* Just Another Concrete Cookie Cutter Cracker Box

"A Day Late and a Dollar Short"

by Gary Fuschi

Blogger Bob posted that comment here on the Morse Hell Hole the other day. I clicked back to the photo Craig took of the Adelphi Theater which showed the steel jaws of the crane smashing a giant hole in the back wall and I sat there in front of my flat screen and I felt sick.

I felt sick for Bill Morton and his dedicated group..... I felt sick for our neighborhood as we had to stand around and watch another significant piece of Rogers Park get taken down and end up unceremoniously as resaleable bundled brick and container debris...... I felt sick for our city and for the systematic rub out of our rich, eclectic architectural history.

I thought about all the beautiful prarie style houses that are gone, like the one just demolished on Ashland near Montrose. All the prim little two flats and farmhouse style wood frame houses that are gone because the land is more valuable now than the structure that sits on it. On Washtenaw and the river, there was an old, historic boatyard where old men spent endless offseason hours repairing wooden hull boats. Gone. Ashland Avenue used to be an odd and interesting mix of commercial buildings that was once home to various, succesful businesses that employed people. Gone. And what has progress handed us as a replacement?

A canyon of concrete cookie cutter cracker boxes.

Everywhere you look there are building after uninspired, poorly executed and badly designed buildings that have no sense of place and offer no hint of architectural history. Oh, but let's exclude from this tirade against "insignificant architecture", those structures that feature tiny slivers of limestone trim which really only forecast overpriced, "luxury" granite countertops once you get inside. And don't forget to compliment the architect in his little nod to history when he includes an iron "Romeo and Juliet" balcony in front of a door that goes nowhere, added as a "design detail" to break up the monotony of a bland split face block wall 50 feet higher than it should be. A quick glance reveals balconies so narrow, the only way Juliet could possibly call to Romeo from said balcony, is if she were bulimic. "Wherefore art thou, talented architect?"

And how about those 5 story, monstrously out of scale cigarette packs turned sideways plopped in the middle of a row of modest, 2 story wood frame houses? That works for me. On the 1800 block of Estes and I mean no offense to the neighbors who negotiated their best to downsize the original proposal, the new citywide developer boondogle is to completely turn the whole building sideways. There is no front. The front is on the side to take full advantage of every valuable square inch of profit possible.

What the Heck is Happening to Our City?

I swear, the whole city is being remodeled by the same guy. One untalented, visionless, overworked and highly overpaid basement dwelling excuse for an architect is responsible for turning our city's renowned architectural diversity into a boring shopping mall aesthetic that will have historians scratching their heads and asking, "What happened to that beautiful city?"

The Answers:

1.) Greed

2.) Greed

3.) A charade of developer friendly rules, regulations and red tape designed to discourage community dissent and real participation until after the fact and a loop hole ridden process of impossible to follow paperwork that allows developers to hide their true identities and influence.

Any well meaning individual who attempts to find the true owner of a proposed project, such as the Adephi Theater will enter into a carnival style hall of mirrors. Corporate names change so frequently you wonder if you're coming or going and at $75 per peek at an LLC document, you will soon be going broke. There are so many name changes, quit claim deed and related filings on record, it just makes you wonder. But, we are not supposed to wonder about those things. We are expected to take everything we are told at face value.

Meet the Developer

It's bad enough that the Adelphi Theater is being reduced to rubble. But with the information that has surfaced about this developer, if it is true, makes the loss of that beautiful building all that much more difficult for me to stomach. I wish someone would just lay out the facts for once. The real facts. That should be a requirement of the development proposal process.

Before the community gets to see the design, the long and complex paper trail should be laid out in it's entirety and all the financial statements should be made available in the spirit of full disclosure, similar to an election requirement. If the building that replaces the Adelphi Theater is so beneficial to the progress of the community and the architecture so much more "significant" than the Adelphi, why would the true owner of the property hide behind a paper trail? What is there to hide? I think we deserve to know who is making a killing in our neighborhood. I think we deserve to know who is tearing down the Adelphi and replacing it with just another concrete cookie cutter cracker box replete with all the inspired details that will surely land 7070 North Clark Street on the list of historic buildings.

This building has it all and more. In a moment of divine inpiration, the architect added a clocktower and how appropriate that detail is because in my view, that clock symbolizes our architectural history. Every minute that goes by, another concrete cracker box is being proposed somewhere else in our great city.

And as long as this developer friendly process remains intact, our objections to these projects will always be "a day late and a dollar short".