Bears to Field Museum: Take a Walk
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The operative rule was the one we all learned at the grade-school drinking fountain: the big guy goes first. The museum, like any sensible lightweight, got out of the way, and the Bears got their cash. In the rush of it all, they didn’t dwell on the fact that the road they’ll be putting in east of Lake Shore Drive, right where we spent $90 million fives years ago to get rid of a road, will make the museum’s west entrance–its only school-bus and handicap-accessible entrance–unusable. Now the Field Museum is in position again, ready to make a request in Springfield for its $50 million expansion, plus a $10 million new entrance necessitated by the changes at Soldier Field. But since the Bears got their big score, the economic environment has taken a turn for the worse: the museum is playing in tougher conditions.
Attempts to block the Soldier Field project at this point look as feeble as the Bears’ offense. The stadium was built as the result of two public referenda–one in 1920, and another in 1924, when the first bunch of money ran out. But a referendum petition that would have let voters decide on the current project in this month’s election was thrown out by the Board of Election Commissioners. An appeal by the petition’s author, former state treasurer Pat Quinn, was dismissed by circuit court judge Raymond Jagielski earlier this month. Quinn says the soonest this “bum deal for the taxpayer” could appear on a ballot now will be March 2002. The nonprofit Friends of the Parks is asking the Chicago Plan Commission to withhold approval of the “gargantuan commercial stadium,” which will tower “five stories higher than the historic colonnades,” on the grounds that it violates the city’s Lakefront Protection Ordinance. Friends director Erma Tranter says, “People do not know the monstrosity that will be built there to accommodate the Bears on ten game days a year. They’ll be going around asking, ‘How did this happen?’” The Plan Commission will hold a public hearing on the stadium at 7 PM Wednesday, February 28, at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Another one bites the dust: Center Theater Ensemble is closing its doors March 1. The company, founded 17 years ago by Dan LaMorte, produced only three shows in the past two seasons. Although the facility at 1346 W. Devon has been rented to other groups and housed the theater’s school, the Training Center for Actors, Directors, and Playwrights, the company couldn’t pay its bills. Its lighting and sound equipment, set pieces, costumes, risers, chairs, and other possessions are being sold to pay off debt (former board president Charlie Frankel, 773-528-8624, is handling this sorry task), and the landlord is looking for another theater group to take the space. Over its lifetime, CTE produced more than 90 plays, including 20 new works, and sponsored an annual playwriting competition. Beth Henley was a resident playwright. Memorable CTE productions included a revival of the 1950s jazz musical version of Archy and Mehitabel and Dale Calandra’s Lysistrata 2411 AD. Calandra, Peter Toran, and Robin Witt of the Training Center are working on plans for a new school.
