CHICAGO CARLESS

(Photo: A dangerous drug is GarageBand…)

Given me and my big mouth, it had to happen sometime. Today debuts “Downtown Local“, my (most likely allegedly) weekly podcast look at life, love, and folly from the heart of downtown Chicago. I’ll use “Downtown Local” to expand on issues I cover in my regular blogposts, as well as to share new stories–and, of course, rants.

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(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 of Daley Bicentennial Plaza instead of in Lakeshore East Park. I asked him over coffee at the Randolph Street Intelligentsia (my beloved local haunt), in an effort to delve deeper into the residential opposition to the Chicago Children’s Museum’s planned move from Navy Pier to Grant Park.

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(Photo: Alderman Brendan Reilly, a man willing to get to the bottom of the Second City.)

Of all things I thought downtown’s 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly would offer as a compromise in the ongoing controversy over the Chicago Children’s Museum’s proposed move from Navy Pier to Grant Park–especially after publicly calling out Mayor Daley on the issue–the last thing I expected was for him to agree with a reporter’s suggestion to stick the museum in a cave.

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(Photo: Opening imaginations opens minds at the Chicago Children’s Museum. Credit: David London.)

On Friday, I requested and was given unfettered access to interview the administrative staff of the Chicago Children’s Museum (and why a local blogger and not a Tribune or Sun-Times reporter was the first person to do that is beyond me). I wanted to learn the point of the museum–its civic importance, its programs, its reputation. More than that, I wanted to figure out why instead of reporting on those things, in the midst of the ongoing controversy over the museum’s proposed move from Navy Pier to Grant Park, Chicago’s local dailies have instead dismissed the museum in language such as “a glorified activity center for kids” (Sun-Times).

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(Photo: A case of mistaken identity in downtown Chicago’s New Eastside.)

Although I, too, have highlighted the racism that some members of the New Eastside Association of Residents (NEAR) have used to fuel their opposition to the Chicago Children’s Museum’s proposed move from Navy Pier to new digs at Daley Bicentennial Plaza in the northeast corner of Grant Park, that’s not really the crux of NEAR’s opposition. Nor do I believe that NEAR members pass fitful, sleepless nights, tortured by the fear that a 110-year-old Illinois Supreme Court decree barring permanent structures from Grant Park will be flouted by the Daley administration.

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(Photo: 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly.)

Today, was a litmus test for 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly. He failed.

Today, Alderman Reilly announced his opposition to the proposed relocation of the Chicago Children’s Museum from Navy Pier to a site on East Randolph Street in Grant Park.

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(Photo: Innocent place of learning for kids…or the crux of all evil? Credit: Chicago Children’s Museum.)

I don’t have an answer to the question of whether the Chicago Children’s Museum should be allowed to build a new home for itself in Daley Bicentennial Plaza, a.k.a. the woefully underused northeast corner of Grant Park. But I do think the possibility deserves to be debated, and not cut off at the knees as the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune would have it.

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