Las Urbanistas

By Alexa Aguilar Tribune staff reporter May 8, 2007

Deep underneath a Streeterville street, John Henry Propeck was moving pile after pile of debris and sandy soil to create an underground parking garage for a new 47-story condo building at the corner of Illinois Street and McClurg Court.

Then he scooped up a chunk of metal in the bucket of his backhoe. The next load unearthed a T-shaped bar, then a 40-foot chain.

When he pieced the parts together last month, he realized he had discovered a 200-pound boat anchor buried deep beneath Chicago’s streets.

The anchor is a rusty reminder that the solid ground Chicago is built on wasn’t always so solid, and that boats were once moored in what is now the Streeterville neighborhood. Those who pulled the anchor from the earth are even asking whether it could have belonged to Capt. George Streeter, a gun-running hustler who supposedly ran his vessel aground 450 feet from Lake Michigan’s shore in 1886 and decided to stay put, creating the neighborhood that bears his name.

Streeter is the stuff of Chicago legend, a man who defied city officials who tried to take his “District of Lake Michigan” — the hundreds of acres of landfill that eventually amassed around the beached boat where Streeter and his fellow scofflaws drank, ran brothels and generally reveled in ignoring authority.

Propeck and a few members of the excavation crew knew none of the history until an acquaintance half-jokingly suggested that the anchor could have belonged to Streeter. They fiddled around on the Internet until they found a picture of Streeter standing by his ship, the Reutan, with a similar anchor chained to its prow. “I think it’s pretty interesting,” said Propeck, who has been a construction worker in Chicago for more than 25 years. “I’ve never got nothing like this before. I’ve found safes before with holes bored through them. But nothing like this.”

It would be difficult to verify that the anchor was Streeter’s, said Libby Mahoney, chief curator of the Chicago Historical Society. Its rusted surface and clunky chain bear no lettering or mark other than the number 97.

The anchor appears to be a standard fisherman’s anchor from that era, Mahoney said.

Whether the anchor actually belonged to Streeter’s vessel, the discovery is enough to excite Chicagoans, she said.

“All of this points to the fact that Chicagoans love the history of their city,” she said. “They are proud of it. And they take their history very seriously.”

MCL Companies, the developer of the Park View condos, is considering making the anchor a fixture of the park that will sit adjacent to the property.

Russell Lewis, chief historian of the Chicago History Museum, said the anchor’s discovery is interesting, if only to remind Chicagoans that Streeterville was once in Lake Michigan. It’s possible the anchor was Streeter’s, but it could have been from other vessels that traveled the shoreline, he said.

“That’s the one boat we know,” Lewis said. “That’s why people jump to conclusions. But there are the ones we don’t know about,” whose owners didn’t decide to squat on the land where they wrecked, he said.

Still, Lewis said, it’s a wonderful story and the discoverers should be excited about finding a possible remnant of history.

“It’s a mystery,” he said. “What’s discouraging is that you can reach a point where you just can’t tell for sure.”

Dick Bales, an author of a book about the Great Chicago Fire, is in the midst of writing a volume about Streeter. He also works as assistant regional counsel for Chicago Title, the company that Streeter repeatedly sparred with over his land claims.

The more he researches him, the more he’s learning to doubt any legend surrounding Streeter, even his name, Bales said.

Though Streeter’s famous nickname “Cap Streeter” stems from Streeter’s claim that he was a captain in the Civil War, he never made it past the rank of private, Bales said.

And there is some evidence that the tale of the boat wrecked on the sandbar was made up by Streeter to justify his squatting, Bales said.

“Everything about him is a lie, even his name,” he said.

The variations on the Streeter story make him a favorite of Chicago history lovers.

“He’s fascinating,” Mahoney said. “He’s a great Chicago legend.”

By Graydon Megan Special to the Tribune May 8, 2007

An effort to redevelop an Arlington Heights shopping center will continue despite Monday night’s decision to end an agreement with Target Corp. to anchor the project, officials said.

The Village Board voted unanimously to discontinue plans for the Minneapolis company to build a SuperTarget at the northeast corner of Arlington Heights and Golf Roads.

“With the change in the economic climate, it was no longer beneficial to either party, the village or Target,” said Mayor Arlene Mulder. “There might be proposals down the road. We’ll try to find a financial way to make it work.”

The village established a $19 million tax-increment finance district in 2002 for the 35-acre site, which includes the International Plaza shopping center, Arlin-Golf Plaza center, a restaurant, a closed gas station and several other parcels.

“Target has realized, I think, with the passage of time, increased costs and the pending lawsuits, it doesn’t make economic sense for them to proceed under our own redevelopment agreement,” Village Atty. Jack Siegel said before the board meeting Monday night.

Target representative Brie Heath said the decision was based on economics.

“While we continue to be interested in an additional Target store in Arlington Heights, we have mutually agreed with the village to withdraw our project,” Heath said.

The company has a store at 1700 E. Rand Rd.

Siegel said the tax district remains alive and the village may seek another retailer to anchor the development.

Tenants and business owners in the affected properties, many of which were in line to be razed, hope Target’s withdrawal signals a change.

“It doesn’t make any sense not to kill the TIF,” said Laurie Palepu, who owns a hair salon in International Plaza. “It’s really killing our business.”

Ron Popp, an owner of Arlin-Golf Plaza, said the shadow of the TIF hanging over the area has kept his center nearly vacant.

“When they hear about a TIF, they back away,” he said of potential owners and tenants.

Popp has long disputed the designation of his property as blighted.

“Our [center] was completely rehabbed,” he said. “It’s kind of sad that they have to starve you out. I bet I could clear out Woodfield [shopping center] with the same tactics.”

Three lawsuits have been filed against Arlington Heights over the tax district. The first, by Capital Fitness, an International Plaza tenant doing business as XSports Fitness, was decided in favor of the village in January. But the ruling has been appealed, and the other lawsuits, by the owners of Arlin-Golf Plaza and International Plaza, are pending. The plaintiffs have alleged an abuse of village powers.

Arlington Heights officials said the dissolution of the deal involved no payments to or from the village or Target.

“[There was] no consideration,” Siegel said. “It was mutually agreed.”

Village sources said total project costs, including those related to the bond sale and legal expenses, have not been tabulated.

In response to complaints from tax district tenants and owners about a lack of concern for their future, village officials said they have worked with businesses in four other tax districts, helping them remain in a new development or relocate within the village.

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

By Andrew Schroedter; Special to the Tribune; May 2, 2007, 8:26 PM CDT

A wrecking ball could soon reduce the Purple Hotel into a colorful pile if a developer follows through with plans to buy the shuttered Lincolnwood landmark.

Chicago-based Sertus Capital Partners LLC has a conditional contract to purchase the 8-acre hotel property at Touhy and Lincoln Avenues, a Sertus principal said.

Michael Glazier declined to comment further, but Lincolnwood officials said Sertus has stated it would demolish the seven-story, 293-room hotel in favor of residential and retail space. The Purple Hotel, 4500 W. Touhy Ave., closed in January, less than six months after Lincolnwood took owner Donald Bae to court over what it alleged were health code violations.

Following up on complaints from people who stayed there, inspectors found mold growing behind wallpaper, beneath floors and in heating ducts, said John Lebegue, the building commissioner. According to court records, mold was detected in 208 of the 225 rooms village inspectors walked through.

“The bottom line is that the windows were failing and water was getting into the rooms,” Lebegue said. “In some rooms, the mold was so thick you could feel your breath. I know my eyes were burning after an hour.”

Bae and his attorneys could not be reached for comment.

Built by Hyatt Corp. in 1960, the Purple Hotel, or Lincolnwood Hyatt House as it was originally named, changed owners over the years, with Radisson and Ramada among its operators.

The hotel’s parking lot was where Allen Dorfman, a reputed mobster and associate of Jimmy Hoffa, was fatally shot by a masked man in 1983.

Pianist Myles Greene, one of the hotel’s first performers, said the halcyon days were in the 1970s when the Purple Hotel’s lounge was a swinging night spot.

“In its heyday, it was the place on the North Side,” said Greene, who grew up in Lincolnwood. “All the entertainers used to stay there. Barry Manilow, Roberta Flack, Perry Como. At that time, it had the greatest pool.”

Today, the empty pool’s deck is cluttered with white plastic lawn chairs blown over by the wind.

A few lights are still on in the lobby, where cleaning supplies sit next to a mound of clear plastic trash bags stuffed with towels, bedding and curtains. In some of the rooms, the furniture has been pushed against walls that have been stripped of wallpaper and paint.

“I’m sorry that someone doesn’t take it over, clean it up and put some new blood into it,” Greene said. “It’s an eyesore now that nobody’s there.”

Other problems found during the September inspection included a faulty sprinkler system, cluttered stairwells, a leaky roof and more mold growing in the sauna and banquet room, according to court records.

The village petitioned Cook County Circuit Court in September to have the hotel closed until the violations were remedied. A judge set a December cleanup deadline for Bae, president of Village Resorts Inc. and owner of the Purple Hotel since 2004. Village officials said Bae chose to close the hotel because a renovation would have been too costly.

“It’s sad,” Village President Jerry Turry said. “It’s a landmark in the village. Its roots go very deep in the lore and history of Lincolnwood.”

“That was our only hotel,” said Diana Lass, executive director of the Lincolnwood Chamber of Commerce. “It has a great deal of history attached to it—both positive and negative.”

CHICAGO, March 25 — The century-old elevated train system here is as much a city fixture as the towering skyline and the piercing blue waters of Lake Michigan.

But deteriorating tracks and trains, chronic budget shortfalls and a region ever more dependent on rail service are forcing Chicagoans to confront the possibility that the system, commonly known as the El or the L, may be at a breaking point.

“We’re living on borrowed time,” said Frank Kruesi, the president of the Chicago Transit Authority, which runs the rail service. “The fact is, there’s no magic wand when we’re looking at modernizing a system that’s 100 years old in a very dense urban environment.”

The El, with its 1,190 rail cars and 222 miles of track, is the rail component of the transit authority, the second-largest public transit system in the country after New York’s. The C.T.A.’s trains and buses serve the city and 40 suburbs, logging 1.55 million rides daily. The El alone accounted for more than 195 million rides last year.

Many neighborhoods have thrived in recent years in part because they attracted residents eager to take advantage of the easy access to downtown that the trains afforded, some riders say. But the rail system is splitting at the seams, having carried 31 million more riders in 2005 than in 1985 on a fleet of cars with an average age of 27 years.

“I’ve been riding the El pretty much all my life, and I’ve never seen performance anywhere near this bad,” Alexander Facklis, 37, a rider on the Blue Line, said during a recent morning commute when a stalled train slowed most service. “There are delays every single day.”

For years, the story of the El has been one of too little money and costly patchwork maintenance, transit experts say.

Along with two other transit systems, Metra and Pace, which link Chicago to the suburbs by bus and by rail, the C.T.A. depends on a financing formula of fares and sales taxes that has not changed since 1983. The state auditor general has called the system’s financial condition “precarious.”

The Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees the three transit agencies, is trying to persuade state lawmakers to approve a $10 billion infusion of state and local money over the next five years. The C.T.A. needs $5.8 billion to bring its system, including buses, into a state of good repair, officials say.

“We call this ‘the year of decision,’ ” said Stephen E. Schlickman, the executive director of the regional authority. The choice, Mr. Schlickman said, is between a “world-class transit system” and an economic downturn that, he predicted, a hobbled transit system would most likely bring about.

The combination of slow zones, construction projects and packed rail cars has unleashed complaints from riders at community meetings and on blogs like C.T.A. Tattler, which refers to one of the most troubled routes, the Blue Line, as the “Blues Line.”

Jeff Gonzales, 40, sitting across the aisle from Mr. Facklis, said it used to take him 35 minutes to travel from his home in the Logan Square neighborhood to his job in the Loop. “Now, it takes an hour and 10 minutes,” he said.

Not far from where Mr. Facklis’s and Mr. Gonzales’s train had ground to a halt, a derailment in a tunnel last July caused a smoky fire and forced passengers on a packed rush-hour train to evacuate below ground and crawl to safety. The derailment sent 152 people to the hospital and snarled commutes on trains and buses around the city for hours.

Commute times have since doubled along that line, riders say, as deteriorating ties on many stretches of track have forced trains to travel as slowly as 15 miles per hour in some spots. The El’s slower trains prevent it from carrying as many passengers per hour as transit systems in Atlanta, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and the San Francisco Bay Area, according to a state performance audit released this month.

Next month, work is set to begin on a $529.9 million expansion of the system’s third-busiest rail line, the Brown Line , which winds through some of the city’s most congested neighborhoods. Ridership on that line is up 83 percent since 1979, according to recent figures, and officials at the Chicago Transit Authority predict the overhaul will increase capacity by 33 percent.

In the meantime, though, riders are bracing for more than two and a half years of track closings that could reduce the capacity of already packed trains by as much as 40 percent at peak travel times.

But transit officials say the work is a necessary evil. Without it, the system would almost certainly fall into a chronic state of disrepair.

Helen Harrison, an administrative assistant who says the El is her only mode of transportation, faults Mayor Richard M. Daley for not paying enough attention to the problems. Ms. Harrison, 50, said she wondered how the transit system would handle an influx of tourists should Chicago win a bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, a dream of Mr. Daley’s. (The city is currently competing with Los Angeles to become the United States’ bidder for the Games.)

“Mayor Daley should concentrate his efforts on this rather than on the Olympics,” Ms. Harrison said.

Mr. Daley, who by law appoints several members of the C.T.A.’s oversight board, has said that luring the Olympics to Chicago could draw more federal money to assist with long-term upgrades to the system.

But for some, coping with the immediate future is more pressing.

“The notion that we’re supposed to prepare for a doubling of our commute time for the next two and a half years is so laughable to me I haven’t been able to get my arms around it,” said Peter Skosey, a transit expert with the Metropolitan Planning Council, a nonprofit advocacy group. “I’m going to make sure my bike tires are inflated.”

By Philip Hersh
Tribune Olympic sports reporter

March 7, 2007, 10:29 PM CST

The committee trying to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago gave a bus full of U.S. Olympic Committee officials and two buses full of media an odd sort of venue tour Wednesday.

The USOC group, including an 11-member commission on a two-day visit to evaluate the city’s Olympic bid, did not leave its bus to walk through the Washington Park site of the proposed $366 million Olympic Stadium, marked by multicolored flags of the 202 nations that are part of the International Olympic Committee.

“It was muddy and snowy,” Chicago 2016 Chairman Patrick Ryan said.

Both the USOC and media groups saw the site of the proposed Olympic Village—truck marshaling yards at McCormick Place—from a suite on the 30th floor of the Hyatt Hotel at the convention center. Orange balloons outlined both parts of that site, the $1.1 billion residential complex on the west side of Lake Shore Drive and the recreational and outdoor dining facilities for Olympic athletes on the east side of the Drive.

The flags might as well have all been red, and the balloons risked having the air let out of them because of continuing questions over financing for the two biggest projects for a Chicago Olympic Games.

“Any bid that does not have existing venues will have to demonstrate its ability to complete those venues to the IOC,” USOC Chief Executive Jim Scherr said at a news conference after the venue tour.

Los Angeles, the other finalist to be the U.S. candidate in the global competition for the 2016 host, has 30 of its 36 venues in place, including the Olympic stadium (L.A. Coliseum) and village (UCLA dormitories).

The USOC board will pick the candidate April 14.

“While the final decision will be based on which city has the best chance internationally, either city is capable of hosting the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” said USOC Vice President Bob Ctvrtlik, who’s overseeing the bid process.

The lavish praise both Scherr and Ctvrtlik heaped on Chicago’s “bold plan” immediately was tempered by Ctvrtlik’s insistence that the city provide guarantees it would do what it promises.

Mayor Richard M. Daley, who rode the bus for nearly three hours with the USOC group, said the city is looking at “a number of options.” Daley, who long has insisted no public money would be used for the Games, declined several times to reiterate that promise Wednesday.

The compactness of Chicago’s plan and the combination of scenery and buildings that would turn many of the venues into picture postcards clearly impressed the USOC.

The stop at Northerly Island, which would have BMX cycling, beach volleyball and track cycling, showed the USOC group why the site was picked: dramatic views of Soldier Field, the Field Museum and the skyline.

“Just think what the backdrop would be for [TV] broadcasters,” Doug Arnot, Chicago 2016 director of sport and operations, told the USOC. “We have emphasized the merger of parkland and the Olympics, and there is no better place to show that than Northerly Island.”

The final leg of the tour, north on Lake Shore Drive to the whitewater site in Lincoln Park, passed the proposed archery site in Grant Park, the rowing venue that would run from the aquarium to the Chicago River and a triathlon site that would use the lake at North Avenue for swimming and Lake Shore Drive for cycling and running.

All those venue sites are telegenic—a big part of Chicago’s pitch to the USOC.

“These would be Games unparalleled in their experience for the athlete, the Olympic family and the spectators, with the showcase of the waterfront experience,” Scherr said.

A discordant note was sounded as the USOC delegation boarded a bus outside the Hilton to begin the tour. A protester with a bullhorn accused Daley and the Olympics of racism, claimed the Olympics would displace homeless and said that the Games should not come to the city. The USOC commissions polls to determine whether a city wants the Games.

phersh@tribune.com

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

By Gary Washburn, Philip Hersh, and Kathy Bergen
Tribune staff reporters

March 7, 2007, 10:28 PM CST

Contrary to his earlier promises, Mayor Richard Daley will have to pledge local funds, at least as collateral, if he wants Chicago to beat Los Angeles to become the U.S. bidder for the 2016 Olympics.

This imperative became clear Wednesday when the U.S. Olympic Committee evaluation team briefed reporters after a two-day visit to size up the city and its bid proposal.

“I’m sure you know there will be either legislation going through or city council meetings at which very important guarantees or commitments, perhaps, might be voted upon,” USOC Vice President Bob Ctvrtlik said.

“We definitely want the government to have some skin in the game,” he said. “We have been assured by the mayor that this is the case with the City of Chicago.”

The USOC team was asked whether it believed a city that saw huge cost overruns in the creation of Millennium Park could be expected to deliver an Olympic stadium and village on budget. “That is certainly one of the items we are going to have an ongoing dialog on,” said USOC Chief Executive Jim Scherr.

The city has until March 31 to spell out its guarantees to the USOC, which will decide April 14 whether Chicago or Los Angeles will move into the international competition, to be decided in 2009.

“We just have to see what their final package entails,” Ctvrtlik said. “So, at this time, they made some representations, and we’ll see exactly what comes concretely presented to us by March 31.”

Asked about Ctvrtlik’s remarks, Daley told reporters, “We are presently working on the guarantee, both with public and private” entities.

“We’re looking at that—the concern the USOC has, rightfully so,” the mayor said. “We will be coming up with a plan very shortly.”

But Daley repeatedly refused to provide any details during a press conference by Chicago’s bid team, which followed the USOC briefing. And he dodged the question of whether he was amending his promise not to use any local, public funds.

When asked about the promise, Daley said, “We are presently looking at a number of options in regards to the commitment we’ll make.”

Daley has amassed two big pots of money over the past two years, though uses for the cash have been earmarked for purposes other than the Olympics.

In 2005, the city leased the Chicago Skyway to private operators for $1.83 billion. Of the total, $500 million was set aside for a long-term reserve that generates about $25 million a year in investment income. A $325 million annuity also was created to fund various city programs over the following eight years.

Last fall, Daley announced a deal to lease four downtown parking garages—one owned by the city, three by the Chicago Park District—for $563 million. More than half of the money was used to pay outstanding debt associated with the garages, but $122 million was reserved for a variety of park system improvements.

Daley often has said that the city expects the private sector, Olympic-generated revenue and the federal government to cover the costs of the games and has vowed that local taxpayers would not be at risk. Wednesday’s change of tone came eight days after Daley was re-elected.

Later in the day, the Chicago 2016 bid committee issued a statement on guarantees, attempting to clarify what will be needed.

The private developer selected to build the $1.1 billion Olympic Village south of McCormick Place would be required to obtain its own private-market guarantees, the committee said.

And the contractor on the $366 million temporary stadium in Washington Park would have to commit to delivering it at a pre-established cost and set up its own construction guarantees.

“As for everything else, the International Olympic Committee, and thus the USOC, require a guarantee against any operating budget shortfall from every bid city,” Patrick Sandusky, a Chicago 2016 spokesman, said in a statement. “This is what the city and the committee are working to develop.”

Given the experience of previous U.S. host cities, it is likely Chicago will find a lender or consortium of lenders to extend a line of credit to cover costs that occur before Olympic-generated revenue starts to pour in.

But such a financing plan will need to be backed up by government.

The IOC “wants financial guarantees and assurances from a government that bills will be paid,” said A.D. Frazier, who was chief operating officer of the 1996 Atlanta Games.

“This is something New York struggled with on its bid for 2012,” said Kevin Walmsley, an Olympic historian with the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario. “This is hard and fast with the IOC.”

If the Games generate enough revenue, from television rights, ticket sales, sponsorships and the like, the city could pay off a line of credit without ever having to tap taxpayers.

And that is what the Chicago 2016 Committee projects will happen.

“The fact is, the recent Games in the U.S. have returned surpluses,” Sandusky said in the statement. “Looking at the current trend in Olympic revenue generation, we anticipate a Games in Chicago will return a significant surplus. Therefore, the likelihood of having to tap this guarantee is minimal.”

The IOC’s insistence on an ironclad guarantee stems from a mix-up surrounding the Atlanta bid, Frazier said.

A state authority set up to have financial oversight of the Games was given bonding power but no ability to levy funds to pay off bonds, he said.

“When the IOC realized there was effectively no government backing for Atlanta, they were furious,” he said.

Speaking to the issue of cost overruns at Millennium Park, which the USOC acknowledged was something of a concern, Daley said, “The scope changed 100 percent, and it went from a small green space to what we have—an internationally acclaimed park, one of the best in the world.”

Originally estimated to cost $150 million when plans were unveiled in 1998, the price tag ballooned to about $490 million by the time it opened in 2005.

Private donors covered roughly $220 million of the total, the city the remainder.

The Chicago 2016 Committee until Wednesday had been putting off providing details on guarantees, noting the city was in a competitive situation and saying the information would be shared at some later date. But at the dual press briefings, the issue bubbled over.

“The USOC asking for a guarantee was not a surprise for us, or for any other Olympic bid city,” said Sandusky. “It has always asked for this kind of guarantee. … From the beginning, we knew about it and worked on it.”

kbergen@tribune.com

gwashburn@tribune.com

phersh@tribune.com

John King;

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

One of them is Rem Koolhaas, who stopped by San Francisco last week for a lecture filled with cynical wit and visual flash. He also stirred my doubts about the entire global game — where the stars often seem to work harder at one-upping their rivals than at creating buildings that will improve our cities and lives.

 ”Architecture has to become more extravagant, more exceptional, more unique to play its assumed role as icon,” said Koolhaas, 62, black-clad and droll. “I’m never quite sure if I’m supposed to present an intellectual discourse or be a salesman. The line between is very thin.”

Koolhaas is best known in these parts for a building that never was: the Prada he designed for a corner near Union Square, a 10-story boutique clad in bead-blasted steel, with 8,000 portholes instead of windows.

It resembled a cheese grater and it infuriated people who said it shouldn’t be in the architectural conservation district around Union Square. But the City Planning Commission gave Prada its blessing in 2001 — just in time for the economy to tank.

Koolhaas didn’t mention Prada in his 90-minute presentation Wednesday to the crowd in a comically overstuffed auditorium at San Francisco Art Institute. Why should he? The work of his Office for Metropolitan Architecture is pushing in directions that make Prada’s provocation seem nostalgically quaint.

For instance, there’s the tower being built for China’s television headquarters. The design is best likened to a sharp-edged Mobius strip; the client Koolhaas shrugged off with a laconic “many architects today are accused of building for evil.”

Another endeavor involves the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Koolhaas’ approach to this cluster of buildings that dates to 1754 is to “completely abstain from architecture” — even leaving visible evidence of structural decay — because “we want to preserve the building, but also the history of its neglect.”

When not sharing his own work, Koolhaas drew laughs by dissecting the strangeness of an age where a handful of architectural celebrities — Zaha, Renzo, Frank, Rem — are sought out by institutions and developers who hope to make a splash.

“We have no income, but people are very interested in us,” Koolhaas said. “A competition means you’re usually with your 10 best friends” — each in pursuit of the commission and acclaim.

All of which makes for great gossip when paths cross at the international terminal, I’m sure. What bothers me is the detached unreality of a world where architecture is reduced to a chic parlor game. At some point the stars aren’t designing for the site or the client. They want to pull a new breed of rabbit out of their hat.

The newest project Koolhaas showed off is a 52-story tower unveiled on the East Coast two days before the lecture. It would stand in Jersey City across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan — and I say stand instead of soar because there’s nothing romantic about the concept of two rectangular slabs balanced on top of a boxy mid-rise, with the piece in the middle set perpendicular to the ones above and below.

Essentially it’s a stack of packing crates: one filled with a hotel, one with apartments and one with lofts.

Koolhaas described the design as pragmatic common sense: “There’s a financial logic to every one of these dimensions.” But the real thrust seems to be a riposte at the box-popping exhibitionism seen in the towers proposed during the past few years — sinuous forms that strut like runway models through architectural magazines.

Those forms are also all the rage in let-’er-rip boomtowns like Dubai — where Koolhaas was invited to compete in one project and showed up with images of a 600-foot-wide by 900-foot-tall slab.

It harks back to the art world of the 1960s, when minimalism came on the scene as a reaction to the excesses of abstract expressionism. Koolhaas wants to short-circuit spectacle in an odd way: by making a spectacle of simple forms.

Overall, it’s great that design novelty sells. I like the idea that decisionmakers see the value of challenging and innovative designs. Each time something dynamic appears on the landscape — including the library OMA fashioned in downtown Seattle, with its top-floor reading room that feels like a glass tree house — we see how architecture can reshape the world.

But today’s craze for gargantuan novelty has a dangerous side.

No matter how seductive images might be as images, or as models on display, buildings aren’t sculptures in a gallery. Nor are they rhetorical flourishes in a cultural debate.

Buildings are real life — that’s their beauty and threat. If they’re overwhelming on the ground, or deadening to views, we passers-by won’t know the “artistic” context. We’ll just know they shouldn’t be there. And by then it will be too late.

Place appears on Tuesdays. E-mail John King at jking@sfchronicle.com.

City says Olympic experience offers edge over Chicago

By Philip Hersh, Tribune Olympics reporter
Published March 1, 2007, 11:29 PM CST

LOS ANGELES — The committee trying to bring the 2016 Olympic Games to Los Angeles gave the U.S. Olympic Committee commission evaluating their chances a virtual tour of the proposed Olympic Village on the UCLA campus Thursday.

Sophisticated urban simulation software developed by UCLA professor Bill Jepson made the tour possible and reflected one of Los Angeles’ major talking points for its bid: That the creative community centered in Hollywood will be available for the first time to promote the Olympics.

But the virtual part wasn’t necessary because the USOC visitors later walked through the real buildings that would house about 75 percent of the 16,000 athletes and officials on the campus if the Games were in Los Angeles for a third time. UCLA is building new housing that would accommodate the rest.

While Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid extols the attractiveness of a $1.1 billion development on Lake Shore Drive that would make its debut as an Olympic Village and provide the comforts of apartment-style living, that housing exists only on drawing boards.

And although Chicago’s village would be much closer to most of the sports venues than the UCLA dorms are to the Los Angeles venues, the USOC will leave Southern California with the comfort of having seen actual bricks and mortar as it decides April 14 which city would be the better candidate for the 2016 bid.

“This city is ready and willing to host these Olympics,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in a public greeting to the 18-member USOC group, decked out in black jackets with “United States Olympic Committee 2016 evaluation commission” embroidered on the chest.

The same group will be in Chicago on Monday through Wednesday. The USOC will not comment about the L.A. evaluation until Friday, after it has been feted at the Getty Museum on Thursday night.

Banners reading “LA 2016″ hung along the stretch of Sunset Boulevard adjacent to the UCLA campus. A Disney-produced film, “Why LA?,” had its premiere for USOC and media audiences. Frequent expressions of Los Angeles as the chosen place, hubris be darned, hung in the sunny atmosphere of a perfect late-winter day.

“We have the beaches, the palm trees, the glitz and the glamor,” Villaraigosa said as he introduced the 31/2-minute film emphasizing all those things, including Los Angeles being home to more Olympians than any other city in the world.

“This is where stars are born and where dreams are made. No city inspires dreams quite like the city of Los Angeles,” he said.

Reality sometimes is less inspiring.

Nearly one-fifth of the residents in a UCLA Olympic Village would have to use a common shower and bathroom down the hall. Many others would have one bathroom and shower for five or six people.

Chicago hopes its apartment-style village will look better by comparison, even if it is only on paper.

“When we said ‘college-type room’ 20 years ago or 30 years ago, we had rooms and toilets and a common shower at the end of a hall. Of course, that we don’t want,” Gilbert Felli, the International Olympic Committee’s executive director for the Olympic Games, said in a Tribune interview.

“If you have as we do now on [many] campuses, rooms where you have your own shower, sometimes even a little kitchen, everybody will say it is fantastic.”

The UCLA village, undergraduate housing on the northwest side of campus, has the feel of a community with eight dining halls and recreation facilities such as pools and tennis courts. It is next to the track and sports medicine centers.

The Chicago village would have similar facilities—plus an exclusive lakefront beach—because the IOC requires them, according to Chicago 2016 spokesman Mike Kontos.

Because only one Olympic venue is planned at UCLA—Pauley Pavilion, for volleyball preliminaries—travel times to other venues are an issue in a city where overtaxed freeways are constantly congested.

Olympic gold medal swimmer Janet Evans needed 2½ hours Thursday to cover the 66 miles from her home in Orange County to UCLA, where she introduced the civic and campus leaders who presented the L.A. bid to the USOC commission. It took a reporter 45 minutes from her home in Long Beach, where 16 sports would be played.

A day before the USOC tours the venues, Villaraigosa played down travel concerns, citing new rail service and traffic management as solutions.

“In 1984 (the last L.A. Olympics), people talked about doomsday and Armageddon, yet traffic flowed because leadership decisions were made,” he said.

phersh@tribune.com

Starting this week, L.A. and Chicago pull out all the stops to sell themselves

By Michael Martinez, Tribune national correspondent
Published March 1, 2007

LOS ANGELES — The battle between Chicago and Los Angeles for the 2016 Olympics is now fully raging as the U.S. Olympic Committee begins a final inspection visit to the City of Angels this week–and then tours the Windy City next week.

Los Angeles will make its last pitch to an evaluation team on Thursday and Friday, and it must convince the committee that after hosting the Olympics in 1932 and 1984, it should represent the United States for a third time, while Chicago is eager and willing for a first chance.

For example, Los Angeles will promote its experience and existing facilities, but it will also have to address its shortcomings in traffic, sprawl, an aging Coliseum as the Olympic marquee, and a potential been-there-done-that fatigue at the international level, analysts said.

The committee will choose between the two on April 14, with the winner advancing as the U.S. candidate to the international competition for the 2016 Summer Games.

“Chicago is extremely formidable, but L.A. is extremely strong,” said David Carter, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Sports Business Institute. “But Chicago, with its sports will and political will, is a ready-for-prime-time challenger.”

Mark Dolley, the spokesman for San Francisco’s Olympic bid until that city dropped out last year, said Los Angeles needs “to demonstrate how they could make a third Olympic Games a little bit different and a little special, bearing in mind that it’s been only 23 years since the last one.”

David Simon, president of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games, responded: “Some say that the fact we’ve had the Olympics twice is our challenge. We happen to think that is one of our chief strengths.”

Analysts also noted that another Los Angeles Olympics would have to compete with the city’s long slate of entertainment events.

In sizing up the final two cities, analysts spoke of Chicago’s civic engagement, promoted in part by its centralized politics and its powerful mayor, Richard Daley, who has also made more high-profile visits to Olympic sites overseas than Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

In proposing an all-important stadium for opening and closing ceremonies, both cities have advanced temporary structures or improvements. Los Angeles would spend $112 million on temporary additions, largely endorsed by preservationists, to the historic Coliseum, which opened in 1923. Chicago has proposed a $366 million facility in the South Side’s Washington Park, which would later be converted into a 5,000-seat amphitheater.

In the crucial visits, a 12-member USOC evaluation commission, joined by five support staff members, will analyze each city’s bid in a process that’s part kicking the tires on the proposals and part ensuring either city is qualified to be the U.S. nominee, analysts said.

Both cities will be largely confined to addressing certain themes such as transportation, security, media operations and a financial plan.

Ultimately, the USOC officials will be evaluating which city can win the international race for the 2016 Summer Games, competing against world capitals such as Rome, Tokyo, Madrid and New Delhi, analysts said.

“We’re looking for the city that has the best chance to be competitive in what we know will be a very challenging international race,” said Darryl Seibel, spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee.

The Olympic evaluation team is scheduled to spend Thursday hearing from Southern California officials and viewing the debut of a short film by Disney, “Why L.A.?”

The evaluators will tour the UCLA campus, the proposed site for the Olympic village and some event venues. On Friday, they will visit the Home Depot Center in Carson, venues in Long Beach and then the Staples Center downtown.

“It’s part dog-and-pony show too,” said Toronto sports consultant Rob Livingstone, who assisted Toronto’s bid for the 2008 Games that ultimately went to Beijing. “In a way that’s kind of important. If they can’t put on a good show on the domestic level, they can’t do it on an international level.”

Right now, Los Angeles seems to be ahead of Chicago in the competition, according to two Chicago-based observers.

“My handicapping of it is very close to even. L.A. is still in the lead but that lead has shrunk significantly over the last few months,” said Marc Ganis, president of Sportscorp Ltd., a consulting firm with no ties to the Olympics.

He noted that the Olympic community eyes Chicago with “curiosity” and “intrigue.”

Ganis favors Chicago for the 2016 Games, but not Allen Sanderson, a University of Chicago economist who was born in Southern California and has lived in Chicago for 22 years.

“I hope L.A. gets it. These things tend to be very expensive parties and Los Angeles would be the least expensive drain,” Sanderson said. “Chicago will be very expensive if they get it.”

Those costs will be negotiated by the winning city with the USOC.

“Just know that the evaluation–I can tell you because I know these guys pretty well–is `What’s in it for the U.S. Olympic Committee?’ and `What are the financial splits?’” said A.D. Frazier, chief operating officer for the 1996 Atlanta Games. “It will be a negotiation between Chicago and Los Angeles as to who’s more willing to meet my demands. Absolutely. You can take that to the bank.”

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mjmartinez@tribune.com

Bob Verdi; Published February 25, 2007