Will signs of businesses past cause confusion for future Chicagoans?

I suppose people will argue it’s a matter of historic preservation, but there’s a part of me that thinks it’s ridiculous that the giant letters of gothic type spelling out “Chicago Tribune” will remain in place on the building the newspaper no longer uses.

Sign to be restored around 2020

Tribune Media (the division that operates the television stations) sold the nearly century-old tower that was corporate headquarters, and the newspaper that had been housed there for decades made its move just over a month ago.

Dominant sign near Tribune's new digs

IT SEEMS THE company that bought the building (and has plans to convert it into condominiums) thought it was buying the rights to the building, as-is. Including the eight-foot-high letters that spelled out the newspaper name.

While the newspaper thought they had the right to take their sign with them to their new offices in the one-time Prudential Building just a few blocks to the south.

In the end, it appears the sign will remain in place – with the argument being made that it is a part of the historic character of the structure that the company thought it was buying along with the structure itself.

Retail rivalry signs live on, even though Field's … 

The sign itself will be taken down later this year when the construction work needed to convert the structure into high-end condominiums for the ridiculously-wealthy of Chicago residents. When that work is complete (sometime around the year 2020), the sign will be restored.

WILL WE HAVE future generations of out-of-towners who get confused about where exactly one of our city’s newspapers is located?

… & Carson's are no more

Particularly because it seems that there isn’t anything excessively prominent to let people from outside know that the Tribune is located where it is now.

I took a recent day trip downtown just to walk around, and checked out the Prudential Building area because I wanted to see for myself just how prominently the newspaper had put its stamp on its new digs.

I found nothing. I had to have it pointed out to me where exactly the Tribune’s new home is. The Tribune hasn’t let its professional ego take over its new site.

IF ANYTHING, THE huge sign marking the building as the corporate headquarters of The Prudential Insurance Company of America is still all-dominant. Just as a few blocks once one crosses the Chicago River and one-time site of Fort Dearborn, the gothic type of the Chicago Tribune will be a very visual reminder of what once was.

Maybe that’s not too confusing. Take a little trip along State Street just a few blocks away, and you’ll see the signs remaining on Marshall Field’s and Carson, Pirie, Scott – even though it is Macy’s and Target that now do business in the one-time downtown flagships of Chicago’s classic retailers.

Past newspapers live on only as Mich. Ave. plaque

Maybe it’s evidence of my increasing age (I’m on the ‘experienced’ side of the half-century mark), but I’m at the point where every time I head into the city, I notice something else missing.

I’m starting to develop in my memory an entire city that no longer exists in quite the same form.

I ONCE THOUGHT it odd that a part of me still expects to see the brick, whitewashed building at 35^th Street on the Dan Ryan Expressway, instead of the pale pink concrete paneled structure that replaced it as the Chicago White Sox ballpark some 28 years ago.

Of course, it also makes me realize there are older generations of people who would regard themselves as life-long Chicagoans for whom my Chicago of memory would be a whole lot of nonsense – none of it existed when they were around.

How many think Macy's Frango Mints the  same? Photos by Gregory Tejeda

We have a city of perpetual change. It may be a sign of continued development. Because stagnation is not something we’d want to occur.

Although I also noticed that when I used the search engine of bing.com to confirm the new Chicago Tribune address, it persisted in telling me the newspaper is at Tribune Tower north of the river. Perhaps the Internet is confused by the sign’s remaining in place – and may be evidence we shouldn’t put too much trust in anything we find on these computers.

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T-R-U-M-P – all a matter of perspective

The Trump-less way many would prefer to think of Chicago skyline

I had to be at the Daley Center courthouse last week for another hearing in an ongoing lawsuit I’m writing about these days, and one of the things I like about trips there is when I can cover something in one of the top floors of the 30-plus story building.

You can get some up-close and personal views of the Chicago skyline – such as being able to look DOWN on the First United Methodist Church building located across the street.

Trump contribution to Chicago

BUT BY CHANCE in a bit of down time during a court hearing, I happened to catch a glimpse out of a window facing to the north of what has become an architectural controversy (or travesty, depending on one’s opinion).

The Trump Tower right on the Chicago River that is one of the city’s tallest buildings (albeit not as big as the Willis Tower that so many of us still call Sears).

And from my perspective on the 25^th floor, I could look down on the building and see the letters that are getting so many people riled up.

T-R-U-M-P. As in The Donald wants to ensure that EVERYBODY knows this is his building in Chicago. One with a riverfront view as such that everybody along Wacker Drive can see it – as well as anybody coming in from Lake Michigan into the city on the river.

 

Looking down from Daley Center

THE BUILDING IS just like the man himself – all about garishness being mistaken for class. Just like way too many rap and country/western music stars!

Yet I have to admit that from my Daley Center view, the lettering that gets so many people all worked up seemed to have a proper perspective.

It is, after all, one of the city’s tallest buildings (nearly 1,400 feet tall). So the idea of letters that are 20 feet tall is a matter of perspective.

The “TRUMP” sign wasn’t any more ostentatious than the letters atop the building advertising that Kemper Corp. insurance is located at 1 E. Wacker Dr. I noticed their sign as well.

 

Palmolive Building view before iconic sign

I’LL BE THE first to admit that the New York-based real estate developer is way too overbearing for us to have to put up with. Particularly since he comes across as though he believes the structures he is erecting are permanent reminders of his existence on this planet.

Does Trump believe his tower in Chicago is his reminder to the Midwestern U.S. that he was here? That the structure will still be standing some 3,000 years from now?

As though it makes him immortal?

Heck, I’m old enough to remember when the Palmolive Building bore the name of PLAYBOY, and had that “Bunny Beacon” atop the structure that could be seen from several hundred miles away.

NOW, WHO REMEMBERS that the magazine’s sign was ever there. Or even that Hugh Hefner’s attempt at a sophisticated girlie magazine was ever a Chicago-based company?

A large part of the reason I can’t get too worked up at the sight of T-R-U-M-P on the Chicago River is that I know full well the day will come when the sign will be no more.

Do I think Mayor Rahm Emanuel is letting himself get way too worked up with his governmental efforts to try to force the sign’s removal? Of course. If anything, he’s merely feeding into Trump’s ego by making him think he’s all the more important on the Chicago scene.

 

A real iconic sign

Emanuel ought to let this fight go. He’d find out just how quickly Chicagoans would learn to ignore this bit of garishness. Heck, we manage to ignore a lot of tacky (the remodeled Soldier Field, for example) items that exist in our city.

IN THE END, Trump will get his comeuppance when his attempt at a memorable structure winds up getting lost in the skyline shuffle.

And a century from now, nobody will be remembering the T-R-U-M-P lettering as anywhere near iconic as the Magikist lips!

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Signs are such a non-issue

I must confess. I get my kick out of seeing out-of-date signs remaining in place – giving us some physical evidence of what once was, but is no longer.

Seeing Rod Blagojevich’s name remain as “Illinois governor” painted in giant letters on the side of the Illinois International Port District building down near Lake Calumet gives me a chuckle, while I have always smiled a bit throughout the years at the site of the sign atop the old Allerton Hotel.

YOU KNOW THE one I’m referring to – the one that promotes their luxury lounge, the “Tip Top Tap” that closed for business way back in 1961.

Which is why it might very well be in character for all those signs that tout “Richard M. Daley” as Chicago mayor to remain in place. Yet I can’t help but think this is an incident where pure pettiness is prevailing.

I want to see all those “Daley” signs go.

What is at stake is the fact that on the very day that Rahm Emanuel became mayor, crews were out removing some of the signs that identified Daley as the city’s chief executive and replaced them with signs letting people entering Chicago know that there’s a new “sheriff” in these parts.

ALTOUGH IF CIRCUMSTANCES had gone just a bit differently, there is a chance that our new “sheriff” could literally have been the old sheriff – we could have had Mayor Tom Dart!

I suppose some people wish THIS sign were still in place.

Back to the signs, which managed to tick off certain elements of our society who wanted to proclaim that installing such new signs was a waste of taxpayer funds. Figures as high as $500,000 have been touted as the dollar amount that could have gone to some other worthwhile expense – had certain people not felt the need to assuage Emanuel’s ego.

Emanuel himself, seeing the chance for negative publicity on his first day as mayor, went ahead and signed an order that put a halt to the sign replacement.

I don’t know how far along those crews got in terms of sign replacement. But it is likely that some signs remain (although I haven’t seen any yet) that tell us we still have a “Mayor Daley.”

WHO’S TO SAY how long it will take us to realize that this is a petty non-issue, and that the people who were complaining ought to have been ignored. So we may have evidence of “Mayor Daley” remaining for some time.

I’d hope that the “Mayor Daley” signs don’t last for so long that they wind up competing with the “Tip Top Tap” and those faded signs near State and Randolph streets that still promote the Boston Store (which closed in Chicago back in 1948).

But when it comes to giving in to political whiners, anything is possible.

What bothers me is that I really think this is a non-issue because the kind of people who get all worked up over a new government official making the small gestures that let the public know of his (or her) presence are usually the ones who backed an opponent in the last election cycle.

WHICH MEANS I see this issue as one of sore losers who are complaining because they don’t want physical evidence of the fact that their preferred candidate lost.

Maybe they think that if there are no signs touting “Mayor Emanuel,” then it really didn’t happen. Which makes me think these people are living in some sort of fantasy land. I’d rather not be having our government give in to people who can’t accept the “real” world.

It’s bad enough that we have many people who let their refusal to accept the last presidential election cycle dictate their rhetoric and actions toward the federal government these days.

I’d rather not see some local version of  nasty Rahm-bo rhetoric taking hold in our home city.

FOR THOSE WHO are going to respond to me with messages that try to tell me this is an economic issue, I’d say that’s nonsense.

I really think the amount of money being used for this gesture is miniscule. The idea that some worthy program will take a major financial hit because there is now a “Mayor Emanuel welcomes you to Chicago” sign (or some variation of that phrase) is absurd.

Saving less than $1 million in order to please somebody who can’t handle the fact that Emanuel won the mayoral election without having to endure a run-off election seems to me to be silly.

And as for those people who like the idea of Gov. Pat Quinn using his business cards that identify him as “lieutenant governor” with the former portion crossed out, I’d say that merely makes Pat look like a cheapskate.

YOU PROBABLY LIKE the idea of Quinn staying at “Motel 6” hotels and think that his special club card is somehow still legitimate (apparently, it’s a long-expired savings program).

Actually, I can only think of one possible benefit to keeping the “Mayor Daley” signs – and then only if you are of the type who anxiously await the day a decade or two from now when a third-generation Daley family member decides he (or she) wants to run for public office.

Perhaps we could follow Quinn’s lead and merely cross out the first name, with “Mayor ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________ Daley" being turned into a fill-in-the-blank.

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