Will Chicagoans have to choose between memory of Dan Ryan, Obama?

Will Dan Ryan subside someday … 

Bill Daley’s campaign for Chicago mayor is trying to gain some attention these days with a suggestion that a city-based expressway be named (renamed, actually) for Barack Obama.

Daley offers up a line of logic that other Chicago expressways are named for John F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower – so why not give a president actually from Chicago the same honor?

… to Barack Obama?

ALTHOUGH SOME PEOPLE are speculating that this gesture by Daley is merely something meant to try to sway a share of the black vote to actually think about casting a ballot for him. Something with symbolic value, but little to no actual value in terms of public service.

But what is really causing a stink amongst some people is that Daley is suggesting a portion of Interstates 90 and 94 be used as the Obama Expressway. As in the same portion of highway that for years has been known as the Dan Ryan Expressway!

I-90/94, northwest to O'Hare

State Rep. LaShawn Ford, D-Chicago, who led the effort to rename a central Illinois part of Interstate 55 for Obama, claims that the law prohibits Ryan’s name from being removed. Although Illinois Department of Transportation officials say there are procedures that could allow for the name change.

I-290, west to Tri-State

Although they also told the Chicago Sun-Times they discourage too many changes, saying it can cause confusion amongst the driving public.

SO WHAT’S GOING to become of the Dan Ryan Expressway? Has Dan really outlived his usefulness as a namesake for THE major street cutting through the South Side leading people into and away from the downtown area.

I-55 southwest to Obama Expy

Has it truly been so long that Ryan’s name no longer has political significance? Is “the Ryan” in reference to a daily commute going to be an example of someone thinking in a 20^th Century reference.

Will people living in Chicago in the late 21^st Century think of “the Obama” as the main way of travelling from 95^th Street all the way into the heart of the city – with that view of the one-time Sears Tower looming in the distance; growing taller and taller as we drive closer and closer to it?

Or is the name “Dan Ryan” too sacred to Chicago’s character that it would seem sacrilegious to think of changing it. What next; taking the name “Harold Washington” off of the main building of the Chicago Public Library?

Is Rkchard J.'s name sacrosanct?

OR REMOVING “RICHARD J. Daley from the downtown Civic Center (as in the building with the ‘Picasso” statue out front)?

Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that many people don’t know who Dan Ryan, Jr. (there also was a Sr. who was politically significant) was.

Both served on the Cook County Board, with Jr. serving as a commissioner from the 1920s to 1954, when he became county board President – a post he held until his death in 1961.

During his time as an elected official, he took a special interest in the development of highways through Chicago, which is what caused the county board to think him worthy of presidents and a former governor (Adlai E. Stevenson II) when it comes to being namesakes for the city’s expressway system.

Will William gain support from Obama move?

NOW IF DALEY (as in William) winds up losing the upcoming mayoral election, this could wind up becoming a moot point. Who knows if anyone else will feel compelled to take up this issue.

It may strike some as an issue far too trivial to expend much time and energy on.

Although I must admit to having one reason to kind of hoping that an Obama Expressway in Chicago becomes a reality someday. We’re in an age where some amongst us are determined to do whatever they can think of to erase memories of Obama or his legacy from our society.

The idea of a highway in Chicago that is federally funded and named for Obama? It would almost be the equivalent of a middle finger in the faces of all those who find things to admire about this Age of Trump we’re now in.

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EXTRA: What warrants Obama brand for posterity (or maybe that long)?

Out in south suburban Markham is an elementary school named for Barack Obama, while a quickie search of the Internet uncovered schools in Dallas, Los Angeles and Milwaukee named for the nation’s 44^th president.
 

OBAMA: Does he need a highway too?

Which intrigues me because our federal government’s current leadership seems determined to erase anything and everything that ever occurred during the Obama years. If they succeed, will students of the future attend schools named for someone who left nothing lasting behind?

WE’RE GOING TO spend the next few years, perhaps even decades, pondering the Obama legacy – between those who want to erect tributes to it in marble and whose who want to be the equivalent of the pidgeon that dumps its waste all over it.

So it will be interesting to see how things wind up this year with a pair of bills now pending in the Illinois General Assembly, being sponsored by legislators who want Obama to be something equivalent of John Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Adlai Stevenson II or Dan Ryan.

As anybody who drives around Chicago on a regular basis knows, those men all have major highways named after them. In fact, I’d bet most people only know the Ryan as a South Side highway and don’t have a clue who the former Cook County Board president really was!

We do seem to have a split.

 

STEVENSON: Can he share I-55 w/ Obama?

ONE BILL SAYS we ought to rename Interstate 294, also known as the Tri-State Tollway, for Obama. It would be a major road used heavily every day by traffic in the Chicago area, and some think it cute that it connects Illinois to Indiana and Wisconsin – all of which are states Obama took in the Electoral College in his 2008 presidential victory.

Of course, the smart alecks point out that the Tri-State is the road used by traffic to avoid having to enter the Chicago city limits.

 

RYAN: A highway, more than a man?

But there is another bill calling for the bulk of Interstate 55 in Illinois to be named for Obama. As things stand, the Chicago portion of that highway already is named for Adlai.

In fact, I suspect most Chicago motorists would get a confused look on their faces if you speak of I-55; but Stevenson Expressway will create a slew of stories of traffic congestion they have had to endure.

 

FORD: Name has new freeway fame

ALTHOUGH I SUSPECT this bill is politically loaded – there will be the rural Illinois residents who will object to having one of “their roads” being used for an Obama tribute. Yet you try to dump the name of Adlai E. from the Chicago portion of I-55, and that will create a bigger stink because people will have to learn a new name for telling people what road they were caught in traffic on during the morning rush hour.

These measures are going to create quite the political brawl; particularly since I already sense how offended the “loser” (as in the one whose idea gets rejected) will take it personally.

Will we get some people out there determined to hang on to numeric designations because they don’t want to acknowledge the Obama name – similar to how I’m aware of some people who insist on using the “Calumet Expressway” name for Ill. 394 because they don’t want to acknowledge the “Bishop Ford Freeway” and the Rev. L.H. Ford whose cultural significance as international head of the Church of God in Christ apparently didn’t extend into the non-black parts of the South Side.

It is a large part of why I personally hate seeing roads renamed for anybody. The amount of stupid-talk that gets created is never worth the tribute, and it also has the effect of reducing the memory of anyone to nothing more than a future traffic jam or deadly accident.

 

BYRNE: She saw humor in her interchange

IN FACT, ABOUT the only renaming I ever wound up liking was the one that turned the Circle Interchange (just southwest of downtown where all the expressways converge) into the Jane Byrne Interchange, in honor of the first femme to become Chicago mayor.

It’s not that I think the Byrne Interchange moniker has all that special a ring to it.

But Byrne herself was still alive when the change was made, and I’ve heard stories about how much amusement she’d gain whenever she heard radio reports about traffic congestions that inevitably would include the line, “Jane Byrne is backed up.”

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Thome helps keep Legislature busy

So just what DO our state legislators do with their time when they’re not addressing the lack of a state budget for the current fiscal year?

There was a bit of a stink a few weeks ago when the General Assembly managed to pass the measure that declared corn to be the official state vegetable for Illinois. Some from people who argue corn isn’t a vegetable (it’s a grain), while others just think it is a totally pointless thing to do.

WILL THESE SAME people come crawling out of the woodwork in coming weeks when the state Senate will be asked to consider a measure designating a portion of U.S. Route 24 in Peoria as the Jim Thome Highway?

As in the same Thome who included a few seasons of his professional baseball career with the Chicago White Sox and hit his 500^th Home Run of his career in the White Sox pinstripes – although the 600-home run milestone was achieved while he wore the dingy and dumpy uniform of the Minnesota Twins.

The measure already has come before the Illinois House of Representatives – where it was approved without opposition earlier this week. Hey, the legislators had to do something to justify their per diem payment to cover their living expenses to be in the Illinois capital city to NOT approve a state government budget.

Unless Chicago Cubs fans who serve in the Illinois Senate decide to get more ornery and cranky than usual (that’s what a century of losing does to you) and refuse to vote for anything that honors a White Sox player?

WHO’S TO SAY!?! Although it should be noted that the general concept of the Thome Highway was already in a separate measure the Senate considered – one sponsored by state Sen. Darin LaHood, R-Dunlap. He being the Republican nominee to replace Aaron Schock in Congress.

Does anyone think Chief Wahoo looks better in bronze than Old English "Sox"

I doubt he wants to have his final Springfield act be a dissing of Thome’s reputation. That could cost him big-time in the Sept. 10 Election Day.

Not that this measure was meant to honor Chicago in any way. Thome is a Peoria-area native who graduated from a Bartonville high school and played baseball briefly for Illinois Central College before signing with the Cleveland Indians organization where he played a significant portion of his career.

600 home runs not enough for Hall?

Which means, sadly enough, that if Thome’s 600-plus home runs is good enough to get him into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., someday, his bronze plaque likely will depict him in a cap bearing that ridiculous-looking “Chief Wahoo” head instead of the Old English “Sox” logo.

IF YOU THINK I’m kidding that 600 home runs isn’t enough for recognition, keep in mind that Sammy Sosa’s Chicago Cubbie glory days are no longer considered Hall of Fame-worthy, even though he also achieved that immortal standard.

But even if Thome doesn’t make it, he now will be able to say he has a highway named in his honor in his hometown. It may even be an excuse for White Sox fans to find an excuse to visit the city – if only to get their pictures taken with a Thome Highway sign in the background.

Thus far, Thome seems to have a reputation for being a ballplayer who didn’t use anabolic steroids to bolster his strength and baseball career.

Unlike people like Sosa and Mark McGwire, the one-time St. Louis Cardinals star who back after his 1998 stretch of 70 home runs that season had the interstate highway that leads from Illinois into downtown St. Louis named in his honor.

THAT IS INTERSTATE 70 (Get it!), and I remember when St. Louis officials were tickled pink (the same color that Cardinals uniforms turn once they fade due to age and/or poor laundering) to have the McGwire Highway.

No longer worthy of a highway in St. Louis

But the steroid stories connected to McGwire caused that highway to become the “Mark Twain Highway” back in 2010.

It would seem that the “Thome Highway” will be longer-lasting in Illinois.

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