shenanigan-happy, tax-hungry board of the country’s second most populous county that contains them all. In New York, where each borough is its own county, the big bully on the block tends to be the city, itself.

For whatever reason, I don’t dread my weekly trips to my Oak Park coffee klatsch (although the village’s new logo certainly gives me pause), or visits to Forest Park, or Berwyn, or Evanston. Or further-out places like Brookfield (home of this blog’s hip-suburban chick Val). Or edge of Chicagoland towns like Geneva (and its bucolic, riverside Island Park), or Naperville. Or from time to time, even big-box-retail-giddy Schaumburg.

Is that a gasp I just heard?

None of this means I want to pull up stakes tomorrow and move to the suburbs (although regular readers will recall I almost did just that last year.) But I’m officially dropping the sneer when the subject of them–or the possibility of spending time in them–comes up. I always say the greatest force that keeps me in this annually frozen city is the ability to share it with the locals who live here. That applies to the suburbs, too. Chicagoans–defined as broadly as possible–are on the whole the most giving, fair, and open-minded people I’ve ever met in my life. You should see my New York friends grimace when I say that, yet half of them say they want to get the heck out of NYC and the other half already have.

Way back when I was in grad school training to be an urban planner (a career I left behind when I left the Big Apple), I would have agreed heartily with urbanist author James Kunstler’s view of America’s suburbs as boring places not worth caring about. I would have argued against the idea common in conservative circles that urban liberals like me needlessly perpetuate an anti-surburban bias. Yet that’s what I’ve done for the past several years here in Chicago.

Although a great body of planning thought would dissect the ills of the suburbs and, in the case of some progressive thinkers, rightly offer solutions to help make them more engaging places to live/work/play, that doesn’t mean that all suburbs are worthy of disapprobation. No matter how big the city in which you were born.

If Chicago’s taught me one thing, it’s the beauty of a balanced environment. I love looking down from my high-rise balcony at a forest of skyscrapers. But I also love looking out from that balcony at the horizon. From time to time, I like being a dot on that horizon, too. It’s a horizon I could never see, much less appreciate, from the biased perspective of a borough-bound New Yorker.

Seven years on, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This content originally appeared on my former Chicagosphere online-media blog, hosted on the Chicago Tribune’s ChicagoNow network.

There are bad branding strategies. There are Macy’s-mothballs-Marshall-Field awful branding strategies. And then there’s Willis Group’s hubris- and hare-brained idea to rename the Sears Tower. What do you get when you glue a new name on an old icon whose existing monicker has worldwide recognition? Judging by local blog discussion, a good laugh–and lots of people who say they just won’t bother to say the word W*****.

Admittedly, most buildings are named after one corporate giant or another. At its opening as the then-tallest building in the world in 1973, the Sears Tower was named after its original owner and largest corporate tenant–Sears. The name stuck around long after Sears moved out, and still sticks in the popular mind today fully six years after Sears’ naming rights expired.

Enter Willis, a London-based insurance broker seeking to become a household name in the U.S. In March of this year, Willis jumped the gun in announcing a deal to rent 140,000 square feet of space in Sears Tower–that’s barely 3.6% of the building, if you’re keeping score (and considering how puny a proportion that is, you should be)–at the discount rate of $14.50 per square foot to house about 500 employees, with said tower’s naming rights coming with. It’s a move that prompted a pissy response from Sears Tower’s owners, who were miffed that Willis disclosed the financials of the deal to the public.

Judging by Willis’ deaf-eared behavior in the wake of the July 2009 name re-chiseling, they really shouldn’t have been surprised (keep reading, though, as I’m getting ahead of myself.) And yet again, Chicago–at least partially–has New York interests to thank for kicking to the curb yet another local nameplate. The renaming deal was brokered by the NYC/Chitown Cushman & Wakefield duo of Kent Ilhardt (here) and Josh Kuriloff (there.) Back in March, the New York-based Kuriloff cooed that winning the deal to erase the Sears name from the Sears Tower was one of the highlights of his career–so think on that the next time a New Yorker tries to tell you their pizza or hot dogs are better.

Blogosphere reaction across America to the announcement was immediate and to the point. For example:

“But now, some insurance company nobody knows about is getting the naming rights, FOR FREE, with their new rental agreement. Yes I said RENTAL. Apparently, in today’s rough commercial real estate market, if you rent a large enough percent of a building (in this case only 3.5%) you get to rename American landmarks after you. Good thing there is no office space in Mt. Rushmore.” (Monk In the Middle)

“Chicagoans need not worry so much. To them, it will always be the Sears Tower, and to those outside the Windy City who also knew the tower, it will still be such. When newbies or non-traditionalists call it the Willis Tower to their faces, they’ll have the elitist pleasure of correcting that chump.” (Black Book Mag)

“I don’t think this name change is going to go over too well. I think most people will still refer to the building as the Sears Tower. As one Facebook member said, ‘I asked a cabdriver to take me to the Willis tower. He said, ‘Where the hell is that?’ That pretty much sums it up.’” (Notes on a Fucked Up Society)

“So what’s the big deal? Well, maybe it’s not happening in your city yet… but it’s extremely unnerving to have landmark buildings, parks, etc. re-named by corporations: it’s disorienting. Comiskey Park? Now replaced by U.S. Cellular Field. The Tweeter Center in neighboring Tinley Park — and what was the name before that??? — is now called the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre … how’s that for a mouthful? It makes you feel: where the heck am I, anyways?” (Opine ‘n Wine’s Weblog)

“Of all the stupid things. Just because someone opens their checkbook doesn’t necessarily mean it should be able to buy anything.” (The Amish Cook)

“The corporate naming game has run amok for years, but the recent name change from “Sears Tower” to “Willis Tower” in Chicago has touched a nerve. Or 96,814 nerves, as the case may be–that’s how many people on Facebook don’t like the idea.” (AdPulp)

“…before I change anything, I always carefully explore the ecology of the change on the entire system. That system might be the life of an individual or the life of a corporation, but I am going to make sure that all of the repercussions (good and bad) of a change are explored in-depth before I make them. In the case of the property owner of the Sears Tower, I think they did a terrible job of checking and evaluating ecology.” (Your Wonderful Life)

Or how about these selected comments from a lengthy discussion on the subject at Chicago’s homegrown Gapers Block:

“Some company that is renting a miniscule portion of the building pays a bribe to the management company and we’re all supposed to start calling a Chicago icon by a different name? Plus, this company is getting tax breaks (from a city broke off its ass) to help them move into the building (despite the fact that their profits were immense)? Yeah, and I’m going to petition my landlord to rename my building “The Kiss My Pale Furry Ass Center” (it’s not really tall enough to be called a “tower”).” (Cletus Warhol)

“There would be less popular resistance if Willis Holdings was a household name in Chicago. United Center, okay; they’re a hometown company. US Cellular Field, okay; smaller cell provider but still hometown. Allstate Arena, ehh I suppose; insurance doesn’t sound as cool as Rosemont Horizon, but they are hometown. Macy’s, ehh; most of us at least heard of them before they bought Field’s. Willis? Never heard of ‘em until a couple months ago. Barging in here, renaming a landmark we hold especially near and dear to our hearts. They’re not being good neighbors or endearing themselves to us.” (B Knight)

“No, I will not be calling it by its new name. It was and always will be the Sears Tower. You wouldn’t rename the Chrysler Building, or the Empire State Building, so why rename the Sears Tower? That’s total crap.” (eee)

“I’ll stick with Sears. I still call my phone service Cingular, and as long as the address redirects, I pay my bill by keying in cingular.com. You know newbies from long time people by how they pronounce words and what they call things. Like Cabaret Metro.” (mike-ts)

“I used to work for a company in the sears tower. The building management was emphatic that we could not use the phrase “sears tower” to refer to the building or the address. I will take great pleasure in continuing to call it the sears tower. (And I believe all of the publicity about that stupid glass box in the skydeck called it thus as well.) (flange)

“I’ll never call it Willis Tower because it just sounds silly.” (Chicago Garden)

“The more I think about it, I just want to call it ‘Carl.’ I think I’ll start refering to all the landmark buildings in Chicago by anthropomorphic names. Navy Pier will now be called ‘Popeye’ and the Tribune Tower looks like an ‘Ethel’ to me.” (boxspring)

And, of course, there’s the de rigueur petition. They’ll probably be as successful as those well-meaning Fields Fans Chicago wags, but God-love-’em both, anyway.

I hope you took notes about that 3.5%-to-3.6% of rented space (depending on who’s counting) that got Willis the name change. Last week, Sears Tower’s owners let out that none other than Chicago’s own United Airlines is considering a major relocation to the black behemoth. And United wants up to 450,000 square feet of the tower.

Anyone else thing Ilhardt and Kuriloff are taking turns kicking each other right now?

I’m thinking rank-and-file Chicagoans would have had a lot easier time seeing United’s name go up at 233 South Wacker (and potentially come down from the former R.R. Donnelley Building at 77 West Wacker) than the monicker of a locally unknown carpetbagger.

In fact, the only three boosters I could find online touting the attempted name change come as no surprise. The first is Mayor Daley, never one to stand in the way of anti-intellectualism, who opined to the Tribune:

“You’ve got to realize that change is good.”

As in always, apparently. (Hmm. Parking meter deal, anyone?)

The second are Willis, themselves, who distributed the P.R. version of a woodie (or is that a willie?) in a July 2009 release that features this priceless piece of 1984-esque newspeak:

“Above all, the naming of Willis Tower is an affirmation of our strong commitment to the great city of Chicago, its people and its future.”

And the third? Ah, you’ll see (just wait.)

While you’re waiting, any idea where we go from here? As with all things couched in the popular mind, we really don’t need to go anywhere. Estimable interests like the two above will be more than happy to use the term W***** Tower in daily discourse.

Anyone else preferring the historic name that stuck around both officially and unofficially for 36 years can feel free to keep on referring to the Sears Tower as the Sears Tower. There’s no law or ethical conundrum preventing you from doing so.

And unlike Macy’s when it renamed the State Street Marshall Field’s flagship, Willis isn’t exactly doing a full-court marketing campaign to change your mind on the matter, either. Or, really, any marketing campaign at all. Consider these quotes from a July 16 Crain’s Chicago Business interview with WIllis CEO Joseph Plumeri on the matter:

“People have asked me, ‘What do you think they’ll call it? Willis, Sears?’ I’ve said, ‘You can call it the Big Willie, and that would be fine with me.’ And I mean that…I’m not in charge of the marketing of the building.”

I can’t tell if that’s chutzpah or simple stupidity in the face of wise corporate brand positioning. Perhaps this quote from Plumeri in a same-day Chicago Tribune editorial might clear things up:

“[Chicagoans] can call it whatever they want…All I know is that the day we announced that this building would be named Willis Tower, everybody in America knew who Willis was.”

Or this one, uttered by Plumeri at the alleged renaming ceremony:

“Willis is not only going to have its name on the side of the building but it’s going to have an impact on the society and community of Chicago…You have to make a decision between sentimentality and the reality of what puts food on your table…there’s no food on the table called ‘tradition steak.’”

Chutzpah wins by a mile–and by the same reasoning that America knows the names of serial killers and deadly hurricanes the day they hit the news, too. That is, by shock value, pure and simple–no matter how people actually feel about the newsmakers, themselves.

Speaking of shock value, I find it a little shocking for any company to claim 500 employees in discount rental space are going to have much of an economic impact in one of the world’s financial capitals for much of anyone except Sears Tower’s owners. Of course, I could just be dizzy from all the spin.

That July 16 Trib editorial goes on to say:

“…we’ve got a feeling that Willis Tower is going to work its way into Chicago’s lexicon–and its heart.”

There’s your third Willis booster, folks–and that seems like a pretty pat way to downplay in one glib sentence the widespread disfavor of local sentiment in favor of big business. (Not for nothing, even the New York Times opined that some Windy Citizens might prefer to stick with the historic name no matter what.)

In the end, I guess Plumeri and company think chiseling a name on a Chicago icon is enough for to be thought of seriously–or over the long term, at all–in this town.

The Trib’s opinion notwithstanding, more than likely Chicagoans will continue to shrug and smile at the hubris, invite out-of-town visitors to the top of the Sears Tower, and try to remember just what the heck it is Willis sells, anyway.

Definitely not the bill of sale on this corporate phallacy.

This content originally appeared on my former Chicagosphere online-media blog, hosted on the Chicago Tribune’s ChicagoNow network.

In May, I threw down the charge for local bloggers to set aside starchitect fandom in their reviews of Renzo Piano’s new Art Institute of Chicago Modern Wing. This week, Aaron Renn, author of the widely noted urban-analysis blog, The Urbanophile, took up the challenge. A fan of the Modern Wing’s exterior, in an epic post, Renn considers the elevated Nichols Bridgeway and Monroe streetscape, below, in the same copious detail for which his blog has become known in national planning circles. And much like the mood of one local critic after reading my original post, Renn does not come away happy.

Renn faults the Bridgeway that spans across Monroe Street from Millennium Park to the top floor of the Modern Wing in three main areas:

• execution;
• visual obstruction; and
• pedestrian disengagement.

While he admires the vistas of and from the Bridgeway, he questions its bumpy, uneven metal decking and awkward lower terminus. Standing beneath the structure on Monroe, he interprets an uninviting pedestrian environment including a barren, concrete-laden streetscape adjacent to the Modern Wing, uninspired “afterthought” entrances and emergency exits, and the broken view caused by the Bridgeway, itself.

However, Renn reserves the bulk of his criticism for the lifelessness the Nichols Bridgeway engenders on Monroe Street, writing:

“The Nichols Bridgeway is nothing more than an open-air gerbil tube…it drains people from the street and is an implicit rejection of the value of the streets over which it passes.”

Renn sees in the Art Institute’s decision to opt for an elevated main siphon for Millennium Park visitors a capitulation to the generally sorry state of Monroe between Michigan Avenue and the lakefront.

He goes on to detail off-putting elements of Monroe Street’s pedestrian environment he found on a walk east from Michigan, including substantial stretches of blank stone and concrete walls, lots of cracked and broken sidewalk pavement, an unlabeled pedestrian underpass, paint peeling from traffic lights, bent fences and chicken wire, and an abrupt lakefront terminus at a chain-link fence abutting a poorly maintained public restroom–a lakefront terminus with no view of the actual lakefront or obvious pathway to reach it. Writes Renn:

“I’m not going to say this is the worst street ever. There are plenty of worse places to be in this world. But this is the Chicago lakefront for goodness sake. This one of the primary corridors people would take to get to the lake from the Loop. Walk out there one afternoon and see a few hardy tourists – but not that many – standing out on that wide, cracked sidewalk with cars whizzing by on Monroe and LSD and it’s pretty pathetic.”

He goes on to suggest a civic competition to re-imagine the street to create improvements consonant with the city’s recently updated Central Area Action Plan, including:

• Significantly upgrading the pedestrian experience along Monroe;
• Improving connectivity between the Loop and Lake Michigan;
• Linking commuter rail stations to the lake;
• Establishing a protected bicycle corridor to channel West Loop and West Side bike traffic safely through the Loop; and
• Creating better, innovative design standards for public spaces.

Read much more at The Urbanophile, and while you’re there, browse the right sidebar for links to many other detailed discussions on urban design, place making, civic branding, and economic survival strategies dealing with cities across the midwest and beyond.

I expect the blogosphere–not to mention the civic leadership and urban planning communities–to hear much more from Renn in the future. For fullest disclosure, I’ve been tapped to help him rebrand his existing Internet presence. (And I’m sure he’d love it if I actually started writing that project instead of scribing about his own words here.)

Speaking as a trained urban planner (you did read my bio, didn’t you?), the freshness of Renn’s urban analysis is astonishing, as much for its clarity as for its lack of close competition. If you’re a planning wonk, like me, or someone keenly interested in what makes cities tick–be that city Chicago or any other–read Renn’s blog.

Then kick yourself for wondering why you didn’t came up with some of the city-supportive ideas you find there.

(Photo: Sometimes the things we say don’t come out the way we intend.)

People say the strangest things to me in downtown Chicago. This past weekend was a trifecta. Sunday afternoon I ran into Marina City’s own Vincent Falk, aka the colorful, tour-boat-waving Riverace (rhymes with Liberace), standing together with Marina City Online scribe Steve Dahlman mid-span on the State Street Bridge.

“Vincent, do you know our neighbor, Mike Doyle?” asked Dahlman. “He’s another famous blogger in the building.”

“Of course, but he looks sad today,” replied Vincent, fingering my navy pullover. “See? He’s blue!”

Long ago I learned no one approaches Riverace without being badly punned. Dahlman chuckled.

“Dahlman, I can’t believe you laughed at that,” I said. “Even Vincent doesn’t think it’s funny, and he said it.”

I had just traded emails with Dahlman earlier in the afternoon, cajoling him for not commenting under the feature I wrote about him and his blog over at Chicagosphere. For someone with a local reputation built on trading condo gossip (I knew I liked him for a reason), he definitely has a tendency to soft-shoe his self-promotion.

He also has a tendency to bury the lead.

“Hey, I forgot to tell you, I’m getting married!” he cooed as we retreated from Vincent towards Wacker Drive.

“You’re what?” I asked, incredulous.

“Yes, me, getting married,” Dahlman answered.

“To a woman?” I asked, still not getting the memo.

Dahlman did his best Judy Tenuta in reply. “YEEEES!” he snarled in my direction.

“You didn’t tell me that before because why?” I asked.

“It slipped my mind,” replied Dahlman.

More likely you wanted to be sure you were ready for the news to be public knowledge before telling me, I thought. “Is this off the record?” I probed.

“Not at all,” Dahlman continued. “We’re aiming for August. She’s a really nice woman, my age–mid-forties, a nonprofit executive. She almost as much as asked me. There’s just one problem.”

Just the one? Thankfully, that was my inside voice.

“Tell me,” I said.

“We’d like some space, but I can’t leave Marina City,” Dahlman lamented. “The access to write about these buildings is too good to leave behind now. We need a two-bedroom somewhere in the towers.”

Only 16 out of Marina City’s 80 floors of apartments even have two-bedroom units, so I understood Dahlman’s dilemma: marriage or Marina City, but potentially not both.

I managed to muster, “Congratulations, anyway!” as I continued down State. I was on my way to dinner with Matt Countant, my bean-counter friend from West Tower. I hoped for the evening to be less contentious than the last time we hung out.

Lightweight that I am, I knew not to share a bottle of wine with a native South Sider. But the curiously dry gyros we were served at the usually amazing Parthenon last week needed to be washed down with something.

As Matt tried to guide my tottering form back towards Marina City, I told him how wondrous it still felt after four years in the towers to spend an evening out and be able to walk back home completely in downtown Chicago.

“We don’t live in downtown,” was Matt’s immediate response.

Oh, no he didn’t. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “Of course we live downtown. Where do you think downtown starts?”

“Inside the ‘L’ loop,” said Matt. “That’s downtown. Everything else is just near downtown.”

Am I, like, drunk and high, too? “Huh?” I verbally furrowed. “Don’t you think North Michigan Avenue’s downtown? That’s way north of where we live.”

“Well, I guess that’s downtown,” said Matt. “But not exactly.”

I’m being Punk’d, that’s got to be it. “What about the skyscrapers in the West Loop?” I protested. “The office buildings surrounding Marina City in River North? The CTA map’s downtown inset, for crying out loud?”

“There’s a difference between office districts and downtown,” Matt replied. “Let’s just agree to disagree, neither one of us is right or wrong.”

The drunken urban planner inside me had the urge to shake him right then and there. “That’s what you think,” I hissed before stumbling.
__

Yesterday afternoon when Matt and I met up again at Buckingham Fountain, my foot-in-mouth syndrome was far more immediate.

“Can you take our picture?” asked two lovely, young African-American women standing next to the railing of the enormous, iconic fountain.

“Sure,” I replied, taking hold of the camera. Matt stepped aside as I lined up the shot.

And with all due respect to the memory of Kate and Clarence Buckingham, I have no idea what possessed me to utter my next words.

“…What do you want behind you?”

(Photo: See anything wrong with this picture? I have 114 others just like it.)

Imagine my surprise this past Friday when I took one of my urban hikes through my downtown Chicago neighborhood and walked right into what may be the most unnecessarily dangerous pedestrian crossing in town.

I was heading down the lakefront from Marina City towards the (allegedly contemporary) Adler Planetarium, a path which passes by the Shedd Aquarium shortly before a sharp turn east sets you on Solidarity Drive for that quarter-mile scenic stroll down the embankment towards artificially starry skies.

Recent Chicago Department of Transportation reconstruction in the vicinity of Solidarity Drive has made the area a bit less convenient in recent months, with frequent road and crosswalk closures. But through it all, one critical north-south crossing across Solidarity has been maintained to make sure Museum Campus visitors –mostly families with school- and stroller-age children–have access to the Adler.

At least until now. On Friday, I found that last remaing crossing closed. I asked a construction worker about it. He told me, “The DOT doesn’t want pedestrians interfering with cars anymore and we can’t do anything about it.”

(Area Map: “O” marks the spot: location of the dangerous pedestrian crossing at Museum Campus, the intersection of South Museum Park Drive and East Solidarity Drive.)

The detour that replaces the now-closed, 20-second/20-foot crosswalk? A 20-minute/more than half-mile hike from the family/stroller exit of the Shedd (oh irony), counter-clockwise down Museum Campus Drive all the way to Soldier Field to the nearest open ped crossing, and then all the way back up.

I kid you not. Speaking of kids, for CDOT to think kids and toddlers in strollers would be walked by their families so far out of their way instead of their parents finding some other strategy to get across is imbecilic on the face of it.

And, of course, that’s just what the families are doing. Lots of them. On Friday afternoon, I stood at the closed crosswalk and watched more than 100 people wade out into the middle of oncoming two-way traffic on Solidarity Drive from the north and walk 30 feet down the middle of the street to get to the nearest available south sidewalk.

Making matters worse, for the entire 30-foot walk down Solidarity Drive, construction barriers and temporary fencing prevent any access whatsoever to the sidewalks on either side of the street, and (you know there had to be an and here, right?) eastbound traffic–including on Friday lots of buses, dump trucks, and cement mixers–comes flying around a blind corner after a stop sign–directly towards families crossing the street. Take a look at what I mean:

(Close-up Graphic: Follow the yellow line from the Shedd Aquarium’s family/stroller exit to the Adler Planetarium…via a 30-foot walk down the middle of a two-way street with no shoulders or sidewalk access. Whatsoever.)

Of course, the families need not be attempting to make the crossing. On the other hand, if you were a tired parent dragging a few screaming kids around Chicago all day, would you seriously consider taking an extra 20-minute walk in the sun instead of finding a way across the two lanes of traffic directly in front of you?

I didn’t just watch all those people wade into traffic. I stuck around for 90 minutes, pulled out my iPhone, and took 115 photos of them dodging traffic thanks to this oh-so-boneheaded detour decision of CDOT’s.

And then I made some calls to people I thought could help someone or someone’s child from getting killed at this crossing. Silly me. Here’s who I spoke with and here’s how much help they turned out to be:

• 2nd Ward Alderman Bob Fioretti’s Office: First I tried to contact 2nd Ward Alderman Bob Fioretti (the only Chicago alderman I ever refused to serve birthday cake). But 20 minutes of repeatedly calling the Ward and City Hall offices never yielded a live person. So I left a message and moved on.
• The Chicago Police Department: I next called the CPD to report the ongoing dangerous crossing issue. The dispatcher said they’d send a car to investigate. I waited half an hour for a car to arrive, but one never did.
• All Mainstream TV News Desks: Amazed that neither Fioretti’s office nor the CPD were of any help, being a media relations insider I pulled my phone back out and explained the problem–and the availability of heart-stopping B-roll footage–to the TV news desks of WBBM CBS 2, WMAQ NBC 5, WLS ABC 7, WGN 9, and WFLD Fox 32. They all yawned.
• The Bob Fioretti Call-Back: While I was calling the news stations, a woman from Fioretti’s Ward office called me back. I told her I was watching waves of families wade into oncoming traffic. She told me, “We’ll make some calls and let you know why that’s happening.” My inside voice called her a moron while my outside voice underscored the immediacy of the problem–and the fact that I’d just called every TV station in Chicago explaining the issue and telling them Fioretti’s office hadn’t even picked up the phone. Her next response: “I guess we can call the police and CDOT.” You think? I told her I’d wait until they arrived.
• The CPD Drive-By: Except, arrive and investigate the situation isn’t quite what the CPD did. Fly through the intersection in a marked car (see my photos, below) and then immediately leave would be a better way to put it.
• The WLS ABC 7 Live Truck Sit-and-Shrug: Before I became unfortunate enough to actually see some family get flattened by a cement mixer, I finally decided to head down Solidarity Drive to catch the 146 bus back home and deal with my developing sunburn. That’s when I saw a WLS live truck near the Adler taking skyline shots. I walked over and showed the field producer the 115 photos I’d already taken and implored him to shoot some B roll. He shrugged.

So I went back home, took a nap and some aspirin, and started to blog. That’s when I realized how furious I was at every one of the above people and places I called. For an hour an a half, I watched a steady stream of parents with kids almost getting hit by cars, and the local alderman, the local police, and the local news stations did everything but laugh in my face for telling them what I was watching.

I guess dangerous pedestrian crossings in Chicago aren’t big news unless someone’s parent or child actually dies in them. If that eventually happens at this Museum Campus crossing, you can decide for yourself where to place the blame.

You can also decide for yourself how dangerous you feel the crossing is: I invite you to view the slideshow below (or click through to my full flickr photoset) of those 115 photos of families wending their way across this hazardous and totally unnecessary crossing.

At least that’s my unofficial opinion about the crossing. But what do I know? I’m no CDOT planner, CPD officer, or local alderman. I was just one of the people trying to cross the street.

Alive, that is.