Letters we’re glad we didn’t send: “I am faxing a release which flushes out this story idea…”
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Life is different at the top. In Inland Architect (September/October 1989), Robert Bruegmann describes McDonald’s exquisitely landscaped new 80-acre headquarters in Oak Brook: “Before any construction started, in fact before any plans were drawn, McDonald’s hired a forester, Chuck Stewart of Urban Forest Management, to inventory the parcel’s 1,500 trees, many of them majestic oaks. The buildings were placed to minimize impact on the site, and much of the parking was located under the headquarters structure. During construction an extraordinary effort was made to save every possible tree. Each workman who would be on the site was required to watch a video about the importance of saving trees.”
“The only reason Chicago is still a viable economic entity,” according to Chicago airport consultant Suhail al Chalabi, “is transportation. That’s the only reason people will come here. Chicago doesn’t have nice weather. It doesn’t have the topography. But it’s had the river and the trains and the highways. And now it has the airports” (Chicago Enterprise, October 1989).
“Between 1981 and 1988, blacks and Hispanics had the highest annual rates of AIDS per 100,000 population,” according to the Chicago Reporter (September 1989). “The rates were: blacks, 34.9; Hispanics, 28.9; whites, 9.6; Asians and Pacific Islanders, 5.4; and American Indians and Alaskan Natives, 2.2.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Carl Kock.
