Richard Nickel: Dangerous Years

My friend Rich Cahan has done it again.  Along with Michael Williams he just compiled and published the third of (what his wife hopes to be) a trilogy on the life and work of the Chicago photographer Richard Nickel. Cahan's first Nickel book, They All Fall Down: Richard Nickel's Struggle to Save America's Architecture, was a straight ahead biography which depicted his subject as a driven young man whose life's work began as a grad school project documenting the work of the architect Louis Sullivan. The project which Nickel made his own, to record and save everything he could of the architect's disappearing work, turned into an all consuming passion that ultimately cost him his life. In I972 Richard Nickel was crushed underneath the rubble of Sullivan's Stock Exchange Building while attempting to salvage artifacts of the building as it was being demolished.

The second book was called Richard Nickel's Chicago: Photographs of a Lost City, a book that allowed Nickel's camera speak for him. Beyond proof sheets, Nickel didn't make many publication or exhibition prints of his own work, so the lion's share of images in this exquisitely printed book had not been seen outside of a small circle. The book, not limited to the work of Louis Sullivan, or architecture for that matter, could be considered the definitive work on Richard Nickel the photographer, as it is to the best of my knowledge the most comprehensive collection of his photographic work to be found.

Richard Nickel was the Charles Marville of Chicago. Marville if you recall was the photographer who was commissioned to document the city of Paris as it existed before and during its mid-nineteenth century destruction and re-construction under the hand of Baron Haussmann in the reign of Napoleon III . Here is a link to a site describing a major exhibition of Marville's work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art In New York.

Unlike Marville, Nickel's work documenting the destruction of his city was for the most part, self-commissioned. Richard Nickel's Chicago shows us the ways and means of a soon to be post-industrial city, rooftops with their smokestacks and water tanks, steel rails reflecting the sun, automobiles in motion, and the incessant building up and tearing down of a restless city.

Early on, Nickel photographed people. Many of his early pictures show the influence of his school, the Institute of Design, especially the work of Harry Callahan with whom Nickel studied. The very first picture in the book proper in the chapter titled, The Passing Scene, is a provocative image of a woman standing alone in front of the Tunnel of Love at Riverview amusement park. Her expression suggests concern or maybe disappointment. Perhaps she is waiting for a lover who has stood her up, or one that never existed at all. One can't help but think of this image as a metaphor for Richard Nickel and his first love, the City of Chicago. a love that was unrequited.

As Callahan taught Nickel how to construct a photograph, it would be his other major influence at the ID, Aaron Siskind, who would teach him how to tell a story. Siskind initiated the Sullivan project and the two worked closely on the project during Nickel's remaining time at the Institute and beyond.

Eventually Nickel became a one man band with the Sullivan project which remained incomplete at the time of his death. Were it not for the steadfast work of Nickel's close friend and accomplice in salvaging Sullivan's work, architect John Vinci, Nickel's project would have died along with him in the rubble of the Stock Exchange Building. Forty years after Nickel's death, Vinci managed to complete Nickel's project with the publication of the massive tome The Complete Architecture of Adler & Sullivan.

Cajan's third Nickel book, Richard Nickel: Dangerous Years, What He Saw and What He Wrote, puts the photographer/preservationist's life, work and times into context. This time along with Nickel's photographs, his words speak for him. Nickel was a compulsive letter writer who kept carbon copies of all the letters he sent out as well as copies of letters he never sent. The current book reproduces in full color, selections of Nickel's letters to friends, collaborators, newspaper columnists, architects, landmarks commissioners, Mayor Richard J. Daley, the residents of buildings about to be demolished, and the owners of those buildings whose help he enlisted in gaining access before and during demolition, even though he openly opposed their intentions to destroy them. The book also reproduces Nickel's personal notes, sketches and detailed itineraries for photographic road trips in minute by minute detail.

Two of Nickel's struggles to save Chicago Landmarks are covered in great detail in the book, the Garrick Theater and the Stock Exchange Building, two of Louis Sullivan's greatest works.

Another great loss, and perhaps a bigger personal blow to Nickel was the demolition of Holibard and Roche's Republic Building on State at Adams. A self-portrait of Nickel on the roof of the Republic graces the cover of They All Fall Down. The new book includes two Nickel photographs of the Republic that I've never seen. The first is a stunning cityscape from about 30 stories up looking southeast. The stepped pyramid atop the Metropolitan Tower with its famous beehive beacon, dominates the picture. Grant Park and Lake Michigan can seen in the background. Virtually every building in the photograph still exists, save for the Republic Building, smack dab in the middle of the frame. The Republic stands out from its neighbors with its classic Chicago School facade, gleaming, (despite its grimy surface), in the hazy late afternoon light.

The other photograph, taken from the NW corner of State and Adams, shows the building toward the end of its demolition, with only the first two floors remaining. (the caption mistakenly identifies the picture taken at the start of the construction of the building that would replace it). Signs on the scaffolding proudly announce the coming of the new building, the Home Federal Savings Savings and Loan Building. Even the architects of the new building, Skidmore Owings and Merrill, shamelessly display their stylized logo, despite the fact that part of the ornament of the doomed building was still visible through the scaffolding. Talk about a lack of respect! In the photograph, passersby go about their business, causing me to wonder what must have been going through their minds as one of the best buildings to have ever graced this city turns to dust before their eyes, about to be replaced by a second rate building, despite the first class pedigree of its designers. My guess is that most of them, as was the popular opinion of the day, thought that new necessarily meant better.

Richard Nickel begged to differ. In one letter reprinted in Cahan's book addressed to a Chicago Daily News reporter he wrote:

I had a good look recently at that Home Federal S&L building which replaced the Republic several years ago. That looms in my mind now as one of the great tragedies... or rather as one of the most willful unnecessary destructive acts to Chicago School heritage. I'll  never forgive Hartmann (Bill Hartmann, then senior partner of Skidmore Owings and Merrill) and SOM for that. The Republic was a work of art, and the new building is nothing... maybe some tinsel!

Nickel wrote a much more scathing letter to the editor of a publication called The American City, responding to an article they wrote in praise of the Garrick Parking Garage which replaced the Garrick Theater, The article pointed out the design of an ornamental panel which consisted of 233 slabs of concrete that were cast from a molding of a detail from the Sullivan building, plus one of the original details, all stuck together. in a large mass. Nickel scoffed at the caption of a photograph of the garage that said: "Chicago's new Civic Center Parking Garage represents a growing awareness of Chicago's architectural heritage." In response Nickel wrote:

...what about the lines, "the building pays graceful tribute to the memory of "Louis Sullivan"? They wreck one of his masterpieces, and you conclude it is a tribute. How? Why? Would  you say that if someone wrecked St. Peter's Cathedral [sic] in Rome and erected a garage on the site,  using some statues and whatever, that that was a tribute to St. Peter???

Whoever wrote that article is soft in the head...

Nickel was one of the leading advocates for saving the Garrick Theater. It turns out that he was successful in convincing none other than Mayor Richard J. Daley that the building was worth saving. The city of Chicago filed an injunction in an attempt to halt the demolition of the Sullivan building, but were over-ruled by the courts.

Daley was not so moved to save the old Stock Exchange Building. In a letter to CBS News, praising their coverage of the fate of the building, Nickel wrote:

it doesn't surprise me at all that hizzoner Daley is the dumbhead who lacked the imagination to save this unquestionable work of art. ... 

The question now is, well, it obviously isn't even a question... why do we have a landmark commission (headed at the time by the aforementioned William Hartmann), which gets $100,000 a year (?) funding, and is getting nothing done, is working at odds with the City Council and the blankety-blank mayor?

Nickel goes on in the letter to lambaste the cultural elite of Chicago who turned a blind eye to the fate of the city's architecture, by failing to show up for demonstrations to save the building:

Where was the cultural leadership of Chicago?? The architects, the curators, the professors and historians, etc. So perhaps it boils down to our getting what we deserve... 

Cahan follows that letter with another, a bitter attack of the city fathers, perhaps written under the influence, a double scotch to be exact, to William Hartmann himself. What does the letter say? Well you'll just have to buy the book to find out.

What follows these two letters are a series of heartbreaking photographs of the construction of the scaffolding around the Old Stock Exchange Building, symbolizing the demise of both the building and the photographer. This time, passersby stop and look in dismay at the sight of impending doom for a marvelous building.

The book is a fascinating look into the psyche of Richard Nickel, into what drove him, and the conflicts he faced as the life's work of the artist he chose to devote a good portion of his life to, was crumbling all around him.

It's easy to imagine Nickel as a bitter, tragic figure, pursuing a quixotic mission, doomed to failure, much the way Cahan portrays him in his biography. But the correspondence in this book show another side to the man: funny, engaging, awkward and perhaps like any good artist, just a bit off.

One letter (presumably never sent), which Nickel put huge crosses through, is a comical, rambling, stream of consciousness rant to a potential collaborator, referencing everything from sailing, to the author's car troubles, to his frustration about the apparent sexual advances from a male art historian. As if it were necessary to point out which side of the fence he was on, Nickel writes: "I often do a lot of things I don't want to do just to accommodate people and then I get impossible and bitchy. And art history is so full of old ladies...and whilst I'm not married, that doesn't mean I like to travel with men, or associate with men much at all." then at the bottom of the typed page he writes out by hand: "I'm beginning to appreciate women more and more! Backlash?" There he closes the letter with "Regards, Dick", but he wasn't finished. On the flip side of the page he typed another half page explaining the tone of the letter by saying he was sitting listening to (the composer) Janacek while downing some Johnny Walker Black, a "real luxury." Once again he closes the letter, this time with "Drunken Dick."

Nickel did have one release valve and that was a sailboat which he kept moored in Burnham Harbor. He delighted in inviting friends to sail with him. One post card printed in the book was an invitation written to the daughter of the ID professor and photographer, Arthur Siegel. "Oh I love to have pretty girls aboard the boat..." he writes, "wear your bikini (or whatever the girls are not wearing nowadays)." At a recent lecture at the Art Institute promoting his book, Cahan flashed on the screen that postcard, not commenting on its content, when who should turn up but the recipient of that letter, Julie Siegel. Being perhaps the one person in the room who actually knew Nickel, she tried to assure the audience that while tragedy befell Richard Nickel, he was quite a lovely, engaging character, not at all the sullen, miserable wretch as he is often portrayed.

Having written three books on Richard Nickel, Richard Cahan must now be considered the world authority on the subject. His quest to document the man rates up there in tenacity with Nickel's pursuit of Louis Sullivan. Cahan said at his talk at the Art Institute that when you think about it, Richard Nickel was a failure in everything he did. He lived much of his life with his parents in Park Ridge, Illinois. He wasn't successful in preserving any of the Sullivan buildings he worked diligently to save. He never came close to finishing the Sullivan project. And he never finished the house he bought for himself in Bucktown.

This time I beg to differ. Cahan is certainly right in asserting that Nickel left this world with an unfinished legacy. But his work to save the most important Sullivan buildings did make a difference. The group that Nickel led, protesting the raising of the Garrick Theater in the early sixties was a ragtag bunch that managed to get the mayor's attention and his tacit support. By the time the Stock Exchange Building was about to turn to dust, there was a more significant presence of protesters opposed to the demolition. The ultimate loss of the building and the tragic death of Nickel inside it, galvanized the preservation movement in Chicago. It would be premature to say battle lost but war won, as the struggle to save Chicago's architectural heritage continues. Yet I'm convinced that Nickel both in life and in death was and is the driving force of the preservation movement in this town and for that we have much to be thankful, as well for the efforts of Messers Vinci and Cahan who have worked so diligently to care for and preserve the legacy and the work of Richard Nickel.

My heartfelt thanks to all of you.

Maggie Daley

I had a sinking feeling in my heart last year, the moment Richard M. Daley announced he would not seek re-election for an unprecedented seventh term as mayor of Chicago. Some speculated that he lost interest in the job after the failed Olympic bid. Others thought at 68, he had enough of the pressure of the job, which intensified logarithmically during his last term. Still others believed he just wanted to serve long enough to break his father's record of days served in office, which he did on December 26th of last year.

I didn't buy any of that. Rich Daley loved being mayor and I think he would have gladly gone to his grave, dying with his boots on while still in office, just as his father did, if he could have. No my sinking feeling was that Mayor Daley was leaving office because he knew his wife was dying. Sadly last night, Thanksgiving night, Maggie Daley passed away at 68, after a long battle with cancer.

Here is the Tribune's obituary of Mrs. Daley, poignantly written by Rick Kogan.
Here are some comments and remembrances from Chicago Magazine.

Maggie and Rich Daley, Columbus Day Parade, c. 1990

She left behind her husband, three surviving children, and the City of Chicago, which she helped make a better place. Every one of us in this city owes Mrs. Daley a tremendous debt of gratitude. May she rest in peace.

Some thoughts on the election

In a couple of months we will have a new mayor, there is no doubt whatever about that. It looks like the days of having a Mayor Daley on the fifth floor of City Hall are gone for good. Richard M. Daley has a son but as far as I know he has not shown much interest in carrying on the family business. Many folks around town find that alone cause for celebration, the end of the Daley dynasty.

Well I for one am not jumping up and down about Mayor Daley stepping down. True his legacy has been mixed, at times he has acted more like a king than an elected official. Daley forged the City Council into a rubber stamp silencing virtually all of his adversaries. His failures, missteps and arrogance are well noted: scandal in the administration, the all or nothing attempt to bring the Olympics to Chicago, the parking meter fiasco, the failed attempt to bully Loop residents into digging up Grant Park for a Children's museum, the midnight raid on Meigs Field.

In the name of reform, the critics say, we need a mayor who is independent in order to free this city from the evil bondage of corruption, machine style politics and patronage. Richard M. Daley some critics say was every bit the old school politician as his old man. It is true that Ritchie ultimately eclipsed his legendary father Richard J. Daley, in longevity in office, and some would say in influence.

Mayor Daley the Elder was a builder, The University of Illinois Chicago Campus, O'Hare International Airport, and the system of expressways that tore up communities were all built during his administration. The face of the Loop also changed under Richard J. Daley, for better or worse. All these projects created tremendous growth and opportunity in the city. The new motto of Chicago became "The City that Works." That period was also one of the most devastating eras for the city in terms of violence, mistrust, and the irrevocable loss of valued icons and institutions.

Mayor Daley the Younger was also a builder. Anyone addressing his legacy certainly has to put Millennium Park at or near the top of the list. Despite its shortcomings, MP has to be considered an unqualified success in terms of attracting people back into the Loop. Some might site MP as an example of City Hall's concern for downtown over the rest of the city. But anyone who has ventured into parks all over the city as I have, can attest to the fact that tremendous energy and resources have been devoted to them as well. The neighborhood parks of Chicago have not been in as good a shape in decades. The current Mayor Daley has been an outspoken advocate of environmental concerns; green building, tree planting, alternative means of commuting, including by bicycle, and of course the aforementioned destruction of Meigs Field in favor of a public park, to name just a few examples.

Chicago today is also better off in another respect, it is not as racially divided as it once was. True we're not all holding hands together harmonizing; "I'd like to teach the world to sing." But the election Tuesday proved that the racial polarization that began under his father's administration and came to a full boil under Harold Washington's, has at least taken a sabbatical.

Some see this as troubling. Sun Times columnist Mary Mitchell began her post-election column this way:

"Carol Moseley Braun’s stunning defeat signals the end of the black political empowerment movement in Chicago."

Now it is certainly true that white politicians in Chicago used, manipulated, and took for granted the African American vote for decades. That came to an end when Harold Washington was elected Chicago's first black mayor in 1983. The number of voters from the black community who turned out in that election was unprecedented. Washington himself was a product of the Democratic Machine, but he went against it when he ran for mayor and was punished during his first term by the City Council. His opposition in the Council consisted of 29 aldermen, all white. The remaining 21 members of the Council were mostly black. What became known as the "Vrdolyak 29" after their de facto leader, Ed Vrdolyak, the alderman of the southeast side's 10th Ward, voted down every piece of legislation put forward by Washington. Clearly little was accomplished in those four years. In the next election, Washington gained a small majority in the Council. The 29 became the 25 and were forced to compromise. For a while, things seemed to calm down a bit.

Harold Washington could have been a great mayor if given the chance. Unfortunately he died shortly into his second administration. In his wake, the Council erupted again in shameless fashion, pushing through the nomination of Eugene Sawyer, a Washington supporter but also a product of the Machine who never really rocked the boat. Sawyer was a good man but not cut out for mayor. Ritchie Daley easily defeated him in the following general election in 1989.

It could be said that Daley picked up where Washington and Sawyer left off in beginning to heal the city of its racial wounds.

Mayor Daley's prowess as a builder was not limited to bricks and mortar, he was a builder of coalitions. Both Daleys knew how to gain support of ethnic voting blocks. Daley the Elder knew that large concentrations of one particular group could be beneficial, as long as you threw a few crumbs their way right before election time. Eventually, people wised up and this tactic no longer worked, especially for his successors. During and following the first Daley administration, Chicago was plagued by racial enmity. Richard M. Daley in contrast to his father understood that in his era, in order to be mayor, he would need to distribute the wealth throughout the entire city. To that end, Daley since the beginning of his administration, surrounded himself with members of ethnic minorities (other than his own) in top level city positions. City Hall for all its faults has been responsive to the needs of the entire city in ways that it never was.

I see this as a tremendous good coming out of the Daley administration. The candidate who was selected as "the black consensus candidate" in this election, former U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun, clearly was not qualified for the job. African American voters saw through her and voted against her in overwhelming numbers, proving once and for all that this particular community can think for itself. It no longer can be led by sheep to the polls, either by the machine or by race alone.

Oh yes, there was a candidate who won the election, Rahm Emanuel. To say that he received a mandate from the voters would be a gross understatement. In an election consisting of six candidates, he received 56 percent of the vote, a staggering landslide. True, there was a disappointing turnout for the election, but in my book anyway, the voices of people who choose not to vote are irrelevant. Emanuel had the most money to spend, and had the greatest name recognition with the possible exception of Moseley Braun. Given that, Emanuel did not win all the wards. In the traditional old machine predominantly white wards he came in second to Gary Chico who was supported by alderman Ed (the other Ed in the era of "Council Wars") Burke, and the heads of some of the big unions in town. Where Emanuel came up big, very big, was in the black wards. I haven't done the numbers but I think it's safe to say that Emanuel could not have won without the black vote. You can do your own analysis by checking out the results ward by ward here. Mary Mitchell in her followup column here explains why Emanuel did so well in this part of the city.

Rahm Emanuel has a few other connections.

There are those who do not believe that political "insiders" make good public officials. In debates you seldom hear one candidate these days claiming to be more of an insider than the opponent. While Emanuel had stints in the corporate world, I'm not sure if it could be possible for him to be more of an insider. He was a top adviser to President Clinton. As a congressman without much seniority, he managed to become the fourth highest ranking member of the House of Representatives. His previous job of course was Chief of Staff to President Obama. Frankly I don't see having a mayor with such credentials, especially one having the ear of the sitting president, as being such a bad thing.

Other critics say that Emanuel is brash, ruthless, and obnoxiously ambitious. And he is rich to boot. Well I am none of those things. I wouldn't vote for myself for mayor either. Frankly voting for mayor is not like voting for your spouse, your best friend, or your parish priest. It's not even like voting for president. A mayor is more like a CEO, someone who is responsible for a multi billion dollar entity. A mayor has to know how to get things done, big things and little things. He or she has to know how to delegate, when to point the finger and when to take the heat.

And a mayor has to have a vision for his city. Both Mayors Daley had a vision for Chicago. Richard J. Daley never used the word Chicago without prefacing it with the words, "The Great City of." Richard M. Daley liked to use the term "world class city." As much as I hate that term it illustrated the fact that he believed his city was right up there with the likes of New York, Rio, Paris, London, Madrid, and Tokyo. His faith was so great that he staked his reputation on the bid for the Olympics. As I said before in this space, I fully supported the bid, and never have I seen the loss of the Olympics as a loss for the city, not in the slightest.

I feel that Rahm Emanuel has a similar belief in this city. Unlike two of his opponents, Miguel del Valle and Gary Chico, both of whom may been good mayors, Emanuel's vision for the city not only includes life at the street and community level, but also the big picture. We are living in extremely difficult economic times. The city and the state are almost bankrupt. This is but one of the issues that the new mayor has to face. He also has to look beyond the current fiscal morass to the future, to what this city will be for our children and our grandchildren. In Mary Mitchell's article noted above, she quotes Emanuel as saying:

“I saw too many kids on those [el] platforms with not a thing in their eyes. That is the only thing about this job that gives me pause about my abilities...

“It is not the budget. I’ll work through that. But can you in some way touch these kids in a way that they feel they have got a shot at something? I always knew what I was running for, [but] when I saw those kids, I knew I made the right decision to run for mayor.’’

I've heard him throw out the words "world class city" as well and in the debates he alone among the other candidates said this: "Chicago is a great city."

That's why I voted for him.

Legacy and the Olympics

As I begin to write this there are two days until the International Olympic Committee makes its choice for the host city of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. For the first time in my life I live in a city that is in contention to host the Games and like most people in this town, I am filled with excitement, and not a little ambivalence.

Putting myself on the line I'll go on record right now and say that Madrid is not going to be the one as the 2012 Olympics will be in London and the I.O.C. is loathe to have consecutive Games on the same continent. The same will probably be the problem for Tokyo as the 2008 games were in Beijing and the I.O.C. likes to spread the wealth around, at least among four continents so far. My money, if I had any right now, would be on Rio as the Games have never taken place in South America. And what Games they would be! But Rio has its problems too so it looks like Chicago and Rio are running neck and neck. We'll know in less than 48 hours.

I'm sure there are detractors in every city that tries to get the Olympics and Chicago certainly is no exception. The criticisms run from the mundane, (it would tie up traffic for two weeks), to doubts about whether we can really pull it off and at what cost.

I stated my support a few months ago on this blog for the effort to bring the Olympics to Chicago and I stand by that. There are good reasons not to bring the Games here, most notably the vast expense and the possible loss or alteration of significant buildings and parks. I believe however that there are simply more good reasons in favor. In the long run, and it may in fact be the VERY long run, the benefits will simply outweigh the costs.

Many of the criticisms center around Mayor Richard M. Daley. While the mayor enjoys success at the polls that no one, not even his father had, he has become the symbol for all that is wrong with city government. Admittedly Daley has exercised heavy handed authoritarian rule over the city, the most outrageous example being the destruction of Meigs Field by sending bulldozers to tear up the runway in the middle of the night. Ultimately however the mayor proved to be right on that issue, the city benefits far more by having park land along the lakefront than an airport used primarily by private planes. Charges of corruption coming out of the mayor's office (but not the mayor himself), and other misguided adventures, most recently the bungled out-sourcing of city controlled revenue sources like the Skyway and parking meters have certainly tarnished the mayor's administration.

So it's no small wonder that the mayor's almost single minded effort to pursue the Games, has appeared to many to be "Ritchie's folly". Bringing the Olympics to Chicago is really the mayor's attempt to secure his legacy, or so the argument goes.

Well what politician is not concerned about his legacy? Any public figure's legacy is indelibly tied to his or her successes and failures. If Mayor Daley leaves the city in better shape than he found it, then his legacy will be intact. And who but the most cynical among us would have a problem with that?

His vision may not be to everyone's liking but no one for a minute has ever questioned Mayor Daley's love of his city. Almost to a fault the mayor has been Chicago's greatest civic booster, never afraid to put his city in the same league with the great cities of the world.

Personally I have to admit that I cringe whenever I hear the term "world class city". It seems like a meaningless, hype-filled expression spouted by provincial bumpkins with a serious inferiority complex. But our mayor truly believes in Chicago, the world class city. And he is banking on the possibility that he may be right.

Look at the competition. Madrid with over a millennium of history, is the capital of the Spanish speaking world, a center of culture, government, and commerce. Consider Tokyo, one of the great metropolises of the world, a "command center" of the world's economy. And of course there is Rio de Janeiro, unquestionably one of the most beautiful and glamorous cities in the world. While it unquestionably applies to all three, I strongly suspect that "world class city" is seldom uttered in those cities, in whatever form it takes in Portuguese, Spanish, or Japanese.

In Chicago we rightfully extol the physical beauty our lakefront and our architecture. We are the transportation hub of the United States. The Chicago's Board of Trade and Mercantile Exchange are strong engines in our nation's economy. Many of our cultural institutions are second to none. Yet to this day traveling around the world, the first thing people say when you tell them you're from Chicago is "Gangsters!, rat a tat tat!, Al Capone!"

A local talk radio host recently asked the question, "Have you ever visited a city because they at one time hosted the Olympics?" Of course the question was pointed and everyone who called in answered no. A more reasonable question would have been, "has your image of a particular city changed because they hosted the Olympics?"

I would have to say that with the exception of Atlanta, and Athens, two cities I had already visited, I learned a great deal about all the cities that have hosted the Games in my lifetime. While Sydney, Barcelona, Seoul, Turin and Sarajevo to name a few were already on my map, my image of those places was definitely shaped by the Olympics. Not to mention the cities that I probably would have never heard of had it not been for the Olympics: Albertville and Grenoble, France, Nagano and Sapporo, Japan, Innsbruck, Austria, even Lake Placid, New York.

The Olympics have replaced World's Fairs as the single greatest showcase for a city to the rest of the world. Billions of people will be tuned in to the Games and it seems to be a no brainer that the value of that kind of publicity as far as developing international awareness, would be far greater than the simple expense of putting on the Games.

Mayor Daley understands this as do the Governor, the President, the First Lady and an entire slew of public and private figures who are in Copenhagen right now to lobby the effort.

Here at home nay sayers are dialing up their rhetoric in these final hours before the decision. Maybe their disdain comes from the fact that they don't care much for the Olympics themselves or that the boundaries their world end at the Indiana and Wisconsin borders. The bean counters and small thinkers among us have been the loudest in their criticisms and no doubt we'll be hearing a great deal from them after the decision is made around noon Chicago time on Friday, regardless of the outcome. "Now we're in for it!" they'll say if we get the Games, or "Well we sure wasted a bunch of money trying to get this thing" if we don't.

As far as I'm concerned, this has been a win/win situation for the city. Regardless of the outcome, Chicago has benefited from this endeavor in terms of exposure and securing its place on the world's stage. Perhaps, as an article I sited in an earlier post suggested, any city that bids for the Olympics benefits greatly, even more so if it is not the ultimate winner.

Like everyone else in this city, I eagerly await the news on Friday morning. Deep down I really hope we win, I think it would be a terrific experience and opportunity, especially for my children and their peers all over the city.

Chicago is a proud city with many mottos, "The City of Big Shoulders" and "The I Will City" are two of them.

As far as I know, "No, thank you" is not.

Win or lose I can summarize my feeling in four words:

Good job Mr. Mayor.

Nowhere, Illinois

I have to admit having been puzzled for years at the outcry against the proposal to re-locate the Chicago Children's Museum to what is currently the Daley Bicentennial Plaza at the north end of Grant Park.

Having spent a great deal of time there over the past 20 odd years I can say that DBP is certainly not one of the loveliest parks in the city. I was also curious at the claims of the folks who live around the park about keeping Grant Park "forever open, clear and free", since most of the recreational activities currently there block essential views of the lake and the skyline and they are certainly not free.

But upon further consideration, the blathering of the pro-museum crowd, especially that of Mayor Daley made even less sense. At the height of the furor, during the ribbon cutting at a new housing development on the south side, at an event that I attended, the mayor accused the residents who lived around DBP who opposed the museum of being racists.

Daley elsewhere dubbed Frank Gehry's serpentine BP Bridge which connects Millennium Park to DBP as the "Bridge to Nowhere", ironic since the place he called nowhere is named in honor of his father.

This week I've been reading through Lynn Becker's comments on the subject in his excellent blog ArchitectureChicago PLUS. His posts about why the museum should not go there made me entirely re-think my position on the subject. You can read some of his views here.

Reading Becker made me realize this: That the people living around the park deserve to be heard on issues concerning their neighborhood. And yes it is indeed a neighborhood, albeit a vertical one.

Some critics say the neighbors are selfish because they believe that DBP is their own private park. This is nonsense. If the folks living around Humboldt or Garfield Park or any other public park in the city were to express concerns about development in their neighborhood, no one in their right mind would claim they were being selfish.

Living downtown does not exclude one from being able to make a case for your community. It certainly doesn't merit the lack of transparency from city officials and least of all the hurling of convenient racial epithets. The opponents of re-locating the Children's Museum to DBP are concerned that the development of the museum would greatly increase the volume of traffic in DBP. This is a valid concern.

While Millennium Park is by all accounts a rousing success insofar as bringing people downtown, does this necessarily mean that thronging masses need to spread out all over Grant Park? Does the fact that DCP lacks the attractions of its neighbor to the west make it inferior? Most importantly, if a park does not attract millions of visitors per year, does that make it a failure? I would answer a resolute no to all three questions.

Millennuim Park's success notwithstanding, it is not a park at all but a playground. It is a collection of attractions. In that respect it is no different from Navy Pier, where the Children's Museum currently resides. It is the antithesis of the urban park, an essential space conceived to be the "lungs of the city", a place where city dwellers could go to free themselves of the everyday stresses and strains of city life.

The genius of Grant Park is the fact that one can in a few steps go from the heart of the commercial city to the relative peace and tranquility of open park land. All this while never losing the urban experience as the backdrop of the city is ever present. That peace is broken only a few times a year when major public events are held in the park such as parades and the annual Taste of Chicago, when those who know better avoid the area like the plague. But it is the relative absence of people rather than the thronging masses that make the park such a great space, the ability to remove oneself from the city without ever leaving it.

That is what Daley Bicentennial Plaza with all its faults has going for it. The joke is what people do after they cross the BP Bridge is turn around and walk back. Well I don't see that as a bad thing. For the handful who remain east of Millennium, the rewards may be nothing more than this, relief from the madness, exactly what parks are meant to do.

In a few years Bicentennial Plaza will need to be ripped up in order to replace the sub strata that separates the park from the parking garage below. The architecture critic for the Tribune, Blair Kamin suggests that two design possibilities be presented, one which includes the Children's Museum and one which does not. On that I agree, since given the mayor's tenacious advocacy, the eventual construction of the Children's Museum for better or worse, is virtually a fait accompli. A rethinking of the mediocre design of DCP would be a welcome change. Where we disagree is his assertion that the main problem with DCP is that it is "underutilized."

He also argues for greater access to the lake from DCP. Again I disagree. While I vigorously support the re-opening of Queen's Landing, the crosswalk that leads from Buckingham Fountain to the lake, I don't think we need to lead people by the hand to the lake everywhere along the lakefront. The lake is alluring enough on its own and those so inclined will always find a way to get there. The uninitiated will simply head back to the attractions of Millennium Park, back to where they belong.

That underutilization that Blair Kamin refers to is precicely what DCB, and the lakefront need in my opinion. Please let's not add more attractions to a park that already has more than enough of them. I think any new design for Daley Bicentennial Plaza should not try to re-invent the place, the changes should be kept to a minimum. Let's not kill it by over design.

Goodness knows we have enough of that already.