One-time ‘South Works’ steel mill could remain a ridiculously-large lot

The one-time site of the U.S. Steel plant on the South Side, known as South Works, has sat vacant for decades, and there have been so many bits of speculation that have been made about what could be done with the site.

The old 'South Works' plant

Because as a spot right on Lake Michigan stretching from 79^th to 91^st streets, some make note of the fact it is larger than downtown Chicago.

THERE’S DEFINITELY ENOUGH room to build something of significance. Which may well be why Mayor Lori Lightfoot included the site amongst the five spots in various parts of Chicago that are under consideration for the casino officials want to build so as to help jolt the city’s economy further.

Which might make sense, except for the fact that throughout the years since U.S. Steel gave up on the idea of making steel at the plant there have been so many suggestions for what ought to be done.

A factory for Solo Cup. Development of an entirely new upscale neighborhood in between South Chicago and South Shore. Building a housing development that would incorporate unique building techniques so as to create more affordable housing.

And now, slot machines and roulette wheels galore. People could literally come to the shores of Lake Michigan and lose their shirts big time on the site where the steel that was used to build this country was actually produced.

THEN AGAIN, MAYBE this is just another idea destined to become a mere fantasy. It could be that a decade from now, the land along the lakefront in the 8000s could still sit vacant – with only that giant concrete barricade standing.

Tearing down that wall would be tough

A remnant of the old steel mill that remains only because trying to tear it down would be ridiculously costly. Not at all practical.

Better to build whatever you want to do around it and leave the barricade in place as some sort of historic remnant to the kind of people who think certain things ought never to change.

Now personally, I have always taken an interest in the site largely out of a sense of family interest. My own parents were born and raised around the South Chicago neighborhood and both my grandfathers were workers in the steel mills.

WITH ONE GRANDFATHER literally working at South Works because his neighborhood home was within walking distance of the old steel mill. My father can tell tales of the past when the steel mill was thriving, and all the grime and pollution it caused were tolerated because the filth was perceived as evidence that people were working.

What will someday fill this space?

Jobs were available. Times were good!

Now as I understand it, much of the difficulty in actually turning this site into something of future use is because of all the environmental contamination the site endured from the steel mill presence.

Anybody who tries to build something of use there is going to get stuck with the cost of environmental cleanup. And it ain’t a gonna’ be cheap to do – to put it mildly.

WHICH COULD BE why that site winds up not being taken too seriously by those people who want to see the big bucks generated by gambling – which they’ll insist on calling “gaming” because they think it has a less-sordid ring to it.

And they’ll go about lambasting anyone who insists on including the “b” even though I’d argue it’s merely being honest about what exactly casinos bring to a community.

So I don’t doubt Chicago city officials eventually will get around to locating a casino somewhere. They’re not going to let other communities have their gambling without getting their share – even though I’m inclined to think that we’re reaching the point of having too many casinos and that they’ll all manage to cannibalize each other.

But it could well be that the filth and grime that my grandfather would have viewed as evidence of ‘progress’ is really the factor that keeps the site from ever becoming a significant boost to the neighborhood, and to Chicago as a whole.

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Obama Museum/Library advances, or merely the beginning of legal brawls?

A federal judge at the Dirksen Federal Building issued a quick ruling with regards to the fate of the proposed Obama Presidential Center – one intended to let officials begin actual construction in Jackson Park as quickly as they can get themselves readied.

Will the plans for Obama memorial move forward now?

Although I already can envision the many people who will take offense at the idea that a judge didn’t reject the Obama facility as something despicable and shameful, and are bound to bog down the process with many more legal appeals.

WHO’S TO SAY when actual construction will begin on the South Side to build what supporters argue will be an attraction bringing global tourism to a part of Chicago many wouldn’t bother paying attention to.

That is, unless they want to check out the Museum of Science and Industry nearby, while refusing to venture much further away out of fear what they would perceive as a hostile neighborhood.

Yes, I think there are many distortions of fact related to the project, also tied into the nitwit thoughts of ideologues who want to think they can diminish the historic significance and reputation of the Barack Obama presidency.

For all I know, they dream of the day when the Donald Trump presidency makes plans for its own memorial museum and library. Maybe they’ll dream of building it nearby in Chicago, with their structure towering high over the Obama building.

MY POINT IS it’s hard to take seriously much of the criticism that is being spewed about this project, and it is encouraging that U.S. District Judge John Blakey felt compelled to dismiss the lawsuit challenging the Obama facility after hearing only about one hour of legal arguments.

He easily could have taken the case under advisement, and spent several weeks pondering what he wanted to do. Before then issuing an obtuse legal opinion that likely would wind up confusing many of those who attempted to peruse it.

Instead, he instantly said he was dismissing the lawsuit against the Obama facility, and would issue an explanatory legal opinion at a later time.

OBAMA: Paying tribute to his memory?

Which means the critics already are saying they’re going to appeal. But they have to wait until they see the legal reasoning for the ruling before they can say on what grounds they think Judge Blakey is being a nincompoop.

OR WHATEVER LEGALISTIC term they choose to use to imply that Blakey is wrong!

Now I know there are people who object to the use of Jackson Park – which theoretically is one of the prime pieces of parkland on the Lake Michigan lakefront in Chicago. They think that letting a private entity like the Obama Foundation use public land borders on criminal – if not immoral.

Then again, there are others who object to anything celebrating the Obama memory because they want to believe that HE bordered on criminal AND immoral.

I know one self-proclaimed Sout’ Sider who argues against Jackson Park, and says that Washington Park to the north of it (the site where former Mayor Richard M. Daley once talked of erecting an Olympic Stadium – IF he had been able to attract the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago) would make more sense.

ALTHOUGH I WONDER if many people who don’t specifically live in the South Shore or Hyde Park neighborhoods could tell the difference between the two parks. They may well view the two as one continuous piece of parkland on the lakefront – located in neighborhoods they’ve never actually ventured into.

I almost feel like Judge Blakey chose to dismiss on the grounds that the people most critical didn’t have a true stake in the project. Or else they’re the ones who live around the park and want to think of it purely as their neighborhood playlot.

Keep all those outsiders away from their homes, instead of them realizing they live in a place that has great potential to be a showcase for Chicago. One from which they could financially benefit – if they played their cards right, so to speak!

So now we move on to the appeal process. With people perhaps looking for a judge who’d be inclined to overturn Blakey’s ruling just because it favors the Obama reputation. Meaning the Obama reputation will continue to divide us into those of us with a tad bit of sense, and those ideologically-inclined to want to shriek “no” every chance they get!

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Degrees of contamination?

Down in the land where Lake Shore Drive becomes South Shore Drive, we have the one-time site of a U.S. Steel plant that used to exist in Chicago.

What will become of the one-time South Works site on the Chicago lakefront?

Go down to 79^th Street, and you’ll find a plot of land technically larger than the Loop (a.k.a., downtown) where various real estate developers have proposed projects that – if they were to ever become reality – could seriously revitalize that part of the South Side of Chicago.

YET THESE DAYS, the one-time South Works plant that has been shut down for 26 years doesn’t seem any closer to having something new built on the site than it was on that January day in 1992 when U.S. Steel decided it was no longer financially practical to manufacture steel there.

The fact that steel mills and other industrial uses were on the site back to 1857 means that decades of contamination accumulated there. It had become a very seriously polluted part of Chicago.

And THAT, it seems, is the big hang-up keeping anyone from seriously turning the site into something new.

There was the Chicago-area developer who spent more than a decade talking about developing an entirely new upscale neighborhood on the site between the South Shore and South Chicago neighborhoods.

MOCK THE IDEA, if you will. But its location right on Lake Michigan makes such an idea possible, since there are limits to the amount of addresses in Chicago right on the lakefront.

But even that developer got tired of the bureaucratic nightmares that stretched the project out so long. Most recently, companies based in Barcelona and Dublin had their own plan for a residential development on the site – with the construction of modular homes along with some retail and office space.

But the Chicago Tribune reported their plans to buy the 440-acre site are, “currently on hold because of soil contamination problems that need to be cleared.”

Will this proposed development with the downtown skyline off in the distance ever become a reality?

Not that they’re being more specific. Just more environmental cleanup before anything can happen.

WHAT MAKES IT offbeat is that U.S. Steel, which still owns the land, insists they worked with the Environmental Protection Agency to do cleanup of the site.

They say they’ve been issued “No Further Remediation” notices, which would indicate the federal government is convinced the site is clean enough for a developer to come in and begin putting the site at 79^th Street into its 21^st Century life after steel.

Which is something I hope is true.

Because there are people who like to use the now-vacant site as a sort of expansive hiking or biking path. Heck, I’ve had occasions when I walked around the site – and checked out for myself the huge concrete break wall that is so big it isn’t financially practical to think about tearing it down.

IF IT REMAINS a contaminated site, it could mean I’ve tainted myself, and many other people also are walking around with the slime of slag and other contaminants on themselves.

Could it really mean that the Spanish and Irish developers wishing to build along South Shore Drive are really seeking some sort of buyout, or other financial perk, so as to make any project they do along our lakefront all-the-more profitable?

Or could it be that somebody is trying to cheap out, so to speak, on the environmental cleanup needed to turn the lakefront south of 79^th Street to the mouth of the Calumet River into a viable site.

How much of the steel mill residue remains? Image provided by Chuckman Chicago collection

The sad part of this story is this is a part of Chicago – the one where my own immigrant grandparents originally settled in this city, and where my parents were born and raised and I myself was born – that is oft overlooked by the rest of the city. To those of us with ties to the area, either explanation is completely believable.

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Latest dream to revive one-time South Works site, will this become reality?

The one-time site of a U.S. Steel plant at 79^th Street and the lakefront is one that causes people to dream.

Barcelona Housing Systems has these dreams for the one-time South Works site. Many other developers have prepared similar sketches for what could be done with the former steel mill.

It is larger than the downtown area of Chicago, and it sits largely empty (although the giant concrete breakwall remains – too large for it to be practical to tear down). It is a real estate developer’s fantasy site in terms of wanting to build something there.

HECK, IF WE had Donald Trump interested in building more things in Chicago, he probably would have turned the site into Trump, the Park – a lakefront facility devoted to promoting his glorious public image.

But we don’t, which is why the site has been one of continuous speculation – including the most recent plans detailed this week by which Emerald Living of Dublin and Barcelona Housing Systems want to acquire the 440 acres of land where steel was once manufactured – and turn it into some 20,000 units of housing.

The latter company has a process of modular, environmentally-friendly technology that is supposed to make it financially practical to build large numbers of housing structures in a short period of time.

As for whether this plan will ever become reality, who’s to say? What I know is that the one-time U.S. Steel South Works site has had so much speculation about what can be done there during the decades since the steel mill there was shuttered.

YET NOTHING MUCH has become of it.

I remember when a deal was reached for Solo Cup Co. was going to build a plant on part of the land (there’s even one of those Jeffery Baer programs on WTTW-TV about Chicago neighborhoods that declares this the future intent of the site).

Most recently, a portion of the land was going to be acquired by the Mariano’s chain of upscale supermarkets so that they could build a grocery store that could service the nearby South Shore and South Chicago neighborhoods – along with my personal favorite Chicago sub-neighborhood; the Bush!

Then, there was the 12-year period in which McCaffery Interests developed a plan to turn the site into practically a new Chicago neighborhood – with its own housing, schools, retail shopping and a marina for the boats that naturally would be owned by the people who lived there.

WHICH MEANT IT was intended to be an upscale community that took full advantage of the proximity of Lake Michigan just to the east. A concept that bothered many of the local residents of the aforementioned existing neighborhoods.

Because those are blue collar areas that, in fact, include one of the oldest Spanish-speaking enclaves in Chicago. They were the kind of neighborhoods meant to house the people who actually worked in the steel mills.

Which, in fact, is why my own grandparents lived in that area. People could walk to work every day.

My grandparents are long gone from South Chicago. But the people who remain were the types to spew out the word “gentrification” as an obscenity – seeing any development as an effort to chase them out of the neighborhood where, in many cases, their families had lived for decades.

SO WHETHER THIS latest project can advance forward is going to depend on how it is presented to the public.

There actually would be one benefit to new housing being built in the area – much of the existing housing stock in South Chicago is old. The house where my maternal grandparents lived is now a vacant lot, but the structures up and down the block date back to that era.

My point being they are old, and some of them haven’t been maintained to an ideal standard. There could be a use for new structures – and something has to become of the site. Having it just sit there idly by is not realistic.

Even if there are people like one anonymous Internet commenter who said he wants the site left alone so that lots of new people don’t move in and screw up his isolated neighborhood. An attitude that is the perfect public policy recipe for a whole lot of nothing to occur for decades to come.

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How long until proposed Red Line extension turns local tempers all “red?”

It is one of those projects that has been discussed for years – extending the Chicago Transit Authority elevated commuter train lines deeper into the city’s South Side than they already go.
 

Proposed route for Red Line extension

On a certain level, the project makes too much sense. The commuter trains that help city residents get from place to place and are a common fact of everyday life in most of the city only go as far south as 95^th Street.

WHILE CHICAGO ITSELF usually considers 119^th Street to be its southern boundary and there are parts of the city at the southeastern corner where 138^th Street is the end of life as we know it and where suburbia begins.

Now as somebody who actually originates from that part of the city (born in South Chicago and with relatives scattered across the neighborhoods that comprise the 10^th Ward), this is a project that I have long followed.

Because for people in the southeast part of the city, there are a few bus lines that pass through that eventually can take you to a place along the Dan Ryan Expressway where you can catch a Red Line train.

But it can be a slow, plodding trip (what with all those bus stops) and it can result in an hour-and-a-half journey to get downtown. There are parts of Will County or Gary, Ind., that have quicker connections to downtown Chicago via suburban commuter trains.

IT’S NO WONDER that those people who live near a Metra Electric line station in the South Chicago or South Shore neighborhoods, or in the Hegewisch neighborhood where the Indiana-based South Shore commuter line keeps its lone Illinois-based station, prefer to use those suburban-influenced services even though they're very much urban residents.

Which is why the idea of extending that Red Line train that now runs down the middle of the Dan Ryan to 95^th Street would be a life-altering experience for the Far South Side.

 

Metra lines more a daily life reality in Far South Chi

A direct CTA el train extension going to 130^th Street? Actual stations in the Roseland and Pullman neighborhoods – instead of having to take a bus to the west to catch a Metra Rock Island line commuter train in the Beverly or Morgan Park neighborhoods.

It sounds like nirvana (and I don’t mean the 90’s era rock band).

EXCEPT TO THOSE people who, while complaining about how isolated their part of Chicago often feels, will also be the first to complain about anything that brings about change.

They’ll be the ones who think of el trains as being something associated with “the ghetto” or artsy-fartsy North Side neighborhoods – and something they’ve managed to do without all these years.

I have heard from some of these people already. Although they have been muted largely because of skepticism that the city will ever get its act together and actually build the extension!

But will they get louder, now that talk is progressing to the point of figuring out where exactly new track would have to be built. City officials this week said they would allocate some $75 million for engineering studies. Which means figuring out what structures would need to be torn down.

CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS reported Thursday about the project – pointing out that 82 single-family homes and 19 multi-family properties are on a list of things that would need to be torn down to make room for 5.3 miles more of train track for the el extension.

The weekly business newspaper already has some comment from people who admit train service would be nice, but not necessary if it means they have to move.

Personally, I became an el proponent back during the stints I lived in North and Northwest Side neighborhoods, and I often wonder how it is that my home base neighborhood, so to speak, has never been willing to demand such equal service.

May someday no longer be distant southern CTA outpost?

Except that too many people living out in the land where Indiana isn’t an esoteric concept but is the place at the other end of the Chicago Skyway have become too used to their sense of isolation from the rest of Chicago – a concept whose time truly ought to come to an end.

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‘Junior’ may be home again by week’s end. But will it be D.C., or So. Shore?

Sometime Thursday, federal inmate Jesse Jackson, Jr., will be released from the prison camp near Montgomery, Ala., where he has been held since last spring; and I’m sure his thoughts and prayers are focused on how quickly he can return to home.

Technically, Jackson remains in federal custody through Sept. 20, although his release to a halfway house in the District of Columbia is part of the process by which all federal inmates become re-accustomed to life outside of prison walls.

AND YES, I realize that Jackson was being held in a camp that was part of an air force base, but the imagery remains.

But the trick is going to be to decide whether Jackson can be determined to be such a non-threat to the society at large that it would be a waste of time to have him actually stay at the halfway house.

It’s a very real possibility.

Remember back when former Gov. George Ryan was released from the work camp that was attached to the federal prison near Terre Haute, Ind.? He reported to a halfway house on the West Side, and it was found within six hours that he didn’t need to be there.

HE WOUND UP spending that first night of “freedom” really free at his home near Kankakee. It’s very possible that depending on how late in the day you actually read this commentary, Jackson himself could be on his way home.

The only question being, “Which home?” The house he has in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington? Or the house in the South Shore neighborhood that gave him the address that enabled him to be a part of the Illinois congressional delegation for all those years?

Will Jesse, Jr., return to his South Side roots? Or find that a change of scenery is best for him to be capable of building a new life for himself. He did just turn 50 a couple of weeks ago, and is still capable of doing something significant to build his reputation.

Even though I’m sure there are certain ideologue crackpots who will only be satisfied if Jackson were to become a destitute bum. Of course, then they’d rant about him existing off the public welfare rolls.

SOME PEOPLE ARE just determined to be miserable to deal with! Like the ones who, I’m sure, are now ranting that Jackson should not be free anytime soon – even though his “criminal” offense wound up being the use of campaign funds to purchase assorted memorabilia to decorate the office.

Which makes me wonder about the ongoing mess that soon-to-be former Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., faces. He being the guy who spent significant sums to re-decorate his own Capitol Hill space – is there something about interior decorating that attracts the suspicion of “the feds” to warrant indictment, conviction and incarceration?

It will be intriguing to see how the new Jackson comes to be.

While he had a political career of some significance with big dreams that fell short (“Mayor Jackson?”) of becoming reality, I don’t doubt he could come back to achieve some goals that could wind up topping his political significance.

OF COURSE, HE has to get through this ordeal first. Regardless of where he calls “home,” he’s likely to have to wear one of those funky ankle bracelets during the summer months so as to further demean him.

Then, sometime in mid-October, spouse Sandi (the former alderman who got busted for signing the income tax returns that allegedly tried legitimizing Jackson’s actions) will have to do her few months in prison – followed up by her own stint in a halfway house/home confinement.

When the Jacksons are finally (sometime late in 2016) finally able to get on with their lives, there is another benefit. Perhaps then we’ll be able to get over our public obsession over this case.

All of us will be a lot better off when that day comes.

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Will Obama library/museum wind up like ’16 summer Olympic games?

We’re in a brand-new year. A fresh start for everything, or so they say.


But for some things, we’re just going to continue on with the old trends.

TAKE THE PROPOSED presidential library and museum that will someday be built to pay tribute to the legacy of President Barack Obama. Word came out this week that the facility may well wind up being built in New York City, rather than at either of the two sites proposed for the South or West sides of Chicago.

News reports indicated that the foundation created by Obama to pick a site, then develop it into an actual facility, has problems with the West Side locations preferred by the University of Illinois at Chicago.

They’re concerned about upcoming changes in university administration and whether the new officials will remain as committed to the project as the current ones. There’s also the fact that as a state university, any funding it provided for a library would be subject to the whims and financial problems faced by the state.

Could a future Republican administration decide it wants to play politics with Obama’s image by cutting off such a library? Petty politicking is always a real possibility.

THERE ALSO ARE the proposals for three sites on the South Side near the University of Chicago, which as it turns out are parcels of land not actually owned by the university.

The Chicago Park District owns the plots of land, and the Chicago Sun-Times reported foundation officials wonder if the university has any right to provide land they don’t actually own.

City officials backing the South Side sites believe they can offer the park district other plots of land in an exchange. But those people who back the park district often get finicky when it comes to alternate use of their land.

Just look at the stink that has developed over the possible building on the lakefront of a new museum connected to filmmaker George Lucas. That battle is in the courts, and I don’t doubt the park activist types would have no problem in adding an Obama museum to their list of gripes.

IT WAS INTERESTING to learn from Crain’s Chicago Business that city officials working for Mayor Rahm Emanuel are now scrambling to try to alter the South Side proposals to increase the chances that the foundation picks it over the desire of Columbia University officials to have the Obama library on their home turf.

Which I’m sure is going to provoke some speculation that a backroom deal is being concocted by the White House and City Hall. You just know the ideologues will have fun playing with that mental image. Particularly since the Emanuel image would take a serious hit amongst the voters inclined to back his pending re-election bid if he can't deliver an Obama library/museum.

Although when I learned of the possibility that Obama’s Chicago ties (he lived his adult life here and wife Michelle is a South Shore neighborhood native) might not be enough to ensure a presidential library gets built in our city, I couldn’t help but remember the mess that became of the efforts to persuade the International Olympic Committee to locate the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Chicago.

In retrospect, it appears the committee had every intention of locating the games south of the equator, ultimately putting them in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Chicago’s best chance to get the games someday was to use the experience as a learning lesson for a future bid.

BUT I RECALL how everyone was convinced Chicago was the place. It was going to be the crowning glory of Richard M. Daley’s mayoral stint, and there was the possibility of Obama himself being able to visit events played in a temporary stadium to be erected in Washington Park – which isn’t that far of a walk from his Hyde Park neighborhood home that now sits so empty.

I also recall the shock that was felt on the day the site for 2016 was chosen, when Chicago literally became the first site knocked out of contention instead of being the last one standing.

The future Chicago South Side of some peoples’ dreams would have had memories of the Olympics being played here, and of the Obama legacy living on here.

Are we going to have to settle for no games AND the local legacy consisting of memories of how back when he was a nobody like the rest of us, Obama used to enjoy breakfast at the Valois restaurant on 53^rd Street?

  -30-

Who’s the “boss” in South Shore?

It seems the self-proclaimed “first lady of the Illinois Second Congressional District” thinks she’s still the boss of the Seventh Ward – even though she technically resigned the aldermanic post as of early this week.

JACKSON: Clinging to control

The vacancy has political significance because it is the first City Council post that Rahm Emanuel will have the ability to fill without going through the process otherwise known as an election.

THE MAYOR GETS to pick a replacement to finish Sandi Jackson’s aldermanic term (running through 2015). Whoever he picks will have to run for re-election just like everybody else.

But that person will have the benefits of incumbency by then. They should be capable of taking advantage of the generally apathetic nature of local voters who all-too-often pick the incumbent without giving it much thought.

And Emanuel will have at least one alderman who will have to admit that they likely would never have got the post had it not been for the mayor’s sense of “generosity.” That person will likely be an Emanuel ally for their term in the City Council.

That was a large part of how Richard M. Daley developed his power within city government. He was around so long and got to fill so many vacancies that ultimately more than half of the aldermen were people who would not have been in the City Council had it not been for the son of Richard Joseph.

TALK ABOUT A reliable rubber stamp. That’s the way it works.

That is what makes the new squabble developing along the lakefront south of the Hyde Park neighborhood (or north of South Chicago, depending on one's directional bearings) so amusing.

Emanuel is going out of his way to make it seem like he’s going to do things differently. He’s talking about accepting applications from people interested in being an alderman via the Internet. The Chicago Tribune reported that a website will be up and running by Friday.

EMANUEL: Thinks he's the boss!

Use your computer to fill out the form, send it in via e-mail, and hey, Rahm may just be impressed enough with your credentials, your personality, or maybe just the fact that you can spell properly that he may call you in for an interview.

WHICH MAKES IT sound like one is applying for a job selling suits at Carson, Pirie Scott – and not a political post.

Somehow, I’m skeptical enough to think that Emanuel already has a clue as to whom he’d like to see appointed to replace Sandi Jackson, and that this individual (I don’t have a clue who that person is) will somehow winnow his (or her) way to the top to be picked by the mayor to be an alderman.

But Jackson, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, is telling people in the ward that she is still in charge politically, and that the new alderman will be her chief of staff – Keiana Barrett.

Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if that did happen. For political tradition often picks someone’s chief of staff to replace them if the old politico has to move on for some reason.

JUST LOOK AT the Illinois Second Congressional special primary election – where various polls indicate the top two candidates to replace Jesse Jackson, Jr., in Congress are former Rep. Debbie Halvorson and state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D-Olympia Fields.

The latter was once chief of staff to Halvorson back when Debbie was a member of the Illinois state Senate. The significance of the Democratic primary could well be that it is the time when the “pupil” surpasses her one-time “master.”

But I’d also suspect that Emanuel is looking to make a break from the Jackson family – which could mean that this aldermanic process will become a poison pill.

Is Rahm willing to take on the family of the Rev. Jesse Jackson? Could we get pickets of City Hall if Sandi’s wishes are not honored? Will we get vocal denounciations of the Jackson family from Emanuel? Will Sandi Jackson literally keep all the office furniture (she says her campaign funds paid for it all) for herself if she doesn't get her way?

IT’S NOT LIKE Sandi had political influence of her own. Her position was entirely due to the fact that her husband was in Congress, and he used his wife as his way of asserting his authority over matters occurring back home in Chicago and in the Illinois Second Congressional.

If there’s anyone not in a position to pressure the mayor these days, it may well be Mrs. Jackson. If anything is likely to become the vocal bloodbath for 2013, it is the Seventh Ward.

  -30-

Metra increases a fare, after saying there’d be no fare increases this year

I can’t say I’m surprised at the outrage some people might be feeling these days toward Metra, the commuter railroad system, for the increase in ticket prices it approved just a couple of days ago.

This increase comes just a couple of weeks after Metra officials told the Cook County Board (which reviews mass transit budgets) that they were preparing a budget for 2013 that calls for no fare hikes. Prices would remain the same, except when they don’t – it seems.

NOW FOR THOSE of you who are confused, keep in mind that Metra technically didn’t  break its word. They kept themselves within the “letter of the law,” so to speak, with regards to fares for the upcoming year.

For the basic fare for those people who ride Metra trains will remain the same. As will the prices charged for those people who purchase monthly passes to allow them to come and go every day without having to make a routine out of shelling out cash!

What Metra’s board increased was the cost of what they call a 10-ride ticket, one that gives you up to 10 rides on a Metra train for a period of up to six months.

The current fare is based on the cost of nine one-way rides, with the 10^th being a freebie on account of the fact that the commuter is coughing up their money up front. Metra gets theirs, and there’s always the chance you could lose a ticket with a ride or two remaining – meaning that they get a financial perk in the process.

BUT COME FEBRUARY, people are going to have to pay for the full 10 rides, which means the only bonus is that you won’t have to wait in the ticket line every single time you want to catch a train.

I honestly believe the fact that they were getting cash up front was a financial plus for Metra that they should have respected. Particularly since it was just this past year that all Metra fares went up – including the cost of the 10-ride tickets (it used to be that you paid the price of eight one-way rides for a 10-ride).

So excuse me for being a little less than sympathetic to Metra for slipping this increase through when their board met Friday.

And yes, I should disclose the fact that I am an occasional Metra train rider who always tries to have a 10-ride ticket on me so that I can just board a train without having to worry about paying for the ride.

CURRENTLY, I’M ON a ticket with three rides remaining. So there is a self-interest I am expressing in this particular rant of a commentary.

Keep in mind that this isn’t just a suburban issue (which is probably how some city dwellers want to view Metra since they probably use the CTA trains and buses for public commutes).

Go out to a neighborhood like Hyde Park where the elevated trains convenience skip by, and it becomes those Metra Electric trains (the ones that are getting new cars that finally will have lavatory facilities) that provide the direct connection to downtown Chicago – along with neighborhoods such as South Shore and South Chicago.

Swing out to the Southwest Side, and it becomes those Rock Island line trains that can take Beverly or Morgan Park neighborhood residents deeper into the city without having to drive a car. It's not just people coming in from Kenosha, Wis. (although there are a few of them as well).

THIS MOVE – WHICH Metra officials say is meant to raise $8.3 million to be used for repairs and maintenance – is going to have an impact on many people,

Which makes me convinced I’m not the only one who feels a bit of disgust – even if an increased cost of a Metra 10-ride is still probably cheaper than the cost of parking one’s car at a downtown garage!

But that’s a rant to be written for another day.

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There’s going to be a lot of last-minute adjustments for South Side commuters

Knowing my luck, at some point in the next few days I’m going to be offered some magnificent job that will be just too good to turn down, but will require me to turn back to regular use of commuter trains.

Because it seems that the commuters from the South and Southwest sides and their surrounding suburbs are going to have to figure out how to get between their homes and downtown Chicago next month when NATO has its summit next month at the McCormick Place.

THE PROBLEM, INSOFAR as security for that event is concerned, is that there are railroad tracks that run underneath the building – which makes it vulnerable in so many ways to someone looking to cause mischief.

Those tracks are used by the Metra electric trains that run to suburban University Park and Blue Island, along with the trains that run to the South Chicago neighborhood.

They also are used by the South Shore commuter rail trains that make a stop in the Hegewisch neighborhood – along with stops in several Northwest Indiana cities en route to South Bend.

I’m sure the people who live to the northwest who never give a thought to anything that exists south of Congress Parkway will be shrugging their shoulders and thinking, “Who cares?!?”

BUT THE FACT that security officials are hinting that trains may have to be halted for the duration of the NATO summit (scheduled for May 20-21) and the days leading up to the event threatens to interfere with many thousands of people being able to get to their jobs.

A lot of people are going to need all the time they can get to try to figure out a back-up plan; whether that means driving to work, or driving a bit to the west to catch a commuter train on the Rock Island line that goes to Joliet – making stops throughout the Beverly neighborhood and suburbs such as Oak Forest, Tinley Park and Frankfort along the way.

Which means those commuter trains will be overloaded with passengers – a fact that is bound to infuriate the “regulars” who are going to think of this as some sort of intrusion on their turf.

Yes, during my experiences with commuting, I have used both the Metra Electric and Rock Island line trains. So this is a very real experience that, at one time, would have impacted me personally.

IT MAY STILL do so, if it turns out that I wind up in Chicago (either at McCormick Place or in downtown proper) as a reporter-type person writing about the gatherings of people who feel it is their obligation to show up at the event and protest the existence and activities of NATO.

Or maybe I’ll get lucky and figure out a way to bypass those locales for those few days next month.

What complicates the situation is the fact that the Secret Service (which is overseeing security measures for the event) is going out of its way to say nothing whatsoever about the security measures.

The Chicago Tribune reported that Metra won’t know until the end of April what they will be allowed to do insofar as running those commuter trains in proximity to the dignitaries.

WHICH MEANS THAT real people likely will get about two weeks, at most, to figure out what they will need to do to ensure they can still get to their jobs – because somehow I doubt the employers of downtown Chicago are going to feel all that sympathetic to the dilemma being faced by their South Side-residing employees.

There’s also an amusing aspect to this issue – the fact that May 20 (a Sunday) is the date of a ballgame at Wrigley Field between the Cubs and cross-town Chicago White Sox.

Sox fans from the sout’ being unable to get to the Lakeview neighborhood to see their club of choice smack the Cubs around a bit will feel like a deprivation.

Unless, by some fluke chance, the Chicago Cubs actually manage to win that ballgame. In which case, the security interferences could turn out to be a bit of mental salvation for us.

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Will they love Wal-Mart once it arrives?

I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself about all the screaming and screeching that took place earlier this week in the Lake View neighborhood concerning a proposal to build a Wal-Mart store as part of the shopping strip along Broadway near Diversey Parkway (in the less couth parts of the city, Diversey is an avenue).

Wal-Mart is everywhere, except in Lake View.



The reaction wasn’t the least bit surprising. In fact, it is exactly what I’d expect.

BECAUSE I RECALL a moment several years ago when I happened to be in that exact neighborhood. Specifically, I was at the Borders books store that until recently was at that very intersection.

I happened to be looking at a display that was set up near the cash registers when I overheard a man who walked into the store ask for directions to the nearest Wal-Mart store. From the sound of his accented drawl and his demeanor, I’m inclined to believe he was from out-of-town.

But it wasn’t his question about wanting to find a Wal-Mart in the area that separates the Lincoln Park and Lake View neighborhoods that was so memorable as much as the answer from the sales clerk.

The clerk told that man that such stores didn’t “fit in” to the neighborhoods that like to think they are the elite of Chicago (and probably think way too much of themselves). That clerk’s tone was rather snotty.

I’M SURE THIS particular tourist came away thinking that this particular neighborhood was a tad arrogant. Or maybe he let that allow him to perceive all of Chicago that way, I don’t know.

But as I read the reports coming out of Lake View about how people gathered Monday night at the Wellington Avenue Church, all I could help but think was that sales clerk from several years ago (who probably didn’t even live in the neighborhood – which is a bit pricey for a retail cashier to afford) gave an accurate perspective of the people who can afford the rents and mortgages of those two north lakefront Chicago neighborhoods.

What I find ironic (aside from the fact that that particular Borders bookstore is among the ones that recently closed down) is that this Wal-Mart is filling another vacancy. The location desired by Wal-Mart used to be a PetSmart store.

So I’m wondering if those “high-toned” individuals (many of whom I’d guess will wind up moving to some suburb once they have kids who become school-age) really prefer the idea of an empty storefront.

REALIZE THAT I write this piece even though I don’t think much of the Wal-Mart experience. I have never cared much for the quality of their merchandise, which means I view Wal-Mart stores as the perfect proof of that old cliché, “You Get What You Pay For.”

A cheaper price isn’t always everything.

But I can appreciate how one can’t be too picky when it comes to a community and empty storefronts.

I have seen too many neighborhoods in this city that used to have vibrant shopping districts where the big stores pulled out and the locals weren’t aggressive enough in trying to fill the gaps.

WHAT HAPPENED IS that many of those districts decayed from sitting empty and the perception became that they are dead. Now, these are districts that feel fortunate if they can get one of those “dollar store” chains (the 21^st Century equivalent of the “dime store”) to come in and sell cheap merchandise.

I’ll be the first to admit that the district at Broadway and Diversey isn’t at that point yet. But if local people think that some high-end retailer is just anxiously awaiting a chance to locate within their proximity to cater to their whims, I’d say that somebody thinks a little too highly of themselves.

If anything, the current economic conditions have most companies cutting back, instead of thinking in terms of new locations.

And with this kind of attitude, I’m sure such a haughty attitude would cause those desired high-end retailers to think they can get a better deal locating elsewhere – where they won’t have to deal with such snobbery.

OF COURSE, SUCH attitudes aren’t limited to retail locations.

I heard a lot of similar rhetoric last week when the Dave Matthews Band announced details about the Chicago concert they plan to give as part of this year’s musical tour. They want to use off-beat sites for their concert venues, instead of the traditional arenas and stadiums.

In Chicago, they plan to erect a stage on the site of the old U.S. Steel plant at 79^th Street and the lakefront. It will be an outdoor festival, and promoters would like us to think of the image of hundreds of thousands of people (it’s a 600-acre site) grooving to the music, rain or shine, with the Chicago skyline in the background of the stage.

Yet the critics, some of whom may be the same people who are now ranting about Wal-Mart, are claiming that a site between the South Shore and South Chicago neighborhoods (in fact, anything south of Roosevelt Road) is too far away from their preferred playgrounds, and too icky.

THEY’RE EVEN COMPLAINING about how attending such a concert will mean exposing oneself to massive crime – even though the former steel mill site is fenced in and my guess is that the security is going to be intense enough that nobody without a ticket is going to get anywhere close to the event.

Now I’m not sure I buy into the developer hype about how this event will draw massive attention to the South Side neighborhoods and will help their revitalization. But a lot of the trash talk about the event, and the Wal-Mart, is coming from people who think too highly of themselves because of their home address.

Besides, I find one other detail of this situation to be ironic. As I wrote earlier, I think many of these Lake View/Lincoln Park residents will wind up moving suburban someday so they can find their mini-mansion dream house.

The way things are going now, that house is likely to have a Wal-Mart located just a mile or so up the road. As dreadful as those places can be, I’d say it serves these residents right to suffer such an ultimate fate.

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