^The Montgomery Ward decisions forbid any buildings in Grant Park between Randolph and 11th Place. It's not a self-enforcing prohibition, which is how we got the Buckingham Fountain and Exelon pavilions. But any owner on the west side of Michigan has "an easement for light and air across the surface of the park" and could sue the Park District or the city to enjoin the construction. One of the fears I had about the Children's Museum proposal was that the Daley Administration would force the state supreme court to revisit the century-old decisions, the underlying rationale of which is a bit, um, cantilevered by modern legal standards.

Here's a recent law review article for those interested in the deep details.

Yeah, I didn't think it'd be likely. Good ol' Burnham and his "The waterfront shall belong to the people."

Wasn't there some drama about that in regard to the Art Institute? Some people were against... something.

Anyway, it's nice to see the CLA try to push downtown living, and guaranteed(*) views are a good selling point. Seems like the only places that could guarantee no view surprises are being immediately across the street from Grant or Lincoln park, or being right up against the river (with a few huge exceptions).

It wasn't Burnham who protected Grant Park. It was Montgomery Ward. Burnham wanted the Crerar Library, Field Museum, and a new home for the Art Institute in Grant Park. He was supported (and Ward was opposed) by every other civic leader and newspaper. It was only Ward's quixotic crusade that kept the buildings from being built there. Foundations had already been started to build the Field Museum where Buckingham Fountain is today.

http://i.imgur.com/WmVpLpW.jpg

Oh, interesting. I was under the impression that Burnham was the hero here, not Montgomery Ward (I cant hear that name without thinking of cheap crystal servingwear on layaway).

What would have been so bad about having more museums/libraries on that land? It would still fit the bill of belonging to the public. And I love Grant Park as much as the next guy, but it's got its share of problems.

Is there a good source of info about Montgomery Ward's role in Chicago? I still need to get through that Planning Chicago book you recommended.

edit: Actually, why don't you just start teaching a class, MrDowntown? I'd be in the first row.

There's nothing wrong with it, per se. But Grant Park would be a fundamentally different kind of place. No music festivals, no Taste, no panoramic skyline views. Much more of a place for the elite than for everyday Chicagoans.

Remember that Ward operated in 1900-era Chicago. Burnham's museum plan might have been noble, but there were plenty of industrial barons with lots of clout that would seek lakefront land for their operations. Putting a blanket ban on new buildings helped to prevent that sort of corrupt perversion of the Burnham Plan.

As noted, it wouldn't have been a disaster for Grant Park to be full of museums. It was more the principle of the thing, which makes me admire Ward all the more. And two years ago we fought the same battles all over again, as the Chicago Children's Museum tried to jump on the Millennium Park bandwagon. "Why do you hate the children?!?!"

As for Ward's story, the law review article I cited tells the basics. Lois Wille's book Forever Open, Free, and Clear recounts the several battles over the lakefront up to 1975 or so. Dennis Cremin has just written a new comprehensive history of Grant Park. For a while, I was trying to beef up the various Wikipedia entries on Grant Park but I'd get in edit wars with well-meaning kids who thought Burnham's plan was mostly necessary to provide housing for the people who'd been left homeless by the Great Chicago Fire.

As for teaching, I give a lot of guest lectures, but I'm not very interested in grading papers. And I have no patience for the kids who want to know if this will be on the exam. I'd much rather give tours and answer people's questions.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...ckless-abandon

RECKLESS ABANDON

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...335B4707812H8Y

City announces deal to expand Lincoln Elementary School

AMLI Clark & Polk
 

Kerbed reports it's topped out, but there's still some rebar sticking up. Perhaps that's for the 414-foot spire that will bring it to a total symbolic height of 1,776 barleycorns or something.

http://i.imgur.com/UkIptpe.jpg

^Can you believe Amli decided to paint the radome beige?

:???: Are you referring to the brick, in the photo?

It's a topical joke. Don't worry about.

Thanks for bringing attention to this, Victor. The foreclosure numbers are really, really dismal. I'm actually a bit surprised that thirty-five percent of Washington Park's developable land is vacant. Yikes.

I think the last point made by professor Brown is the most salient: Almost all revitalization schemes depend on growth, and it's highly unlikely that any of these areas will see much growth at all, at least in the near to mid-term. Investing in nodes that still have a functional foundation of economic activity makes more sense than trying to revitalize a little bit everywhere. Most areas have too much momentum in the direction of abandonment and disinvestment for the tide to turn the other way.

This whole time I thought the AMLI project was going to be 16 floors, not 11. That seems too short for the area, and makes me suspect they just wanted to preserve penthouse views for AMLI900, which makes me angry and violent.

Look at photographs of the Lower East Side from only 20-30 years ago. Never say never. The problem is once all these buildings are demolished theres truly nothing left to propel forward on once things turn around. This is all too reminiscent of the planned urban destruction that went on 1/2 a century ago, but once again people wont realize it until its too late. (to clarify, Im talking about the now politically trendy strategy of demolishing abandoned property
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/us...ebuilding.html)

I won't say never, but I will stick with my prospectus that no turnaround will come about in the near or mid-term. Also, the LES and the Southside of Chicago are hardly analogous, neither when it comes to the circumstances of their vacation nor their respective revitalization potentials (past potential in the case of the LES, quite obviously).

^ Yep, this army of rehabbers that Via Chicago is daydreaming about just isn't out there in some of these really hard hit neighborhoods.

There are still plenty of moderate income areas on the south side that have good building stock and are seeing investment (areas around Hyde Park, Pilsen, etc) and that is where the investors are planting their money.

But many areas are just too far gone and its better to start with a clean slate than to see buildings rot away into oblivion or house more homeless people or gangs. A lot of druggies hole themselves up in these buildings. It's really bad for the city. I found a used heroin needle in the building I'm rehabbing in Pilsen

Im not delusional. I fully realize we're looking at a generational timeline. You mention Pilsen as a success story but that was hardly a given until quite recently.

I think the question of if a vacant lot is preferable to a well boarded vacant building is open for debate. Also, lets not forget that there are still people who live in these communities who care deeply about them. Its easy to pontificate about whats "best" from a downtown condo. Not saying thats necessarily you, but for once I think it would be interesting to, you know, actually ask the residents what it is THEY want. If the city really wanted to push development and aid, they could...instead we funnel millions of tax dollars to build corporate HQ's.

As an aside, someone else made a comment about the cost of building materials being so low that it encourages this kind of waste. I kind of wonder if we lived in a world where that wasnt the case if people would be better stewards of what we already have.

People quite often underestimate just how quickly things can change in the built environment. Remember that much of Chicago was built in rapid spurts, not gradually over 75 years (1875-1950). Huge swaths of the very building stock we are lamenting losing right now were thrown up in 5-10 year bursts between panics and recessions.

In fact, we need look no further than the aughts to see the latest incarnation of this. Between 2000 and 2008 a HUGE amount of housing stock was created. Much of it was concentrated on the north side, but there are now parts of the North Side that are virtually unrecognizable from what they were 10 years ago. I always like to point to streets like Belmont and Diversey which are almost exclusively lined with dense, urban, infill that wasn't there prior to 2005 or so.

Just this morning I was down in Tri-taylor and noticed the exact same thing. There are HUGE numbers of 00's new construction buildings in that area. Given another real estate boom, I see no reason why that little node of development won't start growing again and begin to encroach on Lawndale to the West, Little Village to the south, and Garfield Park to the North.

Even as we speak a brand new neighborhood is being constructed in the West Loop. Yes the gentrification began in the last boom there, but at this point we are seeing the wholesale decimation of parking lots in the area bounded by Grand, the Kennedy, the Eisenhower, and Ashland. What happens when that area is mostly built out? Then they move on to the easy pickings of vacant land around United Center.

On Monday I was in Bronzeville on 35th street and the same applies there. HUGE amounts of new construction buildings from the last 10 years. Yeah, nothing nearly as stately as what once was, but also a hell of a lot better than the vacant lots they replaced which were around for decades beforehand. I even saw a row of 4 new, decent looking, single family homes being finished up on Giles just north of 35th street.

But I digress, the point is that entire areas can transform extremely rapidly (we are talking in a decade or less) given the right mix of economics and sociology. Once an area reaches a tipping point, it can just pop like the West Loop or Logan Square or Pilsen. While it is painful, what I think we are seeing right now is entire swaths of the city clearing out and being primed for redevelopment. Sure there is wanton destruction, but the fact is a lot of people are also scooping up these abandoned buildings (I am one of them) and re-positioning them to be a part of the ongoing urban Renaissance.

I see no reason why places like Bronzeville and Washington Park can't pop in short order given what is going on around them. The south loop continues to push south, Pilsen pushes East and now the ongoing boom in Hyde Park is pushing North. It's only a matter of time before that area changes from "don't go there" to "Man, look at how cheap those enormous 4 bedroom apartments are" and you get a gold rush of gentrifying yipsters. Also, rents in the aspiring Class A neighborhoods that are moving up from Class B status (such as Logan Square, Pilsen, Avondale, etc) are getting out of control. Rents in Logan, for example, have nearly doubled in a few years time. This has the effect of driving a lot of the middle and upper middle class who still live on a budget out of those areas in search of a new gritty, but mostly safe, place to set up.

All it takes is continued decay in suburban Cook County and a few outer ring suburbs and the "pull" of the inner city will be joined by the "push" of poverty and people will flood back into the city in a manner in which we have not seen since the city was first built. This tipping point might happen in 5 years or it might happen in 25 years, but it is imminent in my opinion. Just look at the graph in the article Bvic posted, yes Chicago has a lot of vacant buildings, but the number of vacant buildings only rose a little bit in the city, most of the rise occurred in suburban Cook County.

TLDR: Sorry for the wall of text, the point is, don't underestimate how quickly cities can grow. I see a lot of forces converging that could spark a rapid change in conventional wisdom.

^ Thanks, I agree wholeheartedly.

Also, some people tend to forget that it costs money to maintain a vacant property. Boarded up costs, taxes, as well as the higher premiums charged for insurance on a "vacant building". If there is practically no chance of a neighborhood turning around for a good 5-10 years or more, one can understand why demolition is pursued