Burton Natarus, alderman of the 42nd Ward, is sitting in his third-floor City Hall office doing what he does best–kvetching. This time it’s about the preservationists who are upset with the way he’s handled development around the Newberry Library. “People don’t understand–they don’t always appreciate what I have to do,” he says. “This is a very complicated issue.”
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Natarus was slated to run for alderman in 1971 by 42nd Ward Democratic committeeman George Dunne, and he’s been in the council ever since–only 14th Ward alderman Ed Burke has been there longer. In the 70s and 80s the 42nd was one of the city’s most economically and racially diverse wards, spreading west from the Gold Coast to include Cabrini-Green. But in the mid-90s its mostly black precincts were redistricted into the 27th Ward, and the 42nd’s boundaries were pushed south through the Loop all the way to Taylor Street, so that it included much of the most valuable real estate in the city. Daley made it clear that he trusted Natarus to oversee its development. The two shared a simple approach to planning–virtually any development was good because it expanded the tax base.
“We have a magnificent city here,” says Natarus. “I was just in Phoenix. There is no downtown there. Do you know how big downtown Cleveland is? Six blocks. People don’t understand what we have here. We have very craftily promoted the idea of mixed-use. We have a high-rise district. We haven’t raised the tax rate since 1987–because our base is expanding.”
His opponents think this is classic Natarus–a bit of bluster intended to camouflage a simple policy of doing whatever it is Daley and the developers want him to do. They point out that Natarus is selective about whose property rights he defends. He didn’t, for instance, rage against the city when it seized and destroyed the property of small business owners along Maxwell Street to make way for upscale housing.
So Smith brought back a new proposal to tear down the old dormitory and build a 22-story high-rise on the site. Next to it, in the parking lot, would go 14 town houses, which wouldn’t cast a shadow. “The Newberry Plaza people liked it, and it was good for the city, because this land wasn’t generating any taxes,” says Natarus. “The preservationists didn’t like it. They said, ‘We have another developer who would preserve Scholl’s.’ But Smith has a contract to buy. I said, ‘I’m sorry, I cannot break up a contract.’”
