Lightfoot starting pre-mayor activity by putting aside ideology for practicality

The City Council gave its support to a pair of proposals desired by outgoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel for tax incentives to spur real estate development in wealthier parts of Chicago – the very concept that some activist-types think is exactly what is wrong with modern-day Chicago.

LIGHTFOOT: Already upsetting some people

In fact, the very idea that caused many of them to excitedly cast votes for Lori Lightfoot as mayor in the hopes that she’d use her mayoral powers to put a halt to.

SO WITH THAT in mind, there are many activist types who already are feeling sold out by the fact that Lightfoot let it be known late Wednesday that there isn’t much of anything she can do to stop the projects known as Lincoln Yards and the 78s.

Basically, Lightfoot isn’t about to conduct herself as mayor in the manner that Donald Trump has behaved during his presidency – as in trying to abolish or repeal anything (and I mean ANYTHING) that was once supported by Barack Obama.

Lightfoot is going to let stand the proposals that Emanuel is likely to sign into law during his final weeks of his mayorality.

Lightfoot gave lip service to the concept of holding accountable the developers who are behind the real estate developments that are meant to create new communities along the north (Lincoln Yards) and south (the 78s) branches of the Chicago River.

SHE SAYS SHE will “engage with the community and committed activists who have forcefully advocated for affordable housing, park space and the responsible use of tax increment financing dollars for many months.”

But when you consider that activist-types usually aren’t pleased unless they can say their actions caused some undesirable proposal to be killed off, this kind of legalese is likely to create the perception that Lightfoot hasn’t even taken the oath of office yet – and she’s already falling short of perceptions by her backers.

Now I’ll be the first to admit to not following the Lincoln Yards debate closely, or that of the 78s that offers up a sort-of South Side response to the proposal meant to create a wealthy community near the already-wealthy Lincoln Park neighborhood.

LINCOLN YARDS: Desired by some, detested by others

In short, to create more upscale communities within Chicago. Something that might seem desirable if one can actually afford to live in such places. But not the kind of thing that would get a resident of a place like Gage Park or the East Side excited.

BUT WHAT CATCHES my attention about all of this is Lightfoot’s reaction – or lack thereof.

In reality, there’s nothing she could do since she’s not mayor yet. Unless she’d be prepared to start engaging in the same kind of reckless, irresponsible behavior that Trump is doing to try to erase any trace that Obama of Hyde Park ever was permitted to set foot in the Oval Office.

But Lightfoot is realistic. She’s not looking to provoke political brawls with people who could take down her mayorality before it even starts. Anybody who expects her to do so is being absurd.

Not that this surprises me. Personally, I came out of the recently-completed mayoral election cycle thinking there really wasn’t much difference between Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle – and that many of the Lightfoot backers have created a false image of Lightfoot that bears little reality to who the woman is or how she intends to govern.

IT’S A LARGE part of why I have trouble taking seriously all the talk of this being an election cycle of a historic nature. I don’t think many of us have a clue what to expect from Lori Lightfoot – the mayoral years.

A new mayor, but same policies?

That shouldn’t be interpreted as a slam or as praise for her. It means we ought to pay attention to what happens in coming months. For as Lightfoot says of the two real estate deals, “we’re going to be able to exercise a tremendous amount of control and it’s going to be able to give us the opportunity to bring community voices into the process that didn’t happen before.”

If it happens, it could be encouraging for Chicago. In a way that a knee-jerk negative reaction to all that happened before her would wind up being reckless and ridiculous.

The “jury” is still out on what kind of mayor Lori Lightfoot will be. The last thing we need is a jury determined to convict her of incompetence because she didn’t give them a pre-ordained verdict of their ideological choosing.

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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?

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How enamored ought we be of pseudo-celebs who set foot in Chicagoland

Every time I think that Chicago has the potential to be one of the most sophisticated cities on the face of Planet Earth, I stumble across something that reminds me of a St. Louis native I once knew who described Chicagoans as “hicks in nice suits.”

WINFREY: Sold her home she never lived in

As much as I’d like to punch him in the mouth for suggesting such a thought, I have to admit there are times he may well have hit our Midwestern populace right on the mark!

FOR I COULDN’T help but notice the names of Oprah Winfrey and Kanye West popping up in the news Friday, just one day after I saw the moniker of Michael Jordan pop up as a Chicagoan

Which anybody who has been paying attention knows really isn’t the case anymore. The one-time Chicago Bulls star has long ago broken his ties to the Second City.

As has Winfrey, the queen of daytime talk show television programming – who long ago stopped producing her show at a studio on the near West Side. She’s now a California girl – as in a part of the entertainment industry that views “the world” as not extending much beyond the greater Los Angeles area.

Any ties she had to our city streets are nothing more than history.

SO IT WASN’T a surprise to read a Chicago Tribune report about how Winfrey sold off what it calls her “final piece of Chicago-area real estate” – as in a house in suburban Elmwood Park.

WEST: Finding dining in suburban Naperville

Which she bought for $298,000 back in 2001, never actually lived in herself, and managed to sell off for a $72,000 profit over what she paid for it all those years ago.

The downtown condo where Winfrey actually lived, along with a high-rise apartment she had in the Gold Coast for awhile, were long-ago sold off. As the Tribune reports, Winfrey still has a house in Merrillville, Ind.; which technically could be regarded as a part of the greater Chicago area.

But the one-time “World’s Greatest” newspaper apparently wants to view State Line Road and the Cook/Lake, Ind. County line as an impenetrable barrier. So Oprah is history as a Chicagoan.

JORDAN: Still trying to sell suburban home

AS IS, ONE could argue, Michael Jordan, whose one-time home in suburban Highland Park was included in a story I recently saw about luxury homes that celebrities own – which clearly identified Jordan as a Chicago resident.

Even though he has been trying to sell that mini-mansion of his for more than five years now. It seems the kind of people who could afford such a garish structure want something built to custom for their own desires – not something that was meant to cater to the whims of Jordan when he was the world’s biggest celebrity professional athlete.

Yet there are those who continue to cling to the images of Winfrey and Jordan as though they’re ordinary people who we run into every time we go to the neighborhood supermarket, or pump gas into our cars.

Perhaps we fantasize that Oprah came up a couple of bucks short while grocery shopping, and we just happened to be the ones who were there who could give her some cash to fulfill her tab.

OR MAYBE WE want to think of Kanye West, who was in the news last week to meet with President Donald Trump about public policy issues, then managed to catch the attention of the Naperville Sun newspaper when they found out he was at a Pepe’s Mexican restaurant in suburban Naperville on Thursday.

TRUMP: Thank goodness he doesn't come here

For the record, Kanye ordered chicken tacos for dinner, then went to the pool table set up in the restaurant, and shot some billiards, while also signing autographs and generally playing the role of celebrity for the restaurant patrons.

It’s good that there are people out there who had a pleasant time. But really, I would think interrupting someone when they’re trying to dine is boorish behavior. It’s downright rude.

It’s the kind of thing I’d expect in Indianapolis. Then again, perhaps even people in “Nap-town” would conduct themselves better than that. After all, if West really thinks Pepe’s is decent Mexican food, he has bigger issues in life than his nonsensical babbling with the president in the Oval Office.

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Would you live in the Trump Chgo?

Perhaps it shouldn’t be a shock that vacancies are on the rise at that gaudy tower erected on the banks of the Chicago River that stands as a focal point for all the local protest conducted against the name of one Donald J. Trump.

Space is available, if you want to live here

I could be pompous and arrogant and make a statement saying I would NEVER live there. But then again, the need to be honest overcomes me and I have to confess I’ll likely never have the kind of income that would make it possible for me to even think of living there.

TO BE HONEST, just walking past the Trump Tower Chicago feels like an alien experience – particularly when I recall the pudgy, tugboat-like building that once housed the Chicago Sun-Times on the very same site.

So the Chicago Tribune report Tuesday about how 11 percent of the building’s 486 residential units (scattered amongst its 98 stories) are for sale. The going price, depending on exactly which unit one buys and what kind of high-rise view it offers of Chicago and/or Lake Michigan is $1.5 million.

Generally, the kind of people who can afford that expect to have a certain exclusivity. Or perhaps it’s isolationism, from the riff-raff of life.

And I suspect that many of them view all the people who now feel compelled to have their pictures taken making obscene gestures in the presence of the Trump Tower Chicago as the ultimate in riff-raff.

Dodgers star won't stay here

WHO KNOWS, THEY may be right.

All I know is that I’m sure that when real estate developer Trump got involved in the idea of building one of his namesake structures in Chicago, the idea was that it would become some sort of prime address.

One that people would fight for the right to live in, and would consider it a sign of their arrival amongst the hoi polloi that they could live in something bearing those 40-foot-high letters spelling out Trump’s name for all of Chicago to see.

Which makes it impossible for anyone to possibly confuse the Trump Tower with any other high-rise building in Chicago.

LeBron won't stay at Trump N.Y. hotel

SO WHAT DOES it say about the fact that some tenants, according to the Chicago Tribune report, have been able to negotiate rent decreases (for those who didn’t buy their units), and that there are a significant number of units (36, according to the newspaper) that can be had if you’re looking for an apartment that will allow you to look down upon Chicago.

Just so you don’t mind the protesters who feel compelled to stroll by and show their contempt for your choice of a home address.

The condominiums in the building don’t sell well these days, and the apartment units for rent can be had. As for the portion of the building that’s a hotel, it seems like we’re constantly getting new reports of professional athletes who refuse to stay with their teams (Adrian Gonzalez of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the entire Milwaukee Bucks basketball team, to name just a few) at the Trump hotel here in Chicago.

Then again, this is Chicago, where we led a solid Electoral College opposition to Illinois going into the Trump column on Election Night – unlike certain other Great Lakes states where the rural portions of the population led a shift rightward.

EVEN NOW, A new poll by Personal PAC puts Trump’s “approval” rating in this state at 39 percent – with a majority 53 percent not approving.

Trump 'vibe' makes Marina 'corncob' look luxurious

Not the same impression as that cockamamie study that claims many people who voted for Hillary Clinton back in November now wish they could change their votes – enough that Trump could now win a popular vote, in addition to an Electoral College tally.

Which may make some out-of-towners want to think less of us Chicagoans. Not that many of us would particularly care, since we’re convinced the rest of the world isn’t lucky enough to call Chicago home.

And, I’m sure, many of those who eagerly backed Trump and are still among his most vociferous supporters will probably never be able to afford to live in his building either.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Maybe Thompson Center here to stay

Gov. Bruce Rauner made a big stink about wanting to unload the Thompson Center state government building in downtown Chicago, although it seems the deal is less of an inevitability than he’d like us to think.

Will it last to 50? Photo provided by State of Illinois

Because within a day of his announcement, Crain’s Chicago Business reported about the deal the state worked out a year ago with a company that handles the first two floors of the building – the ones with all those little stores.

IT SEEMS THAT deal has another 19 years to go, and buying those retail outlets out of their deal with the state would wind up being so excessively expensive. They alone may be reason to believe the building will make it to the half-century mark come the year 2035.

Now, the Capitol Fax newsletter reports that the General Assembly’s leaders – who would have to sign off on any deal to sell the structure – are rather noncommittal.

The legislative leaders say they’ll study it, in a tone that implies they want the questioner to go away and quit bringing up the issue. Not that such an attitude is a surprise; considering that the relations between Rauner and Democrats is so poor these days it wouldn’t surprise me if Dems rejected a sale just to spite him.

All of this goes counter to the notion that Rauner tried to imply when he made his announcement – that the deal was just a formality and we could see the demolition of the Thompson Center some time during 2016.

FAT CHANCE!!!

It seems like our governor still carries about the notion that government exists to follow his orders. Rather than realizing his executive branch is merely one-third of government, with the Legislature being another branch and the courts existing to rectify things when the Executive and Legislative manage to screw things up.

It won’t shock me if I’m still alive when the day comes that the Thompson Center does disappear – the city is constantly evolving. But perhaps by the time it does, the Rauner administration will be a long-forgotten memory of a time when things didn’t get done.

What else is notable these days on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan?

DO CUBS REALLY WANT TO BE ‘ROCKY?’: The Chicago Cubs lost the first two games in the round of playoffs against the New York Mets, but there are those who are convinced that the Tuesday, Wednesday and maybe Thursday games will change things drastically.

Will they wind up getting it right?

They’re expecting a return to Wrigley Field will result in victories for the Cubs. It goes so far that Cubs manager Joe Maddon had the theme from the film “Rocky” played following Sunday’s loss. Let’s not forget that Rocky Balboa lost the fight in the first film, but went on to win so many times in all those sequels.

Then again, the whole “Rocky” franchise became such a tacky joke by the end, devolving to the point where the final fight was a street brawl. Is that really what people want to see of the Cubs’ 2015 season?

Besides, such a scenario would remind me of the 2001 World Series – when the New York Yankees won games three, four and five at home after losing the first two games on the road. Except that the Arizona Diamondbacks rebounded by winning the final two games when they returned home. So the Cubs would still lose. “Let’s go, Mets?”

OOPS!: It seems there’s a Humboldt Park man who is trying to get out of the gang lifestyle. But a souvenir, so to speak, of those days wound up resulting in the death of his three-year-old son.

The Chicago Tribune reported that bond was set at $75,000 Sunday for Michael Santiago, whose six-year-old son used Santiago’s pistol to shoot and kill his other son – age 3.

Santiago told police he kept the pistol for self-protection from his former gang allies, and that his son saw the pistol atop the refrigerator Saturday night and fired it at the younger brother.

That resulted in the child endangerment charge being filed against the father – for keeping a loaded firearm in the home. Although it seems the grandfather says the surviving boy isn’t even aware of what he did, he thinks his brother is sick in the hospital.

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Tribune Tower to join Wrigley Building as not being the same once sold off

Driving north through downtown and over the Chicago River onto that strip of road known as the “Magnificent Mile,” one encounters those two towering structures that create such a grand entrance.



Something will be lost when Wrigley isn't Wrigley and Tribune isn't Tribune

We have the Wrigley Building and the Tribune Tower. Across the street from each other, for decades they gave the impression to all who entered the area that this was a classic portion of Chicago.

IT MAY WELL be the one point within Chicago (which is barely over 175 years old) that one could mistake for those centuries-old structures that give many cities overseas their sense of wonder and history.

So what does it mean that pretty soon, there’s a good chance that neither structure will serve the purpose for which it was originally built.

The Wrigley Building that served as corporate offices for the Wrigley Co. (chewing gum, and for many years the Chicago Cubs) was sold off in 2011 to the Zeller Realty Group and the founders of Groupon. A plug by Sinatra in "My Kind of Town" wasn't enough to save it.

Now, Tribune Media (the broadcast end of the old Tribune Co.) says it wants to sell off the gothic tower that it commissioned in an international architecture contest and where it has been based since 1925.

NINE DECADES WORTH of being the headquarters of Col. Robert McCormick’s media empire that included the Chicago Tribune, its printing facilities and the studios of WGN – both radio and television (although the latter moved to their Bradley Place studios decades ago).

Moving up along Michigan (Avenue that is) back in the past

Literally, the company says it has hired Eastdil Secured to do studies to figure out just who, if anyone, would be interested in buying the building from the media company.

No word on how quickly anything could happen – although anyone who has been paying attention knows that there has been speculation for decades that the day would come when the Chicago Tribune would no longer operate out of the Tribune Tower.

Considering the newspaper already publishes (as in physically prints the paper) from a massive complex on Chicago Avenue just northwest of the downtown area, perhaps we should wonder why this move didn’t happen much earlier.

BUT WHAT HAPPENS when the Wrigley Building literally has nothing more to do with the Wrigley Co., AND when Tribune Tower becomes just a 36-story, 462-foot-tall building for corporate entities that have a taste for the overly-grandiose when it comes to office space.

Or worse yet, filled up with more retail space so that we won’t be able to distinguish the Tribune Tower from any other storefront along Michigan Avenue.

What becomes of all those stones collected from historic sites around the world? Will they merely make for a more eccentric Gap? You can “remember the Alamo” by seeing the stone while sitting inside a Starbuck’s coffee joint?

And what of those stones that were installed in the building with much fanfare earlier this year – the bricks from the old Comiskey Park and from Wrigley Field following last winter’s outfield renovation?

PERHAPS IT IS best to bring up Comiskey – which has been dead as a ballpark and buried under asphalt for a quarter-century now.

What will it become by 2025?

There are those who will let their sense of sentiment linger on and on about how special that structure was. There will be similar talk about how special Wrigley and Tribune structures were on Michigan Avenue in the old days.

While a younger generation will want to believe that nothing from before their realm of existence could possibly matter. Which is a shame!

Because while I know some deals can take years to complete, I think it will be a shame that the Tribune won’t spent another decade as owners of their own building. You have to admit that a full century there would have been something of significance.

  -30-

EXTRA: Jr. relegated to office couch?

When I learned Wednesday that Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., was putting his house in the District of Columbia up for sale, the first thought that came to mind was that of the representative for Chicago's Far South Side and surrounding suburbs joining that “fraternity” of congressmen who literally live in their Capitol Hill offices so they can save themselves money.

JACKSON: Needs a new place to live



Could we someday get the sight of Junior in a t-shirt and shorts, lounging on the couch at 1 a.m., watching something trashy on television because he’s having trouble getting to sleep?

HOW ABOUT JUNIOR opening his office door in the morning to pick up his paper, encountering the janitors who keep the Capitol building clean?

It is one of the quirks of life for the members of Congress that some of them choose not to get themselves a house or apartment to live in during the time they must spend in Washington, D.C. They literally live in the offices.

Some do it because Washington is an expensive urban area, while others are trying to score political points by being snotty about the idea of actually LIVING in the District of Columbia.

Jackson had long ago moved beyond that, getting himself a house (that he’s now asking $2.5 million for) in the district to go along with his Chicago residence.

DURBIN: Will Jackson follow his lead?



OFFICIALLY, HE LIVES in the district during the week and returns home to Chicago on weekends and other congressional breaks – although the cynics claim that the D.C. house is HIS and the Chicago house is the residence of spouse Sandi Jackson – who uses that address to justify her political post as alderman of the 7^th ward.

But I also noted that the reports on Wednesday indicated that the couple’s children use the D.C. address to justify their enrollment in private schools in Washington.

That address is to become history, because Jackson aides say the congressman needs the money to help cover the medical bills he’s incurring from his treatment for a bipolar condition.

BLAGOJEVICH: Had a 'home' for sale



It also has me wondering what the living conditions will be for Jackson in coming years (since he probably can remain in his congressional post for as long as he likes – even though circumstances make it likely he’ll never be able to get elected to any other government office).

WILL HE LITERALLY become like that breed of representatives and senators who sleep on the office couch – unless they feel like splurging and buying themselves an air mattress so they can sleep on the floor in semi-comfort?

He wouldn't be the only Illinoisan go go that route.

Or is he going to become more like Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who in political circles became famed for the “frat house-like” atmosphere of the home he and several other senators rented so they would not be homeless in the District of Columbia?

It’s too bad Jackson couldn’t have made the decision to sell and cut his living expenses a bit sooner. Let’s not forget that the Blagojevich family had a condominium for sale REAL CHEAP from Milorod’s days as a member of the House of Representatives.

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What constitutes “history?”

It is somewhat interesting to know that U.S. officials on Monday cooperated with officials in Montreal have decided to erect a bilingual plaque at an apartment where Jackie Robinson lived during the one year he played minor league baseball – prior to joining the Brookyn Dodgers in 1947 and ending the concept that pro ball was for “white” people only.

Some may have their qualms about U.S. officials designating a historic site in Canada, although that doesn’t bother me so much as the idea that we’re honoring an apartment – one that is at least six decades old – or that they waited until the absolute last day of Black History Month to do this.

WITH THE EXCEPTION of that one summer of 1946 when Robinson was with the Montreal Royals of the International League and lived there with his new wife, Rachel, I doubt there is anything about this particular place that is different from any other apartment building still standing from that era.

Or from any apartment building still standing in Chicago, or any other city in this country or on the North American continent.

The one-time student of history in me fears that by going out of our way to designate every single bit of minutia related to Robinson’s life, we’re taking steps toward trivializing it.

The “great” things that Robinson did were accomplished because of his activity on the ball field (where local officials long ago placed a plaque marking the spot of the old Delorimer Stadium to honor Robinson and the Royals), not after work when he ate and slept. Do we really learn much from a bilingual plaque whose contents can be summarized as “Jackie (once) slept here.”

WHICH IS WHY a part of me was always glad to see that city officials have never tried to turn 1550 S. Hamlin Ave. into anything resembling a historic site.

For those of you too young (or too absent-minded) to remember, that was the address of an apartment building where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., lived for one year of his life – at $90 per month for rent. It was the summer of 1966 (I was not quite one year old back then) that King was going to make the country realize that racial segregation wasn’t just a Southern problem.

While the Northern states never had the blatant “Jim Crow” policies written into the law, the separation of the races and tensions between them could be just as bad. And King chose our very own Chicago as the first place to demonstrate it.

Of course, we lived up (or is it “down”) to King’s expectations by being the city where he got hit in the head with a brick during a local protest march. Places like Marquette Park, Gage Park and Cicero (the suburb, not the avenue) are where King made his presence felt locally.

I’M NOT SAYING we place a plaque on the spot where King stood when that brick came crashing upon him. But it would be more intriguing to know how many of the locals have a clue what once happened in their midst, rather than seeing the place where the reverend ate breakfast,.

Of course, the building is long gone. It wasn’t much to begin with, and after the urban riots that followed King’s assassination in 1968, much of the North Lawndale neighborhood was reduced to vacant lots that no real estate developer would even dream of touching.

Which is why we have had for decades the joke about Dr. King living in a vacant lot. In fact, one website devoted to Chicago tourism goes so far as to include an entry for the empty lot, and telling us that one of the highlights of this particular attraction is “free admission,” while also telling us that we should also check out the church at 3413 W. Douglas Blvd. – where a church at which King once spoke still stands.

That might be a better sight to see than the one-time apartment lot, which actually is finally being “filled in,” instead of being the equivalent of a cavity in the teeth of urban planning.

CONSTRUCTION BEGAN LAST year on a proposal for the “Dr. King Legacy Apartments,” which would include 45 units of housing and some retail space, which is something the neighborhood could use more than just a plaque that way too many tourists would be too scared to come see anyway.

Now in the current economic climate, I’m not sure how quickly the housing will go. While there is a need, there also is a chance that developers could get too greedy and price themselves out of what the market would bear.

It also is what makes me reluctant to think much of the talk in recent years of the MLK Historic District – meant to turn the entire area around 16^th and Hamlin into a destination of sorts.

But at least someone is trying to think of the neighborhood’s future. If it were to work, it would do more for its surroundings than that plaque being erected at Jackie Robinson’s old apartment ever would.

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The day will come when “The Tower” won’t be Tribune office any longer

It doesn’t shock me to learn that the top management of Tribune Co. is seriously thinking of selling off their iconic office building overlooking Michigan Avenue and the Chicago River – and not just because the media company’s top boss is a real estate developer who buys and sells buildings for a living.

The building that combines with the Wrigley Building to give the “Magnificent Mile” its southernmost entrance point faces the prospect of being sold. That’s what Tribune boss Sam Zell says.

HE’S THROWING OUT the hints that a sale of the building could generate enough cash to keep the actual media properties going awhile longer (at least long enough that he can dream about a future economic uptick that could bolster the company’s long-term financial situation).

Some people are going to cite sentiment and tradition as reasons why the Tribune can’t leave the riverfront – the Chicago Tribune newsroom and corporate offices have been there since the 1920s.

But I can recall as long as 20 years ago hearing Tribune employees themselves talk about the day when they expected to be working in another building. If anything, my reaction to hearing Zell talk about a sale is to be amazed that the company (in previous incarnations) held onto the building as long as it did.

Whenever I heard Tribune newspaper people talk about “the Tower,” they would note that the printing plant had long ago left Michigan Avenue. The paper is printed at an elaborate (and huge) complex on Chicago Avenue where it has easy access to the routes that trucks use to ship bundles of newspapers to vendors across the Chicago area.

I WOULD ALWAYS hear how it would be likely that someday, Tribune Co. would just build an annex to the printing plant to house the newsroom. In some ways, it would make sense. Most newspapers are published out of complexes that more closely resemble factories than downtown office buildings.

Insofar as the idea of a newsroom close to the downtown business district being important, one needs to keep in mind that the Tribune already keeps most of its city-based reporters scattered in the press rooms of various government buildings. Much of its metro staff actually works out of offices in far-flung places such as Oak Brook, Vernon Hills and Tinley Park.

To these people, it really doesn’t matter where the “home office” is located. The whole concept of a downtown-based home is an antique concept.

The gothic castle-like structure desired by Col. Robert R. McCormick (with its 24th floor corporate suite designed with secret passageways so that McCormick could escape undetected) is a luxury most media companies never indulged themselves, and the few that did got rid of long ago.

BESIDES, THERE’S ALWAYS the possibility that talk of a Tribune Annex at their printing plant will never happen. They could just as easily sell the building, then pay rent to their new landlord. There likely would even be some understanding that the rent paid by the newspaper would be minimal – the new owner would be expected to find other ways to make money off ownership of “the Tower.”

It also would mean building maintenance would become someone else’s problem, rather than that of the Tribune.

That is what many people never seemed to comprehend when Zell talked about another division of the company – the Chicago Cubs, which for awhile was anxious to sell off the structure where the team plays its games.

“How can you have the Cubs not own Wrigley Field?,” they would ask. Actually, the Cubs would love it if they could find someone else to pay to maintain the building, and to oversee the significant renovation that will be necessary for the structure to remain in use for several more decades (which is the desire of many Cubs fans, even moreso than a championship ball club).

IF THAT ENTITY could enhance its image, and profitability, by being associated with the Cubs, that would be their reward.

I expect Zell to try to sell off as much in the way of assets as possible. So I can’t get all worked up over the chatter going around Chicago this week that he would dare to sell off the structure.

In fact, I can’t help but believe that the day will come when someone not only buys the building, but deems it worthy of destruction so that something “modern” could be built on the site – which not only oversees the river but also has an excellent view from its upper floors of Lake Michigan.

Col. McCormick had a wonderful view of the Midwestern landscape from his office at the tower. No wonder he was willing to “rule” over his “empire” like a feudal lord – he had a structure like a castle and a personal office/throne room that was impressive. Why look up to someone as low as a U.S. president, when he probably had a more impressive office than Franklin D. Roosevelt did?

SOMEONE IN THE future is going to decide that the site can be put to better use – just like the old Sun-Times Building (the sight of which I actually miss) was sold off and demolished so that New York real estate developer Donald Trump could erect a hideous-looking Chicago-based monument to himself.

When that day comes (and I fully expect to still be alive when it happens), then the one significant issue of historic preservation related to Tribune Tower will occur – what will happen to all those rocks?

For those of you who don’t know what I’m referring to, I mean all those culturally significant boulders that (throughout the years) have been embedded into the outer walls of Tribune Tower.

Tribune correspondents in the early years managed to snag chunks of structures such as the Great Wall of China and the Coliseum in Rome so that they could become a part of McCormick’s monument to himself. Since then, bits of rubble from the now-destroyed World Trade Center have been added. There’s even a rock from the Moon on display inside the building.

I WOULD HOPE that someone would have enough sense to remove those chunks before the building itself ceased to exist.

Otherwise, we face the possibility by forgetting that a piece of the Alamo (which Texans love to remember, but Tejanos could care less about) could be ground into the Chicago pavement, its dust to forever become a part of the Near North Side.

Then again, with Chicago’s growing Latino population, that act could turn out to be intentional.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Would Tribune Tower become like the Sears Tower, a Chicago structure (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/steve_chapman/2008/06/tribune-tower-f.html) that kept its iconic name even after its parent company sold it off to outside (http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2008/06/tribune-tower-u.html) interests?

Chicago officially recognizes the significance of Tribune Tower to the city’s physical character (http://www.cityofchicago.org/Landmarks/T/TribuneTower.html), which could have had (http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=tribunetower-chicago-il-usa) a significantly different design had a different contest winner been chosen in 1922.