I for one would be quite upset if they let such a treasure get torn down. I realize it’s not in the hippest part of town (and to some degree I blame the Illinois Medical District’s leadership on that one), but I sure hope something can be done to reuse it.

Each of the sites is different.

1. I’d disagree with your characterization of Uptown. Nevertheless, the Uptown Theater is not viable to renovate at this time. However, basic maintenance and heating has long been paid for by mostly private donations. This is not involving much (if any?) city money. Again, the idea is simply to preserve the option of renovation at a future date.

2. The city is already almost $100M into Michael Reese and didn’t preserve anything. The site is being cleared and thus there is no mothballing required. No doubt, however, the city will invest additional funds to subsidize housing construction there.

3. The site has long been owned by the city. The price to upgrade the parcel for additional park use is like any other public expenditure: whatever the public and/or the government is willing to. There is no real requirement to invest anything at this point.

4. Because the government doesn’t get to move around private homeowners and businesses like pieces on a chess board just because it wants to – at least not in America. Also, I don’t think the city has an industrial future in mind for South Works, though I have read some stories about renewable energy plants or some such locating there.

5. Because what to do with it is being debated. Also, demolition costs money. I suspect the building will ultimately be demolished, maybe with facade preservation.

6. The Post Office has been sold to a private developer. It’s certainly debatable what if anything the city should put into the property. However, given that it spans a vital transportation artery, the city does have an interest in making sure the building is at least maintained. Frankly, this is one I wouldn’t mind losing, but how they would go about demolishing this building and constructing a new one is something I don’t clearly understand.

3.

Ideally there would be employment-to-population data, which help distinguish unemployment reductions coming from work-discouraged people leaving the labor force and reductions coming from job creation. There’s probably a way to estimate monthly population growth for that, but I don’t know it.

1. What do you and others propose to do with a 4500 seat movie theater in an area which is known as an entry point to Chicago for thousands of people with no money but a lot of ambition and, sadly also, no money and no ambition?

2. Who should pay for the mothballing of 37 acres of prime lake front property that was the Reese property for an unknown number of years?

3. How much money should be spent with on equally large lake front property (a former airport for state employees who didn’t want to live in Springfield) which has become what it was meant to be, a lake front nature preserve?

4. Why with 575 acres of available vacant industrial acreage at the former US Steel South Works, do we northsiders have to put up with a a river side metal reclamation facility and a tannery in one of the few areas of the city that is actually prosperous and growing?

5. The preservationist insisted that the old Cook County building was historically significant, then why is still vacant after 7 or 8 years? [See also number 2 above.]

6. Why should we local citizens pay a single penny to convert the federally-owned old post office to some kind of new use?

I’m sure none of these questions, surprise you.

I remain your most faithful and devoted follower,

Ed