The political tussle in the drafty old church auditorium was bizarre, bitter, and ironic even by standards of the 46th Ward.
He has one problem, however. Mayor Daley, whose support Quigley expects, supports the project; Jane Byrne, the mayor’s chief opponent, does not–and she showed up at the meeting to blast the mayor’s stand. As a result, Shiller and Daley find themselves allied against Quigley and Byrne on one of the ward’s most volatile issues. All of which leaves most ward observers, even the veterans, scratching their heads.
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“She has voted against Daley more than any other alderman,” says Quigley, “and then she tries to paint me as ‘go-along Quigley.’ Now on an important issue to our community she’s on the same side as the mayor, and they’re both wrong. It shows that when Daley is wrong, I’m against it.”
“It’s a disgrace that the city tolerates this,” says Erma Tranter, executive director of Friends of the Parks, a watchdog group. “There are creative things that can be done with this land.”
“The result was that 189 people said they’d rather have a parking lot/park over what we have there now, and 120 said, ‘No parking lot, let’s hold out for the park,’” says Shiller. “I can’t say the zoning group talked to every resident. But they tried to be as inclusive as possible.”
By the time of the meeting the project had a name (“Challenger Park”), a stated goal (“to reclaim the wild prairie in a symbolized way”), and its own self-promoting, city-financed brochure complete with garbled rhetoric intended to make a ribbon of grass next to some train tracks sound glamorous.
“If there is no parking,” Tranter said, “people know that and will use the CTA. When we provide parking, they drive here.”
