Chicago trying to figure how to attract as much retail opportunity as possible

Where does Chicago go shopping?

Leaving the South Side

There’s time when it appears we don’t have much of a clue. As much of it may well depend upon which demographic we happen to have been born into – and whether retailers are all that anxious to have our business.

A PAIR OF stories in the news of late would impact the ability of us to purchase the goods that enable us to get through our lives.

For some of us, that has now become something we do on the Internet from our homes, with items shipped to our homes (or what other address they happen to find most convenient).

While others of us still prefer the concept of a physical store to shop at. Which is why interest is being paid to municipal government trying to figure out how to get Target to back of off its intensions to close two of its stores in South Side neighborhoods.

Specifically in the Morgan Park and Chatham neighborhoods, both of which are majority African-American populations. Which has some people convinced that Target is dumping those locations because they’re not interested in selling goods to black people.

AFTER ALL, IT’S not a cutback by the retailer whose fanatics like to mockingly think of it as a French-like outlet. Because Target has plans to open new stores in the Rogers Park and Logan Square neighborhoods. Along with various other locations throughout the suburbs.

But none of those are majority non-Anglo like the locations of the two stores that are to be closed.

Target supporters try to argue that the retailer will still have South Side locations. Although you have to admit, the Hyde Park neighborhood is noted most for being so unlike the rest of the South Side in so many ways – including in its racial composition.

Putting Chicago off to the side

I won’t be surprised if Target decides to merely ride it out, and figure they don’t have to do anything to change their stance on store locations.

SO IT MIGHT be in vain the city’s efforts to offer millions of dollars in tax increment finance benefits – which allow the property taxes the company pays to be put into a special fund by which they could get it back to pay for future improvements.

It might not be enough to sway Target officials, who likely will tolerate the racial rhetoric of the next few months that claims the retailer is deliberately snubbing people based on race.

Even though I’m sure they’ll claim it’s mere demographics – even though I often wonder if such talk is merely a way of covering up a desire to be more selective about how they do business with.

Not that Target is the only retail issue that has city officials concerned. There also are concerns over the second corporate headquarters that Amazon.com wants to have beyond Seattle, Wash.

THE REPORTER RUMOR mill of recent weeks says that Amazon is about to choose a site – and it ain’t Chicago.

Supposedly, Amazon is interested in the Virginia-based suburbs of Washington, D.C., and the borough of Queens in New York. Which some will try to say means they want to be in D.C. and Noo Yawk. Although it’s really more like they want to be on the fringes of those two major cities where they can escape the grittier aspects of urban life.

Which might well include people of the same types of economic demographics that Target is trying to avoid by pulling their stores out of Morgan Park and Gresham.

The key to comprehending businesses and where they choose to locate is that they usually pick locations where their self-interest is fulfilled, with the underlying idea being that the day will eventually come when their self-interests are better served elsewhere. Meaning even if Amazon.com were to pick Chicago, it’s likely the day would come when they’d decide to move elsewhere.

  -30-

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.

  -30-

DNAinfo.com ‘death’ in Chgo, NY shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone

As a reporter-type person who has experienced unemployment on several occasions, I sympathize with the DNAInfo.com website in Chicago and the individuals who earlier this week abruptly learned they were out of work.

RICKETTS: Owned Cubs/media pair less than Tribune Co.

Although there’s nothing at all surprising about the fact that the company operating websites in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington – along with Chicago – decided to suddenly ‘pack it in’ after eight years of trying to cover news in those cities.

JOE RICKETTS, THE head of the wealthy family that owns the no-longer-defending World Champion Chicago Cubs and also was a significant financial backer of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential bid (the family nearly got a member appointed to a Cabinet post), let it be known he was giving up because the business end was failing.

The company wasn’t generating enough revenue to cover the expenses of actually having people on the payroll to cover the news – which is an essential expense if one is going to cover the news properly.

Various reports have pointed out the fact that the employees connected to the websites in New York voted last week to organize themselves as a labor union. Some would have us believe that Ricketts’ decision to shut down was purely a response to not wanting to deal with organized labor.

Which may be true. But the idea that management would rather not have their employees sticking together to negotiate benefits for all is nothing new. The idea of an owner hating organized labor shouldn’t come as a shock to anybody!

Two local websites that are now ...

SO I’M NOT about to join the parade of Ricketts bashers, some of whom are even insisting that we boycott Chicago Cubs games in response to his anti-labor actions. I would never expect him to be sympathetic, and I personally certainly don’t need this as a reason to ignore the Cubs – a ballclub I have never much cared for.

What I take personally from the DNAInfo.com closings is evidence of how costly it can be to professionally report the news. And how those people who are eager to see newspapers and their centuries of experience in doing so (the Chicago Sun-Times is a baby, tracing its origins back to the days just before Pearl Harbor) wither away are truly ridiculous in their attitudes.

There are those people deluded enough to believe there is no loss to society from fewer newspapers because the Internet and websites are capable of replacing them.

... a part of Chicago's media history

Yet most websites I have seen that are news-oriented are way too reliant on having newspapers to generate stories and content in general that they can appropriate for their own use.

A SITE LIKE DNAInfo.com, which actually had reporters looking for stories in the neighborhoods of Chicago (some neighborhoods were covered more thoroughly than others) that was generating its own content is running into the same problems as those who historically were disseminating their content on printed pages of pulp.

Which means most of these sites wind up becoming the medium of choice for benefactors with the finances to not care about their financial bottom line.

Even then, there comes a point when many of them have to cut off the funding and shut down. Remember the ProgressIllinois.com website, which had reporter-type people out-and-about covering stories – with the bills being paid by the Service Employees International Union?

Even they had to give in – with the website remaining in place, but un-updated since that final date. AP: Donald Trump Wins Presidential Election (UPDATED) is the final headline, as though determined to perpetually remind us all of the annoyance our society brought upon itself just over a year ago.

Sun-Times still reporting news, despite death predictions.

THERE IS ONE significant difference between the two closings – DNAInfo.com and its sister websites suddenly found all their content erased from the Internet. A letter from Ricketts explaining his decision to suddenly shut down (and make the four months of vacation pay and severance his reporters will receive seem overly generous) is all that remains of the sites.

There is some speculation Ricketts may try to archive some of the content – for those who care to see what once was of this particular attempt at covering the news.

Although as anyone who follows the “news” is fully aware, yesterday’s stories are ancient history. It’s the ongoing developments that provide for an overall report that has relevance to people’s lives.

And without it, we as a society may have to get used to a condition in which our attempts at public “education” may wind up being fulfilled with cutesy pictures of kitty cats, quirky pictures of people doing something stupid, and all the porn, porn, porn we could ever desire.

  -30-

Will Chgo mystery bid entice Amazon?

It was with much fanfare, combined with secrecy, that Chicago city officials this week officially submitted their bid to Amazon.com, offering up a proposal by which the company would build its second corporate headquarters somewhere in the Second City.

What kind of bid concocted at City Hall ...

I emphasize “somewhere,” because city officials weren’t eager to share any details of what it is they’re offering to the Internet retail giant to entice them to want to come here, rather than to Atlanta, St. Louis or any other city that plans to get involved in the bidding process.

OF COURSE, CITY officials were eager to make grandiose statements about how Chicago has the “talent, transportation and technology” to be a worthy site for the new corporate offices that Amazon wants to build to supplement their existing Seattle-based facility.

But for anyone expecting a definitive answer as to whether Chicago is offering up the old Post Office downtown, the former Michael Reese Hospital site on the South Side or a site somewhere along the north branch of the Chicago River, forget it.

That’s a secret. City officials fear that somehow letting it be known publicly what they’re offering up will somehow hurt the city. Almost as though they think some other city will magically be able to duplicate what Chicago offers up as part of their own bid.

Which is highly unlikely, to tell the truth.

PERSONALLY, I WONDER about the possible re-use of the hospital or post office facilities. It would be nice to see such one-time prominent locations in Chicago be put to use – recycled, of sorts, in ways that will continue to keep them relevant for years to come.

Somehow, I suspect that Amazon types will want to think new and shiny, and if they’re contemplating Chicago at all would most likely be swayed by the artistic architectural drawings that could be created for any new site along the river.

... would attract Amazon.com ...

I suspect they’ll be scared away from thinking in the least about Chicago’s South Side – and probably would be equally terrified of those people who talk up the idea of Gary, Ind., as an Amazon site that would be very close to Chicago without actually having to endure the so-called drawbacks of city living.

Although I also think people who want to criticize urban life most likely are missing the whole point of why Amazon wants to build a new facility in the first place.

I MUST CONFESS to finding some of the speculation from other cities intriguing. Such as the Georgia municipality near Atlanta that is willing to approve the de-annexation of more than 300 acres of land for an Amazon site.

That would literally allow for creation of a new community that could be called Amazon, Ga. – they could be their very own city and govern themselves. They wouldn’t have to listen to any government officials. They could become, in a sense, the ultimate corporate town.

Would Amazon.com truly like to be the masters of their own domain, so to speak? Or is that just an old “Seinfeld” gag that the younger-minded of Amazon.com executives (it is a 25-year-old gag) wouldn’t appreciate?

Or could it be that the last thing Amazon.com officials would want to do is have to manage their own local government? Having to worry about one’s own trash pickup or street maintenance? Easier to have someone else worry about such tasks while they focus on the business of making goods available for sale at competitive prices.

BECAUSE OF THE city secrecy, I can’t even begin to speculate as to how Chicago’s bid competes with the inevitable collection of tax breaks that municipalities will offer up – seeing how much they can sacrifice short-term to Amazon.com in hopes that the company’s financial benefits will help them long-term.

... to want to come to the land of the Picasso?

That 50,000-jobs total is going to be tossed out repeatedly in coming years, even though the reality is that it would take many years for the number of local employees working at a new Amazon.com facility to equal the tally.

Maybe we’ll learn more once the application process is complete by Thursday – although just when Amazon.com officials plan to make their decision remains to be seen.

Ultimately, Chicago and the other cities interested in becoming the home address for the Amazon.com facility are at the corporation’s whim, and they’ll tell us what they’re going to do whenever they feel like it – not exactly a comfortable spot for Chicago to occupy.

  -30-

Who’s to say what becomes of Chicago's one-time 'Bright One'?

Wednesday was supposed to be the day that the corporate entity that owns the Chicago Tribune would be able to finalize a deal to purchase its long-time competitor; the Chicago Sun-Times.

Who knows how long there will be two?

It would have seen the city’s two ayem newspapers combine into one corporate entity, even though there were promises that two separate publications would be maintained at least for the short-term.

BUT THE POINT of not permitting the deal to be immediately approved when it was announced two weeks ago was to allow for any potential buyers to come forth who could keep the one-time “Bright One” as a truly separate and independent entity.

Not that anybody expected to. It seems the tronc, Inc. types who now run the Tribune (coincidentally, the same people who used to operate the Sun-Times) were confident no one would come forth.

As it was, Crain’s Chicago Business came out with a report indicating that owners of the Arlington Heights-based Daily Herald considered a Sun-Times purchase, but backed off. Along with the company that owns suburban daily newspapers in Crystal Lake, Geneva and Joliet, and Gannett – the founder of USA Today and operator of many other daily papers across the country (including in Des Moines, Iowa, Detroit, Indianapolis, Louisville, Ky., and Milwaukee – to name a few).

So who’s going to be crazy enough to want to operate a newspaper whose best days appear to be in the past, and has the drawback of being a Number Two paper in a two-paper town? Most people intrigued enough to buy a newspaper (because they think its newsgathering assets can somehow be used to serve other purposes) would want the Number One paper – or preferably a monopoly operation. Anybody who expects Amazon.com (which owns the Washington Post) to swoop into Chicago for the Sun-Times is being delusional.

BUT NOW, VARIOUS reports are cropping up saying there may be a buyer after all. Although we’re not being told who it could be.

Officials with the Chicago Newspaper Guild are saying they are aware of two entities that are expressing interest in taking over the Chicago Sun-Times. While it seems the Sun-Times chapter of the guild that represents news reporters is making statements saying it would like to see more time beyond Wednesday’s deadline to consider the newspaper’s future.

It’s hard to say whether there’s really someone with interest capable of running a newspaper that would be worth a damn. Or if this is just wishful thinking from people who see the idea of being the junior partner in a two-paper combo as being about as dreadful an outcome that could possibly occur.

It could turn out that we’ll learn by week’s end that there is NO ONE else out there willing to plunk down some token fee to buy the publication.

WHOSE TOTAL PRICE paid may wind up becoming an embarrassment for the Sun-Times; because it could be such a low figure that it would be interpreted as evidence of just how far the ship has sunk!

Of course, I can’t help but remember my former employer, United Press International, which in 1992 was sold for $3.95 million to Middle East Broadcasting Centre. Eight years later, they sold it for nearly $40 million to News World Communications – which operates it these days as an affiliate of the Washington Times and its other right-leaning publications around the globe.

It may be possible that someone could come in, take the carcass of the Sun-Times and figure out a way to dredge some bucks out of its remains. Similar to what billionaire investor Sam Zell intended to do when he bought the Chicago Tribune nearly a decade ago.

Although it’s possible that any new purchaser of the Sun-Times would wind up resembling Zell more than the Saudi royal family that had UPI for a few years a couple of decades ago.

MY POINT IS to say I’m not sure how all of this is going to turn out.

Except for the fact that it’s always a loss whenever a newsgathering organization of any type is diminished. Even for those people who want to believe that the Internet now contains a slew of places where one can find much more information than you ever could in an ink-on-paper medium.

For the reality is there are so many places that rely on the existence of newspapers and their assets to generate the content they publish. Even with the Sun-Times, which remains an entity capable of covering a news story and picking up pieces that otherwise would be missed.

One less newspaper means less content; and the eventual outcome of websites whose business models are predicated on the concept of being able to aggregate copy from elsewhere winding up with nothing but blank space to try to fill our minds.

  -30-

EXTRA: Do you believe?

Illinois state Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie and other legislators chosen by House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, offered up their proposal Tuesday for what they say would be reforms of state government that would allow for a budget to be approved.

Without, of course, any of the anti-union ideas that Gov. Bruce Rauner puts forth as “reform.”

THE IDEA OF this tactic is that Democrats now can claim the image of trying to reach out to Rauner (with talk of insurance reform and eliminating corporate loopholes) without actually having to do much of anything. I’m sure when Rauner rejects them, they’ll claim they tried their darnedest, but to no avail.

Still no budget when the General Assembly reaches its scheduled adjournment date for summer break come May 31. Or even June 30, which is the end of the current fiscal year and when it will become officially two full years of budget-less Illinois government.

For the record, Currie (a ranking House member from the Hyde Park neighborhood whom Madigan usually uses to do things he wants done without having his name directly tied to it) issued following statement:

“House Democrats believe the budget crisis demands immediate action, and it is our hope to show Governor Rauner that we stand ready to work with him. We plan to seek common ground with the governor on his proposals, and present him with items we believe should be part of the bargaining in order to encourage economic growth while lifting up the middle class.”

THE REAL QUESTION, of course, is this.

Do you believe it’s a sincere offer? That’s why we’re likely moving into Year Three of a budget-less Illinois, no matter how much Currie says publicly she finds that concept to be abhorrent.

  -30-

Business interests still come to Chicago despite Trump trash talk. Maybe he doesn't know of what he speaks?

I remember during the times of my life I lived in downstate Illinois (Bloomington, while in college, and Springfield for a stint working at the Statehouse), the locals would always refute my Chicagoness by pointing out the major corporate entities that considered central Illinois to be home.

Could this road symbolically lead to Chicago for Caterpillar?

There was Archer Daniels-Midland in Decatur. Then, the big gun, Caterpillar, in Peoria, the manufacturer of farm machinery and vehicles used by agriculture interests the world over.

ANYBODY INTERESTED IN farming or food or eating ought to know of Caterpillar. Or ADM, which processes grains and soybeans into products that can be turned into food.

I don’t deny those are significant corporate entities in their own right. But I can’t help but note that ADM left Decatur a couple of years ago; following the lead of the central Illinois city’s one-time National Football League team, which came to Chicago and became the Bears many decades ago.

Now, Caterpillar seems to be following their lead.

Corporate officials said this week that their top executives are moving from their offices at the main plant in Peoria to a yet-to-be-determined site in Chicago. They want access to life in a large city like Chicago, rather than small-city life of Peoria. They also like the idea of being a short drive away from O’Hare International Airport, from which they can go anywhere in the world!

IT MAY ALSO be that corporate types want to be able to follow the Chicago Cubs themselves, rather than rooting for their local Midwest League ball club and spending their time reminiscing of the days when it was a Cubs’ minor league affiliate (it’s now with the St. Louis Cardinals).

 

No longer dreaming of Cubs' one-time affiliate

One bit of consolation for the Peoria people – corporate officials say it’s just the corporate offices. The actual plant in Peoria where equipment is made will remain there. Few of the 12,000 people employed in Peoria will be out of work because of the move.

Who knows? They may come to like having the top brass located elsewhere. While we in Chicago will love being able to say we’re the corporate offices of yet another business entity. Not bad at a time when President Donald J. Trump, for purely partisan political reasons, seems determined to come up with weekly attacks on Chicago.

As though he wants the world to think that our fair city is as ugly as that 1,389-foot tall building he erected along the Chicago River.

If Chicago Bears could once play a season at Memorial Stadium, why not Fighting Illini games in Chicago?

ALTHOUGH THE MOVE makes me wonder now what business entities rural Illinois types will be able to cite when they tout their region? Perhaps they’ll start boasting of the many state universities located in the rest of Illinois – particularly the University of Illinois.

Though one could argue that all you’d have to do is move the Big Ten athletic programs of the Fighting Illini to the Chicago campus, and the UI-C would take over that school’s niche in the state.

Although I’m sure that to the people of Urbana-Champaign (or should it be Champaign-Urbana), that very notion constitutes “fightin’ words” worse than the notion of Caterpillar sending a piece of itself to Chicago.

Could one-time U.S. Steel plant along the lakefront ...

Yet this isn’t the only outside interest we’re seeing these days. I couldn’t help but notice the talk this week of a company ultimately based in Barcelona, Spain, wanting to take the one-time site of U.S. Steel’s Southworks plant and convert it into homes.

SPECIFICALLY, SOME 12,000 homes, to be built in four phases of 3,000 each – with certain communal amenities meant to try to create a spirit of community.

Not that the area, which is adjacent to the South Chicago and South Shore neighborhoods, couldn’t use some freshening up. South Chicago in particular (the neighborhood I was born in, for what it’s worth) has old housing stock.

... truly become the 8080 Lakeshore housing development.? Image provided by Barcelona Housing

But any chance this project by Barcelona Housing Systems (with offices in San Francisco) and WELink has of succeeding depends on whether they can make the existing surrounding working-class residents feel like they’re not being rejected for potentially upscale newcomers. That is a large part of why a past developer’s talk of turning the 430-acre site along Lake Michigan from 79^th Street to the Calumet River never got off the ground.

Yet still interesting to see that at a time when Trump wants to undermine our city by making it appear too much of a hell hole to want to have anything to do with, interests as diverse as Caterpillar and Barcelona see money to be made in Chicago; which makes me think we ought to be questioning Trump’s own business instincts – instead of taking anything he says all that seriously.

  -30-

Trump likely more interested in putting on a show than he is in governing

Learning Wednesday that President-elect Donald Trump plans to tell us in two weeks about the details of how he will avoid conflict of interest between his new governmental duties and those of his business interests reminds me a bit too much of Dennis Rodman.
 

We'd respect him more if daughter put in charge

Remember the one-time professional basketball star whom we used to think was a tacky jerk, until he became an integral part of the Chicago Bulls’ second streak of three championships in the 1990s?

I REMEMBER THE day in a Chicago newsroom that we got a “tip” – Dennis was going to be married! We were even given a time and place where something would happen. One of those “Be there, or be square” moments.

Sure enough, at the appropriate moment, a limousine showed up. Several voluptuous women dressed in tuxedoes and top hats climbed out – then came the bride. Which turned out to be Dennis himself!

Dressed in a bridal gown (you can make the appropriately tacky joke now about the inappropriateness of Rodman wearing white), the actual “happening” was the publishing of a ghost-written book of Rodman’s memoirs.

Rodman did go on a couple of years later to briefly marry actress Carmen Electra. But the whole thing was a stunt orchestrated by Rodman (who in his own goofy way was a Trump supporter – he also once sang “Happy Birthday” to North Korea leader Kim Jong Un) to gain attention to himself. Nothing more!

WHICH IS WHAT I seriously expect to happen on Dec. 15 when Trump, according to the messages he posts about himself on Twitter, holds a press conference in New York to discuss his business interests.

It was all about selling the books -- which now can be bought at used book stores for $0.50.

If we believe Trump, he has attorneys drafting up “legal documents…which take me completely out of business operations.” He also claims he is “not mandated to do this under the law…” but says he wants to focus on his new presidential title.

“The Presidency is a far more important task!,” Trump writes.

Which, to me, sounds like the early tips we got all those years ago saying that Rodman was about to get married.

NOW IT IS not unheard of for presidents to be people of some significant financial means. The usual method for dealing with this is for the newly-elected public officials to put their assets into a blind trust – by which they surrender control of them for the duration of their time in the White House.

But Trump is an egomaniac (would a sane person feel compelled to name so many projects around the globe after himself) who would never want to surrender control. Which is why I wonder what the scheme will be that he will unveil on Dec. 15 to create the illusion of shifting control over Trump Enterprises.

The early speculation was that Trump’s grown children would wind up assuming greater control – with daughter Ivanka perhaps becoming the new big boss while her father tries not to make a complete mess out of the country.

But does Trump think his kids wouldn’t give him back control of the company once his presidency is complete (a moment that a large share of our society will be anxiously awaiting)? Or is he really more interested in putting on some sort of stunt to assuage his ego – rather than focus on the task at hand.

RICKETTS: Now 'our' man in D.C.?

BECAUSE IF IT were really just about Trump wanting to eliminate the appearance of a conflict of interest, he could issue the statement today. He could take the action, then go about picking the rest of his cabinet officials (with Todd Ricketts of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs now being named as deputy Commerce secretary, is he now the highest-ranking Chicago contact within the White House?) who will advise him in the ways and means of governing.

The delay seems more about staging, just like any agreement he ultimately signs may be something intended to create the appearance of separation while also ensuring he’ll still have control. This is the man, after all, who initially tried arguing that a president cannot have conflicts of interest.

He's back, as an actor. Will Trump return to real estate?

So when Trump, the twit who Tweets, says he’s leaving his businesses “in total,” we shouldn’t presume that he’s backing away from his financial interests any more than Rodman became a happily-married man on that day some two decades ago.

Or any more than one-time California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when he said upon his election in 2007 that he’d never appear in a Hollywood film again. Did we really need “Escape Plan” (‘The Terminator’ paired up with ‘Rambo’) or multiple versions of “The Expendables” that have been released since then?

  -30-

No direct route from Chicago to Havana, unless you count the one in Ill.

One of the reasons people brag on Chicago is that our major airport (O’Hare International) seems to have direct connections to just about anywhere in the world one could want to travel to.

 

There won't be any direct flights to Marti Airport in the near future

The only reason for having to make connections with flights in other cities is if one chooses to do so in an effort to save some money.

SO WHAT SHOULD we make of the fact that the federal Transportation Department, in its review of proposals for direct flights from the United States to Havana, Cuba, didn’t think any routes connecting O’Hare to Jose Marti International Airport were worthy of consideration.

Federal officials considered more than 60 proposed routes, but only gave their tentative approval to 20 of them. None of which involved a connection from Chicago to Cuba.

Both United and American airlines had desired permission to have such direct flights between the two cities.

But as things now stand, people wishing to fly American will have to go to the airports in Miami or Charlotte, N.C., and transfer there to a flight to Havana.

USING UNITED AIRLINES will entail a trip to Newark International Airport on the fringes of New York or, in what could be considered an insult to the Second City, a flight to Houston – where the transfer to a Cuba-bound flight would be made.

Considering that Houston boosters already are obnoxiously claiming their city will surpass Chicago in population to become the nation’s third largest within another decade, could it be that someone is already anxious to acknowledge the Texas city as somehow superior.

Even though when one considers the entirety of the metro areas, Houston and its suburbs will still remain smaller than Chicago metro for a long, time time.

It does seem odd that O’Hare International wouldn’t get a direct flight – considering that it used to be capable of boasting to be the world’s busiest airport and is still one of the most significant airports in the United States.

BUT APPARENTLY OUR Cuban ethnic population in Chicago (about 23,000 of the city’s 2.7 million residents) isn’t sufficient enough. Federal officials were interested in putting the direct to Havana routes in cities that have the large numbers of Cuban exiles and their families.

Maybe they think those are the only people who would want to travel to Havana, now that our own government is making a serious effort to try to restore relations between our two nations.

So much for the idea of business interests that also would want to have access to the Caribbean island nation and would think that the future economic development would create opportunities that would be beneficial for both nations.

Or maybe it just means that O’Hare’s days as being a leading airport for the United States are in the past. Even though there are many people whose trips to various places across the country mean catching a connecting flight at O’Hare.

COULD IT BE that the only “Havana” in Chicago’s future is the one located in Illinois? As in the Mason County city of some 3,200 people where Peoria is the largest nearby city of size – and whose own access involves a series of Interstates and county roads that would discourage just about anyone from wanting to actually visit the place.

Or perhaps we should consider focusing on the town of Cuba, Ill., in rural Fulton County. Or perhaps a trip to Cuba Township, the suburban place located near Barrington.

They seem to be the only such places in our future.

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EXTRA: No more Jazz Record Mart. Musical philistines truly prevail

I’m sure some people are going to respond to this commentary with a “So F---in’ What!” and claim we’re somehow better off that the Jazz Record Mart – located at various spots just north of downtown Chicago throughout its history – is no more.

Just a few of the final purchases ...

All I have to say is that those people are cultural philistines – with a few choice obscenities placed in that label as well.

AS ONE WHO particularly enjoys jazz and blues music and was always disgusted at the selection of said recordings available at the typical suburban mall record shop or department store record department, I remember thinking that the Jazz Record Mart was a truly unique asset that made our city superior.

The kind of place that out-of-towners would (or should) make a point of checking out during their time in Chicago. It certainly would be more worthwhile than any time spent at Navy Pier buying tacky junk in their gift shops.

Or thinking there’s something culturally significant to eating at the pier’s Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant.

But the Chicago Tribune reported that the store closed up shop on Monday. It seems the deal was finalized Monday morning, and at that moment had to close for good – leaving some would-be customers locked out and unable to make one final record buy.

I MADE MY own final trip to the store about one month ago, and I have to confess it was the first time I had been there in a couple of years – which is probably a good part of the reason why the store is no more.

Although its owners told the Tribune it is the growing rent rates for downtown Chicago real estate that made it too costly to keep doing business at its Illinois Street location.

... I made during my final trip ...

On the day I went there, I have to confess to blowing about $100 – which is something I used to do a lot, but haven’t in quite a while. In part because my own record collection accumulated over the past four decades has grown quite comprehensive – particularly since I inherited the records my brother had collected prior to his passing away.

I’m still sorting through his vinyl assortment, which now gives me an absurd amount of recorded music for one to own.

BEFORE ANYONE STARTS telling me about the wonders of downloads, let me say I’m not buying it. Not only because I’m convinced that a clean, well-preserved piece of vinyl will give you better sound than anything involving digital recording.

... to the Jazz Record Mart.

But because I want the physical feel of the albums and their covers – and also enjoy the technology of a record turntable more than I ever could using my computer or an iPod (which I have never owned) to play recordings.

Besides, the idea that people came from around the nation to shop at Jazz Record Mart isn’t odd. The last time I was there, I had to wait in line behind a guy who plunked down something like $500 worth of recordings on his credit card.

He said he was from Houston, and made a point of visiting the store every time business brought him to Chicago, because there just wasn’t anything comparable in Houston. And to think, there are some fools who want to believe that Houston will surpass Chicago in any sense some day soon.

THE ONE THING I did notice when I was last at the store was that the stock included rock ‘n’ roll records along with their other stock. Which probably means it needed the additional revenue such stuff brought in, instead of relying on the sounds of Charlie Parker or Billie Holliday to keep alive.

Now I can hear Gene Vincent's 'Pistol Packin' Mama'

Although it would seem that having the old Mick Jagger or Aerosmith records weren’t enough to generate the kind of money that let the store pay its rent at a downtown location.

 

I must confess to even buying one rock record, along with my other final purchases – Radio Gold, a compilation of songs that were big hits in Great Britain. Where else can I hear Frankie Lymon’s “I’m Not A Juvenile Delinquent” along with Frankie Laine’s take on the theme from “Rawhide.”

And if you tell me the “Rawhide” theme was done by Elwood Blues, I’m prepared to dismiss you as a truly clueless musical philistine.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: A Facebook-based tribute to Hegewisch Records, another comprehensive record shop that is no more where I spent far too much time and money during my youth. I suspect I'm going to become very acquainted with Beverly Records on the city's Southwest Side in coming years.

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-