Claire Hungerford

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The communal dining room and kitchen at Northwest Mental Health Center has long been a fixture of programming at the clinic. Rosa Torres, who has worked as a clinical therapist at Northwest for 21 years, recalls how busy the kitchen used to be. Many of the clinic’s Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Support (PSR) programs were conducted here, where patients received instruction in meal planning and food preparation. But in recent years the kitchen has been used less and less, since funding for the meals has long since disappeared. Now Torres and her remaining colleagues, who have to wear many hats in their work as therapists and administrators, take turns providing money out-of-pocket for groceries.

Those in Torres’s field use PSR to refer to many of the programs that serve as material and emotional support infrastructure for adults suffering from mental illness–whether chronic or acute. Included in the health center’s PSR offerings are the various group therapy sessions held by clinicians, such as the Spanish-speaking women’s group that Ana Navarro has coordinated for over a decade.

The announcement of Chicago’s 2012 fiscal budget last October sealed the fate of mental health care across Chicago. The city’s outlined plan is to consolidate the clinics—transferring, for example, responsibility for the entire Back of the Yard’s patient population to the Southwest Side’s Greater Lawn Public Health Center. In the context of the prolonged and dramatic decline in mental health resources in Illinois, the measures will prove another painful blow to an already broken system, suffering from a lack of funding and legislative protection, which used to provide some insulation for Illinois’s mentally ill against homelessness and unemployment.

Northwest, which is located in Logan Square, will be merging with the South Side’s Lawndale clinic. Five other clinics will close their doors: Rogers Park, Woodlawn, Auburn Gresham, Beverly-Morgan Park, and Back of the Yards. Chicago will soon be serving upwards of 5,100 patients with a mere six operational clinics—a third as many as were open at the start of Richard M. Daley’s tenure. Since 2009 funding has seen a 36 percent reduction, a cumulative loss of $33.5 million.

The current mental health system has its origin in the Community Mental Health Services Act of 1963 (CMHA), signed into law by President Kennedy. CMHA called for the closure of state hospitals, while providing funding for mental health care at a local level through federal grants. With federal support, community health centers were able to serve as effective primary care providers for the mentally ill. This legislation was part of a national shift—both in public opinion and the field of healthcare—away from health policy that saw inpatient and institutionalized care as the best method of treating mental illness.

Over the past half-century, federal allocations have been starved and legislation distorted into what Mark Heyrman, a professor of law at the University of Chicago who specializes in mental health advocacy, calls “a variety of un-funded, uncoordinated services.” The central deficiency in many respects is a severe lack of human and financial resources, a fact hardly disputable when compared to the Illinois of yesteryear. According to Heyrman, there were 35,000 beds in Illinois available to patients in both outpatient and institutional facilities 60 years ago. Today there are 1,300.

Heyrman believes that successful mental health programs exist—they just haven’t been implemented on a large enough scale in Illinois. One such program is the Assertive Community Treatment, or ACT model. Under this system, patients are provided  “the multidisciplinary, round-the-clock staffing of a psychiatric unit, but within the comfort of their own home and community.” According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, ACT recognizes that “individuals with the most severe mental illnesses are typically not served well by the traditional outpatient model, with various services that the patient must navigate on their own.” Throughout Illinois, ACT is almost nowhere to be found, since it is simply too costly for health providers to offer. Heyrman notes that the number of ACT teams in the state “has declined precipitously as providers have increasingly had to secure funding [outside of their budgets] in order to afford it.”

The consequences of this dearth of resources are perhaps nowhere quite so visible as in city hospitals. Urgent care facilities are increasingly saddled with the severely ill—those who struggle with cyclical but nonetheless debilitating symptoms—and the newly unemployed or homeless. The latter’s need for mental health services would ideally be mitigated by the network of support—as simple as food and cots—that Torres and other long-time clinicians know to be very effective in the treatment and prevention of mental illness.

As the mental health clinics close, these preventative resources—and their benefits—will be in jeopardy. Torres is still shaking her head over the proposal:, “It doesn’t make sense any which way. From a [fiscal] perspective it doesn’t make sense, because of the increased cost of hospitalizations, incarcerations…If people aren’t stable they’re going to lose their jobs, their houses…You’re denying very basic rights.”

For patients, clinicians, and activists alike, the expected drop in quality of care is an unending source of disappointment and frustration. But the defunding is, distressingly, not simply a matter of money drying up. To make matters worse, some say the loss of state dollars is due to gross financial mismanagement.

In February 2008, Illinois’s Department of Human Services was notified of a transition from a state system to a computerized bill payment system provided by a subcontracted tech company, CERNER Corporation. The system was revealed to be largely nonfunctional, as shown in documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act according to the Coalition to Save Our Mental Health Centers. In the months after its implementation, an overwhelming 95 percent of bills submitted to the state government by the new software were rejected on grounds of missing data.

Because the claims couldn’t be processed, the state’s Division of Mental Health elected to withhold the funding necessary to cover the operational costs of clinics like the soon-to-be terminated Woodlawn Mental Health Center. A spokesman for the Department of Human Services, Tom Green, stated that the decision to cut funding on the order of $1.2 million was based solely on the city’s inability to provide billing data.

Michael Snedeker, who has worked for the Coalition to Save Our Mental Health Centers since 2008, recounts an incident that could be an omen of what’s to come: when the roof of the Rogers Park Clinic partially collapsed last year, its patients were temporarily directed to the nearest operational mental health center, North River, where they remained under the care of Rogers Park staff. Roughly half of those patients never sought treatment at the stopgap location.

Snedeker regards this figure as a generous estimation of the number of patients who will make it through the transition. For many of the nearly 2,600 current clients whose local clinics will be shuttered, the forced relocation is more than a logistical inconvenience. A longer commute for patients means a hike in the cost of treatment—especially for those who have been unable to secure coverage and who have long relied on the unflagging generosity of therapists like Torres and Navarro.

“We took it as a betrayal,” Torres says of the budget. “They’re annihilating health, period. Not just the clinics. And especially for Ana [Navarro]—she’s been here 27 years, she’s from this community, born and raised, people from her church come here. So it’s also a betrayal of the community, not just of the clients but of their families too.”

Other patients face the possibility of arriving at a new facility where there are no therapists who speak their language. Meanwhile, relationships that have been built over years are likely to end. As Navarro explains, “We’re merging with Lawndale, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Rosa and I will be going to Lawndale.” The city’s transition team hasn’t yet told them when their clinic will close or where they’ll be reassigned, she says.

Torres is most distressed by the uncertain fate of her clients: “We’re staff—we’re used to being tossed around like foster children. But the clients? It’s very humiliating for them…they just want to send ten of them here, move ten over there. And will it be today, or tomorrow, or a week from today?”

Patients’ prospects for dependable treatment will remain bleak as the slated closures take effect, possibly as soon as mid February or March, according to a Greater Lawn clinician. Torres states that just under 40 therapists will be terminated, a figure that does not include the psychiatrists and other clinic staff who will be laid off.

“In terms of the physical size of Chicago alone, six centers is pretty pathetic,” Snedeker says. “And as to the claim that services will be improved, I just don’t see how that’s possible with the reduction in staff that’s taking place.” He foresees a grim landscape of meager mental healthcare resources, which he likens to the food deserts that also plague expanses of the South Side. “Conceivably very soon,” he portends, “in these neighborhoods where resources have been so depleted, a near-absence of care could definitely come about, and I think to a very sobering effect.”

Rachel Wiseman & Eric Fischer/flickr

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On October 25, the assembly hall of the Hyde Park Union Church was nearly empty. Of the two-dozen chairs arranged in rows before a projector screen, only six were filled. The attendees, all beyond middle age, waited expectantly.

This gathering was a preliminary informational meeting concerning a process that Chicago undergoes every decade—aldermanic ward redistricting. The sparse turnout can be seen as emblematic of the public’s obliviousness toward the issue, or, perhaps, their indifference.

Which ever it is, community activists on the South Side are trying to change it.

Mary Schaafsma from the League of Women Voters and Jocelyn Woodards of the South Side NAACP presided over the information session—a “Redistricting 101” meeting—in front of the half-dozen longtime Hyde Parkers.

A preliminary slide exhibited a polychromatic rendering of Chicago’s jigsaw puzzle of political fault lines. Although law requires wards to remain “compact and contiguous,” boundaries have been drawn to circumscribe individual blocks and avoid others. Take the 20th ward, a region that encompasses parts of Englewood, Washington Park, and Woodlawn with one winding tendril that snakes up north and then west to grab a piece of Back of the Yards.

“It looks like Medusa’s hair going in all directions,” Schaafsma observed, gesticulating broadly.

Woodards points out that, thanks to the clandestine nature of Chicago politics, “a lot of people have no idea this is even happening.”

Ward redistricting is a process that takes place in Chicago following every U.S. Census. State law requires that aldermanic ward borders be redrawn in order to ensure that each alderman represents an equally populated district. The deadline for the new map is fast approaching: aldermen must agree upon the new borders this Thursday, December 1.

In the last decade, Chicago experienced significant population loss that was exacerbated by the recession. Approximately 200,000 people left the city from 2000 to 2009, setting the population back to the same number that inhabited Chicago in 1920.

While African-Americans still make up the largest ethnic minority in Chicago, their numbers took the biggest toll, decreasing from 1,065,009 to 887,608 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, the city’s Hispanic population grew by 25,000 residents.

These shifting numbers have caused aldermen in City Hall to scramble. The conflicts over space are often complicated by race. Although African-Americans suffered the largest population loss, the Black Caucus—African-American members of city council—is determined to maintain their 19 aldermanic wards. Anticipating a game of political chess, the Black Caucus decided to make the first move by submitting their own map on September 19.

The Redistricting 101 Meeting condensed all of this information into a neat, 60 minute PowerPoint—something the city hadn’t been doing. Schaafsma described her organization’s demands in a nutshell: “All we are asking is that the city engage the public, for equal representation under the law, and for basic government processes.” A bit heated, she quickly chugged two Styrofoam cups of water. “Emanuel has taken a stand-back approach, taking his cues from Daley,” she continued icily. “For example, is Englewood inherently a bad neighborhood or is it because they have six alderman and no one is paying attention?”

But people outside City Council are paying attention.

*   *   *   *

The day after Halloween the West Chesterfield Community Association held a special meeting at their headquarters in a stubby brick bungalow on 93rd and Michigan. About forty people gathered inside on cramped rows of metal folding chairs. The crowd was mixed: residents, local politicians, and representatives from community organizations. A small boy ate a Happy Meal, while leaning sleepily against his mother.

West Chesterfield Community Association President Michael LaFargue began the meeting by saying, “We’re all working together because we’re in this together.”

The West Chesterfield residents in attendance are proud of their traditionally strong voter turn-out and enjoy being grouped in the sixth ward with the comparatively stable Chatham community. In other words, the residents don’t want the neighborhood to be tainted with the problems of the neighboring wards. LaFargue gestures to the Black Caucus map proposal, with West Chesterfield resting in an expanded ninth ward. “That’s a very large ward, how can anyone handle that? …We’re going to fight this thing.”

LaFargue introduced Jocelyn Woodards to the crowd, who a week before had assisted in the Hyde Park meeting. Woodards took to the lectern dressed in a lime green suit coat. Behind Woodards, a Holy Bible and a three volume tome entitled Black America rested on a mantelpiece before a wall plastered in large posters with anti-redistricting slogans. Woodards began, “They [the city council] are claiming we lost 200,000 people. Who were they and where did they go?”

“Black people,” the crowd murmured unanimously.

“And what does that mean for us?” Woodards inquired.

“Less representation,” was the resounding reply.

“It’s time for us to get it together and ensure we have the best representation possible.” Woodards’s statement was met with applause and amens.

In an open discussion that followed, audience members voiced suspicion, confusion, and even outright anger at the proposal to move West Chesterfield from the sixth to the ninth ward. The room, heated with bodies and emotion, caused someone to yank the cord of a ceiling fan.

“We need to make sure we maintain the integrity of the community,” an audience member affirmed. “That is what’s wrong with Englewood. It’s like many cooks have spoiled the broth. We don’t want four or five or six aldermanic districts in the community.”

One woman said frankly, “It’s like a slap in the face because we’re subjected to people we didn’t vote for.” The crowd stirred in agreement.

Their suspicion is not unwarranted. While wards have given ethnic groups access to political power and city resources, Chicago has seen politicians resort to gerrymandering—drawing political borders for private political gain—to expand their clout in the city. Redistricting becomes a game that is less about representation and more about maintaining office by lassoing pockets of community areas that will guarantee an alderman’s reelection—historically, districts containing fewer residents with college degrees and which usually have low voter turnout rates. The 14th ward, for example, a predominately Latino community where fewer than one in ten people have graduated from college, has had the same alderman since 1969.

Following the meeting, guests chatted and posed for pictures holding 8-by-10-inch printer paper reading, “We Oppose West Chesterfield Redistricting.” Resident Shirley Adams rose from her folding chair. Putting on her winter coat, she explained she attended the meeting “just to be briefed on what is going on and how much progress is being made.” For Adams, the intentions of the community are clear—“we want to stay in the 6th ward.”

But West Chesterfield isn’t the only neighborhood on alert. A blue leaflet has been circulated around Englewood promoting another redistricting meeting. On the pamphlet reads the following challenge: “You say we are never informed of what is going on in our communities before it happens, well, Resident Matters is trying to change that! Now the rest is up to you!”

*   *   *   *

“I was taught a sign of a good compromise is that everybody walks out of the room mad,” said Fredrenna Lyle at the meeting in the Englewood branch of the Chicago Police Department on November 2.

Lyle—a lawyer who lost her third reelection campaign for Alderman of the 6th ward this spring—defended the Black Caucus proposal. After dividing up their wards legally and with the aid of a professional cartographer from Lansing, Michigan, the Black Caucus let a computer program draw the remaining wards.

Although she explained the Black Caucus’s position logically—one based on sheer legality—a distinct “us versus them” tone permeated her argument, particularly against the Latino Caucus. “They can come up with anything they want. We even gave them an extra ward. This whole thing is a blank canvas in terms where they can go.”

Lyle addressed the lack of congruity in Englewood—a neighborhood fractured into six aldermanic wards: “Englewood is the biggest change [on our map]. It’s about consolidating. The map we’ve drawn reduced the current six aldermen by one. We couldn’t reduce it ten years ago. Your aldermen loved you so much they didn’t want to leave!” In response, the audience laughed wryly.

“Change is scary,” Lyle admitted. “It’s understandable, but we are trying to maximize African-American representation without stepping or trampling on any other groups’ wards.”

She emphasized that the Black Caucus map was not an incumbency plan and blamed the media for propagating such a message. “Not all the alderman [of the Black Caucus] even agreed on this map…We didn’t want individual interest to supersede the interest of the African-American community.” Everyone, she stressed, had to make sacrifices, even if it meant drawing up less-than-ideal ward boundaries to satisfy legal requirements. “You [the aldermen] can have x,y, and z in la-la-land, but in the real world this is what we were dealt.”

“So,” she concluded, “if you can draw a better map, bring it in.”

On November 10, The Latino Caucus attempted just that.

This version included four more majority-Hispanic wards. One new ward on the southwest side would sweep up isolated Latino areas in the 3rd, 15th, 16th, 18th and 20th wards, all of which currently have a black majority. Ricardo Muñoz, 22nd ward alderman, told the Chicago Sun-Times, “If we’re one-third of the city, why are we one-fifth of the City Council? It’s not that we deserve it. That’s the law.”

Chicago’s Asian community is voicing similar concerns. Although the Asian population has expanded 40 percent in the past decade and is the fastest growing minority in Chicago, Asian populations in Chinatown and Bridgeport have never seen an Asian alderman. According to the Asian American Institute, “this lack of government representation is unacceptable…The Asian American community will organize itself…in a call for the importance of promoting transparency and public participation in the redistricting process.”

After being badgered by the public, 33rd ward alderman Richard Mell issued a public notice announcing six public hearings on the City of Chicago redistricting process. This got the City Council’s stamp of approval on October 31. The first meeting was held on November 2, giving community members only one day to mobilize and only three weeks until the actual vote.

The process to approve a new map can be murky and prolonged. Each alderman goes individually into the city’s map room to demonstrate how they want their ward redrawn. The city mapmakers then produce a map. If ten or more members of city council disagree with the proposed map, they can propose another map and the process drags on until a referendum can be held in March, a potentially costly procedure. The most infamous example of prolonging the process was the 1992 referendum that cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

There is a reason that redistricting is so important this time around. Hyde Park resident and political activist Dorothy Scheff made this explicit after the Redistricting 101 meeting: “There is more hope now—for the first time all the aldermen have been elected and there is a new mayor. The aldermen have not been appointed like the Daley crop. [Redistricting] is a problem we have been aware of for generations.” She gestured toward her fellow Montgomery Place retirement home residents and said, “I think now we feel there is a chance for change.”

Claire Hungerford

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In the early morning, things are pretty quiet around St. Clotilde Church in Chatham. A few cars may be heard turning west off Calumet onto 84th Street, but most of the noise comes from the wind hitting the trees that line the area’s sidewalks, shading its one- and two-story brick houses and 80-year-old stone church. It’s an area that feels more like a suburb than a part of the city, and its residents—mostly families and seniors—generally seem to like it that way, quiet and uneventful. It came as a surprise, then, when on the morning of September 6 a school bus stopped in front of St. Clotilde, and for the first time, opened its doors and let out a handful of teenage students. As far as the community was concerned, the school housed by St. Clotilde had been closed for years.

As longtime Chatham resident and community activist Worlee Glover tells it, “Many of the residents had been seeing things move in throughout the summer, and when they were asking questions no one would answer. They approached the church, the church told them they didn’t know, nothing was going on, and then they went to call the Archdiocese and were really told it wasn’t none of their business.” After the school bus pulled up for the first day of class, more calls were made. Eventually it came out that the church’s second and third stories had become the new home of Richard Milburn High School and its 37 high school and ten junior high students.

In the official language of Chicago Public Schools, Richard Milburn is an “alternative safe school,” serving students who have received long-term suspensions or, pending adjudication, may receive a long-term suspension. According to CPS spokesperson Frank Shuftan, “In the absence of a safe-school option, these students would be out of school.” Along with Banner North in Lincoln Park and Vivian Summers in Roseland, Milburn is designed to help suspended students continue their education, receive support services, and ultimately graduate, be it from their safe school or local school.

Though safe schools are publically funded, each is operated by a contracted company. At Milburn, for example, administrators like school director Calista Winford are employees of Richard M. Milburn High Schools Inc., a private, Virginia-based company that has been contracted by CPS since 1998. The city has similar contracts in place at Banner North, where the school is operated by Banner Educational Group, and at Vivian Summers, operated by Human Resource Development Institute, Inc. According to Shuftan, the contractors “are better positioned to provide the flexible scheduling, wrap-around services, and transition supports needed for these students in highly personalized, very small school settings.”

In addition to running each school’s programming, the companies are also responsible for finding and maintaining school facilities. Milburn was previously located at Holy Angels Church in Bronzeville, but, according to Shuftan, “serious facility issues were discovered that made the building unfit for school occupancy and required a relocation.” The school’s lease at Holy Angels was between Milburn and the Archdiocese, not CPS, so the company negotiated directly with the Archdiocese to find a new location. The upper story classroom space of St. Clotilde had been available since the church’s Catholic school closed several years ago due to low enrollment, and so a new lease was drawn up and the school began to move in.

This explanation of the move is disputed by Worlee Glover. Relying on information from Chatham residents who attend Holy Angels, Glover claims that the church “decided not to do the repairs because of a lot of pressure from the community. They did not want the school down there.” An employee of Holy Angels claims that the school did not move because of health and safety issues, and that in fact there were no health and safety issues—moving the school, she says, was the decision of the pastor, Father John Atoyebi. Contradicting CPS’s account, Ryan Blackburn, head of communications for the Archdiocese’s Catholic schools program, says that because the lease was for a school outside the Catholic school district, it was handled by the relevant parishes—in this case, Holy Angels and St. Clotilde—instead of the Archdiocese. And, it turns out, Father Atoyebi is the pastor of both Holy Angels and St. Clotilde. Neither the Archdiocese nor Father Atoyebi have responded to requests for additional information.

Some Chatham residents have speculated that the gentrification of Bronzeville spurred the move. According to this line of thinking, the neighborhood’s population became increasingly uncomfortable with the presence of Milburn’s students. However, alternative schools and ritzy neighborhoods don’t have to clash. Banner North’s location at St. Bonaventure Church in Lincoln Park is surrounded by upscale housing along Paulina Street and Marshfield Avenue.

Regardless of the motivation for moving Milburn High School, the move caught everyone in the community by surprise. Roosevelt Vonil, president of the Greater Chatham Alliance, expressed dismay at the “secretive nature” of the deal, according to an article published in Copy Line Magazine last month. Even 6th Ward Alderman Roderick T. Sawyer did not foresee Milburn’s arrival in Chatham. In a September 28 letter to the Chicago Defender, Alderman Sawyer wrote that the lack of communication regarding the school’s move to Chatham was “disrespectful to the community” and showed “a complete lack of regard for the legitimate concerns of a neighborhood.” According to Worlee Glover, Chatham had been approached by an alternative school before regarding the St. Clotilde location, but the community turned them down, telling the school it wouldn’t have it. The issue for Glover, Alderman Sawyer, and many others in the community is safety. Alderman Sawyer wrote, “There are legitimate concerns about having teenagers take public transportation to a school that is multiple blocks from most sources of public transportation.” Per CPS policy, middle school students are bused, while high school students must arrive to school on their own.

However, residents seem less concerned with teenagers riding public transit than with troubled students walking through the neighborhood. Reasons students are transferred to an alternative safe school like Milburn vary, but may include aggravated assault, burglary, or battery. “We don’t know where these young people are coming from, we don’t know where these young people have been,” says Glover. His fear was reinforced by a recent triple-homicide in Chatham, “where we had a teenager who wanted to settle a score, didn’t care about life, didn’t care who was around, picked up a gun and went and shot three people.”

The teenager was not connected to Milburn, but the fear of student violence has led to a community-wide backlash against the school’s presence. In October, Jennifer Vidis, deputy director of alternative schools for CPS, was met with displeasure and frustration at open meetings held by the Chatham Avalon Park Community Council and the Greater Chatham Alliance. At the meetings, Vidis stated she would speak with the CPS legal team and attempt to come up with some solutions to community concerns. As of press time, Vidis has not responded to requests for more information about these possible solutions. Shuftan claims that principal Winford has met with members of the community and made herself available to address any concerns, and the school is also in the process of organizing a “Safe Passages Program” to assuage community concerns about students walking through the neighborhood.

While tensions remain, it’s hard to tell that anything’s changed about St. Clotilde from the outside. The neighborhood looks the same—the streets around the church are still quiet, the lawns still trimmed and green. The only change occurs early, around 8am, when the first school bus pulls in and a group of teenagers starts walking down 84th Street. “The community understands these young people have to be educated,” said Glover. But “at the end of the school year, my neighborhood wants the school to move.”

Jacqueline Friduss/Rachel Wiseman

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“It is clear how you feel about the new front desk staff,” repeated Eli Ungar last Tuesday in the Kenwood Academy auditorium. Ungar, partner and principal of Antheus Capital LLC, directed his comment to a section of riled up Regent’s Park residents. On October 27, the building, located at 50th Street and Lake Shore Drive, was sold by Crescent Heights to Antheus, a New Jersey-based developer locally represented by its affiliate, MAC Property Management. The $160 million deal had been in the works since late August, according to Crain’s Chicago Business, but what that sale meant for the building’s employees remained unclear until 6pm on Thursday, October 27. At that time, Peter Richter, who had been the building manager for the past 23 years, carried his things out the front door.

“He exited the premises, and had a tear in his eye as he walked out,” recalls Brian Phillips, a doorman who has worked at Regents Park for five years. In spite of this bad omen, Phillips and Wes Allen, the other doorman on duty, remained at their posts until something strange occurred: a van of unfamiliar uniformed staff arrived at the building.

“There were quick introductions, some very friendly-seeming guys, and the next moment we were being bombarded with questions,” says Allen, who has worked at Regents Park for 19 years. “’How much does a cab cost to downtown? What does this button do?’” Phillips shakes his head, continuing, “I’ve always tried to show that I’m excellent at what I do here. But then a light bulb went off—I realized they were trying to get a crash course.”

At 7:50pm, the two doormen got a phone call from Richter. “He said that if we hadn’t gotten a job offer from MAC, we should come back the next morning at 8am to talk to Crescent Heights.” When they started to leave, one of the new arrivals tried to stop them, imploring, “Don’t go!” Then, Phillips recalls with disgust, he asked them if they liked the nearby gelato and offered some coupons in exchange for a lesson on how to operate the front desk.

The Crescent Heights employees returned the next morning to find their posts at the front desk filled by strangers, and a stack of papers notifying them that MAC would not take on their current contracts. Through September and October, Crescent Heights had given their employees only vague answers about what would happen to their jobs after ownership of the building was transferred. According to employee accounts of the events leading up to October 27, representatives from Crescent Heights told workers that MAC had “accepted” their contracts and that they would “probably” be extended—though, they maintained, “they didn’t know” for sure.

However, after the keys were turned over to MAC, about 50 employees were let go—including maintenance workers, security, garage attendants, and doormen. Coming in to work on the 28th, employees were met with a stack of dismissal letters. For some, those dismissal letters were the only form of notification they received. “I’m the bottom man here in terms of seniority,” Brian Phillips says, having worked for only five years at Regents. “But some of these guys put in 23 years and it was all taken from them in twelve hours.”

When Crescent Heights purchased the building from Clinton Management five years ago, the company decided to keep all the original staff. As a result, it was not anticipated that—as one resident calls it—a “hostile takeover” would occur. Although during this prior ownership transfer union members engaged Crescent Heights in collective bargaining, no such negotiations occurred between former employees and the new owners. MAC insists that it has fulfilled all contractual obligations with Crescent Heights—there was no clause in the buy-sell agreement that required the old employees to stay on at the building. Sister Mary Rosen, a longtime resident, expressed the views of many tenants when she told Ungar, “What’s legal is not always moral, and I don’t want to be complicit in a grave social injustice.”

On October 30, Regents Park residents—some of whom have lived there for three decades—came together in support of the terminated employees, flooding the lounge on the top floor. Over 90 percent of the buildings’ occupants signed a petition expressing their “disapproval of the unjust dismissals of [the] concierge, garage and maintenance staffs” who “have done an excellent job” and are viewed as “friends, confidants, and extended family members.” The petition calls for the reinstatement of fired staff, if MAC hopes to “maintain harmonious relationships with [its] residents.”

Antheus responded by flying Ungar out from New Jersey for the meeting at Kenwood Academy, where all the seats in the residents’ section were filled. The audience had to be reminded by Wallace Good, president of the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce and moderator of the meeting, that Hyde Park has “a tradition of sitting discourse,” and that all questions should be held until Ungar had said his piece.

Ungar began with a brief history of Antheus’s rapid rise since 2002, emphasizing his organization’s humble origins—from managing one building to owning almost a third of the real estate units in Hyde Park—and its contributions to the neighborhood. “We actively support numerous community organizations, including this school,” Ungar began. “We’ve paid for many of the seats you are sitting in, and given scholarships to many students.” He made promises regarding various improvements to the building, insisting on his commitment to “preserving Regents Park as superlative.”  With regard to the staff overhaul, he maintained that his company “followed the letter of the law,” but that “this was a complicated decision and not one [the company] entered into lightly.” He gave examples of how Antheus has “reached out to many former employees” and tried to place them in positions at other MAC properties.

Phillips, the former doorman, shot up from his seat in the second row and had to wait for cheers to subside before addressing Ungar. “My call to the Algonquin was not returned,” he said. “I suspect it’s because of my pro-Union affiliation.” The audience erupted into boos, compelling Ungar to reassure Phillips that his calls would be returned. Ungar reemphasized that Antheus has been making an effort to help out the Crescent Heights employees: some had been offered jobs, while those living in Regents received three months of free rent. One former employee, German García, received the rent voucher and a new job offer, but he declined. The new position came with a lower wage.

Ungar’s repeated promise that “the new staff will do superbly” if the residents “give them a chance” was met with both outrage and mockery. Resident after resident emphasized the closeness of the Regents Park community, the trust that was built over the years, and the existence of an extended family in the building. “You’re not going to succeed until you return that goodwill,” said Marly Rosenbush, a longtime resident.

Other tenants tried to communicate the new staff’s incompetence, decrying the “foolishness” of the new staff who “run around like chickens with their heads cut off,” unable to operate the handicapped doors and failing to fix broken sinks. Ungar responded: “We have worked hard over the last week and a half to understand the operation of the front desk, and I think we’re getting better.” More boos filled the auditorium.

Whether or not the transition was illegal, it may prove to have been a bad business move. “We’re going to obliterate your ratings for Regents Park,” said two suit-sporting law and business school students, referring to the building’s Google reviews. “We won’t stop until we make sure this building is empty.”

Phillips and other members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local One have been picketing every day outside the building since November 7. On Saturday morning, they were eating doughnuts and coffee—gifts from the residents. “You just missed it,” Phillips says, pointing to the backed up driveway. “Two elderly people crashed into the wall—you can see the dent there.” There was a delayed response time from emergency services, he says, adding, “The new staff gave the 5020-5050 S. Lake Shore Drive address, but the one normally given to emergency services is 5025 S. East End. Fire trucks and ambulances were circling around the building for a long time.” No one was hurt, but “imagine if it had been something more serious,” he tuts.

In response to a question over whether he thought Ungar would keep his word about the Algonquin job offer, Phillips shakes his head. Gesturing over to the building’s offices across the street, he claims, “They probably see me out here every day, and they don’t like my jacket.” Doug Ball, a SEIU union representative, adds that though the Algonquin has over 100 employees, only four of them belong to a union. “And that’s MAC’s only unionized location.”

Both SEIU Local 1, which represents the concierge, doormen, and maintenance, and Teamsters Local 727, which represents the garage attendants, plan to file charges against MAC for discriminating against unions in its hiring practices. Though the employees who were let go are both union and non-union, all of the new hires are “temporary employees hired through temporary firms,” according to Ball. “There’s not one union member in there.”

At Kenwood Academy last Tuesday, Ungar committed to responding to the residents’ demands within a week. Wednesday morning, picketers saw him speed off in a limo to the airport. As of press time, he still has not delivered a response about whether the old employees will be rehired.

Meanwhile, residents are fulfilling their promises: the online ratings for Regents Park have dropped, and community boards are buzzing with complaints, anecdotes, and open letters to Ungar. “We don’t need six large security guards to protect us from our FRIENDS,” one letter reads, referring to the security guards Antheus has hired to make sure the picketers don’t get rowdy. “Your security force does nothing other than intimidate residents from talking to, embracing, and supporting men that we consider family.” But from looking at the picket line, where  residents often stop for a hug or to talk, it’s clear that this family is doing its best not to be torn apart.

Disclosure: The author of this article is a resident of an apartment owned and managed by MAC.

Claire Hungerford & Verbonkos/flickr

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The battle is over. A war has been won. So announced Mari Gallagher, the social scientist whose landmark 2006 report on food access in Chicago coined the term “food desert.”

Gallagher defines a food desert simply as “a large geographic area with no or distant grocery stores.” But in recent years, the word has taken on a particular meaning, wrapped in the image of a poor, urban area where residents must travel for miles just to find a few vegetables. Residents of a food desert may have access to plenty of junk food, but they have almost no nearby access to food that is high-quality, healthy, and—above all—affordable. As a result, they are far more at risk for diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cancer.

While food deserts remain a persistent problem in Chicago, the reality is not as grim as it seems. Gallagher’s latest report, released last month, contained a heartening and perhaps unexpected message: “As we mark the fifth year of our original report’s release, we realized it was time to retire the Food Desert awareness campaign. We feel the awareness war has been won, as evidenced by this week’s arrival of our nation’s First Lady.”

Gallagher and her research team are referring to Michelle Obama’s visit to Chicago’s “food summit” on October 25. Mayor Rahm Emanuel gathered up the First Lady, local urban farmers, grocery store CEOs and eight mayors from across the country to convene and discuss the problem of urban food deserts. The summit coincided with news that Chicago’s food desert has shrunk by 40 percent in the last five years. With so much attention from major politicians, it’s easy to believe that the first step in the fight against food deserts—raising awareness—has been won. But now that the food desert issue has come to the fore and the preliminary actions seem to be working, where does Chicago go from here?

The First Lady visited two very different locations on October 25: a newly expanded Walgreens on 75th Street and an urban farm in Bridgeport. At the Walgreens, she stood at a podium in front of the drug store’s new produce section and spoke to an audience of local, national, and corporate leaders on the issue of food access in poverty-stricken areas. Obama, whom the Chicago Sun-Times calls “the country’s most recognizable symbol of healthy living,” went on to visit the Iron Street Urban Farm for a tour of the facilities, but not before Rahm Emanuel, the man who invited her to the food summit, had some important announcements to make.

He declared that 17 new grocery stores would open in Chicago, and 19 Walgreens would expand to include a produce section. Most of the stores will be on the city’s South and West Sides, in areas like North Lawndale, West Pullman, Englewood, Bronzeville and Roseland. Walgreens claims that it will provide around 600 new jobs for the city in the next two years.

Why does the definition of a food desert center around the grocery store, and why was the opening of new grocery stores announced with such flourish? Large chain grocers can sell fresh produce at cheaper prices and higher quantities than local corner stores. High poverty rates are a major feature of food deserts—the USDA’s definition of food desert even includes a specification that at least 20 percent of the population must be under the poverty line. And while there may be many local corner stores in a food desert, these small shops are better equipped to sell highly-processed food with a long shelf life than produce, milk or meat, which all need to be sold and restocked quickly before they spoil.

What makes matters worse is that many shops that accept food stamp benefits are exactly these kinds of corner stores. There are 2,200 stores that accept food stamps in Chicago, but according to a 2010 WBEZ investigation, 30 percent of them are not grocers, but rather liquor stores, gas stations, a­­nd dollar stores. That means that those who can least afford the high costs of diseases connected to poor diet are also those who can only afford to shop at stores that stock unhealthier food.

The well-publicized meeting on October 25 was not the mayor’s first mention of the food desert problem, although it might be his most high-profile food access event to date. In June, one month after his inauguration, Emanuel convened six CEOs from companies like Walmart, Walgreens, and Save-a-Lot for his first food summit, a candid talk about why there weren’t more grocery stores in underserved communities, and how there could be.

Emanuel showed the CEOs a map of the city’s food deserts, studded with stars that represented “sites for food retail opportunity.” Concerns over the prospect of opening up new grocery stores included, “lack of transportation, security, real estate development and bureaucratic red tape,” according to a press release from the mayor’s office. Emanuel offered to fast-track permits, zoning, and licensing procedures for developments in designated food deserts. He said that if a company wanted to open multiple stores at the same time, they would only have to submit one general zoning request rather than one per store.

Emanuel’s strategy is clear: he can’t force corporations to open new grocery stores in food deserts, but he can give them incentives so that it’s worth their investment.

He sees his solution as a compromise that will allow both the mayor and the corporations to align their bottom lines, so that the stores will turn a profit and the city will see an increase in healthy food options.

“Although it’s morally motivating for me, they’re not in the moral business,” he said on a WBEZ radio program. “As one CEO said to me and I won’t say who, ‘Look, if you want to grandstand I’ll write you a check and I’ll be done with it.’ I said that’s not what I want. I want you to open open stores that serve people, create jobs and make money. I want you to make money.”

However, more will open up in the city than just Save-a-Lots and expanded Walgreens: the city has also taken steps to support urban agriculture. Kraft and Safeway agreed to commit $150,000 to pilot up to five new farmers markets in Chicago’s west side over the next two years, and Growing Power, the organization that runs the Iron Street Urban Farm, signed a memorandum of understanding with Walgreens and Aldi that will hopefully lead to locally-grown produce being sold in those stores.

Most significantly, in September, a new city ordinance passed that officially legitimizes urban farms in the zoning code. It eliminated many of the obstacles that large, commercial urban farms faced in order to grow their business. The ordinance increased the size limit on community gardens to 25,000 square feet, relaxed fencing and parking regulations, granted some produce sales in residential areas, and allowed the installation of hydroponic and aquaponic systems, as well as honey bees.

By promoting an increase in both grocery store chains and farmers markets in food desert areas, Emanuel has pushed together two very unlikely companions: major grocery store and pharmacy chains and urban farms. One operates on a huge scale and is profit-driven, while the other is hyper-local and propeled in large part by visions of social change. The two sides may be opposite in terms of aims and motivation, but for once, CEOs and CSAs are on the same team.

Just a month after the new city ordinance passed, on October 14, the first urban farm officially zoned as such opened in Englewood. Honore Street Farm, on the eponymous street between 58th and 59th streets, is still just a bare concrete lot, but as the first farm to open after the new ordinance, it represents a new beginning for urban farming.

The farm is part of Growing Home, an organization that provides transitional employment and job training to people whose trouble pasts make it difficult for them to find a job. Growing Home runs three certified organic farms in addition to the Honore Street site: Les Brown Memorial Farm in Marseilles, Illinois; Su Casa Market Garden in Back of the Yards; and the Wood Street Urban Farm, close to the Honore Street Farm in Englewood.

According to Harry Rhodes, executive director of Growing Home, setting up urban farms was not always easy. Wood Street Farm, for example, had to be zoned as a technical institute. “We had a lot of obligations that made getting the farm up and running difficult, including parking places, landscaping, and fencing,” he says over the phone. “This ordinance makes it easier and lessens the burden.”

Now urban farms can worry less if a new administration comes in that doesn’t care about urban agriculture, says Seneca Kern, the Community Outreach Organizer for Growing Home. “It’s not at their whim,” he says, “It’s in the books.”

I meet Kern in his job-training classroom at the Wood Street Farm. Founded in 2005, Wood Street is in the middle of a highly residential neighborhood. Houses line up block after block, and out of nowhere a patch of green appears, spanning two-thirds of an acre, surrounded by a chain-link fence. Inside, the hoophouses are filled with vibrant green lettuce and jewel-bright rainbow chard.

The visit to the Wood Street farm underscores what makes grocery stores and urban farms different in their approach and contributions to food access. Urban agriculture is very much rooted in its neighborhood, while many of these corporations have are headquartered outside of Chicago. Grocery stores and urban farms both provide jobs, but the farms organize educational events and community activism. The farm runs a market and holds movie nights, potlucks, cooking demos, tours to get people engaged.

“We see a lot of kids who come just to spend time here,” Kern says. “This is a real, direct solution.”

Kern himself was born in Englewood, and he remembers hating the wilted, sad little vegetables at the corner stores. So his grandmother, who grew up in Mississippi, would drive her grandkids all the way to Indiana to pick fruit straight off the vine.

“A lot of Southern folks did that,” Kern recalls. “I vividly remember it. My favorite was the grapes.”

But Kern’s take on Englewood’s food desert is unique. First of all, he says don’t call it a food desert. As Kern points out, it’s more of a “food swamp.”

“There’s food here,” he shrugs, “it’s just shitty.”

A quick tour of the area surrounding the Wood Street Farm perfectly illustrates his point. Just a short walk away from Wood Street is a corner store, with a big yellow sign in front that says it accepts LINK, the Illinois state food stamp card. A row of cereal boxes, as brightly colored and eye-catching as the rainbow chard on Wood Street, greets shoppers as soon as they come in. The aisles are filled with canned food, candy, soda, and the like. As for the produce offerings are concerned, the pickings are slim: one box of onions and a few potatoes, hidden in the corner.

Grocery stores isn’t a cure-all, Kern notes. As a kid, Kern didn’t mind the long drive to Indiana; for him, quality matters above convenience, and so he’s skeptical about how much Walmart and Walgreens can help.

“The grocery store can be just a bigger corner store,” he says. Even if the food desert completely disappeared according to the official statistics, there there would be, he thinks, “the same amount of crap food, but maybe it would be easier to get it. Sure, they could have a big parade and say food deserts are gone, but it wouldn’t be true.”

Corporate grocery stores are vital to increase broad access to fresh food in poor areas, many experts say, but they can’t stand alone. “They are part of the solution but not the only solution,” Rhodes acknowledges. A more holistic approach would include backyard gardens, community gardens, farm stands, and more. He also suggested that the mayor’s office should create a position for a food system and enterprise coordinator. Instead of running around different departments within the City Hall to try and find answers to their questions about permits and regulations, they could go to just one point person.

“We’re talking about changing local economies and investing in local economies,” he says. “Putting in a grocery store won’t solve all your problems.” Nevertheless, he admits, “It would just be ignoring reality to say that they’re not going to exist.”

Laure Dutirou, a volunteer at the 61st Street Farmer’s Market in Woodlawn, commented on the relationship between grocery stores and farmer’s markets. “They are complementary, they don’t exclude each other,” she said. “Let’s face it, not everyone can afford [farmers markets], especially here…we probably should have an Aldi right at the corner.”

As Emanuel said on Windy City Live, he’s not the first politician in the country to look at the food desert problem. What makes Chicago special is not that they’re the leader in any one field, but they’re exploring options in every field.

“What will be unique for Chicago,” he said, “is that…we’re bringing farmer’s markets, urban agriculture, and grocery stores all together, which is what no one has done before.”

Claire Hungerford

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On October 13, Cecilia Butler spoke before the Chicago Transit Board for the second time in four months. Standing before the seven-member board, the 63-year-old woman repeated what they had already heard her say four times before, with few new changes: that the historic station house across the street from the Garfield Green Line stop could and should be a building operated by and for the community; that the old station house was a historic building and deserved recognition as such; and that she was willing to work with CTA and do whatever it took to make that happen. “Please give us this opportunity,” she said. “That’s all we ask. We’re willing to pay whatever it takes to renovate this location.”

And with that, without comment, the board moved on to the next speaker. Cecilia Butler, having spoken her mind before the board about the station house for the fifth time since 1995, leaned away from the microphone. Wearing a hat and coat to protect from the first cold day in over a week, Butler let the next speaker of the meeting’s public comments period finish before returning to her seat, one of a hundred in CTA’s second-floor boardroom.

The station house Butler is fighting for doesn’t leave much of an impression these days. Dwarfed by the Green Line tracks above it and the active station across from it, the 1892 station house is, for the most part, ignored or unseen. Its bay window has remained intact, crowned with a half-cone roof, though the station’s polychrome brickwork has been painted white, one of its small arched windows has been bricked in, and a pair of steel doors—locked—now marks the entrance.

When it opened on October 12, 1892, the building’s doors served as the gateway to the great parks of the city’s South Side: “The new station at Fifty-fifth street occupies a fine situation,” wrote the Chicago Daily Tribune, a day after trains began servicing the station. “Everywhere there is a profusion of trees and foliage. One may stand on the platform and look over the rural scene, whose picturesqueness is heightened by the beautiful boulevard which to the east curves gracefully and is lost in a wood of sturdy young oak trees, over the tops of which rise the domes and roofs of the World’s Fair buildings.” The dedication of the Columbian Exposition was nine days away, the grand opening of the fair to the public was six months away, and Washington Park—the 372-acre vision of Central Park architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux—was just two decades old.

By the turn of the century,  Washington Park was becoming a predominately African-American neighborhood. By 1950 it was 99-percent African- American and had grown to over 56,000 people. Right around the time Cecilia Butler was attending elementary school in the neighborhood, however, the people began to disappear. By 2010 the population had dropped below 12,000, and current data from the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development show that businesses have disappeared along with the population: the neighborhood has a business vacancy rate of 26 percent—three times that of neighboring Hyde Park.

As the neighborhood deteriorated, so did the Green Line that served it. In 1994, the entire length of the line was shut down for a 28-month renovation. That included talk of building “superstations,” which would have included shops, a bank, and even a daycare center, at both the Garfield and Pulaski stops. A 1995 Sun-Times story, written when construction of the superstation seemed imminent, quotes a younger Cecilia Butler as saying, “A change is coming to Washington Park.”

But the change didn’t happen. In an e-mailed statement, CTA, looking back on the superstation discussions, said that it “was a bit ahead of its time and there were no retail outlets interested in having their business be a part of the station renovations.” Unexpected expenditures in the Green Line renovation as a whole may also have played a role: the renovation project ultimately ran $100 million over budget, and the plans for a renovated superstation never materialized

“The community never envisioned what they built across the street,” said Butler in a phone interview. “We were still working on [the old historic location] and building up around it.” As a representative of the Greater Washington Park Development Corp., Butler came before CTA in 1995 with a unique plan for a “superstation,” to turn the historic station into a site where visitors could get information on the community and nearby museums.

With the superstation idea rejected, a new station on the north side of Garfield was completed in 2001. In December of that year the Commission on Chicago Landmarks designated the historic station a Chicago landmark, granting it legal protection as one of the oldest mass transit stations in the country.

A decade later, and the station house was still on Butler’s mind. Her vision for the building expanded in the mid-2000s, and what had once been envisioned as an information center developed into a community center with a “micro-library” offering coffee and Wi-Fi. Community members who work or used to work at WVON, an African-American talk radio station, have donated over a thousand books to the project in hopes of creating a public library in the neighborhood.

In 2009 Butler and her new vision for the building were given a swift response by the Transit Board: write a one-page business plan, figure out how to make your idea financially viable, and then get back to us. Undeterred, Butler founded the Washington Park Historical Society to consolidate support for the renovation of the station house. A year later and she was back before the board, presenting her idea and going on to meet with the board’s chairman.

Once again, however, no progress was made. On July 15, 2011, Butler made her fourth appearance before the Transit Board. In the following weeks she began discussing her plan and its logistics with CTA officials, going over its details and plan of execution until, on August 25, she received a letter from CTA’s director of infrastructure support services. Unbeknownst to Butler, the historic station house had served as a maintenance facility for Green Line rail staff since the station’s closure. “I thought that was insulting,” said Butler. “I just couldn’t understand.” CTA went on to inform Butler that its maintenance operations could not be relocated, but that it would work with her to find a new location for the historical society and the planned community center.

“The purpose of us being there,” said Butler, repeating a refrain she’s used many times in speaking to various CTA officials, “is because that’s a landmark. Give it to the community. The city named it as a historical location, so why shouldn’t the historical society be located there?” The Hyde Park Historical Society, she notes, has been able to work out a deal with Metra to rent a historic cable car building on Lake Park and 55th—why shouldn’t the Washington Park Historical Society be able to work out a deal with CTA?

Butler has offered to pay CTA for use of the station house, to cover the cost of renovating the building, and—after hearing of the agency’s use of the building as a maintenance storage space—to build a steel storage unit across the street, on the vacant land surrounding the current station or beneath the tracks that run over it. Cost, she says, is not an issue. Even after she was asked how she planned to maintain the facility once it was renovated, Butler maintained that “we have money, as an organization.” She would not specify how much capital the project had behind it, or where the money was coming from. Neither would she estimate how much the project would cost—she was last inside the building 15 years ago, and CTA, she says, will not let her and her organization back inside to evaluate its condition. And even though the station is located within the 47th and State TIF district, Butler says, “We don’t need a TIF to do what we’re trying to do.”

CTA, for its part, has consistently turned down her offer to build them a new maintenance facility. The agency responded to an inquiry about its rejection of Butler’s proposal by saying that the properties it presently owns “are being reviewed for possible transit-oriented development opportunities. Consequently we cannot use those properties for the needs of our maintenance operations.” It could be that CTA opposes her idea to refurbish the old station house on the south side of Garfield because they are planning to more thoroughly develop the north side of the street. Or, Butler’s proposal doesn’t constitute what the agency considers “transit-oriented development,” though their definition of what that means is hazy at best.

CTA noted in a statement that “transit-oriented development opportunities have greatly increased” since the failed superstations of the ‘90s. In 2008, the agency partnered with Chicago-based real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle to develop land around stops throughout its system to help boost ridership and neighborhood economies. Currently, the firm is marketing a number of CTA stations for development—but the Garfield Green Line stop is not one of them. CTA, then, is at once opposing Butler’s proposition because it seeks to develop the land around the Garfield station, and doing nothing to develop that land.

“Transit-oriented development,” the agency wrote in another statement, “will position CTA as an anchor within communities and help attract further capital improvements through commercial and residential development.” The agency neither confirmed nor denied that Butler’s plan conformed to their idea of transit-oriented development as something that would “help and attract further capital improvements.” But it seems as though the conversion of a private maintenance facility into a public space would, at the very least, bring additional foot traffic—additional people—into the area. Five presentations before the board have yet to convince CTA.

Yet in the aftermath of her most recent presentation to the board, Butler remains optimistic. As the meeting transitioned into its official proceedings, Butler rose from her seat and slipped out the back door, followed closely by a CTA official. The two talked quietly for about a minute, he craning his neck down, she looking up and nodding in agreement, until the official returned to the board meeting and Butler started down the stairs with a smile. “He said, ‘Keep on fighting.’ And that’s what I plan to do.”

Harry Backlund

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“If you notice, everything starts here and moves up.” Juan Moreno stands at the edge of a small astroturf soccer field and motions around at the encompassing school building that his architecture firm JGMA designed. His gesture starts at a low fence that rises at an angle on one side of the field and follows it up into a tall wall of fogged metal that reflects the bright green playing surface like a funhouse mirror. Continuing on, his hand sweeps over three levels of ultra-modern metal and glass corridors that expose the rows of student desks inside.

This freshly built structure at 51st and Kedzie houses the United Neighborhood Organization’s (UNO) Soccer Academy, a school designed to incorporate academics with a soccer training campus. Open since the beginning of August, the academy is the eleventh campus in the Latino-based nonprofit’s growing charter school network, and serves 576 students in grades K-8. The building covers three acres of a woody ten-acre plot where UNO is hoping to build a high school and a full-sized stadium.

The miniature field that currently sits at the center of the structure is somewhere between a practical place for younger students to play the game, and a symbol of the sport’s significance. Moreno calls it a stage, which makes sense, not only because of the glass looking down on it, but because the soccer academy is itself established around the daily rehearsal of a specific vision of success.

“There’s a kind of rite of passage,” Moreno explains, pointing to the stratified levels of the building. On the first floor, where the youngest students are taught, the windows draw your attention to the pitch, and to the grass and trees around the building. Once they enter third grade, students graduate to the second floor, where a view opens up over the colorful storefronts and single story homes of working-class Gage Park. When they reach sixth grade, students move up to the third floor, where the entire city spreads out before them, and skyscrapers finally become visible on the horizon.

“The gesture of the building moves towards downtown, so that students can imagine themselves there,” Moreno says. “It’s a way of anticipating the future and creating a design that speaks of something much greater to follow,” he adds later.

For its students, the UNO Soccer Academy building frames two separate spectacles: the soccer field at the center, and the peaks of downtown in the distance. This dual definition of success runs throughout the school. The kids wear three-piece uniforms, walk silently in single file lines through hallways, and are reminded daily that discipline and sacrifice are keys to success. But two days a week they come dressed in full soccer uniforms and spend a few hours of the day playing and training. It’s early yet, but by one important measure, the incorporation of the beautiful game into primary-school education seems to be working—during the first month of classes attendance has hovered between 98 and 99 percent. But outside the debate over how to best measure the effectiveness of education, the UNO Soccer Academy offers a unique—and perhaps not entirely intentional—insight. The force behind the school has less to do with rubrics and formulas than it does with the qualitatively different ways its students and families are connecting to education.

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With over 4,000 students enrolled in its programs in Chicago, UNO is the largest direct-service charter school management firm in the state, and is frequently cited as an example of a successful alternative education model for urban neighborhoods. By maintaining similar spending, demographics and class sizes of traditional public schools, they hope to show how innovative approaches can do more with less.

Sitting in the school’s conference room, Juan Rangel, UNO’s CEO and charter network president, summed up his hopes for the organization and its influence. “I want people to say, If it’s working at UNO, why can’t it work over here?”

The development of Chicago’s charter schools took off with Renaissance 2010, an initiative begun by Mayor Daley in 2003 that closed or restructured CPS schools that the system determined to be under-performing and replaced them with charter and contract models.

Charter schools are notoriously confusing, in part because they are hybrids: they are open to the public but operated privately. They are granted significant operational advantages over traditional CPS schools, including looser restrictions over hiring and firing teachers, and the flexibility to write their own budgets with minimal oversight and—at least in practice—little transparency. They also face some special limitations—most notably an Illinois law that only assures charter schools 75 percent of appropriations for education that a normal public school would receive.

Initial positive reports from charters started a continuing chorus that they are the up-and-coming solution to a variety of urban education dilemmas. But the results are hard to assess, not least because the metrics used to evaluate charters make it difficult to compare them with traditional public schools.

The first major, financially independent study of charter high school performance was published in February 2009 by University of Illinois at Chicago Professor Rico Gutstein and CPS educator (and former charter school teacher) Liz Brown. Its conclusions varied from neutral to negative. Rejecting state tests on the grounds that they reflect some of the changes in approach that they are meant to measure, the study’s authors examined composite scores from the nationally administered ACT test between 2006 and 2008. They found no statistical difference between charter and neighborhood high schools. Based on an analysis of enrollment practices, the study’s authors further concluded: “Charter schools have not improved the overall quality of, or equal access to, education for all Chicago high school students.” Charter school teachers, who are almost entirely non-union, were also found to earn around 15 percent less than CPS teachers while working a longer work day and for more days per year. Based on their results, Gutstein and Brown recommended an immediate moratorium on new charters.

UNO’s network seems to avoid many of the criticisms made of the charter system as a whole. The most recent evaluations are from the 2009-2010 school year and show almost uniformly high academic performance ratings. While the percentage of special needs students in UNO’s network is lower than the district average (9 to 4 percent), the percentage of limited English proficiency students is much higher (42 to 13 percent) as is the percentage of low-income students (95 to 87 percent). In the same year, UNO’s combined high school dropout and transfer-out rate (which absorbs much of the drop-out rate, since charter students can transfer back to their neighborhood school) was only 6 percent.

But the high stakes debate around how to read the numbers is only part of the story, and in many ways has distracted the way education happens is changing. Here the soccer academy stands apart.

*    *    *

According to Rangel, in its early stages, the school had been planned as an extracurricular program modeled on the soccer academies that college scouts use to recruit top players. These programs often proved prohibitively expensive for Latino athletes in Chicago, or poor academic performance may prevent them from attending. UNO officials met with the United States Soccer Federation, the Chicago Fire, and coaches from UIC to gather ideas. Two of UNO’s staff even went to Mexico to study similar academies in Pachuca and the soccer school of former-Fire player and Mexican national team captain Cuauhtemoc Blanco.

In the process the idea grew into a broader project that sought to tap the deep passion for the sport among Chicago’s Mexican and Latino communities as the sentimental foundation for a new school. Rangel recalls family trips to Douglas Park where his father played league games. It’s easy to imagine that many of the parents at UNO’s schools share variations on these memories of soccer in the park.

“We’d go to mass early on Sundays, and then we’d go to the games. It was something in the family culture; it was about more than the kids,” Rangel says.

The passion for soccer is one way of making connections between education and the lived experiences of students and their families, but it doesn’t have to be the only one driving a school.

Rangel sees the same intangible impact in the home visits that his teachers are required to make. “I tell my teachers…your mere presence on the doorstep speaks volumes,” he says. “At that moment, once the parents and kids see you at their home, you got them. They will come through for you.”

UNO also invests in bigger spectacles to make lasting impressions on students.  The soccer academy was inaugurated with a spectacularly lavish show of smoke, lights, and fireworks. Rangel has a photograph of the event that he plans to blow up to billboard size and set in a frame in the school’s hallway to remind students of the moment. “Is there data [to support] this? Probably not. But all of this is about a culture that we’re trying to create for our kids.”

*    *    *

It’s a specific kind of culture, though, and it’s no coincidence that the phrase “master plan” gets used a lot in descriptions of the academy. UNO presents itself as the vanguard of a rising Hispanic middle and upper class that is establishing a powerful community infrastructure. Their rhetoric emphasizes civic responsibility and political assimilation, which they say is meant to stand against images of Latinos as victims. On Flag Day, UNO hosts a naturalization ceremony in a school gym where around a hundred immigrants take the oath of citizenship, and while UNO advertises their schools in Spanish, their schools all use English immersion techniques.

“We want them to become successful American citizens,” says Rangel, who at times sounds zealously patriotic. “Anyone who thinks otherwise is either delusional, or is working against the interests of this nation.”

UNO’s rhetoric is, at least in part, a way of reconciling its present with its past. The organization was founded in 1984 as an alliance between grassroots labor organizers and local priests, and rose to prominence in large part because of their succesful use of the community organizing tactics of Rules for Radicals author Saul Alinsky. But as campaigns against school overcrowding prompted the organization’s growth, UNO started to establish stronger ties to the city government. These connections now go deep. UNO’s most recent capital drive was chaired by Mayor Daley, and Rangel co-chaired Rahm Emmanuel’s mayoral campaign. In another intersection of sport, spectacle, and politics, Rangel was observed sitting courtside at a Bulls game with the current mayor. UNO isn’t shy about the fact that their effectiveness as an organization is at least as much about political clout as it is cultural roots.

*     *     *

There’s another level to the charter school problem: UNO doesn’t just expect success, they’re literally banking on it. The network received a $98 million grant from the state of Illinois for the construction of new schools, and they hope to leverage that credible state money into $150 million for eight more schools by 2017. The loans UNO takes out would be paid back with the per-pupil payments they receive from the state. This means that unless significant alternative revenue streams are developed, the UNO network would have to use a portion of their yearly state funding to pay off their debt, leaving less for educational programs. Although Department of Education Credit Enhancement Grants make charter-related bonds comparatively stable investments, the use of debt financing for educational institutions shouldn’t be seen as a safe bet, especially in the wake of the recent financial crisis. And in contrast to the UNO network’s strong academic ratings, the most recent accountability report available from the 2009-2010 school year reveals a score of 1 out of 5 for financial management.

In the face of questions surrounding finances and ambivalent reports on the success of charter schools, journalists and readers should be forgiven for skepticism about the charter school movement. But while the promise of inspiring facilities and effective, accessible education for all Chicago students still hangs on the horizon like the downtown skyline, the real innovation of the soccer academy—the one that sets it apart from even other UNO schools—is the incorporation of community experience that plays out daily on the little green field.

Here, Rangel makes a point that has little to do with school formats. “Every school ought to be aware of what their children are doing after hours with their families, and engage them in something they’re interested in. This one happens to be soccer.”

Vicki Yang and Matt Wan

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The Experimental Station at 6100 Blackstone Avenue has a knack for reinvention. From the very beginning, the Station has been marked by its ability to rise from the ashes. Artist Dan Peterman set up a studio there in 1987, in what was then a recycling center, and then purchased the building in 1994. He cleared out the mass of random recycling detritus, making space for artists and local businesses, including his own Blackstone Bicycle Works, an organization that has brought bikes and bike-repair skills to many University of Chicago students and Hyde Park and Woodlawn residents over the years.

But on April 25, 2001, a fire devastated the building, leaving only the brick exterior standing. Connie Spreen, Peterson’s wife and the station’s co-founder, recalls how on the day of the fire, a young boy stood looking at the wreckage. He said to her, “Connie, I’m sure glad that you and Dan aren’t the kind of people who pack up and leave.”

Before he spoke, Connie thought she was that kind of person.

She changed her mind and replied, “I’m glad I’m not.” And the couple began to clean up. Out of the smoking heap, Dan and Connie rebuilt their organization and renamed it the Experimental Station.

The commitment to rebuild, and all that has come from it, came from the people. “You can own the property but you don’t have control over the sense of community there,” said Connie. “That’s what we’re invested in.”

Responding to the needs and expectation of their neighbors, the Experimental Station has launched numerous programs since the fire, in hopes of serving, equally, the diverse communities around it. Over the years, this commitment has manifested itself in areas of art, culture and politics, through everything from community gardens to places for free legal consultations, to performance spaces for local theater groups. But perhaps the station’s greatest success has come through an unexpected medium: food.

Last Saturday, the 61st Street Farmer’s Market  opened in the lot wedged between Dorchester and Blackstone Avenues. Entering its fourth year, the market announced spring’s arrival with its bounty. Merchants stood at the 61st Street Farmers Market, waiting behind stalls brimming with bright green asparagus, pink rhubarb and the just-red hues of the season’s earliest tomatoes. And in return, spring brought its worst. The day was cold, gray, blustery; the sharp wind constantly knocked over signs and threatened to topple tent poles. The farmers stood and shivered, hoping that their tents wouldn’t fly away. And though there were few customers, the square was filled with the optimism of new beginnings. It was the first farmers market of the season, and the producers were ready and eager to give out free samples.

Fresh, local, organic, free-range; all those words were posted on signs around the market, as they’re posted in farmers markets all over the country. Three words, however, made certain signs stand out: “LINK Accepted Here.”

Those three words make the 61st Street Farmers Market more than just a place to buy produce. They represent the Experimental Station’s goal to help low-income families afford fresh, organic food. In the vegetable stand’s fight against the food desert, they are a call to arms. They are the sign of a new food culture, and for the Experimental Station, food culture is synonymous with community.

The LINK card is the Illinois version of the national Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which replaced the old system of food stamps that was founded in 1939. The actual stamps are gone; those who are eligible now receive money for food electronically on a debit card. Despite the change in method, the essential need for food assistance remains much the same: some estimate that as many as 1 in 8 Americans today rely on SNAP.

When the Experimental Station opened the 61st Street Farmers Market in 2008, it was one of the very few markets in the city to accept LINK cards, and they are now the city’s foremost experts on implementing food stamps in farmers markets. Last year, the Experimental Station helped 5 farmers markets out of the 17 operated by the City of Chicago set up the technology they need to accept Link cards. Spreen called it “the most successful pilot program of its size in the country.” With a $35,000 grant from the Department of Community Development, they bought EBT (Electronic Balance Transfer) machines, the devices that accept LINK cards, paid the transaction fees, and hired someone to oversee the EBTs in all five markets. Incidentally, the man they hired, Corey Chatman, was on the SNAP program until he got his job at the Experimental Station.

According to a USDA blog, Chicago farmers markets earned $28,944 in total revenue from EBT transactions in 2010. In a single day in October, the Daley Plaza market cashed in $1186 in SNAP credits and broke a record in the process.

The financial success of the LINK program in urban farmers markets offers convincing proof that the system is sustainable and is silencing skeptics. This year, ten Chicago farmers markets will accept LINK cards. According to Dennis Ryan, manager of the 61st Street Market, approximately 50 markets across the state offer LINK payment options as well. The Experimental Station has even taken their grassroots work to the level of political advocacy: Ryan co-wrote a bill in the Illinois legislature called the Farmers Market Technology Improvement Program Act (HB-4756), which increased state efforts to make more farmers markets open to people who rely on food subsidies.

At the farmer’s market, Spreen discussed the Experimental Station’s role in making fresh food more accessible in the local community. Sitting at a wooden table in the Station’s large, inviting kitchen, Spreen greeted the various people filtering in and out, who chatted and dropped off boxes.

She explained the Station’s first struggle, in choosing to develop the 61st Street Farmers Market: “You can make food available but not affordable, even on LINK.” So to encourage people to spend their very limited income on fresh produce, the Station implemented the Double Value Incentive program. Thanks to grants from the Wholesome Wave Foundation and the Leo S. Guthman Family Fund, for every purchase a customer makes with his or her LINK card on one market day, the Experimental Station will match up to $25 in credits on the card. Since the market is open every Saturday, that means that someone could get $100-125 worth of free food per month. To put this in perspective, according to the USDA, in 2009 the average SNAP household earned $711 in gross income and received $272 from SNAP per month. The city markets, which are open more frequently, will match $5 per day.

The next logistical issue the program faced was not whether they could provide affordable food for those in need, but whether people would eat it. The answer? Not if they don’t know how to cook. That’s why the farmers market offers cooking demos, and the Experimental Station teaches cooking classes and healthy eating workshops at local schools including the Carnegie and Fiske Elementary Schools, as well as Hyde Park High School.

Of course, one of the best educational tools is the market itself. One of the farmers for the market, Vicki Westerhoff of Genesis Growers, explains, “I feel a large part of what we do is educate members of the community about the value of vegetables and fruits, especially those grown organically and sustainably. We talk about how produce picked at its prime and taken to the market fresh from the field yields higher nutritive value. We also talk about food preparation so people know how to prepare what they buy, and perhaps encourage them to try new vegetables.” And it seems to be working. From 2008 to 2010, the Station has seen a steady increase of shoppers from outside of the University community. This is especially true for Woodlawn residents, who, Ryan says now attend the market with equal frequency as Hyde Parkers.

The Experimental Station doesn’t stop with its 61st Street Market. It has an entire organizational branch devoted to “food culture,” including the market, a community garden, the Woodlawn Buying Club, where residents can buy organic and natural food in bulk, and a wood-fired oven in the Station’s kitchen. It’s all part of the Station’s commitment to building a “food culture” in their community.

“How we grow our food and feed our community affects everything,” Ryan notes. “It impacts our health, our economy, our social interaction with each other. In most cultures around the world, food is the center of everything—family, community, fun. Food should not be a status symbol. Food is the key to life. If we connect our community with the best food available, make it affordable and ensure we all know the value of that food, our communities will thrive.”

But the last several years have dealt several blows to the culture that Peterman, Spreen, and the rest of the community have nurtured, recalling memories of the hard times our of which the Station was born. In an unfortunate series of events, the University demolished the 61st Street Garden to lay the foundations for the new Chicago Theological Seminary building, a trailer caught fire on their property in August, and then Backstory Café—the Station’s social center, which served homemade, organic soups, sandwiches, and pastries—closed abruptly, citing a shortage of money and “entrepreneurial energy.”

But as time has shown, the energy that has sustained the Experimental Station will again be renewed. After it was razed, the 61st Street Community Garden moved one block over to 62nd and volunteers got back to work. And the buzz that surrounded the popular brunch spot Backstory Café will likely be transferred to the raw, vegetarian café, B’Gabs Goodies, which will soon open in its place. The Experimental Station has not only fed the community, but has also fed a kind of community that will outlast any of its programs or structures. It’s not the kind of place to pack up and leave.

Courtesy of Mohamed Sharif*

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McCormick Place East is in a difficult position. The building’s opaque rectangular faces emphasize its awkward, ominous beauty and its massive overhanging roof gestures towards its peculiar environment. Immediately before its northern façade stand some of Chicago’s greatest cultural landmarks, and one of the most lauded skylines in the world arises to the west. Just beyond the parking lot, miles of uninterrupted green space unfold from its southern elevation, packed with runners, picnickers, and tourists. In 1836 it was mandated that the lakeshore would be “forever open, clear, and free,” but McCormick Place East violated this promise. To the east, waves on Lake Michigan break on the outer edge of Northerly Island, a reminder of the once natural state of the building’s site.

For forty years, the imposing edifice of McCormick Place East has loomed in this context. But now, amid concerns of structural problems and inadequacy as an event center, the future of the structure is now in question. For the architects, environmentalists, politicians, and everyday people who have long disputed the building’s merits, the chance to decide what will become of the exhibition space has been a long time coming.

The first iteration of McCormick Place was a source of contention from the moment the foundation was laid in 1960. Chicago’s first permanent exhibition hall, the original McCormick Place aggravated tensions between those in the convention business and the Near South Side residents living nearby. Robert McCormick, the Chicago Tribune editor for whom the convention center is named, was the biggest advocate for the building’s Chicago lakefront location. Using his wealth and influence, McCormick, nearly single-handedly, pushed the issue with politicians and civic groups.

McCormick died in 1955, before he could ever see his dream of a Chicago conference center realized. His campaign was taken up by other Tribune figures, including longtime editor George Tagge, who combated both Chicago Park District Board officials concerned for the lakeshore and other interest groups attempting to slow the project’s progress. In his memoir, Tagge remembers the Tribune’s influence on the the development, as its major opposition. “It was a controversy of major size…the basic rock-hard opponents, if they could get nothing else, they sought to delay, delay, delay, delay because if it was delayed long enough the millions of dollars piling up in the State Treasury would, over a period of years, find some other outlet,” notes Tagge. “The Exposition Authority was essentially under our control…One of the main battlegrounds was of course the Chicago Park District Board itself. They had to make available the requested 40 acres of land with all kinds of hell breaking loose around them…And horror of horrors that [McCormick’s] widow…Marilyn McCormick was aiding the objectors. She had been quietly enlisted by the people protecting the lakefront.”

Despite the host of detractors, and perhaps with some degree of coercion by the building’s main champions, the hall was ultimately constructed in 1960. The original building, just as massive and rectangular as the modern version, was constructed primarily of steel, with stark concrete faces interrupting the formerly unadulterated view of the lake—much to the chagrin of those in favor of maintaining an open lakeshore. When the building burned down just seven years later, critics and open space advocates had barely begun to dream up alternative locations before Richard J. Daley had settled on the construction of a new convention center to be built atop the ashes of its predecessor.

The task of designing the structure was given to Gene Summers, a former associate of Mies van der Rohe, the Chicago-based legendary pioneer of minimalist architecture. The new hall was erected in just a few months in1971, primarily thanks to the massive amounts of money funneled into the project from cigarette and horse-racing taxes via the creation of the Metropolitan Fair and Exposition Reconstruction Fund. Stylistically a far cry from the its forerunner, the concrete monolith, the second, and current, McCormick structure is a gargantuan column-less exhibition space enclosed by glass and steel.  An undeniably commanding meditation on postmodernism and a reflection of Chicago’s architectural heritage, the austere structure was once the most sought after exhibition site in the nation.

But according to the Metropolitan Pier and Exhibition Authority, the building is now in need of 150 million dollars worth of repairs and systems upgrades. Complaints against the current space range from routine maintenance to systemic updates needed to stay competitive against rising event destinations like Orlando and Las Vegas. In December 2009, the Sun Times reported a $36,000 difference in the cost of electricity for one booth at one trade show between Chicago and Las Vegas. This is just one of many reported incidences of price gouging due in part to the building’s structure, as well as the unions that maintain it. And though McCormick Place’s four interconnected buildings still make up one of the largest convention centers in the U.S., the East building itself may no longer be able to maintain its attractiveness as a conference location, considering its relatively small size and the recent overturn of labor law reforms that had enabled low operational costs and attracted conventions to the lakeside center. Furthermore, by virtue of its location and size alone, the structure is considered to be an environmental blight by many Near South Side residents for interrupting the once open lakeshore, with some calling for outright demolition. Mayor Richard M. Daley has been a strong detractor as well, echoing that McCormick Place East ruins the city’s skyline. During a press conference in December 2009, he commented, interestingly addressing both the price controversy, and the physical state of the buiilding, “You have to get away from gouging people. If you gouge ‘em, they’re not going to come back.”

With these concerns bearing down on McCormick, it seems that change is on the horizon. Precisely what that change will be, however, is still very much unclear. Like the pre-1971 building, the current structure has drawn a lot of flak, though many Chicagoans stand by its architectural value. As current problems with the state of the building and the rising costs of the space worsen, the Chicago Architectural Club (CAC) has taken up the task of stimulating debate about what should become of the deteriorating exhibition hall.

Along with the American Institute of Architects Chicago (AIA) and Landmarks Illinois, the CAC elected to use its Burnham Prize competition this year as a forum to decide the theoretical fate of McCormick Place East. An “international ideas competition,” one of the oldest and most prestigious of its type, this year’s Burnham Prize was intended to initiate a candid conversation about the building not just among architects and those in the events business, but anybody with a vision for McCormick’s future. “We’ve usually tried to choose a topic that was provocative or on the table, to try to start some new conversation on the issues,” said CAC president Tim Brown. “We tried to write a proposition that would elicit designs from all kinds of people, from landscape design and policy people, to firms with a dog in the fight.”

On Saturday, April 16th, a panel of nine architects shuffled about the airy interior of the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Crown Hall (a Mies van der Rohe modernist masterpiece), meticulously examining the anonymous submissions and flagging those that seemed worthy of the $3,000 top prize. The nearly 50 designs varied radically in their trajectories and underlying messages, and ranged from a “Chicago Speedway” racetrack to a floating stadium. But among the eighteen selected as the most “provocative” by the judges, there seemed to be a shared recognition of McCormick Place East’s fall from grace. As it stands today, McCormick Place East is ultimately a symbol of decay despite its undeniable aesthetic power and history. The commonality is interesting, especially considering that many of the designs were submitted from firms based abroad.

However, the winning proposals suggest strikingly different interpretations of how the building should be used. In third place, the “Horto in Urbs” design by San Francisco-based architects Matt Hutchinson and Brandon Pace posits turning McCormick into an open-plan indoor forest, with an aviary roof intended to “synthesize natural habitat and architectural ambition.” Slovenian competitor Srdan Nad’s “McCormick Square” design, which incorporates a shopping mall and Barack Obama’s presidential library into the current structure, took second place. After viewing Nad’s proposal, one judge remarked, “That’s not going to save the building.” Another, more appreciative judge lamented, “Why can’t we just have a tie?”

The first-place proposal, Mohamed Sharif, Felix Monasakanian, Efren Soriano’s “(Toward) a Requiem” is the most visually arresting and poetically moving submission. Intriguingly, this Los Angeles based group has a strong tie to Chicago—Mohamed Sharif studied architecture as an exchange student at the Illinois Institute of Technology, on the very campus where the judging took place. The group’s plan proposes stripping McCormick Place East down to its bare steel structure and allowing lake water to flow into the convention center floor, thereby allowing it to realize its “[longing] for an elegant and graceful end” by “becoming waterborne.” Essentially a proposal to turn the building into a testament to its former vanity by obscuring its function as an austere exhibition space, “(Toward) a Requiem” was undoubtedly the most poignant submission. “For a competition, it’s all about the visual image,” one judge commented. And though the panel was concerned with the fate of the space, the judge explained, “We’re not looking for a solution, and [Sharif, Monasakanian and Soriano’s design] has the most powerful idea and attitude.”

What is the purpose of an architectural competition that was not intended to generate viable practical answers to McCormick’s dilemma? Some dismiss the competition as a mere intellectual exercise or far-flung dream. The day after the competition was announced, Metropolitan Pier and Exhibition Authority trustee James Reilly sent an email to Chicago Tribune architectural writer Blair Kamin, stating, “Unless someone wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to replicate that space somewhere else on the campus, we will have to keep the building, at least the top part of it, in the trade show business.”

If it’s purely a money issue that’s stalling the transformation of McCormick Place East, however, good news may be in store for those hoping to change the colossus that dominates the lakeside. On April 26, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority transferred all operations at McCormick Place to SMG Management Inc., the same company that operates Soldier Field. And whether or not this change will have any bearing on actual plans to modify McCormick Place East, those in the design community are nonetheless determined to keep imagining. Tim Brown, for one, is currently working on a plan to turn the building into a “climate-tempered, year-round, indoor winter garden; a very strange indoor park.” Perhaps these wacky visions of McCormick Place East are exactly what the building needs: in their eccentricity, the proposals open up the possibility of real, meaningful change.

And though Tim Brown and the Burnham Prize competitors all seek to mitigate past wrongs without destroying an artistically significant structure, their shared aim is neither a self-serving ambition nor an act of reactionary damage control. Constructed with Chicago’s financial growth in mind, McCormick Place East has, according to one of the design proposals, long been a sign of “money mattering more than people.” In bringing this issue to the forefront now, the Burnham Prize competition poses the question to Chicago: how should this structure, space, and extraordinary location work for you? Though this call for renovation has yet to be heard, there is only really one way to keep the possibility alive. As AIA executive vice president Zurich Esposito puts it, “We’re not responding to a crisis here, but that’s all the more reason to have a dialogue now. Be prepared for the ‘what if’. That’s what this discussion is about.”

*Mohamed Sharif is a member of the faculty at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).

Sophia Anastazievsky

“It’s like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory—it keeps going and going and going…there are a lot of crazy things going on here and we’re one of them.” This is how Samuel Edwin Evans, cofounder of the New Chicago Brewing Company, describes his work. Started by Samuel and his brother Jesse, the brewery, which is currently under construction, will soon occupy 13,000 sq. ft. of the Peer Foods Building in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. In this post-Goose Island buyout world, the brewery aims to utilize innovative and sustainable brewing practices to create a beer unique to Chicago.

Like most brewers, the Evans brothers started off brewing in their backyard. According to Samuel, “when you’re a home brewer, you have a lot more free reign over the process.” Eventually, the brothers began working with an independent brewery in Oakland, California; the company had a contract with Whole Foods that provided aid with distribution throughout California. There, the Evans brothers became familiar with sustainable brewing methods, and they decided to leave Oakland for their home city, Chicago.

The brewery will become the latest chapter in a lengthy heritage of Chicago-made industry. The triangular plot of land at 1400 W. 46th Street that the Brewery’s will call home is situated in what were once Chicago’s bustling stockyards. Formerly known as Whiskey Point, this region was made infamous in Upton Sinclair’s 1906 exposé, “The Jungle.” The Buehler Brothers Meat Market opened a packing facility here in 1925. In 1944, the building was renamed the Peer Foods Building, when the Buehler Brothers began selling more than just meat from the location, expanding operations to include such zany products as Spanish olives and pie dough. In its latest manifestation, The Peer Foods Building is striving for sustainability—a complete divergence from its past inhabitants. In 2010, the space was purchased by Bubbly Dynamics LLC, renamed “The Plant,” and converted into a sustainable, off-the-grid, vertically integrated operation. A full production farm, sustainable food businesses, a community kitchen, and educational facilities currently share the space.

In keeping with their mission of sustainability, New Chicago Brewing plans to be a true local beer. Their ingredients are not only from within Chicago, but many are from within their own building. Another business in the building grows the hops that are to be used in New Chicago’s beer—brewed in a “hoppy” West Coast style. Other ingredients come from local family farms and community gardens. New Chicago looks to talent, ingredients, and volunteers to create their product, which in turn will be distributed locally in order to keep the profit as well as the labor local.

The New Chicago Brewing Company will be a full-scale production brewery. In its first year it plans to produce a whopping 1,000,000 22oz bottles. The Evans brothers knew that they planned to brew sustainably when they moved to Chicago, but it was not until they found the Peer Foods location that they decided on a larger-scale production.

“The neat thing is the way we get out energy and use waste here,” says Samuel.  A brewery of this size produces 1 ton of spent grain a week, which at normal breweries is simply trucked off to a landfill. At the Plant, however, the grain is treated with bacteria to create a natural gas, which runs a turbine that powers the building. New Chicago’s mission is one of sustainability—of handling waste and creating power from byproducts that would otherwise become an ecological problem. “The only thing that leaves the brewery is the beer itself,” says Samuel.

New Chicago plans to send out its first shipment of beer on March 4th, 2012—the 175th anniversary of Chicago’s inception in 1873. On Saturday, May 5th, they held their second open house, attended by 400 local students and community members who came to see the innovative recycling methods in action. What they are doing is a new combination of processes that have been practiced on a smaller scale, and that often have been discreet from one another. Samuel explained that, “Some breweries are doing parts of our process—but no one does all of these things.”

Ironically, the northern corner of the Plant’s land has a deed that prohibits the sale of alcohol, a throwback to the early 20th century, before Prohibition, to a space that was designated by religious forces as alcohol-free. In keeping with tradition, no beer will be brewed in that part of the property, as it will serve as the facility’s parking lot.