Will Asian Carp assault Chicago, Lake Michigan similar to the way Godzilla terrorized Tokyo in the movies?

It has long been the fear of environmentalists that Asian Carp, a breed of fish considered particularly devastating to our ecology, is someday going to manage to work its way into Lake Michigan and the surrounding of the Great Lakes.

Have Asian Carp arrived at Lake Calumet? Photos by Gregory Tejeda

So it is with much trepidation that there is now evidence indicating that the Carp have made it past the electronic barricades further south near Romeoville (which the Army Corps of Engineers installed thinking that was the absolute solution to keep the Carp out of Chicago) and are now in existence in Lake Calumet.

FROM WHICH, IF they really have made it that far along the path, only now have to swim upstream through the Calumet River for about seven miles through Chicago’s South Side and will then be in Lake Michigan proper.

The Asian Carp, who initially were released accidentally into the Mississippi River somewhere down near New Orleans have managed to make it up across the nation, and across our state through the Illinois River and could now be about to take over the lake that is pride and joy to our Chicago.

Which, of course, will have many people eager to blame Chicago for letting the Asian Carp loose – even though one could claim it was the ineptitude of those who initially let the Carp loose down south who are truly to blame.

From Lake Calumet mouth to Calumet River … 

But the reality is that there’s nothing that can be done to undo the damage in the mighty Mississippi. But we can still hope that our officials can act in ways to bar them from Lake Michigan.

SO WHAT’S THE big deal about the Asian Carp? The fact is that the Asian Carp feed on anything and everything in their paths.

In doing so, they’ll devastate the ecosystems of whatever water supply they manage to get to. In a sense, everything that is alive and thriving now in Lake Michigan could wind up becoming barren, if the Carp make it that far.

And the reality is, we may well find there’s nothing we really can do to stop the Asian Carp from making the final stretch of their journey to Lake Michigan and all the other Great Lakes.

and up the river, past the Chicago Skyway bridge

If they’ve managed to work their way north from New Orleans to Chicago this far, what’s to make us think there’s anything that can be placed in their way during the final seven-mile stretch of the Calumet River?

NOW IT SHOULD be noted that the Asian Carp proper have not been found in Lake Calumet itself. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said last week that traces of DNA from Asian Carp have been found in the lake’s water.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the DNA could consist of evidence of skin cells, secretions and feces (just think, fish poop), and that those substances could well have been in the bilge water of the ships that pass through the area – if not the Asian Carp themselves.

Too bad the Asian Carp can't read signs!

It could be just genetic junk, and not the fish themselves that have made the lengthy journey from down south. Which means that rather than blaming Chicago for letting the Carp into the Great Lakes, we ought to be thinking in terms of whether or not Chicago will be “heroic” enough to prevent the trip from being completed.

I suppose we’re now on the lookout for the Asian Carp, which have been sited by the T.J. O’Brien Lock and Dam – located just south of the lake – to see if they’ve made it a few miles farther north to the lake proper, then well on their way to the “big” lake itself.

IT WILL BE intriguing to see what kind of last-ditch measures our federal and state officials (Gov. J.B. Pritzker has written to the Army Corps of Engineers offering whatever assistance the state can provide) can concoct to try to keep the Asian Carp out of the Great Lakes.

Will we see some new sort of technology devised to try to barricade off Lake Michigan? Or are we destined to see the same kind of electronic barricades erected at the mouth of the Calumet River headed into the lake as one last-ditch attempt to kill off any sort of creatures?

Will the Asian Carp be reminiscent of Godzilla films?

Is it inevitable that Lake Michigan (and the other Great Lakes) as we now know them are doomed? Or can they be saved?

It makes me wonder if we’re destined for some sort of story in our future resembling the old Godzilla movies – with the Asian Carp being a threat to our ecological well-being and threatening Chicago similar to the way the cinematic dragon-like creature used to terrorize Tokyo!

  -30-

Is Chicago 2/3rd of Illinois; or merely one of the state’s 13 metro areas?

Chicago’s share of Illinois’ population is just over 20 percent; although if one takes into account the entirety of Chicago metro it becomes about two-thirds of the state – with nearly half the state’s population living in a Chicago suburb.

All too absurd, but also accurate, a perception we have of our state

Yet I can remember my days as a Statehouse reporter-type person with officials from the “rest of Illinois” going out of their way to make references to the Chicago-area as “northeastern Illinois” (to make it sound no different than any other region) and making mention of the fact that the state technically has 13 metro areas.

WITH CHICAGO BEING merely one of them, and trying to act as though we don’t acknowledge the other “cities” that exist in Illinois.

That mentality is what largely is behind the measure signed into law this week by Gov. Bruce Rauner – one that says state agencies must regard Springfield as the default location for where employees on the state payroll are based.

Even though the trend of the past couple of decades is to recognize that the bulk of people who live in this state are up here along (or near) the shores of Lake Michigan.

Which causes griping amongst the people based in the Springfield offices of assorted state agencies because they want to be thought of as the home base – rather than just a distant outpost some 200 miles from the focal point of our state’s activity.

RAUNER: Gaining political points for self

THIS BECOMES A political tactic in that it is an act Rauner can point to in his efforts to gain enough votes from the partisans of central and Southern Illinois come the Nov. 6 elections that he can dream of overcoming the many Chicago-area voters who likely are determined to turn out to the polls to vote against Bruce (amongst others).

Rauner, who himself includes a Chicago city-based condominium among the several residences he owns (he’s that wealthy), is taking sides in the perpetual split between Chicago and rural Illinois.

Which actually is similar to the chasm that exists nationally between urban and rural – with those people who prefer the isolated lifestyle unable to comprehend that they’re in the minority of our society; largely because they don’t know many people different from themselves.

BLAGOJEVICH: Pot shots at former gov

The new law says every job title would have to have a location attached to it – and any position to be based in an office outside of Springfield would have to have a justification attached as to why it shouldn’t be a part of the Statehouse Scene.

A STUDY CONDUCTED for the Illinois Department of Central Management Services (essentially, the personnel department for state government) suggested that several hundred jobs currently based in Chicago ought to be relocated to Springfield.

Personally, I think it would be our state government’s loss if it were to carry this line of logic to an extreme. I suspect they’d find a loss in the quality of employees they’d find willing to take a state job if it meant having to endure “capital punishment” – which in political slang means to have to actually spend time in Springfield when the General Assembly itself isn’t in session.

The river IS why Chicago became what it is. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

Which means passing a law like this truly is a partisan act. Particularly since Rauner, in signing the bill into law, made a point of referring to many of the job location changes being made 15 years ago – as in the exact point when the always-despised Rod Blagojevich took office.

Blagojevich, of course, was the governor who was so unenthralled with showing up at state facilities that he eventually came to do the bulk of his work at an office in his Ravenswood neighborhood home – or at one set up in his ward, almost as though he were just a local political boss.

PERSONALLY, I THINK these regional spats have the potential to hold us back – since Illinois’ greatest advantage truly is that it has elements of all the parts of our society as a whole.

Would Abe have become a White Stockings fan

We ought to try to feed off our knowledge for the collective good.

Instead of thinking there’s something special about promoting the idea of our capital city – which itself is truly a product of 19^th Century mentality. After all, we are a state whose settlement originally began in Southern Illinois, with people presuming that a city like Cairo (where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers converge) would be our pride and joy. We evolved into a place that emphasized Chicago because of its Lake Michigan/Chicago River location (while Cairo has withered away to a town of merely 2,000 people).

There’s even the fact that the family of Springfield’s most famed resident (none other than Abraham Lincoln) eventually moved on to Chicago itself. Would “Honest Abe,” if he had lived long enough to be a retired president, have wound up praising the joys of life in what came to be known as the Second City?

  -30-

What’s going to kill Amazon.com chances? We can’t make up our minds

The more I think about it, the more I’m starting to believe that Amazon.com is likely to pick some place other than Chicago to be the site of the new second headquarters they want to build somewhere in the United States.

Could the Amazon.com logo become a part ...

As much as I think the Seattle-based Amazon types would be total lunkheads if they can’t appreciate how wonderful Chicago would be for their corporate needs, I also think we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves for the eventual failure.

FOR IT SEEMS that our political people who ultimately are going to have to put together some sort of package of incentives to entice Amazon.com types to come here are going to get undone by their own indecisiveness.

For it seems we can’t even agree on where we would want to have such a headquarters built – and the various interests who are each touting individual sites seem to think that “compromise” is defined as “Everybody else ought to shut up and do what we think is right!”

Within Chicago alone, there are supposedly six locations under consideration, and I’ve also heard from assorted interest groups who can easily tout locations that aren’t on the unofficial list of a half-dozen prospective sites.

I know that in my own home part of Chicago (the 10^th Ward, or southeast corner of the city), there are people who are getting all worked up that they think the knuckleheads at City Hall aren’t united by trying to entice Amazon.com with the site of the old U.S. Steel South Works plant along Lake Michigan.

THAT’S THE SITE where many developers have talked about trying to develop upscale neighborhoods taking advantage of the lake’s proximity. Although I suspect many of those city officials trying to put together a Chicago proposal want a location more potentially upscale than something at 79^th Street and the lakefront.

... of Chicago cityscape like Walgreen's?

Their idea of a waterfront site for Amazon.com usually talks about the Chicago River, specifically the north branch. Where there are some architectural drawings in existence that show an artistically-spectacular structure that could be erected for Amazon.com.

Or others talk about turning the Old Post Office building in the South Loop into a headquarters – citing how it is historically significant, would be a nice re-use and also would be within walking distance of other prominent downtown Chicago structures and businesses.

Some even speculate about a suburban site, such as the Oak Brook location where McDonald's used to have its 'Hamburger U' where it trained franchise managers. We can't even get our own thoughts together united behind a proposal. Which makes me wonder if the Amazon.com types will just write us off altogether.

YET IT’S NOT just the city trying to get itself involved in the Amazon.com battle.

Gov. Bruce Rauner admits Illinois will be working with St. Louis officials who are trying to entice Amazon.com to come to their city. Rauner figures that it would benefit the Illinois residents of Madison and St. Clair counties (which are this state’s portion of the St. Louis metropolitan area) if the plant were to be located there.

Could Kankakee or Gary, Ind., ...

Yet that may not be the only Illinois alternate interest.

The Capitol Fax newsletter reported this week that Kankakee County officials are trying to persuade Rauner to include their area in any state proposal to try to get Amazon.com to come to Illinois.

A KANKAKEE-AREA based facility would have proximity to the far south end of the Chicago area, while also being not that far from the University of Illinois campus in Urbana.

Then, there’s also the potential political battle evolving just over the state line in Indiana, where Lake County business officials are trying to put together a proposal to try to entice Amazon.com to locate in the Hoosier state, while Gary, Ind., city officials are putting together their own proposal – one that they advertised earlier this week in the New York Times.

... bring Amazon.com into proximity of Chicago?

Both of those groups are claiming their proximity to Chicago means Amazon.com could get the Chicago-area labor without having to actually locate in Chicago.

That’s a lot of confusion, and there’s always the chance of more groups trying to tout themselves between now and Oct. 25 – the date that Amazon.com supposedly wants to have proposals submitted by. Enough confusion that the Seattle types could easily wind up deciding that the New York Times was right in recommending Denver as the best site.

  -30-

On Asian carp issue, does Illinois really have faith? Or is state just cheap!

The Asian Carp, a species of fish that devours everything in its path and whose presence in the Great Lakes would likely kill off all the species of fish and plant life that are native to our area, are an issue that we’re supposedly desperate to find a solution to.

Army Corps of Engineers has new plan for Asian carp

For we have evidence that the carp have managed to creep their way up into the Calumet River and are extremely close to the mouth of Lake Michigan – which would feed them into the Great Lakes as a whole.

CATASTROPHE TIME, OR at least that is what we’ve been led to believe.

Yet I find it interesting that Illinois government officials, or at least those in positions of authority within the governor’s office, are skeptical of the latest proposal by the Army Corps of Engineers meant to keep the carp away from the lake.

They talk about an upgrade of the Brandon Road lock and dam near Joliet to include high-power water jets and loud noises – all of which would create enough of a barricade to keep the carp who have swum up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers to be up around Joliet from getting any closer to Chicago.

Currently, officials have relied upon electrifying the area on the Des Plaines River so that any carp who try to swim through the area get killed – thereby preventing them from getting any closer to Chicago than they already are.

YET ILLINOIS OFFICIALS made it clear Monday they don’t think much of the Army Corps of Engineers’ proposal.

In a prepared statement that state officials say is to be attributed to Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti (she doesn’t do much else), “this new approach is neither cost-effective nor environmentally sound.”

Illinois officials go so far as to say, “Science tells us our comprehensive strategy is working.”

SANGUINETTI: Gets to make carp stance for state

Although I’m sure those people who found evidence of the carp existing in the waters of the Calumet River (which puts them within the Chicago city limits – much too close for comfort to Lake Michigan for some people) don’t have the same faith in the existing measures.

I’M GUESSING WE have to figure out just how much faith do we have in Gov. Bruce Rauner and the judgment of his people to not want to consider taking the additional measures to try to keep the carp out of Chicago.

Because I am fairly certain that if the carp do manage to get to the Great Lakes, there are many people across the region who will be more than eager to blame Chicago for the mess. There are those who always like to bring up the late 19^th Century reversal of the flow of the Chicago River as somehow being responsible.

Because if we had let Mother Nature exist as she intended, we might not have such problems. A though of which I’m skeptical.

The point being we probably can’t rule out any solution, although I also appreciate much of the reason for Illinois’ official skepticism is the cost.

THE ARMY CORPS of Engineers’ plan has a $275.4 million price tag – of which Illinois would be on the hook for $95 million in construction costs and another $8 million per year for operations and maintenance expenses.

Could Asian carp have already made it to waters of Calumet River? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

I know Illinois government is not flush with extra cash these days. Yet there are some expenses we’re probably going to have to just knuckle down and accept. Could this be one of them?

Because while Illinois talks about the disruption of native fish migration patterns that would be caused by noise barriers and water jets, I’m wondering.

How much more will it wind up hurting Illinois financially if the carp do wind up making it all the way into the Great Lakes? A whole lot more than some dead fish carcasses washing ashore on Oak Street Beach!

  -30-

All it takes is one to create a problem

I don’t doubt that most people give little thought to the concept of Asian Carp.
 

Not far from Great Lakes, where Calumets converge

For all I know, on the occasions they do think about it, they dismiss it as some sort of artificial emergency situation created by intellectual types who have way too much free time on their hands – perhaps similar to the doomsday we were supposed to face on Jan. 1, 2000.

IT DOESN’T SEEM that many people are getting all that worked up over the concept of the Asian Carp – a species of fish that Mother Nature never really intended to exist in this part of the globe. Maybe they think it's what you get when you order Chinese carry-out!

So the fact that scientists inadvertently let them loose into the Mississippi River and they have steadily worked their way upstream is a problem that those scientists get all worked up over. But which elicits a great big “Yawn!” from the bulk of us.

As things turn out, the Asian Carp have worked their way up the river and into Illinois – where they’re alive and thriving in the Illinois River. I recently stumbled across a news report that said the waters around Havana, Ill., have more Asian Carp than any other place on Earth.

Now why should we care about the Carp?

THE FACT IS that the eat everything in sight. They devour all the natural plant life that fish nature intended to be in the area would feed off of. As a result, the types of fish who “belong” wind up being threatened.

 

Lake Calumet a direct path to Lake Michigan

The potential exists for nature to be erased, and replaced with something glutton-ish that was never meant to be!

Back in 2010, an Asian Carp was actually pulled out of Lake Calumet – that isolated patch of area on Chicago’s far South Side that connects directly to Lake Michigan by the Calumet River.

And on Friday, the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee said another Asian Carp was caught by a fisherman just south of the T.J. O’Brien Lock and Dam – which is near Lake Calumet – and clearly within the Chicago city limits.

 

ENVIRONMENTAL AND WILDLIFE types like to talk about those electronic gates they erected south of the city that supposedly kill off any Asian Carp that try to swim too close to Chicago or Lake Michigan. But it also seems at least two managed to figure out a way to get past.
 

Could the Carp someday swim past 95th St. bridge?

Which creates the possibility that many more also succeeded. For all we know, they have managed to get to Lake Michigan proper – and we just don’t know it yet. Or equally likely, they are going to continue to try and the day will come when we’ll have the Asian Carp feeding off the Great Lakes.

Now those who want to think of issues in a partisan way often want to place blame on the Asian Carp issue on Chicago itself. We are the city that back in the 19^th Century created the connections between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River.

Those connections were a large part of the reason why Chicago became the dominant Midwestern city so much larger than places like Detroit, Milwaukee or St. Louis.

ARE WE SUPPOSED to wither away and cease to exist because others allowed the Mississippi River to become tainted by the Asian Carp?

Now I’m not about to offer up the solution to keeping the Asian Carp out of Lake Michigan. It seems we’re doing what we possibly can thus far, and this may wind up being an issue of how things can always go wrong.

Fact that area fenced off causes many to give Calumet lake little thought. All photographs by Gregory Tejeda

All I know is that this issue is one we all ought to be giving greater thought to, rather than thinking of it as something that is occurring down around that lake many of us never pay attention to.

For if we do wind up facing the day of devastation to the Great Lake upon which our city’s existence is so reliant, it won’t be as “ho-hum” an event as it was the day after Dec. 21, 2012 – when the world didn’t come to an end as the Mayans allegedly once predicted it would.

  -30-

EXTRA: We're 180!!!!!

Happy Birthday, Chicago!

For an ol' gal of 180, you're holding up quite well, no matter what incredibly derogatory comments the current U.S. president continues to make about you. Probably because he's jealous that he doesn't have local ties to our city like the previous president did (and no, that ugly tower he erected on the shores of our namesake river doesn't count as a local tie).

YES, IT IS the 180th anniversary of the date upon which Chicago was officially incorporated as a city. It is a place that could easily have been wiped off the map following its Great Fire at age 34. Instead, it rebuilt itself into a place that truly qualifies as one of the intriguing cities on Planet Earth.

And we can now start the countdown, 20 years and counting, 'til we can have Bicentennial celebrations for the Second City (which may actually have sunk to 4th by the time that date comes about).

Not that it matters much; because many of us will always enjoy the wonders that exist at the southwest corner of the shores of Lake Michigan.

And now, we'll enjoy the musings of gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt playing our city's song.

  -30-

Navy Pier losing its carnival-like atmosphere to become a luxury hotel

I enjoy Chicago, take a certain amount of pride in being able to say I was born here and have lived the bulk of my life here. I also think this city is a wonderful place that everybody in the world ought to come to enjoy at least once in their lifetime.
 

The carnival-like atmosphere at Navy Pier could become a part of the past. Image provided by Chicago Postcard Museum

Yet I have to confess to always feeling a little tinge of embarrassment whenever I read something reminding me that Navy Pier is the Number One tourist attraction not only for Chicago, but for the state of Illinois.

IT JUST SEEMS a little silly, to me, that people who have taken the time and effort to make the journey to Chicago wind up wasting their time checking out the pier, or at least what has become of the pier in the past three decades.

The giant Ferris wheel gave the place a carnival-like atmosphere. And I realize the historic implication of a Ferris wheel in Chicago being reminiscent of the worlds’ fairs that were held in our city.

But if you think about it, you can ride a Ferris wheel anywhere. Admittedly, you won’t get a great view of Lake Michigan at the top of a wheel at some rural county carnival. But a wheel is a wheel.

Even more silly, to me, was that Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant located at the pier. Created to feed off the popularity of the 1994 film “Forrest Gump, it also is something that seems so absurd. With all the quality dining one could find in Chicago, people would be expected to choose a brand that has 43 locations across the United States, along with Mexico, Great Britain, Malaysia, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Hong Kong.

Navy Pier a long ways from when it was purely a boat-docking facility

IT COMES ACROSS as being a real-life take on the gag from that episode of “The Simpsons” where the family goes to Japan and winds up eating at the “Americatown” restaurant, where mom Marge gets excited about seeing the Japanese take on the club sandwich!

In short, Navy Pier isn’t a place I go to very often (and not just because I’m a cheap grouch!). So I have to admit to feeling a jolt of excitement when I learned this week of the City Council contemplating an overhaul of the place that was erected a century ago as a pier for those ships sailing into Chicago off Lake Michigan.

Which makes the pier’s incarnation of recent years seem so ridiculously absurd. I doubt that those sailors who arrived in Chicago at the pier some 90 years ago, or those people who came to the pier to fish a half-century ago, ever would have envisioned a place that had lots of shops where one could buy various incarnations of a “I (heart) Chicago” coffee mug.

The council’s zoning committee gave its approval this week to a plan calling for a seven-story hotel to be built on the pier, along with amenities such as a winter ice-skating rink, a sloped-roof welcome pavilion (which likely would continue to have all those gift shops selling tacky trinkets) and some short-term boat docking facilities.

The days of academia are long-gone from the pier. Photograph provided by Chuckman Chicago Nostalgia

IT IS, AFTER all, a pier. Which means boats. The people who conceived of the need for a pier sticking out one mile into Lake Michigan didn’t do so because they wanted a unique site for a carnival ride.

Although I also realize that ships transporting goods don’t arrive at Navy Pier anymore. What little shipping still arrives in Chicago sails into the piers down around Lake Calumet.

So I realize that the pier has to evolve, or else become pointless and rot away. Which is the fate it nearly suffered by the late 1970s.

I can remember the days just before the remodeling of the 1990s when the structure was largely vacant and it was obvious that the facility had a very practical purpose for briefly storing goods brought in from ships.

I CAN REMEMBER making the walk to the pier offices at the far east end of the facility, having to go through all the vacant space and feeling like it was such a waste. The ghosts of college students past from the pier’s UI-Chicago days and those from the days when World War I-era draft dodgers were incarcerated there were all over the place.

Plus, I’m also old enough to remember the “Chicagofest” festivities held at the pier that then-Mayor Jane Byrne always liked to think were the biggest part of her legacy to the city. Closing my eyes could bring to mind memories of seeing Muddy Waters perform there, along with the Turtles (remember “Happy Together?!?”).

Losing some of the sillier touristy aspects of what has become Navy Pier will be a plus – particularly if it provides a facility that can enhance Chicago as a whole.

That used to be a long walk, particularly when made on a cold December day. Photograph provided by Chuckman Chicago Nostalgia

Although I suspect I still won’t become a Navy Pier regular, because I think that whatever hotel winds up being built at the site will be one I won’t stay at because it will wind up far beyond my own income level.

  -30-

Lucas’ museum: Too little, too late?

Reading the news accounts Friday of how we may very well wind up with filmmaker George Lucas’ vision for a pop culture museum after all make me a tad skeptical.

 

Is it possible for this George Lucas vision to ever come close to reality in Chicago?

For while I don’t doubt that Lucas, a San Francisco-area resident, gave some thought to locating his pet project in our beloved Chicago, I wonder if there has just been too much negativity for him to want to bother with us any longer.

WE MAY HAVE had a shot at gaining this museum for our city’s collection of public attractions. But I wonder if Lucas is too turned off on Chicago to bother to put his Museum of Narrative Art here.

I also wonder if perhaps we’re now better off if this project winds up going somewhere else. Perhaps Los Angeles? Who’s to say!

Much has been made of the political fight that has arisen in Chicago, as it seems Lucas was determined to get a location in the Second City along the Lake Michigan lakefront. One near downtown so that you’d get clear views of the city’s iconic skyline.

It can’t be a real Chicago museum unless the soon-to-be-former Willis Tower looms over it!

OF COURSE, THE fight was coming from Friends of the Parks, the environmentalist group that would love to see the whole lakefront be one long sandy beach and thinks there already has been enough development in Chicago.

They’re the ones who filed the lawsuit that has tangled up the project in court so thoroughly that Lucas has become frustrated and started seeking out other cities as a potential location – namely the aforementioned City of the Angels.

But now, the news reports inspired largely by a Sneedscoop in the Chicago Sun-Times say Friends of the Parks may well drop their lawsuit. Although later reports by the Chicago Tribune followed in the journalistic tradition of knocking down someone else's exclusive -- they claimed Friends of the Parks had no intention of backing off its lawsuit. Which would, or would not, eliminate the primary obstacle and allow the City Council to behave in their usual manner and merely give rubber-stamp approval to anything that Rahm Emanuel tells them to.

It would allow for the museum to be built on part of the property now used by the McCormick Place convention center (a place most Chicagoans visit solely to see the Chicago Auto Show every February – where they dream of being able to buy the latest cars and date the models who present them, before they get back into their “beaters” and return to reality).

SUPPOSEDLY, THE CITY would find ways to create more public parkland along the lakefront, in exchange for this use of lakefront for the museum. Although the real reason may well be the reports saying the Friends of the Parks were advised by attorneys that their lawsuit in the long-run would be a loser.

A judge could very well find that their concerns about lakefront land use for private development were invalid, and that the museum should have been permitted to be built.

But by then, the facility could be up and running elsewhere. Friends of the Parks could wind up looking incredibly stupid. Thereby causing the desire to settle this whole affair out of court while there’s still a chance Lucas could be appeased into wanting to come to Chicago after all.

Who knows what the chances are of that happening.

FOR THE FACT is that a project like this is about egos being stroked. Having someone go to court to challenge this dream is just the kind of thing that would kill it off in Chicago.

Personally, if I were a part of the group trying to locate the museum, I’d be inclined to think the hassle isn’t worth it – particularly if locating in Chicago would mean having to cope with Midwestern winter weather.

They may find a more mild climate to be a place to put a museum meant to appeal to our pop culture fantasies. It certainly wouldn’t be something along the line of our Field Museum that tries to educate us about our natural history.

Which means that getting this project back after Lucas has started to let himself be seduced by Hollywood and L.A. glamour could wind up with such a high price for our fair city that it may turn out to not be worth it.

  -30- 

Gary? Waukegan? No idea too crazy for that Lucas museum in search of a home

I couldn’t help but chuckle Wednesday night while in Gary, Ind., where I was covering a vicious, meandering and often confusing debate related to federal immigration policy and corrections when a member of the city’s Common Council suggested the Hoosier city as the perfect place for that museum filmmaker George Lucas is so desperate to build.

Maybe I just have to be different, ...

Seriously, Councilwoman LaVetta Sparks-Wade said that seeking projects such as the Lucas museum (which is supposed to feature pop culture and media arts) is what her home city ought to be trying to attract, rather than seeking a detention center project that already has been rejected by Joliet and so many other south suburban communities.

NOW I DON’T seriously expect anybody from Gary will try to get into the Lucas mix, now that it appears Chicago blew its chance (as did San Francisco previously) to be the location for the museum that would have potential to attract so many visitors ONCE.

Although if you think about it, Gary also is on Lake Michigan and could offer up a lakefront site. Which supposedly was the reason Lucas was eager to come to Chicago to begin with.

It actually is the same line of logic being used by people in Waukegan – where municipal officials seriously are trying to urge Lucas and his wife, a Chicago native, to locate to that lakefront city to the north.

The one-time home of comedian Jack Benny would, in their eyes, also become the home of Darth Vader. Would the Sith lord suddenly start telling gags about being perpetually 39 years old?

NOW I DON’T expect the Lucas museum to come to either of those communities on the fringes of metro Chicago; places whose best days are in the past.

But it does make me wonder about what kind of community would feel compelled to get into the Lucas mix, now that his museum is once again a free-agent in search of a home.

How desperate does one have to be in order to want to make a bid for the project by now? Let’s consider that Lucas has already managed to spurn both Chicago and San Francisco.

 

... but i always preferred these Lucas films

You’d think he’d be developing a reputation as some sort of character; a crackpot of sorts who is difficult to deal with.

PARTICULARLY SINCE IN Chicago, it seems Lucas had his heart set on a lakefront site. People who suggested that perhaps it would be best for the city to locate such a museum in a different part of the city so as to boost attention there were viewed as malcontents.

As for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, he still seems with his rhetoric like he wants us to believe he’s holding out hope. Almost as though he’s in a foxhole with the enemy (Imperial stormtroopers, perhaps?) rapidly charging his way – and he’s down to a single round of ammunition with which to fight them off.

The “Blame Emanuel” people likely will never forgive him for this loss. Even those people who, deep down, didn’t want the museum here. They just like being able to say that everything is Rahm’s fault!

I suspect this project will wind up in some third-rate town willing to kow-tow to the cinematic set, where it will eventually be lost in a sea of mediocrity.

PERSONALLY, I HAVE always been skeptical of this particular project – the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. It sounds like such a high-handed concept, whereas I think the kind of people who would want to visit are definitely low-brow.

Show them a real-life piece of Norman Rockwell’s art, and they’ll be complaining, “Where’s the Wookie costume?” Viewing scene sets and props from the Star Wars films, many will expect – as they think in Yoda-speak.

It reminds me of a museum exhibit that passed through Chicago a few years ago devoted to the sinking of the H.M.S. Titanic back in 1912. All those artifacts that divers brought up from the ship’s wreckage – and the item that caught the public fancy was the movie set of a staircase where Leonardo DiCaprio romanced Kate Winslet in that 1997 film.

 

Does anyone envision the Lucas museum in the city of  "The Music Man?"

Somehow, I think we will wind up dodging a bullet (or perhaps a shot from a stormtrooper’s blaster) if this project winds up elsewhere.

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