Chicago Tribune columnist Blair Kamin makes the case that now that there has been all this attention on a lakefront parking lot, why doesn't Rahm take matters into his own hand and transform this eye sore into green space (via Chicago Tribune):
Now that a month has passed since "Star Wars" creator George Lucas withdrew his misguided plan to build a museum on Chicago's lakefront, it's time for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to get over the defeat and turn his attention to transforming the ugly parking lot where the museum would have been built into what it always should have been — a prime stretch of shoreline green space.
Admittedly, that won't be easy. The mayor is said to remain angry about the loss of the $743 million museum. He continues to predict that the lot will remain an eyesore long into the future because Friends of the Parks thwarted Lucas' plan.
Yet if Emanuel is guided by his better angels — the ones that led him to champion exemplary open-space projects such as the expanded downtown Riverwalk and the 606 trail — he could turn the Lucas debacle into a triumph and a choice illustration of his oft-quoted maxim, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste."Seems like a tall task. We can dream though...
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