Hyde Park Heroes: Joseph Kelly, Kevin McVey, Carole E. Cooper

Spirit of Hyde Park Progress Slays Establishment Monster
in Tripped Out Landscape

We thought the image above was appropriate in the context of this week's reassuring batch of op-ed letters that not only express impatience with the Co-op, but are just generally tripped-out.

Joseph Kelly, for example, takes movement politics to a new level: on September 9, we are told, he joined together in a protest "to restore the former Marshall Field's store." That had to be a sight to see, and we're sorry the Herald didn't have a photographer there on the spot. Such a photo essay would easily have trumped the Herald's front-page headline, "Flies close Caffe Florian." We're thinking of recruiting Mr. Kelly, as he is apparently on a one-man campaign to "get retail stores from outside Hyde Park [are there any others?] to provide services to residents."

Viva la revolucion!

But at least the guy has some vision, which is more than can be said for the apparatchiks at the Hyde Park Department of Alternative Plans, who seem strangely devoid of ideas of their own. Why not take the former Goldblatt's on 47th and Ashland, slap the "Marshall Field's" name brand on the marquee, and turn it into Harper Court West? This guy is someone to watch.

Kevin McVey brings things back down to earth by questioning the University's willingness to be the lender of last resort to purveyors of "smelly meat and fish," and notes the number of neighbors spotted on frequent smuggling runs across the frontier to the contraband entrepots found in the Outside Northern World.

Carole E. Cooper, however, gets this week's Hyde Park Hero prize for her spirited rallying cry to finally slay the Great White Elephant that languishes at 55th and Lake Park. "The neighborhood is waiting with baited breath for Hyde Park produce to move into the old Mr. G's location, but that seems to be stuck on stupid [sic]...what is the problem?"

We can think of no better way to end this edition of Hyde Park Heroes than in the stirring words of Ms. Cooper herself: "Stop scapegoating, admit defeat, surrender, raise the white flag, give up and move out of the way for a market that can give you real progress, clearly this dog can't hunt!" Let's find one who can -- like Saint George -- help slay the dragon.