Hairston Fail #1: The Point Collapse

posted by chicago pop

HAIRSTON FAIL #1:

Early in her tenure, Fifth Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston lost control of negotiations over the repair of a crucial and decaying stretch of lakefront, and ultimately lost $24 million in federal funding to fix it. Her lack of leadership led to the eventual rejection of the Compromise Plan of 2003 -- the best chance for a solution that met the demands of modern engineering and reasonable community input. Hairston was intimidated by a vocal group of activists and the plan was dropped in 2005.

Since then, funding has evaporated.

The lake shore revetment that surrounds what Hyde Parkers affectionately refer to as "The Point" is rotting. Every winter it is hammered by ferocious waves so that its once level and tiered limestone blocks (ca. 1920s-1930s) sink in a ragged jumble even further into Lake Michigan, and the steel and timber crib that originally held them all together juts out ever more visibly. The soil of Promontory Point itself is slowly eroding around the edges.

This is not how Promontory Point was intended to be. It may look nice from a distance and in fuzzy watercolor paintings, but it is incontrovertibly and dangerously dilapidated. It must be rebuilt. Its current condition is a danger to public safety, a disgrace to the Chicago Park District, and the fact that it was not fixed in the early 2000's is the most conspicuous HAIRSTON FAIL.

"Stimulate" the Promontory Point Repair!

Posted by Elizabeth Fama

Point Decay as of October, 2009.

I was at a dinner party last weekend with a woman who just happened to be a former Director of Lakefront Operations at the Chicago Park District (she's now the director of a non-profit). Naturally we got to talking about Promontory Point, and she expressed without solicitation the same opinion I've had about the Point for years: Hyde Parkers have bickered and stalled and obstructed so long that the funding has disappeared, and one of these fine days Mayor Daley will shut it down and build whatever the heck he wants there, for our own safety.

Mayor Daley finds Hyde Parkers a nuisance at worst, and may in fact find us amusing. After Meigs got carved up with big, bulldozed X's on my birthday in 2003, it dawned on me that the very same strategy would work at the Point: ignore our silly local controversy until 1. someone is injured or killed at the Point, or 2. enough erosion has occurred to declare it a hazard to people (shhh, that's already happened) and a flood risk to Lake Shore Drive (less of a worry but more important to the Army Corps of Engineers). And after Daley barricades it, it's not likely that the Army Corps will build the Compromise Plan, with its two deep-water swimming access sites, and re-use of the existing limestone. That's an expensive plan that we were darned lucky to be granted (and to help design) the first time, during an economic boom, and my dinner companion said the lakefront funds are gone now.

So I whined to her, "But our hands are tied! We're being forced to wait for 'Senator' Obama's 3rd-party review process." And then she said something absolutely brilliant, that had not occurred to me because I secretly disapprove of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. She said, "Someone should go after stimulus dollars to build the Compromise Plan. It's shovel-ready, isn't it?"

And yes, if we're lucky, it may well be. I believe the engineering plan was one of those "35%-complete" plans (or whatever percentage indicates it can be signed-off for construction).

But how could we achieve this? Who could do it? Alderman Hairston? Could she simply say to now-President Obama, "Screw the 3rd-party process that never got off the ground, I'm approving the Compromise Plan"? Could she persuade Daley to aggressively solicit ARRA funds for the Compromise Plan, with her blessing?

It would be a bold move. Too bold for her, I fear.

No, the outcome that seems more and more certain, given the level of decay at the Point, the non-existence of the 3rd-party review, and the lack of decisiveness of our alderman, is that we'll have no say in what gets built there.

FIX THE POINT

posted by Elizabeth Fama

In the late spring a young woman's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of...swimming.

But if you want to swim at the Point, you'll have to do it illegally and at one of these three treacherous swimming access spots.

Now, it may have been a while since you've actually walked the promenade all the way around (and in some places it's physically impossible), so I've prepared this helpful slide show: A Walking Tour of the Point's Deterioration. Click on fama.elizabeth's Public Gallery, and then choose "slideshow." It will take you only 90 seconds to view it, and it will bring you up to snuff on just how bad the Point is getting.

It's time for us to demand The Compromise Plan, and the sanctioned deep-water swimming that goes along with it.

And don't forget to write to me if you want a free FIX THE POINT bumper sticker. They're all the rage.

fama.elizabeth{at}gmail.com

Federal Earmarks Include Promontory Point

posted by Elizabeth Fama

There was an interesting nugget you might have missed in the Tribune last week -- a piece of news that's pertinent to Hyde Park. It was about the earmarks slated for Illinois in the $410 billion Federal spending package approved on Monday, March 16, by the Senate. (There's a detailed breakdown of all the Illinois pork here.)

Apparently, four million dollars will go to the City of Chicago's Shoreline Project "for reconstruction consistent with a Project Cooperation Agreement" (which probably refers to the Memorandum of Agreement between the City, Park District, and Army Corps of Engineers).

The interesting take for me on this bit of news is: what the heck will $4 million cover? It'll fund maybe one study and one community meeting, that's what. Do you think that's what they intended the money for? Is it going to cover Horace Foxall's third-party review?

The erosion of soil under a section of revetment (seen at the top of this post) likely weakened the root structure of this tree at Promontory Point.

To get a better perspective on how insignificant four million dollars is, consider this: the Shoreline Project covers eight miles. Of these eight, 5.8 miles are completed. So far the total bill has been $354 million. Of that total, $192 million were Federal dollars.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the construction costs are the same (meaning no fancy limestone or nothin') to fix the remaining shoreline, the Feds would have to kick in $72.8 million, and the City would have to contribute $61.5 million. With numbers like those, four million is a rounding error.

(I just threw this one in to remind you how sweet it is that it's spring.)

A Conversation about Promontory Point with Horace Foxall

posted by Elizabeth Fama

An excavator adjusts drainage and installs stone toe at 57th Street Beach, 11/13/08.

It's frustrating that the only news we hear about Promontory Point is from the Hyde Park Herald, because the articles are often replete with inaccuracies, and the information in them is doled out to reporters almost exclusively by the "Save the Point" group.

So I sent an e-mail to Horace H. Foxall, Jr. -- the Seattle Army Corps architect who will be in charge of former-Senator Obama's "third-party review" -- to see what the real status of the Point is. I was surprised and delighted that he took the time to phone me on November 17 for a long conversation. From that talk, I can indeed confirm Don Lamb's impression (Herald, June 25, 2008) that Mr. Foxall seems to be a "super, super guy" -- a super guy with a worthy resume who is, for the moment, not as informed as I'd hoped about this project, its history, and what the Army Corps and community have already endured to create the perfectly satisfactory Compromise Plan. I'm sure Mr. Foxall will tool up, but in the meantime we'll waste gobs of time, gobs of money, and we'll risk the safety of anyone who spends time on the revetment -- all before one piece of heavy machinery is delivered to the site.

"Nothing much is happening on the third-party review."

Mr. Foxall said there is no authorization for him to proceed. He was asked by Obama's office to write up a "Scope of Project," describing how his team will come up with a design alternative, which he did. Obama's staff sent this through the proper government channels, where it's stalled, waiting for money. Here's the holdup: "continuing resolutions" have passed in D.C., but not the real budget. This means that only projects that were already funded and in place under the last budget receive money. Once the new budget is passed, Mr. Foxall guesses that the money for his third-party review will be appropriated in the Civil Works Budget, under the Rivers and Harbors Act.

"Figure out the players and get together in one room."

We've heard from the "Save the Point" group that Mr. Foxall plans to have an unusually inclusive charette (a collaborative design session), and he confirmed this. He intends to "invite all the players to roll up their sleeves, and ask each other what we're trying to achieve." He wants to divide the area into smaller square-foot sections and ask at each location, "What activities would we like to see there?" When I asked him to clarify whether he meant recreational activities or construction activities he said, "Both." Among the players he mentioned: the City, the Illinois Historic Agency, local historic agencies, preservationists, and community members." I said, "Can someone from our blog come?" and he said, "Everyone who has a stake in this can come."

"The Army Corps proposed an engineering design, not a cultural or historical one."

Mr. Foxall said he had walked the area of the Point and had taken pictures. He summed up the history of the Point's shoreline controversy this way: "The Army Corps proposed an engineering design without taking the space into account, the uses of the area, and the history. It was an engineering answer, not a cultural or historical one." He said the plan proposed by the Army Corps had "neglected Burnham's original intent." I thought he must have been mistakenly referring to the oldest design proposal of 2000 (i.e. the section built between 51st Street and 54th Street) because the Compromise Plan does take the existing recreation, scale, and materials into account, and it was approved by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. He seemed unfamiliar with the term "Compromise Plan," but said he had seen a plan from the City "as of two years ago." He went on to argue that his photos -- especially of the new construction along the 57th Street Beach (see image above), which, he said, "demonstrates the idea of concrete decorated with limestone"-- proved to him that Burnham's vision had been neglected. It seemed that he was allowing himself to be influenced by the two new sections north and south of the Point...neither of which was built with community input, and neither of which resembles the Compromise Plan.

"I'd like to make it a wonderful place to be."

Mr. Foxall's goal is to think of what activities the Point could have, and implement them in the design. For instance, he said that the beautiful views of downtown were inaccessible to handicapped people under the current design. I wanted to point out, but didn't, that the Compromise Plan does allow wheelchairs on the entire promenade level (although it's true that the entry ramp is on the south side). What I did say is that swimming access at the Point was not built into the 1930s revetment, and that by agreeing we want to arrange for all recreational uses and include handicapped access, we're already conceding that we have to give up some of Burnham's original design.

"Like putting Cadillac parts on a Ford."

He said the concrete was the wrong color for the shoreline. "Nothing is gray on the shore, it's all natural browns. The concrete will turn black." He wants the colors of the materials used to match what's already at the Point, and to match "the building [the field house] that's there."

"Two or three alternative designs."

His process, after the money comes through, will be:

(1) arrange the charette

• look into options for materials
  
• look at uses for the space, keeping the historic and cultural qualities in place

(2) send the resulting list of desired design features to the Buffalo District Army Corps, where engineers will design "two or three alternative plans that also take into account the science -- the hydraulics, the wave action, the weather, etc."

(3) price the alternatives and choose one.

"A multi-disciplined team."

His team will include:

(1) him (he is an architect by training, with a strong historic preservation background)

(2) a landscape architect -- "to preserve the viewshed"

(3) an architectural historian

(4) a hydraulic engineer.

"45 to 60 days, depending on how fast the Buffalo team is."

I made him guess at a timetable from the moment the money comes through:

(1) one week for the charette and design list

(2) 30-45 days for Buffalo to come up with two or three "60-65%" design alternatives

(3) 2-3 days of meetings to choose between them

Total: 45-60 days.

Conclusion

I came away from the conversation with this overall impression: Mr. Foxall is a bright guy who is proud of his experience working with communities (e.g. New Orleans after Katrina), and self-assured about his role in this project. He sees his job as starting from scratch; that is, to push aside all previous plans and start over completely: to look at what recreational activities and viewsheds the space can offer, and design something "culturally and historically appropriate."

I also came away with this prediction: Mr. Foxall will create his wish list for the Point. The Buffalo engineers, constrained by a (possibly dwindling) shoreline budget and by structural considerations, won't be able to do any better than the Compromise Plan -- a concrete-and-steel base with limestone blocks as revetment steps and decoration. Nonetheless, the "Save the Point" group will heroically accept Mr. Foxall's plan as a "preservation" plan. It will get built, but a decade will have passed since the Compromise Plan was presented, and millions of dollars will have been poured down the usual Hyde Park Obstructionist Hole.


Let's just hope that no one is seriously hurt at the Point between now and then. If that happens, the cost of this heroic obstructionism by the "Save the Point" group will be immeasurable.

Let's Go Spelunking at Promontory Point!

posted by Elizabeth Fama

I mentioned in my previous post that the Promontory Point revetment is becoming dangerous in many sections, and it's my guess that the City gives a few tickets to swimmers every year just to protect itself against future liability lawsuits if (or when) someone is seriously hurt or killed.

If you haven't walked along the promenade and examined the erosion of the revetment from top to bottom, as I've suggested in the past, you might be surprised to see how far it has deteriorated in many sections. Let's explore one of those sections in detail...

There are currently two (accidental, unsanctioned) water access sites on the north side of Promontory Point, and this is one of them:

You can just make out a cave in the revetment steps in the background of this photo (look for the black hole, surrounded by shrub-like weeds, just above and left of center).

This is a view of that caved-in section, from the water:


The promenade is completely gone. And can you see the two side-by-side limestone blocks in the stepped revetment behind it that are seemingly balanced on nothing (again, above and left of center)? Well, here's the view just to the right of those two "suspended" blocks:



Now here's a photo of the cave under the two blocks, to the left:

A small child could fit in here. But I don't recommend taking your kids along this section of the Point. To tell you the truth, my own kids were annoyed (in that lovingly protective way they have) that I was teetering on the lack-of-promenade, taking these photos.

Doesn't anyone want a free Fix the Point bumper sticker?

Hyde Park Herald Gets Uppity Over Promontory Point Swimming Ban

posted by Elizabeth Fama

Rogue swimmer, scofflaw, repeat offender

The Herald's fiery, retro-anti-establishment editorial was, to quote the very frank C-Pop, "A doozy." The editor's tirade over the City of Chicago enforcing the no-swimming ban at the Point is laughable, given that the Herald was instrumental in rejecting the Compromise Plan, which included sanctioned deep-water swimming. As the mouthpiece for the Save the Point group, the Herald has helped to stall the re-building of the Point for seven years. I'm sorry, but it was the original (2001) Task Force for Promontory Point that won swimming rights in the Compromise Plan, not the Holy Point Savers, who have been heard to say they'd sacrifice swimming for aesthetics if the Preservation Gods required it.

And don't get me started on Crystal Fencke's Page One story about Fabio Grego's ticket from the police. She didn't learn a thing from HPP's blow-by-blow dismantling of her previous, inaccurate Point article: she's still dutifully calling the Compromise Plan a "demolition," "concrete-and-steel" plan, even though it reuses all of the existing limestone blocks, and even though any plan will require the revetment to be completely dismantled before it's re-built. But given that her own editor is misleading his readers by pointing to the "monstrosity" between 51st and 54th Street as the design the Point Savers are fighting against, I shouldn't be surprised.

Now on to the Letters-to-the-Editor section, and the strange notion prevalent there that "We've always swum here" somehow means the City shouldn't enforce the law. If only these folks would campaign instead for the Compromise Plan. If people who are passionate about swimming at the Point had been involved all along, we might even have been able to modify the Compromise Plan to include sanctioned swimming on both the north and the south side (currently it's only slated for the south side, although both sides will have the same water-access design).

Finally, I have to just say it outright: the Point has become dangerous. Most of you know I love the place with every cell in my body. But I totally understand the City's quandary: it needs to give out a few tickets every year, just so that when someone is killed or seriously injured, Mara Georges, the City's top lawyer, can say, "Whoa! We've never allowed swimming there! Look at these tickets!"

In that sense, Mr. Grego can consider himself to be the most recent sacrifice to the Point Savers' Gods of Preservation.

Herald's Chicken: Herald Headline Contradicts Article; Sharonjoy Declares Self Empress of East Hyde Park Shrubbery, etc.

posted by chicago pop

Herald's Chicken: Making Obama Proud

After Elizabeth Fama deconstructed Crystal Fencke's article on Point preservation in the June 25 Hyde Park Herald, I've scanned the following two issues looking for any sign of editorial corrections. Most newspapers issue corrections every day. The Herald has plenty of time to accumulate them, and they would certainly help fill up space in the absence of news, but I haven't found any.

Based on Fama's critique of Fencke's "Learning the Latest about Promontory Point's Rescue", I counted 3 outright factual errors (such as: "The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency stopped the project"), and at least 3 uncorroborated assertions. Any real reporting would have dug into the controversy on the issue and attempted to present the different sides of the story.

Of course this requires work, and it's much easier to flip through the Rolodex, call the same three people that you always talk to, and crank out obviously slanted lines like "the community didn't accept this 'concreting over' of the sensitive historic site", which gives a journalistic foot massage to the assembled members of the Executive Committee of the Community Task Force for Promontory Point.

So I was not at all surprised when I read this week's Fencke piece, "Hyde Park farmers market in full swing", and noticed that the content of the article contradicted the headline.

"In full swing" suggests going at full capacity, a great success, can't be stopped, all pistons firing, look out we're going to run you over. Read on and you learn that "vendors have been wrapping up their weekly Thursday visits at about 12:30...rather than the 2PM time listed on the city of Chicago website."

And again: "Of the more than 20 such seasonal markets around the city, it seems that the market in Hyde Park is slow to catch on with the public this year."

Full swing. Got it.

On a more reassuring note, Sharonjoy A. Jackson, in a letter to the July 9 edition, declares herself Empress of East Hyde Park Shrubbery, and has recognized select Park District employees as her worthy vassals.

As with the Point Savers, in keeping with a certain law of local activism, bureaucratic elephantitis presents itself whenever the membership of a neighborhood group shrinks below the number of letters in the name of their organization, resulting in snappy titles such as "The Steering Committee Members of the Lakefront Task Force for Hyde Park."

A worthy tid-bit:

Yesterday, and today, many trees and bushes are being planted in, and around, the Promontory Annex, in response to the many trees felled by strong wind sheers [sic] and storms for the past two years or more.

So, in the spirit of Sharonjoy's New Imperial Syntax, I'll sign off by remarking that yesterday, but not today, I went to Summer Dance, which was at, and in, 63rd Street Beach House, where I danced around, and about, to the Willie Gomez con Cache Orchestra, and enjoyed myself both at the time, and in reflection.

Herald's Chicken: Point Savers Enforce Swimming Ban

posted by Peter Rossi

Chicago Police are beefing up efforts to harass swimmers off of Promontory Point as part of a team effort with the Save the Point Task Force on preservation.

"The historic revetment is a 'living museum' and should not be sullied by these brazen swimmers," huffed Point Saver Spokesman Leon Lame-Brain. 

"Since May 2001, the evil Park District has offered to sanction deep water swimming off of the Point. We saw this ploy for what it is: an attempt to make the Point a usable park. We have rejected these plans out of hand for some time now,"  continued Mr. Lame-Brain.

Other preservationists on the task force questioned the political orientation of the swimming community.  "Swimming is a sport of the upper class.  Some of the swimmers have disturbing foreign accents.  We have even heard that professors and students at the elitist University of Chicago like to swim off the Point.  We are the arbiters of acceptable activities at the Point,"  commented one task force member who wished to remain anonymous. 

"Bicycling is a pursuit more suitable for the people," commented another task force member, mounting a new titanium road bike.

Task force members have teamed up with police to report swimmers.  "Not since the 68 convention has the Chicago Police Force distinguished itself with such a level of community service,"  declared task force president Don Veal.

"We have successfully delayed sanctioned swimming at the Point for more than eight years and intend to keep this unlawful activity out of our park forever.  This will require eternal vigilance," observed Mr. Veal.

Other members of the task force were not as optimistic. "We are concerned that the users of the Point may come to their senses and push for acceptance of the Compromise Plan.  This diabolical plan would allow for swimming, fix the Point, and restore the Caldwell landscaping.  We plan on redoubling our efforts to misrepresent the facts and dupe our elected officials," whispered Ms. Constance White-Nimby, task force co-chair.

While there is no evidence that Point Savers are calling in the Chicago Police, it is a fact that this group has fought plans by the Park District to fix the Point and create a sanctioned deep-water swimming area since May of 2001.  Sanctioned deep-water swimming and water access has been in every plan proposed by the City since May 2001.

Save the Point = Cavity Search for Grandma

posted by chicago pop

Here's a question: what's the best way to get everyone's grandma a cavity search, courtesy of the Chicago Police Department, at Promontory Point?

Ask Jack Spicer or Don Lamb and anyone else on the poetically titled Executive Committee of the Community Task Force for Promontory Point. Because if weren't for them, everyone would have safe, legal swimming at the Point. Right now. Instead, on the Spicer/Lamb watch, the Point has become still more of a deathtrap, and the only real surprises are that no one has died yet, and that the CPD hasn't brought in more paddy wagons to cart away all the scofflaws.

The unwieldy and Kakanian title of our protecting Committee of pustchists attests to a sort of bureaucratic "short guy syndrome": the less of an argument you got, the longer you make the name of your committee. But the fact is, the Executive Committee of the Community Task Force for Promontory Point was offered everything in the Compromise Plan, and walked away back in 2005. Hyde Park's Sharm el Sheik, with its own Yassir Arafat -- in Birkenstocks instead of a keffiyeh.

In the years since this failure of leadership, the Point has become even more of an obvious safety hazard, more swimming grandmas have been ticketed, the clock is only ticking until someone dies on the broken rocks and exposed pilings, and now millions of taxpayer dollars for a "third party" study are going to be spent to essentially determine what we already know: that we need to Fix the Point. Using concrete and steel with limestone frosting.

But what the Army Corps folks who are doing the study (different Army Corps folks, guys from Buffalo, who somehow will have a different paradigm of revetment engineering) stand a chance of not concluding is what all the parties except the Executive Committee of the Community Task Force for Promontory Point were willing to accept in the Compromise Plan of 2003: reuse of all of the existing limestone, and legal, safe, ADA-compliant swimming access to the Lake.

But blowing through other people's money while you try to sort out your own problems is a classic Hyde Park tradition. We saw it up close with the Co-Op, and now we're seeing a gleeful example from representatives of the Executive Committee of the Community Task Force for Promontory Point and their hopes that a Federally funded, taxpayer subsidized study will relieve them of the need to realize how badly they screwed up.

Meanwhile, brainwashing missives worthy of the Myanmar junta, or even its elder Chinese cousin, continue to appear in the Herald, a journalistic zoo where facts roam unchecked, reminding us that the "rescue" and "preservation" of the Point are "in view," and suggesting that the Demolition-Clique, in a secret conspiracy with the exiled Concrete Cartels, had barges offshore ready to dump cement all over, and would have done so, were it not for the vigilance and stewardship of the Executives of our Community and their Committee.

If lack of legal swimming access is what the Herald and all the local grandmas are upset about, then there's clearly a local problem with recent historical memory, and the capacity to put 2 and 2 together. Certainly our local paper isn't helping. Because by now, as should be well-known, we could have had legal, safe, and ADA compliant swimming access, with all the old limestone to look nice, and all the concrete you need to keep Lake Michigan from eating the landfill. Had not the local practice of activism-as-performance-art prevailed.

Herald editors and disconcerted swimming grandmas should refresh their memories, and check to see if they ever put one of those "Save the Point" stickers on the bumper of their car.

Because, if they did, then they're getting what they asked for. Which is the latex finger of the CPD uncomfortably inserted where the sun don't shine.

Promontory Point Update: or Rebutting the Herald...Again.

posted by Elizabeth Fama

Mysteriously tucked away in the Real Estate Guide of this week's Hyde Park Herald is a muddled article about the Point entitled "Learning the Latest about Promontory Point's Rescue." I'm a little alarmed by its contents -- which imply that the future of the Point is being decided in private meetings between Jack Spicer, Don Lamb, members of Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s staff, and the "third-party" representative, Horace Foxall.

My consolation is that the author, Crystal Fencke, got so many facts wrong or out of order, perhaps she's also misinformed about the nature of the meetings. For an accurate timeline of the Point Controversy, read this.

The Herald article begins with a self-assured proclamation that Robert Mugabe might enjoy: "The preservation of Promontory Point is clearly in view."

Honestly, the word "preservation" is a Point Savers red herring. The Point must be completely rebuilt. This process is not about historic preservation. It's about rebuilding, using a design and materials that maintain the character and uses of the site.

It goes on to say, "The limestone revetment will be restored."

Huh? We've already established that the final plan must have a concrete and steel base to meet the Army Corps' engineering standards.

"In 2006, Promontory Point made Preservation Chicago's List of Most Endangered Places."

Preservation Chicago is a private organization with no state authority. It's not the same as the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (IHPA), which is an actual player in the Point controversy. Fencke may as well have told you that my private organization, Fama Family Swimmers, has placed Promontory Point on its list of Build the Frickin' Compromise Plan Already.

"The Chicago Park District, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the City of Chicago signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior's standards to ensure that the project would protect the historic value of the structure."

Here she perpetuates a classic Point Saver myth that some omniscient Preservation God duped the City into signing an agreement to protect the old revetment. The truth is that the City instigated the MOA way back in 1993 -- to block the Army Corps' first proposal of a rubble mound. Furthermore, the language of the MOA does not specify the building material, it merely says that the step design must be retained.

"The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency stopped the project."

The IHPA never stopped the Point project. And here's a little-known fact: the IHPA has actually approved the Compromise Plan which the Point Savers rejected out of hand. It's the Point Savers who have never stipulated any criteria that would make a proposal acceptable.

"Only Promontory Point and the area around Diversey Harbor have been left alone."

Construction along the Diversey Harbor stretch is proceeding, with something inferior to the Compromise Plan.

"[When the City unveiled its Compromise Plan] the community didn't accept this 'concreting over' of the sensitive historic site."

The Compromise Plan isn't a "concrete" plan -- it's a mixed use of concrete and the existing limestone blocks -- and the "community" didn't reject it, the Point Savers did it on our behalf, in a room that they stacked with a misinformed crowd, including children with picket signs. Even the Point Savers' own architectural proposal uses abundant concrete.

"The third-party review will be a three-day charette, or engineering planning meeting, with the community. "

An intensive engineering charette is going to include the "community?" I find this hard to believe, because until now Obama has been saying that the third-party review would be completely independent. Besides, two people do not a community make.

"The funds for the independent study have been authorized by the House and Senate, and now they're just waiting for approval."

Or the funds have already been appropriated, depending on which issue of the Herald you read. No one really understands this process, but the Herald likes to keep us updated anyway!

Don Lamb says that Horace Foxall (the head of the third-party review) is a "super, super guy."

I wonder how long Mr. Lamb's affection will last, given that Mr. Foxall is an Army Corps guy from Buffalo. Will Foxall overturn the Compromise Plan, which the Army Corps helped develop?

In the end there are only two outcomes from this charette: 1) more delays, and/or 2) approval of the Compromise Plan with tiny revisions, some of which may be bad (for example, the Point Savers have never been much interested in swimming access).

If #2 happens, you can bet the Point Savers will be claiming credit for a "preservation design"...and sweeping the eight years of unnecessary delay that they imposed on us under the rug.

The Preservation Con Game and the Point

posted by Peter Rossi

Are you in favor of preservation? "You bet."

Do you want to preserve the Point? "Of course, I do; this is a beautiful and absolutely unique place on Chicago's lakefront."

Does it follow then that you want to preserve the Point revetment? A few self-appointed community "activists" want you to jump to this conclusion and blindly follow their lead.

For seven years, this group has done everything in their power to table all plans to fix the Point revetment. There is no end in sight.

It is possible to preserve our beloved Point. We can also preserve and even improve our access to the lake. We can restore the Caldwell landscaping. We cannot preserve the Point revetment. It must be rebuilt.

The revetment has been irreparably damaged along its entire 6000 foot length. In some places, the original revetment has become nothing but a jumbled pile of limestone blocks. In others, the original revetment has been replaced with a hideous "pill box" or coffin stretch of concrete. In still others, the substructure of crushed stone is gone and the blocks are hanging, unsupported, waiting to fall in. These photos tell the tale of woe (check out Beth Fama's excellent post for more details and pics):

Collapse of Revetment "Steps"

Failed Promenade
(photos by E. Fama)

In order to fix the Point revetment, you have to remove the existing limestone blocks and build a new substructure. Extensive Army Corp of Engineers studies have shown that the only substructure that can work is a steel piling wall backed by a concrete base. The limestone blocks can then be returned and added both above and below a concrete base promenade.

The Save the Pointers and their fellow travelers would have you believe that they want a "preservation plan" for the revetment. They cannot define what they mean by "preservation." To define preservation would expose the basic fallacy and open up the possibility that some plan might actually be acceptable. "I know it when I see it" seems to be the definition of preservation that applies here.

Those who argue for the excellent Compromise Plan can be conveniently labelled as anti-preservation while those whose real agenda is to do nothing can disguise themselves as "preservation" advocates.

While all of this obfuscation goes on, the revetment crumbles into the lake and the land behind the revetment is ignored. The beautiful landscaping that this revetment once protected has been allowed to decline to little more than a patch of grass and some spindly trees.

Behind this preservation con game is the cyncial belief that the users of the Point can be tricked into supporting vague proposals for "preservation." No progress can be portrayed as a "success." "Success" is achieved simply by rejecting plans to fix the revetment.

The stark truth is that the outcome of the preservation con game will be no progress for more than ten years.*

It is time enough to demand progress. FIX THE POINT!

*It has already been seven years since the first proposal was advanced to fix the Point. The Save the Pointers are waiting on a review by an Army Corps official that by their own estimate will take at least 1.5 more years. We still don't know what this review will achieve. Will a new plan be developed that is acceptable to all parties? Is there any grounds for optimism? I think not. In the end, final plans must be drawn, bids let, and construction must start. There is no way this could happen any sooner than four years from now even assuming that the Save the Pointers execute a complete about-face.

"Yes, we're saving the Point, honey, now go back to bed."

posted by Elizabeth Fama

The Point Savers inspect their recent "save."

There was a letter from the supposed Community Task Force for Promontory Point in this week's Hyde Park Herald. I say "supposed" because I didn't elect them, and I don't believe they speak for the community. Regular readers of this blog know that I call them the Point Savers, or the SAVE THE POINT group.

The letter reminded me of a mother trying to calm an upset child. It was soothing. It was lilting. It repeated the words "slow and steady" like ocean waves lapping the shore. We are supposed to feel lulled into ignoring the fact that (a) the Point Savers squashed reasonable negotiations with the City, and (b) nothing -- repeat nothing -- is happening to repair the Point at all right now. Yes, the real community is a giant the supposed "community" task force prefers would remain asleep.

The main lullaby of the letter is the "news" that Obama's coalition to study alternative plans for the Point will be funded "hopefully in early spring," that it will take about a year for the "stakeholders" to draw up a preservation plan, and that Obama's staff "meets regularly" with the Point Savers. Let's deconstruct that bit by bit:

1) How can the funds can be appropriated this spring if the 2008 fiscal budget has already passed Congress?

2) Only someone very inexperienced with architectural projects could believe that it would take a year to come up with a new plan for the Point. And remember, this is supposed to be a collaborative architectural project with seven players (the City, the Park District, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, Obama's staff, the alderman, and the Point Savers).

3) The "stakeholders" with the worst reputation for rejecting any and all plans are part of the process. Heaven help us.

4) Frankly (if I believed it in the first place, which I don't) I object to the idea that Obama's staff might meet regularly with the Point Savers outside of the larger coalition, which will include sane members of the Great Lakes Army Corps of Engineers. But, as I said, I just don't believe it: Obama's staff -- right down to the college students who cold-call voters -- aren't even sleeping lately, let alone thinking about the Point.

5) Who are these Point Savers anyway, and why are they representing us? The letter was placatingly condescending -- "none of this could have been accomplished without the support and patience of the community." Um, did I ask you to mess this up?

Wake up, you sleeping giants out there! Since the Point debate started seven years ago we've had the 53rd Street Vision Meeting. We no longer believe that the group with the shrillest voice or the most memorable bumper sticker gets to speak for us.

Rub your eyes! The Point is in a serious state of disrepair, and it has only gotten worse over this tough winter. The City would be just as happy to shut it down, and frankly, when you look at the photos in my last post, you wonder why its lawyers haven't already done it. I personally can't live several years without the Point, how about you?

Get out of bed! The Point hasn't been saved. It's time for the rest of us to have a say. Let's fix the Point.

Concrete versus Limestone

posted by Elizabeth Fama

You've got to hand it to the SAVE THE POINT group: they had a brilliant marketing campaign. Look at this (horrifically misleading) ad they put in the Hyde Park Herald in April of 2003, when they knew full well that the stretch of all-concrete revetment between 51st Street and 54th Street was no longer what the City was offering us:

Apparently, all's fair in love and marketing.

Implicit in this visual message is not only a critique of design, but also of material. The concrete is photographed to look cold and sterile (at the sight line of a rat), and the limestone is photographed from above, with warm human beings delighting in their surroundings.

In typical bureaucratic fashion, it took the City too long to come up with its own visual campaign of what it was really offering:

Some of our readers have commented that they do prefer the look of limestone, and they have wondered all along why the City can't just re-build Promontory Point out of limestone. After all, the limestone blocks from the 1930s are fully intact, while some of the cement sidewalks the City poured just last year in Hyde Park aren't.

I'm not a structural engineer, but I'll tell you what I know about concrete versus limestone.

1) Yes, individual limestone blocks are hard and durable. But the Army Corps of Engineers will not build a revetment for us that does not have a steel and concrete core. Why? Because limestone blocks can't be anchored against wave action and the shifts and separations that freezing and thawing cause.

2) If good-quality concrete is poured in the right way and at the right temperature and humidity, it's durable -- very durable. The contractual requirement for the lakeshore project is that the concrete must resist 5,000 lbs of pressure per square inch. As the contractors pour the concrete, they pour sample cylinders on site for the Army Corps to test after the concrete has cured.

3) The Army Corps and the City are willing to re-use all of the existing limestone, by (a) making the top two steps of the revetment out of limestone blocks, (b) building limestone steps into the water for swim access, and (c) covering the steel pilings with a tumbled limestone toe berm. These non-structural uses of limestone will at least allow us to retain some of the beauty of the stones, to sit on them, and to wade on them. The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency has said that this mixed-material design satisfies its requirements for historic preservation. The famous Memorandum of Agreement (a document that I'll recap in a future post) does not specify building materials, nor does Barack Obama's "Scope of Work" document.

Here's a series of photos that I find revealing about the strengths and weaknesses of limestone:

In the foreground of this shot you can see how the wood pilings and steel rails have failed, and the limestone blocks have shifted and fallen. (The old sub-structure is a "crib" or cage of wood pilings, steel rails, and tie-rods, which is filled with "stone aggregate," or coarse, crushed stone.) In the background of this photo you can see the "concrete coffins" at the tip of the Point -- a concrete repair of the promenade that took place around 30 years after the Point was built and is now itself around 45 years old. The concrete coffins are still very much intact.


Thus, concrete as a material is sturdy enough to handle 45 years of crashing northeast waves, and 45 winters of freezing and thawing. But that's only part of the story. Since the sub-structure at the tip of the Point was never repaired, the wave action is still eroding the stone aggregate underneath the concrete promenade, and causing the limestone steps behind the coffins to buckle:

The stone aggregate must be almost gone under this section. But even beyond that, the erosion of the waves is sucking dirt and sand from under the grassy meadow-side of the revetment as well:


When the Point was built, the soil level reached the top of the top step of the revetment. Now my friend Gerald can stand 3 - 4 feet deep in the ditch behind the top step.

And just look at these caves:

(My kids are not allowed to walk above this section.)

The new revetment won't have a "crib" by the old definition. The contractor will drive strong, stable steel piling, and then backfill with crushed stone before pouring the concrete promenade. The concrete is reinforced with rust-resistant rebar (rust would cause the rebar to expand, which would crack the concrete around it). The steel piling does most of the structural work, and the concrete core protects the backfill from erosion because it doesn't allow water to penetrate.


In the end, the longevity of the core of the new revetment will depend on sound engineering and quality control of inputs and labor, not on whether it's built of limestone, or concrete, or kryptonite.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

posted by Elizabeth Fama

It's a birthday today of sorts: the birth of the Promontory Point Controversy. And in honor of that anniversary, Hyde Park Progress is offering FREE BUMPER STICKERS!

Git 'em here. Git 'em while they're hot.

Seven years ago, on January 17, 2001, the City held a public meeting to show the community its plans for the stretch of revetment between 54th and 57th Street. A Community Task Force was formed. Healthy negotiations with the City occurred. A 9-Point Plan was unveiled. The "Point Savers" rejected it and took over the Task Force. A Compromise Plan was unveiled. The Point Savers rejected that one, too.

Let's see what else has happened since January 17, 2001:

-George Bush was sworn in as President. Twice.

-The twin towers fell.

-We started two wars.

-Slobodan Milosevic was caught, tried eternally, and eventually died.

-We lost a Beatle (*sniff*).

-The EU switched dozens of countries over to the euro.

-SARS, Avian Flu, E Coli.

-Meigs was demolished overnight.

-Martha Stewart was tried, went to jail, got out, and re-established her empire.

-The Bam earthquake, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina.

-Qadaffi transformed himself into a man-about-town.

-Edvard Munch's paintings were stolen. Two years later they were recovered.

-Arafat died, Sharon was incapacitated.

-We found out who Deep Throat is.

-The White Sox won the World Series.

And much, much more. Feel free to add your favorite event of the last 7 years.

And if you'd like a bumper sticker, send an e-mail to me at fama.elizabeth@gmail.com , give me your postal address, and I'll mail you one.

The Point has not been saved. It's time to fix the Point.

Promontory Point Historical Photos

Part III in the Promontory Point Controversy Series

posted by Elizabeth Fama

Hey kids, here are some old pictures that are fun and informative!

First, an architectural elevation of the revetment between 39th Street and 56th Street (built in the early 1930s):

Second, a photo from 1923 showing workmen installing the bulkhead (the steel rails and wood piling that hold the riprap and limestone blocks above) between Randolph Street and the 12th street Beach:

Notice how the original bulkhead hardly resembles the deteriorated little toothpicks and dental floss that we have at all:

Finally, here's a photo of the way a step-stone revetment appeared at completion, in 1922:

Clearly the steps are for sittin', the promenade is for walkin', but the lake is not for swimmin'. In fact, the revetment we have at the Point was not originally designed for water access. We are able to swim off the Point precisely because the revetment failed: blocks of limestone from the promenade slipped into the water, and we use the partially submerged rocks to clamber (as best we can, if we're athletic) into the water.

But let's get back to that promenade above. The one you could walk along with your beau, your heels, your long skirt, your white gloves, and your parasol, in 1922.

Today you'd better have your hiking boots on, and keep your hands free, because there is no promenade left:

I admit this scene is harshly beautiful. What it isn't is functional for any sort of recreational activities -- sittin', walkin', or swimmin'.

Timeline of the Promontory Point Controversy: in 10 Painful Steps

PART II in the Promontory Point Controversy Series

posted by Elizabeth Fama

The tattered symbol of...er, triumph?

I know this post looks long, but I've chiseled the timeline down as much as I can. It will bring you up to date on why the Point is actively deteriorating, more than 6 years after the City started rebuilding the rest of the shoreline:

1) January 17, 2001: At a community meeting, the City and Chicago Park District (CPD) presented an unacceptable plan for the Point revetment. The plan was along the lines of what you see between 51st and 54th Street. And even if you don't mind the way that stretch of new revetment looks (this means you, famac), the design (1) precludes water access (that's a deal-killer right there), (2) is arguably out of scale and over-engineered, and (3) does not reuse any limestone. So Alderman Leslie Hairston agreed to coordinate meetings between a community task force and the City and CPD officials, with the goal of modifying the design.

2) January, 2001 – May, 2001: The executive committee of the original community task force (Margie Borecki, Kay Clement, Bruce Johnstone, Tom Knight, Gerald Marsh, Lauren Moltz, Peter Rossi, and Jack Spicer) worked with the City to hammer out the “9-Point Plan,” which included nine design concessions from the City, including reducing the scale of the promenade and steps, lowering the top step to the height of the current revetment, and adding two, 300-foot limestone platform steps to provide swimming access on the north-side and south-side (to replace our current, horrible swimming access), along with sanctioned deep-water swimming. (Other than these limestone platform steps, and a limestone toe berm to visually hide the steel supports in the water, the structure was all concrete and steel.) Work would be carried out in phases, so that one half or the other of the Point would be open to recreation during construction. The plan also restored the original Caldwell landscaping.

3) May 1, 2001: All members of the executive committee of the community task force, including Jack Spicer and Bruce Johnstone, verbally agreed to a "Memorandum of Understanding" between Alderman Hairston, City officials, and the CPD, approving the 9-Point Plan.

4) May 1, 2001 – October, 2001: Apparently Jack Spicer and Bruce Johnstone decided that they didn’t support the 9-Point Plan after all. Behind the scenes they marshaled activists to attend the City’s October 1 presentation of the 9-Point Plan to the community, held in the auditorium of the Oriental Institute.

5) October 1, 2001: When the microphone was opened to the audience at the public meeting, Jack's and Bruce's troops unexpectedly shouted down the 9-Point Plan. Two Chicago Tribune writers, Rick Hepp and Liam Ford, reported the next day that "residents turned out in force" to "scoff at an updated plan," and to demand limestone. In the following weeks four members of the executive task force who still supported the 9-Point Plan resigned (Clement, Knight, Moltz, and Rossi), to allow Jack Spicer and others their chance to negotiate for more limestone.

6) Jack Spicer formed the new task force, which I’ll call the SAVE THE POINT group. He launched the successful blue bumper sticker campaign, raised money -- including a hefty check from Hans Morsbach and a grant from the Driehaus Foundation -- and got hundreds of petition signatures from uninformed but well-meaning people who believed the task force was fighting for the recreation of the old limestone Point over the City's plan to "pave it" with cement. Lots of my friends signed the petition and even gave money. But hey, we all want to save the Point, I understand their mistake.

7) March 12, 2003: The SAVE THE POINT group unveiled a -- I’m sorry, it has to be said -- kooky architectural rendering of their idea of preservation. It essentially tuckpointed the supposedly-protected south side, it merely replaced the piling in the water of the eastern tip (leaving the ugly 1960s concrete-coffin section intact), and it dismantled and rebuilt the north side, using a funky blend of limestone with a concrete “strip" down the promenade that the Army Corps studied and said was an engineering nightmare. (This plan is no longer being considered by any party, and an Illinois Historic Preservation officer stated in a private meeting that it did not meet preservation standards.)

8) July-August, 2003: The City released their new “Compromise Plan,” containing a further concession to the SAVE THE POINT group of more limestone.

This is when the activism degenerated into madness.

It was a damned good plan that reused all of the existing limestone by fashioning the top two steps of the revetment out of limestone, installing two 150-foot limestone platform steps into the water (note: the steps were previously 300 feet long in the 9-Point Plan, but we all know that when a teacher regrades your test you run the risk of losing points as well as gaining them). Finally, the two bottom steps that were made of concrete would be textured to resemble limestone.

Again, the SAVE THE POINT group denounced this genuinely sensible plan, misleadingly labeling it "anti-preservation," a "demolition plan," and "an all-concrete" plan. The four members of the task force who had resigned (and I) began to campaign for the Compromise Plan, which was almost impossible due to slanted articles, editorials, and letters in the Hyde Park Herald.

8.5) OK, I’m skipping all the 2004 Jamie Kalven stuff, because it just doesn’t add to the story other than to make me feel hopeless about “mediation.”

9) July 25, 2005: The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency certified that the City’s new Compromise Plan met historic preservation standards, paving the way for a public meeting to present the plan to the community. The meeting was held on September 15, 2005, at the South Shore Cultural Center. The SAVE THE POINT group once again stacked the audience and shouted down the proposal. I'm not exaggerating when I say the meeting made Hyde Parkers appear to be lunatics.

10) 2005 – now: The shoreline construction project is in its end stages. When the rest of the shoreline project is finished, I have no idea what will happen to the funds originally slated for the Point. During this period, the SAVE THE POINT group persuaded Jesse Jackson Jr. to insert language into the Water Resources Development Act 381-40 requiring that the Point be rebuilt according to (undefined) preservation standards. The activists also pressed Barack Obama to become involved, and in October, 2005 he requested a third-party review of the engineering plans, with the goal of resolving the conflict in six months.

Meanwhile, although members of the SAVE THE POINT group have abandoned their architectural plan, they have not stipulated an alternative that would be acceptable. Some of their members say the Point is not collapsing, in spite of the fact that it’s as plain as the nose on your face and some of them want it to be re-built all in limestone, which the Army Corps has said outright it will not do. Some seem to have lost interest; others have shifted their activist energies to other projects and obstructionist causes.

What if Everything You Thought You Knew about the Promontory Point Saga was Wrong?

PART I in the Promontory Point Controversy Series

posted by Elizabeth Fama

Hyde Park Activist versus Progress

If you’re a faithful reader of this blog and its comments, you know that I’ve been making these two argument for months:

(1) the final plan for the Point that the City offered was genuinely good, but very few people have seen it (YOU probably haven't seen it, for instance, dear Reader),

(2) most people innocently believe the “Save the Point” group did a service for the community by putting the kibosh on the City's plan.

I now have anecdotal evidence of both (1) and (2), and his name is Alec Brandon. Alec is a student in the College who wrote an interesting online Maroon Op-Ed piece about how the activists in Hyde Park messed up by interfering with the Doctor’s Hospital deal.

But in that otherwise dead-on piece he dropped this one, disturbing line:

While the Point revetment was a fairly open-and-shut case -- the
city wanted to change public land for the worse -- tearing down the Doctors Hospital and putting in two hotels is far more complex.

So I wrote to Alec, and he admitted to me that he hadn’t researched the Point controversy carefully.

This is how most people understand the Point controversy:

(a) On January 17th, 2001 the City proposed a revetment like the one we now have between 51st and 54th Street, which is inappropriate for the Point and relatively unattractive, to boot,

(b) a community task force succeeded in stopping that bad design through “activism,” and (apparently) with overwhelming public support.

That’s not even half the story.

What’s missing you ask? Well, exactly 6 years of wrangling between multiple parties: the City, the Park District, the Army Corps of Engineers, a couple of historic agencies, an original Task Force that worked hard to secure multiple concessions from the City, and a second Task Force (the "Save the Point" group).

Here's what you really don't know:

All of this wrangling culminated in a great design that the "Save the Point" group stubbornly (and somewhat hysterically) rejected out of hand -- a design that very few people have actually seen.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll tell you more about the history of the Promontory Point controversy. The story is big and cumbersome and messy -- it's far from Alec's "open-and-shut" case -- so you’re going to have to slog through a lot of details and get your hands dirty.

But before I do that, you really ought to familiarize yourself with the Compromise Plan that your neighborhood “activists” threw away, supposedly on your behalf.

Go forth. Read it now. Skedaddle.

Come back when you think you can accurately describe the Compromise Plan to the next well-meaning but misguided person you see with a Save the Point bumper sticker.

Hans Morsbach: "I am an old fart"

posted by chicago pop

In an interview with Dan Lambert of the Chicago Maroon (October 23, 2007), Hans Morsbach declares, "I am an old fart."

We're glad he's the one who said it.

Turns out, it's revealed in the interview that the Medici, fabled local business and graffiti backdrop, is about to become -- *GASP* -- a chain! (Actually, it was a chain for a while already, before it closed its location on Surf between Sheridan and Broadway a few years ago). Hyde Park's most prominent local businessman is replicating his success and perpetuating the global spread of corporate monoculture.

The Medici's new space will be a veritable beer hall for the more festive student body of Illinois State University in downstate Normal, where Morsbach hopes to propagate the elevated values that make Hyde Park distinct: "The main reason is economics. We can have liquor, and it is in a good location close to Illinois State University."

Helping undergrads get sloshed close to their dorms so they don't have to drive is truly admirable, but even better is being able to cash in on coed inebriation. "It's in a community where they appreciate me."

Everyone likes to be appreciated, especially when "the main reason is economics." Too bad that reason rarely applies in Hyde Park, at least outside of the Medici.

The interview ranges widely, and explains how the Medici became a retail outlet for various politically-branded forestry products from somewhere up north. But for the true Hyde Park political junkie, the blurb on Morsbach's involvement in the Save the Point Campaign is not to be missed. We'll quote it in full.

I am a troublemaker. I think some issues are just important to me, like Save the Point. I was very emotional about it. I was shocked that the University would side with destroying the limestone ambiance of the point; I still don't understand why they did it. I was also shocked that the city, the University, and a lot of the conservative Hyde Parkers were fighting the issue, which has tremendous popularity with many people. And I think we won the battle.

This statement is truly worthy of a Medici garbage pizza. It's a little bit of everything all messed up.

Take, for example, the idea that the "Hyde Parkers ... fighting the issue" were conservative. Now, being conservative by definition means not wanting change. So, wanting to keep the original (dangerous and decrepit) limestone, as Morsbach did, is the true conservative position. In contrast, wanting to change the revetments is not conservative. Wanting to change the revetments in accordance with modern standards of accessibility, safety, and durability, is a progressive position, and that was not Morsbach's position.

But businessmen can't be expected to be semantically fastidious, nor particularly astute analysts of local politics. Nor should we expect them to be historians, it turns out. Looking back on the outcome of the Point battle, Morsbach states "I think we won the battle." However, this comment seems to resemble a number of other rather satisfied remarks made in the interview -- "I'm proud to say my book is the bestselling one on forestry on Amazon"*(see below for fact-check) -- leading one to wonder if it's not a bit exaggerated.

And just what does it mean in Morsbach-speak to "win a battle?" It's clear that, on this Point, Hans is emotional about the issue; and that may in fact have been the problem. It's also clear that if any victories were had, they were Pyrhhic, on the order of the "strategic hamlet" strategy of pacifying the Viet Cong. To "save" the Point, we had to let it fall apart and watch funding disappear, which is how it remains. Some victory.

One garbage pizza, please!

*[On Morsbach's allegedly top-selling lumberjack tome, we'll quote one attentive reader: "As of noon today [Thurs. Oct. 25, 2007], it looks like Morsbach's "Commonsense Forestry" is actually #26 in the Forests & Forestry category for Amazon sales. Hmmm, that puts 25 other forestry books ahead of Mr. Morsbach's." (See comment section.) Feel free to check for yourself.]

Preservationists Decry Loss of Historic Tree

Hyde Park preservationists are quickly galvanizing to demand re-installation of a historic tree removed by the Park District on Monday from the south side of Promontory Point.

BEFORE

AFTER

"I wouldn't have known about this, because I never spend any time at the Point," one of their members said, "but my friend saw the chipper truck from her apartment in the Promontory building and alerted me that something was afoot."

By the time he had biked there, the wanton destruction was already done.

"It's a terrible loss. The Park District should have consulted with the community before removing it. Restoration is always preferred to removal in cases like this. They even cut down the young trees that were growing between the limestone blocks. These details form the character of the Point, and should be preserved."

The group plans to camp out to protect the remaining weeds, even if they must stay through the first frost.

"We won't give up."