Austin Improv

For anyone who's been to Wrigleyville in Chicago, where iO resides about a block from Wrigley field, you know it's a beautiful hell on earth. well, apparently, they want to blast a huge portion of that neighborhood in order to erect a mall type strip of shops and lameness.
forced out would be iO, Goose Island, Salt n Pepper Diner, Mullen's, and many other independent businesses. it happens in cities all the time and i guess its kind of a natural capitalist tidal movement, but when i think about what the Drag looked like when i was in college and what it looks like now, i want to puke blood. to picture wrigleyville in the same squeeky clean polished veneer evokes a similar reaction in me.

Now normally I don't advocate for chain letters and online petitions, but because of Chicago's alderman system where small chunks of the city are assigned to a dude who does stuff on your behalf, I think joining the Facebook group and commenting on your thoughts would actually be beneficial.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=1 ... 710&ref=ts

That is incredibly depressing.

Who's your alderman?

mpbrockman wrote:Who's your alderman?

Tom Tunney is the alderman where this is happening.

scook wrote:

mpbrockman wrote:Who's your alderman?

Tom Tunney is the alderman where this is happening.

Thanks, I don't do Facebook - but don't mind dashing off a letter to the alderman.

Holy crap. That was where I hung out for most of my high school and beyond years. Rocket 69 has been gone for years but it still has some pretty awesome shops and culture. When I took my son to the Alley he told me he wanted to live there. Strip Malls = The Blandpocolypse. This calls for some kind of crazy scheme...