On May 24 the two big local preservationist groups got together downtown for a press conference, where they were to make what they called a “major announcement” about the “preservation of the historic Cook County Hospital.” When I heard this, I wondered, Was Mayor Daley finally going to join the movement to save County?
So if there’s no money to save and no votes to win by tearing it down, why doesn’t Daley tell Stroger–who, as everyone knows, takes his orders from Daley–to back off? Because Daley’s not going to do something that would undercut an ally just because some preservationists ask him to, even if they’re right. He wants them to sit, roll over, wag their tails, and bark for their bone.
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I’ve plowed through stacks of LPCI newsletters and financial disclosure statements, and the list of LPCI contributors reads like a who’s who of downtown real estate and development interests. A few of these contributors have even worked for the other side in some of the city’s biggest preservation battles. Richard Friedman, the eminent-domain lawyer the city hired to help clear the land around Maxwell Street, sits on LPCI’s board. Why would a preservation group want to be associated with a lawyer who helped kill Maxwell Street?
LPCI puts out a newsletter in which it brags about its fancy fund-raisers and lists valuable endangered and torn-down buildings. Blurb after blurb bemoans the loss of hospitals, gymnasiums, el platforms, town houses, and mansions. But the blurbs lack essential details, and they name no names. It’s as though the buildings just toppled over on their own. You’d never know that some of these properties were endangered by Daley administration policies or by people who give money to LPCI. Cass Studios, at Chicago and Wabash, was once on LPCI’s endangered list. But LPCI’s newsletter never mentioned that Joseph Antunovich, chairman of LPCI’s board, designed the building that’s replacing Cass Studios–even though he was already at work on the design when LPCI put the building on its list.
More recently preservationists have been congratulating themselves for rescuing Farnsworth House, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s landmark of modernism out in the sticks of Kane County. Bahlman must have hurt his hand slapping his own back after LPCI helped engineer the fund-raising drive that enabled a group of art patrons to buy the building for $7.5 million at an auction last fall. He said they’d prevented the building from being moved out of state by a rival bidder. But he and his allies could have kept Farnsworth from being moved simply by insisting that the state or local governments take advantage of one of several laws that would have kept the building right where it was. Two sources told me they didn’t insist because they had a gentleman’s agreement with the owner not to put any encumbrances on the property. As a result, they probably paid way more than they should have–money that could have been used to save other buildings–and they lost the chance to set a precedent.
But Daley will do whatever he can get away with. I don’t think he particularly cares one way or the other about preservation. My sense is that he pretty much gives the green light to any kind of development he thinks will increase the tax base, regardless of what gets torn down. If people kick and scream and embarrass him, he might save a building here or there. Otherwise he’ll just go about his business.
Two years ago a bunch of Gold Coast residents led by Michael Moran and other Preservation Chicago activists fought to keep CVS from demolishing Monday’s Restaurant, on the northeast corner of State and Division, and two buildings to the east. They did all the hard work of grassroots preservation, mostly by making nuisances of themselves. They stood on the sidewalk in the rain gathering signatures on petitions. They attended public hearings. They badgered reporters and politicians. They tried to enlist LPCI’s support–but LPCI stayed out, saying other matters were more pressing.
