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| This scene from 2013 won't be returning to Daley Plaza come December. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda |
That
location puts the city’s giant tree within sight of the Daley Center courthouse
and the Cook County Building, while being within a quick walk of City Hall and
the Thompson Center state government building.
IN
SHORT, THE perfect spot for all of the city’s politically-oriented people to
have the tree within their sightline, or close by for their thoughts.
Considering
that our politicos often think they are the center of the universe (and
consider those people with little to no interest in politics or government to
be subversives), it is no wonder that the tree has been in the same place for
virtually every year since 1966.
The
Chicago Tribune reported that there was one holiday season (1982) when the city
set up the official tree at State Street and Wacker Drive – although I honestly
have no recollection of that moment (even though I was 17 and was very much city-based
back then – I left for college in Bloomington, Ill., and Washington, D.C. the
following year).
Considering
that I was born in ’65 (yes, I turned a half-century old a couple of months
ago), it isn’t an exaggeration for me to say that the holiday tree is a
life-long tradition for me.
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| Picasso seems so lonely the rest of year |
YOU
CHECK OUT the holiday decorations set up on State Street in the department
store windows, then venture over to the Daley Plaza to see the tree.
Although
in recent years, there has been that German-themed Christmas village set up in
the space around the city’s official tree. They even set up the city’s official
Hanukkah menorah right by.
It
has become a festive city tradition, and one that makes the Picasso statue also
located in the Daley Plaza seem so naked the rest of the year with nothing but
the pigeons surrounding it.
But
that will be no more beginning with this holiday season. For city officials
announced this week that when they erect the city’s official tree on Nov. 24,
it will be in Millennium Park.
NOT
AMONGST THE political people. But at a location where they hope it will attract
even more public attention. Technically, it will now have a Michigan Avenue
address; rather than a Clark Street one.
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| Will the city menorah move with the tree? |
Although
since it will now be near the Maggie Daley Park, one could argue that the city
will still use the Daley name as the location for official city holiday
celebrations.
There
also is the fact that the city has an ice rink nearby, and there will be the
vision of people being able to skate and slip on the ice before checking out a
giant, 55-foot-tall tree (usually a spruce or a fir).
The
kind of Christmas holiday celebration that could wind up appearing on postcards
that bear the official symbol of city recognition.
UNLIKE
THE PAST celebrations which had an ice rink one block to the east back in the
day when Block 37 was vacant and officials set up a temporary ice rink each
winter so as to make the downtown location seem just a little less decrepit
than it had become.
So
what should we think of this shift? It is going to take some getting used to,
although I suppose there is a younger generation that will think nothing of
this move.
There
even is a sense of history returning, as there once was a time when the
official holiday tree was set up in Grant Park – dating back to the first city
tree in 1913.
But
for me, the occasions when I walk through Daley Plaza come December are going
to seem a bit strange. The plaza in December without having to work one’s way
through a maze caused by the Christmas village AND the holiday tree will seem
deserted.
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