Thompson Center sale – would “Big Jim” wind up losing his tribute bldg.?

I have mixed views over what ought to become of the building that already has had more than a third of a century of life – the James R. Thompson Center that is the physical Chicago home of Illinois state government.

A significant Chicago intersection for many layers of government

I know some officials think that the sale of the downtown Chicago real estate would produce revenue too essential to balancing out state government’s finances that would make it too irresponsible to even think of retaining the facility.

YET THE IDEA of now having to find office space for all the state agencies that are based here elsewhere in Chicago make me think it may be irresponsible to abandon their current home.

I know of the ideologues of downstate Illinois who take great offense that Springfield, the state capital, is considered less important for some state agencies than Chicago. But it seems like it could be reckless to sell off the state facility just to appease those ideologues who can’t accept that Springfield is essentially a city built on a 19^th Century scale (Abraham Lincoln would recognize much of it) even though the world has progressed far into the 21^st Century!

This debate is going to perk up in coming years, what with Gov. J.B. Pritzker signing the bill into law that creates a two-year process that would enable someone else to bid on, and buy, the square-block property at Clark and Randolph streets.

Old and new state buildings across the street

The prime real estate located right across the street from City Hall/County Building and also from the old State of Illinois Building (which long ago was converted into the Bilandic Building home of the Supreme Court of Illinois along with the appellate courts for the Chicago area).

AND ALSO KITTY-corner from the Daley Center building, which serves as the Cook County courthouse – at least for civil cases.

All of which makes Clark and Randolph an all-important intersection for the happenings of politics and government at the city, county and state levels.

What becomes of the Dubuffet? Photos by Gregory Tejeda

A presence that would be lessened quite a bit if officials were to decide to let something else become the purpose of the building north of Randolph and west of Clark streets.

As much as some people like to denigrate the building’s appearance and style, I have to admit to kind of getting a kick out of its appearance – even when one tries to ridicule its salmon and sea blue color scheme.

OR, AS I remember, once, someone tried to claim that the Jean Dubuffet sculpture “Monument with Standing Beast” was really nothing more than an AIDS virus trying to infest the body politic. Which probably says more about the mini-mind of the critic than it does anything about the structure itself.

It is interesting that this was an idea that both governors Rod Blagojevich and Bruce Rauner tried to push through the process – although it now has the potential to become a reality under Pritzker.

I just can’t get past the idea that state agencies still need a physical presence in Chicago – unless we’re trying to create the image that state government is completely irrelevant to the existence of the Second City.

A concept that would be totally insipid for anybody to try to spew – no matter how rural Illinois-oriented they are in their approach to life.

WOULD SELLING OFF the state government building in downtown Chicago wind up becoming an even more small-minded decision by our government officials than the move made more than a decade ago to sell off control of parking meters in the city.

The one that saw Chicago blow through the payoff they received, while ensuring that corporate interests will make money off the city for decades to come?

This is something people should think seriously about – particularly if provisions that the existing Chicago Transit Authority “el” and subway platforms at the building would have to be maintained regardless of what some future developer might want to build there.

Of course, I also have my own memory – that of the cinematic scenes from the film “Running Scared” that were shot there. How many of us would not want to see the spot where actor Billy Crystal’s “Chicago cop character” ruined Jimmy Smits’ “drug dealer character” by throwing his “stash” all over the Thompson Center floor?

  -30-

Thompson Center: Will we sell it, lose it? Or figure out a way to forget it

My father has devoted his professional life to architecture and construction and has had a hand in the erection of several prominent Chicago downtown structures.
 

Old state building will live longer than Thompson Center

Which is how I can claim to have set foot inside the building now known as the Thompson Center (although it once also carried the brand of State of Illinois Center) long before its official opening in 1985.

HE WORKED FOR one of the companies involved in the building’s erection (keep your silly giggle to yourself) and I remember the day he took me along to the construction site.

I still remember walking around the grounds (while wearing a helmet) and checking out the development of a frame for what is a 16-story building. I even got to walk along a steel beam for a few feet without seriously injuring myself. Yes, I'm pretty sure that things are more stringent these days and somebody would be in serious trouble if my father permitted me to try to do that today.

I also can remember my father taking me along during the renovation of the Chicago Hilton & Towers Hotel (and seeing the luxury rooms stripped down to the drywall) and to the dedication ceremonies for the building we will always think of as the Sears Tower – the original Mayor Daley being present is my lasting memory.

But in my mind, that one day at Clark and Randolph at what was yet to become the state government building in Chicago sticks in my mind the most. And is a large part of the reason why the Thompson Center has always been a building of significance in Chicago. To me, at least.

WHICH IS WHY a part of me is astounded at the negative reputation the structure has developed (other than that some people will feel compelled to whine about anything). And at reports that the building that has barely been with us for a third of a century is endangered. The former state government building in Chicago is approaching a century of age, and no one is talking about tearing down the Bilandic Building (as it's now known).

Gov. Bruce Rauner has made it clear he’d just as soon be rid of the structure, claiming state government would somehow make money off its sale and demolition. Although there also is a sense he thinks that doing away with a Chicago base for state government would reduce the Democratic Party influence over the state.

Because there are those people who get all worked up that Springfield isn’t treated as the be-all-and-end-all of the state of Illinois. Which makes this yet another issue that Rauner and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, quarrel over.

Does 'Big Jim' need new namesake building?

The building’s future also came up last week when the Landmarks Illinois group issued its list for this year of historic structures that are in danger of disappearing.

THE BUILDING COULD be lost because of the state officials who don’t think it worth maintaining, and the group said, “Demolition as part of a sale devalues the civic and cultural advances displayed in (architect) Helmut Jahn’s groundbreaking post-modern design and the opportunities for a development that could integrate the building.”

Personally, I always thought there was something intriguing about the blue-and-salmon color scheme and the outer shell of the building. Its shape stands out amidst the landscape of downtown Chicago. Nobody would mistake the Thompson Center for any other building.

Although from the inside, the building can appear to be a bit shrill and sometimes cheaply constructed. And sound does tend to echo about the building, making it possible for people on the upper floors to hear the ruckus of those who stop off in the basement concourse level to check out the mass of fast food available there.

The latter observations were ones I made in later years when, while working for the now-defunct City News Bureau, I was once a reporter-type person assigned to the press room that used to exist on the building’s ninth floor.

I ONCE LEANED on a wall in just such a way that the drywall collapsed – and a palm-sized hole in the wall was developed. Although I have to admit that when state Central Management Services crews found out, they quickly repaired the damage.

So what is destined to happen to the structure? Will it merely become a part of a list including the Sherman House hotel of what used to exist across the street from Chicago City Hall?

Thompson Center's moment of glory?

Will future generations watch the 1986 film “Running Scared” (starring actors Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines as two of the most unconvincing Chicago cops you'll ever see) and wonder how anyone could dream up the scenes (cocaine bags being dropped from 16 stories high onto the floor of the rotunda) shot at the Thompson Center?

And what will become of Monument with Standing Beast – as in the DuBuffet sculpture whose odd appearance has long confounded people as they enter the structure where “the people’s business” is done in the Second City. Perhaps it will get historic landmark status -- reminding people of what once was at the site long after the structure has been demolished and turned into just another generic high-rise building

  -30-

EXTRA: Blame being spread all about

Why can’t our state government officials get their act together to put together an operating budget that would permit it to conduct itself the way it’s supposed to? Largely because it seems we have government officials who are the equivalent of five-year-olds.
 

Will Bilandic bldg. have longer life than Thompson?

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, had a letter delivered Tuesday morning to Gov. Bruce Rauner addressing the topic of talks concerning the proposed sale of the Thompson Center state government building.

MADIGAN LET IT be known he is willing to cooperate with the governor’s staffers to try to make the deal happen, but couldn’t help but take his own fair share of potshots at Rauner. Which he thinks are fair game for the disrespect he thinks he has been shown on the issue.

“With all due respect, I think it is disingenuous of you and beneath your office to make such false statements to the media when you know or should have known that I have pledged my cooperation, that our staffs are working together on this initiative and that we are working toward the same goal … and in good faith,” Madigan wrote.

He later added, “Despite your inability to provide an accurate account of the facts or acknowledge my public and private comments, my staff will continue working cooperatively with your staff and (Central Management Services) to develop a plan to maximize the ability of the State to sell the property.”

As though Madigan is doing everybody a favor by participating in these talks. With this tone, his signature, “With kindest personal regards, I remain sincerely yours,”… might as well have contained an illustration of a middle finger protruding into the air.

ALL I KNOW is with this mentality, it will be a miracle if the sides can work out the details by which the state government building could be sold off (which includes a significant side issue in that any future development would interfere with the CTA ‘el’ station at the building).

Particularly since the governor’s people responded to the Madigan letter by telling the Capitol Fax newsletter that the esteemed Mr. Speaker “has held up every proposal to create jobs, provide property tax relief, balance the budget and improve education.”

And with us now moving into the re-election mode from now through November of 2018, it’s going to be a miserable period of nothing occurring, but everybody seeking to use that nothingness to their advantage.

While we all lose!

  -30-

Fantasies always predominate in political people’s mentalities

Are we really destined to get a 110-story towering building in downtown Chicago – one that would enable its occupants to look down on City Hall and the rest of Chicago?

Is the Thompson Center destined to dominate Randolph and LaSalle? Or become a vacant block in the city grid? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

Does one-time House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, currently serving time in a federal correctional center, really have the nerve to demand repayment of the money he allegedly paid out to keep certain people quiet about past indiscretions in his lifetime?

FOR THAT MATTER, did former Gov. Rod Blagojevich really go down to the final seconds of the Barack Obama presidency believing he had a chance to gain clemency from the man he once jealously derided and believed stole his own presidential aspirations?

Even though, to be honest, it was only Blagojevich himself who ever thought he’d wind up in the “crown jewel of the federal penal system” (to steal from Harry S. Truman) rather than a cell at the Englewood Federal Correctional Institute in Colorado.

Yes, it’s true. One does not have to focus attention on the District of Columbia to see silly and absurd behavior. President Donald J. Trump will have competition for the category of political nonsense.

Take the talk that Gov. Bruce Rauner is stirring up again about wanting to demolish the Thompson Center state government building. He has pitched this idea before, although with state government’s other problems it is quite a ways away from becoming reality.

 

RAUNER: Will he be able to do anything w/ bldg.?

SO TO LEARN that architect Helmut Jahn (who designed the structure back in the 1980s as the State of Illinois Center) is defending his structure and proposing an exorbitant renovation that would include a 110-story tower at the southwest corner is beyond belief.

Considering that the current structure is only 16 stories, with Rauner’s office on the top floor. Does Bruce think he’d get a new office complex on the new top floor – allowing him to look down on the gardens that exist on the roof of City Hall located across the street?

Or maybe the governor thinks he can one-up the new president by having a Chicago office that could compete in height with the Second City take on a Trump Tower.

 

Denny a long way from dignity of Speakership

Would that inspire the prez to tell his sons who technically are now running the real estate company to figure out a way to one-up the governor – who has been incredibly quiet and refusing to say anything that could be interpreted as supporting or opposing the new reign of Trump that befell the nation on Friday.

BUT THEN, THERE is the plight of Denny Hastert, who currently is serving a prison term at a correctional facility in Minnesota, has filed a lawsuit claiming that $1.7 million he paid out to one of his former students at Yorkville High School should be returned.

Hastert is in prison through August on convictions of charges that he violated federal laws concerning the withdrawing of money from bank accounts. Large withdrawals are supposed to be publicly recorded and acknowledged.

But Hastert wanted to get at large sums of money because he was facing that amounts to blackmail threats from the former student, who says he was sexually abused as a teenager by Hastert.

As it is, Hastert paid the money and technically was supposed to pay another $1.8 million in order to ensure that the now middle-aged man would keep his mouth shut. That man has his own lawsuit pending saying that Denny still owes him money from their agreement. The courts ultimately will have to decide which of these people has a less-sleazy legal argument, and it could wind up that attorneys fees wind up devouring the money all the way around!

THEN, WE GO back to Blagojevich, whose name was not included in either of the final rounds of acts of clemency granted by Obama on Wednesday or Thursday.

 

Rod a long way from days of youthful hair

The Chicago Sun-Times gave us a particularly pathetic image of former first lady Patti saying that Rod hadn’t given up hope yet because there was always the chance of a last-second commutation Friday morning.

Maybe she was just saying that and really knew better. Either that, or our state’s former governor has gone goofy from incarceration. Anybody who remembers the Blagojevich/Obama animosity and jealousy over which would be the promising young pol to come out of Illinois would know there would be no reason for Obama to want to do a thing – particularly since it would whack his own legacy if he bothered.

Resulting in Blagojevich having to serve until about May 2024 in prison – unless Trump feels some justification for granting an act of clemency. Which may be the most ridiculous political fantasy of all.

  -30-

Bilandic Building the eventual Chicago home of Illinois state government?

Be honest! It would be hilarious if significant parts of Illinois state government wound up being headquartered in the building named for Chicago’s accidental mayor – the guy whom history recalls as the ones who couldn’t keep the trains running in black neighborhoods during winter storms.

Chicago's Thompson and Bilandic buildings

As in Michael Bilandic, the one-time 11^th ward alderman who became mayor following the death of Richard J. Daley, then wound up redeeming his legacy by becoming a state Supreme Court justice – even serving a stint as chief justice of Illinois.

THE LATTER STORY is the reason why Bilandic’s name is on the building at the northwest corner of Randolph and LaSalle streets. Not because of anything he did as mayor.

But the one-time State of Illinois Building (the structure now named for James R. Thompson technically is the State of Illinois Center) technically is the home of the Illinois appellate and Supreme courts in Chicago, as well as the Illinois attorney general’s office and other legal-oriented state agencies.

And if Gov. Bruce Rauner were to have his way, it could soon someday become the home of the governor’s Chicago office – which currently occupies half of the top floor of the Thompson Center (the four legislative leaders occupy the other half).

Both WBBM-TV and the Chicago Sun-Times have reported that Rauner would want  make the move as a gesture toward the eventual disposition of the Thompson Center from the state property rolls altogether.

IN PART AS a gesture to those political partisans who see the idea of a block-sized building in Chicago devoted to state government as some sort of slap in the face to the idea that Springfield, Ill., is the actual seat of state government.

With legislators who usually keep the public 'in the dark' symbolically, how would they react to literally being with no electricity?

This, it seems, is one of Rauner’s ideas of how to shake up government activity and tradition. That is, when he’s not pushing for various measures meant to undermine the authority of organized labor within state government.

I can’t help but think Bilandic himself would be appalled by these actions, and the inability of our state to get its finances together for purely politically partisan reasons.

Back in his mayoral day, mayors knew the idea of being able to work with Republican governors. The whole “D” vs. “R” concept was not an obstacle to getting things done – as it is now by a political generation who defines politics as telling your opposition party they’re entitled to nothin’!!!!!!!!

THAT IDEA IS why we are now into month seven of a budget stalemate for state government, which has prevented many government expenses from being paid.

Including the utility bills for the Capitol building itself! The State Journal-Register newspaper in Springfield reported that state government now owes some $9 million to the city-owned City Water, Light & Power company – of which some $6 million of that is past due.

Just think how quickly the utility would have cut off electricity to anyone else who incurred that much back debt? Instead, the City Council in Springfield is saying it will pass a resolution meant to urge the state to pay up – because that big of a debt to the city is causing financial problems at the municipal level as well.

Actually, my own memories of life in Springfield was of a utility company that offered up cheap bills (some $15-20 per month, I seem to recall in my case). To incur that much debt literally means the state is consuming a lot without paying up.

SO WHAT WOULD happen if the city had to cut off electricity to the Statehouse building?

BILANDIC: Is his spirit snickering at us?

Would we be in the predicament where state workers in the Chicago office (the one that Rauner wants to do away with as some sort of extravagance) would wind up becoming all-the-more important to state government operations?

Or would ComEd and other utility companies decide they could play hardball with the state?

And would Mr. Bilandic be looking down upon us from the skies laughing at our political ineptitude – which in some ways makes his own “blizzard of ‘79’ ineptitude seem downright petty by comparison.

  -30-

Losing the Thompson Center?

We’re still a long ways away from seeing the Thompson Center state government building in Chicago torn down and turned into an annex of the Trump Building a few blocks away.

Will Bilandic Bldg. have longer legacy than Thompson?

After all, the Illinois General Assembly would still have to sign off on any plan to sell the structure to a real estate developer – who could then tear down the 30-year-old building and erect something else (possibly gaudy) in its place.

CONSIDERING THE CURRENT mood of the state Legislature when it comes to all things gubernatorial, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Democratic majorities that dominate both the state Senate and Illinois House of Representatives were to reject the plan purely out of spite.

It will be disguised by the Chicago-based legislators as a desire to maintain the physical presence of Illinois state government within the state’s (by far) most significant city.

Which actually wouldn’t be a bad reason. For a part of me wonders how much Gov. Bruce Rauner is motivated to take this action by a desire to reduce the level of influence that Chicago has over state government operations.

Take away a building that some view as an alternative work place to the Statehouse in Springfield and make some think that the capital city itself doesn’t matter much.

SCATTER THOSE STATE employees who do need to be Chicago-based around various downtown buildings so they quit thinking of themselves as a force. And you also strengthen the morale of those state workers at the Capitol – who often complain about being dissed by their Chicago-based colleagues.

This intersection won't be as political if Gov. Rauner gets his way

I’m sure that when Rauner earlier this week threw out the suggestion that some Chicago-based employees would have their jobs transferred to Springfield, it burned the bottoms (so to speak) of many state workers who would never accept such a move.

Which could make for a round of hiring to get downstate-oriented workers within state government! Politically, it helps make sense to bolster the level of influence Rauner would have over state government.
 

Remember the 'cocaine' scattered on the floor?

Although in terms of providing actual service to constituents (which theoretically is the only reason government exists to begin with), it’s kind of short-sighted.

NOW AS SOMEONE who once did a two-year stint representing the now-defunct City News Bureau in the press room at the state building (when the structure was only about five years old and also got a tour of by my father back when it was a construction site), I’ll admit I’ll miss the building. The same as I miss the old Sun-Times Building with all its own barge-like lack of style right on the Chicago River.

But I’ll also admit to noticing the level of decrepitness the structure has achieved in recent years. Famed architect Helmut Jahn admits his concept of an urban take on the open-air space under a Capitol rotunda has been allowed to go to seed. I don’t know if I’d feel the same level of sentiment if I had to work there now.

But that doesn’t mean the state shouldn’t have a strong physical presence in Chicago. Although I wonder if this means the Bilandic Building (that houses the appellate and Supreme courts in Chicago) could revert back to its old “State of Illinois Building” status.

With a few stray agencies scattered around the Loop. And most people thinking of state government solely when they visit their local driver testing facility to get their licenses or license plates renewed.

SO PERHAPS IN the long run, it won’t impact many people. Although I wonder what happens when a future governor who thinks a little more long-range than the current occupant of the Executive Mansion does decides Illinois needs its own building in Chicago?

Will we be scouring the city for a location – when the perfect site right across the street from both City Hall and the old State Building is taken by a developer who turns it into an over-glorified shopping center with condos on top?

A historic relic of the future?

And if the Thompson Center really does disappear, then what happens to that black-and-white blob of a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet that has sat outside the structure for decades.

Auction it off to the highest bidder (some overly-wealthy individual who’s willing to buy anything)? Or perhaps move it to the Chicago History Museum – put it in the entrance right before you get to see the dioramas of “historic” Chicago.

  -30-

‘Way of the Cross’ just not the same walking along Michigan Avenue

I don’t mean to bash the roughly 100 people whom I saw Friday morning partaking in the “Way of the Cross,” an attempt to replicate (sort of) the crucifixion of Jesus Christ for having the nerve to say that he was the Son of God.

Site of one of the 'Stations' of the cross

But there’s just something about the event that loses so much flavor when it basically becomes a walk along Michigan Avenue.

SOMEHOW, I DOUBT that Jesus in his final hours of life as a mere mortal was thinking anything close to what the typical “Magnificent Mile” marcher has running through his (or her) mind.

But that is what occurred when people attempted to replicate the events celebrated by Good Friday, one of the holiest days in the Christian faith. For those of you who are celebrating Passover this weekend, this may all sound like superstitious hooey.

Then again, I’m sure there are devout Christians who don’t get the whole thing about opening the door for Elijah. Perhaps if we tried to comprehend each other better (and that also includes Christians and Jewish people trying to understand Muslims), we’d all be better off.

Part of my problem with what happened in downtown Chicago is that my mind compares the event to the similar events that were staged in neighborhoods like Pilsen (or Spanish-speaking enclaves across the United States, for that matter).

SOMEHOW, LATINOS REALLY seem to get into the spirit of Good Friday more than what I saw Friday morning, although I'm sure the denizens of Michigan Avenue probably think what happened Friday afternoon in Pilsen is downright uncouth.

How else to explain the difference between a couple of people leading this particular procession (which had Chicago Catholic Archdiocese backing) being led by a couple of people bearing a cardboard cross, and a Latino-oriented production where the Jesus “impersonator” is literally lugging around the cross that he will be crucified on later in the day in Humboldt Park?

Add in a couple of portly Latinos (yes, I’ll admit to falling in that category myself) dressed as Roman soldiers who are flogging Jesus all the while, and it just makes the downtown version seem so tame.

In my case, I saw the procession as it made its way past the Thompson Center state government building. It had just started one block south at the Daley Plaza, where a cross was erected in the shadow of the Picasso statue and even after the crowd moved on, a woman was present handing out prayer cards to all passersby.

THE GROUP WAS was later to make stops at the Veterans’ memorial at State Street and Wacker Drive, the Tribune Tower, the Water Tower, then work its way west a couple of blocks to Holy Name Cathedral – the church that still has a couple of pock marks in the front steps from when gangster Dion O’Banion was shot to death after attending services there.

It may be somewhat sacrilegious to dismiss Holy Name’s significance to Chicago with the organized crime reference.

Then again, there is a part of me that is pleased they included a stop (meant to replicate the stops made along the route to Christ’s place of death) at Tribune tower.

Although I wonder what needed more of a blessing – the Chicago Tribune itself to use its still-ample resources to publish a better newspaper, or for some sort of miracle so that the nearby Marilyn Monroe statue quits showing off her undies to passers-by on Michigan Avenue!

WHILE I BELIEVE the people who participated were sincere, I couldn’t pick up any sense that they were gathering the attention of those people whom they passed by. Just another crazy day in the Second City!

I doubt the masses took to the event as literally as can occur in a Latino neighborhood, where the guy who gets to play Christ will literally go around showing off the scars (and, in some cases, nail holes in his palms) he received from playing the Son of God.

Although my favorite story resulting from a “Way of the Cross” celebration isn’t even from this country. It came out of a town in rural Mexico where police had to be called in to break up a bar fight.

For it seems the fight was between two men – one of who had played the part of Jesus Christ and the other filled the role of Judas Iscariot. When the other bar patrons figured out who the two were, they quickly sided with Christ.

“JUDAS” WOUND UP getting beaten severely by the other bar-goers. Then, when police arrived, he was the one who got hauled away and wound up facing criminal charges for starting a fight with “Jesus.”

The day that a downtown “Way of the Cross” celebration can inspire that kind of enthusiasm and energy will be the day I stop thinking of it as a superficial way of remembering our religious faith.

And for what it’s worth, they plan to be back out there on March 29, 2013. Just so you can get yourself ready.

  -30-

Oh, Pipe down!

There have been moments during my years as a reporter-type person when someone who I was interviewing was saying something so ludicrous that what I really wanted to do was tell that person to be quiet.

Does this make you think 'casino'?

As in quit making a fool of yourself by proposing something so ludicrous that it’s never going to happen – and whose only purpose is for you to think you can force me to write about you as though you are serious.

NOT EVEN THE idea of asking a lot of nit-picking questions and writing a story pointing out the nonsense of the idea being spouted truly works – because it implies that the original idea was worth being acknowledged.

Which is why it was a good thing that I wasn’t present earlier this week when Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce President Jerry Roper came up with his own idea – turning the Thompson Center state government building into the new casino that is so desired by many city officials (including Mayor Rahm Emanuel).

Roper is one of those people who doesn’t think much of the building, which he said is a “burden” to state government. He does make one legitimate point – that at three decades old-and-counting, the structure has reached the point where it will need major renovations to ensure it will continue to be an acceptable office building for state government’s Chicago offices for decades to come.

So Roper said he thinks the state should unload the building on a casino developer, and let them handle the cost of renovating the 16-story building while they convert it into a casino.

FIRST OFF, THE idea of a casino at Randolph and Clark, just to the north of City Hall/the County Building is so ridiculous just because of its proximity to government. It would be a bad joke waiting to be told to put it there.

Plus the fact that any casino is going to have to have its own parking facilities – even if it means some sort of exclusive parking garage.

Those facts alone ought to be enough to show how ludicrous the idea truly is. Although when I think about it some more, I also realize that Roper’s idea is ridiculous because that square-block cylinder in use by state government isn’t anywhere near enough to house a legitimate casino.

For as Roper said he envisions it, the casino would be in that basement level where people can currently devour all forms of fast food, and on the ground level entrance where all those nondescript  stores now exist.

ALL OF THE upper floors that now house state agency offices would be converted into hotel rooms.

With the idea being that people could walk out of their room onto the balcony, look down and watch for themselves all of the gambling taking place beneath them.

Maybe he’d envision turning the governor’s office into some sort of exclusive suite, with people saying the slept in the space where much illicit activity took place (even though Rod Blagojevich rarely set foot in this particular office).

By that kind of logic, the ninth floor room straight back from the elevator bank (which once was a press room where reporter-types at the building would congregate) would become some sort of no-frills, discount room for cheap people not willing to pay much of anything.

I MOCK THIS casino idea because it’s just too ridiculous.

That basement level just doesn’t offer enough floor space for all the hard-core gambling that would be essential to a Chicago casino (a lot of people are going to have to lose lots of money in order for the facility to generate the kind of gross income that could then be taxed by the city and the state).

There’d probably be enough space for slot machines, which means you’d have a casino filled with cheap people looking to throw away their quarters. There would be none of the more-prominent “games of chance” that would generate the gambling activity of the real “high rollers.”

But aside from these serious attempts to point out the flaws of converting the James R. Thompson Center (nee, State of Illinois Center), there is one issue that ought to show, in and of itself, how ridiculous the idea is.

WHAT WOULD YOU do with state government?

There may be vacancies in office buildings scattered throughout “the Loop.” But the idea that agencies would move willy-nilly all across downtown Chicago – one agency here and another there – is absurd.

About the only people who would want this are those who can’t handle the fact that for some state agencies, the Chicago office is more important than the one in the capital city of Springfield. Or those who think that government buildings are supposed to be marble monstrosities decorated with gargoyles and look like they came from the 19^th Century.

They come up with all kinds of crazy ideas to justify trying to shut down the Thompson Center as a government building (which was one of Blagojevich’s more ridiculous ideas – and one that we should be thankful it never went anywhere).

WHICH IS WHY I’m glad that Gov. Pat Quinn didn’t get sucked too deeply into responding to Roper’s casino proposal. Don’t dignify nonsense with a serious response.

Besides, I don’t know how seriously I could take as a casino a building that I once saw appear in the 1986 film “Running Scared.”

I don’t know what was more ludicrous – the idea of bags of “cocaine” splattering on the atrium floor? Or the sight of actor Billy Crystal supposedly being a fierce Chicago cop who goes around wearing a Cubs jersey?

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: I almost put this story in the same category -- the anonymous speculation that Rod Blagojevich could get Thirty years to Life in prison when he ultimately is sentenced. It is ridiculous to think it should be so long, unless you're the type of person who lets your political partisanship get the best of your common sense. If it does happen, we truly should be outraged.