Developer Jim Gramata was converting a Lincoln Square two-flat into a single-family home in May 2000 when somebody scrawled “No yuppies” on the front porch. Antigentrification comments were spray painted on the property four more times that year, the words bigger and bolder each time.
In May 2001 police charged a neighborhood youth, 18-year-old Sean Barnes, with eight counts of criminal damage to property, including spray painting a for-sale sign at Bell and Cullom as well as Gramata’s and Johnson’s houses. Police allege that several area youths told them Barnes had been bragging about painting the graffiti and that soon after they brought him in for questioning he confessed to 21 acts of vandalism.
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Most of the property owners decided not to press charges, but Gramata, Johnson, and a few others stood firm. Barnes appeared before a judge on June 7, in a courtroom at Belmont and Western. Schulter, who lives down the street and around the corner from Barnes, was there, along with 20 home owners and developers who’d been victimized, among them Gramata and Johnson. Barnes–who’s tall, has a baby face, and shoulder-length blond hair–came with a lawyer, his mother, stepfather, and two siblings. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of a year in jail, though he’d be more likely to get probation and community service.
Schulter acknowledges that there may be more than one offender, but he considers Barnes’s arrest a victory over the idea “that any group of people should be excluded from any community. We have sent a message loud and clear that we’re proud of our diversity.” Some residents aren’t convinced that Schulter likes his ward’s diversity, arguing that he wants to stop the graffiti mainly because it sometimes targets him.
Dick Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and former alderman who happens to live in the area, says the down-zoning measures Schulter has taken do tend to slow gentrification. And Harriet O’Donnell, vice president of the Ravenswood Community Council, points out that an alderman simply doesn’t have the power to keep pricey condos from being built.
The executive director of the fund, Jeanne Kracher, said she couldn’t discuss the newsletter because of the lawsuit, but she did say it was the first time her organization had been sued. In a press release she called the suit “an attempt to stifle community criticism of Schulter’s public performance around gentrification and development in the 47th Ward.” Valerie S. Lies, president of the Chicago Donors Forum, a nonprofit organization of metropolitan grant makers, says there’s no precedent for foundations being sued for actions of their grantees. Dick Simpson, who recently wrote a history of the City Council, says there’s no precedent for an alderman going to court to silence constituents either.
Realtor James Miller says several of his signs got tagged in that round, but he notes it hasn’t hurt sales and may have even helped them. “There have been a couple of people who saw ‘No yuppies’ on the sign when they came to look at a house and said, ‘That tells me this area is appreciating, that it’s a good investment to buy here.’”
