The city’s second annual Artists Space and Housing Expo this Saturday at the Cultural Center promises to be interesting, and not only because more than 90 artist-smitten exhibitors will be on hand to court attendees. The condo association for the Acme Artists’ Community will be manning a table, and some other Acme residents say they’ll be there too–handing out buyer-beware literature and advice. Acme’s developer, the Near Northwest Arts Council, will present its version of the story at its own table; executive director Laura Weathered is a returning lecturer on the expo schedule, and NNWAC was recently awarded a $10,000 NEA grant to publish a guide on building artists’ communities, using Acme as a model. Meanwhile, plumbing, roofing, and other construction-related problems at Acme–Chicago’s first city-subsidized artists’ condominiums–remain unresolved two years after the first units were completed.
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Last week Acme resident Miriam Solon was offering her predicament as evidence of what can happen when things go awry. Twenty months after closing on her unit, she’s living behind brown-papered windows and a couple of screens in the Acme community room–sharing a futon on the floor with her two cats, dressing out of cardboard boxes, and picking her way across the muddy courtyard anytime she needs to use the bathroom. Solon says her unit flooded before she closed on it and–as a result of a half-dozen more floods, including one that spewed sewage over 90 percent of her floor–developed warping, mold, and a foul smell. Last May she moved herself into Acme’s bed and breakfast (owned by NNWAC) and stayed there until February 28, when Weathered kicked her out and changed the locks. Solon refuses to return to her own unit or to allow repair work there until underlying problems she believes will cause more flooding are solved.
J.J. Jameson won’t be able to make it for his April 2 lecture, “Nelson Algren’s Chicago: Has Much Changed?” at the College of Complexes. Eduardo Rios will fill in for the most-wanted poet of the month, who was set to present “a singular analysis of social issues in this city.” . . . No sooner had the Illinois Arts Alliance mailed out invitations to its April 15 fund-raiser honoring Bobby Short than the singer popped off to the great cabaret in the sky. Julie Wilson will be there instead, performing a Short tribute.
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