“A breathtaking and serene piece of architecture which exudes the total integration of structure with the original architectural concepts”–that’s how the awards jury of the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois sees 181 W. Madison, which it named the “best structure” of 1991. According to the SEAOI Bulletin (September), the 50-story tower is “the tallest combination concrete core/perimeter steel building in Chicago.”
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“Mike told me in no uncertain terms that he did not ‘do’ books. I asked, ‘How about this book?’ ‘F— you,’ he replied,” writes Sawyer Elementary School remedial reading teacher Daniel Peterson in Catalyst (October). “So, we talked instead; session after session we talked. One day, unbeknown to Mike, I hid a tape recorder under the desk and recorded our conversations for several days. Then I transcribed Mike’s words and bound the pages in a booklike manner, adding an attractive cover….Mike was fascinated with his own words coming to life on the printed page….Once Mike got over the shock of actually enjoying a reading experience, I proceeded to use his own ‘written’ words to teach him language arts skills. For example, I explained, ‘Mike, in this sentence “F— ” is the first word, so that’s why it’s capitalized.’ I pointed out that ‘son of a b—-‘ is not run together as one word. Needless to say, Mike was flabbergasted, but he was learning–and the learning was fun.”
Oh, say, can you si? Old-line machinesters representatives Lipinski and Rostenkowski, whose districts include more Latinos than any others in Illinois, are upholding the machine’s traditional standards of openness, to judge from Tom Corfman’s research in the Chicago Reporter (September): “Since 1986 U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (8th) has given more money to the late Mayor Richard J. Daley’s boyhood club than he has donated to all local Latino political candidates and community organizations combined. And U.S. Rep. William O. Lipinski (5th) has donated more money to the 23rd Ward Republican organization than he has given to Latino candidates.” Even loyal Hispanics don’t get anything from Rosty, whose PAC gave Daley running mate city clerk Walter Kozubowski $2,000 in February but gave city treasurer Miriam Santos nothing.
