What Will Become of Quigley North?
But the chapel is merely one of Quigley’s four wings. The Very Reverend Thomas Franzman, rector of Quigley, told us that Loyola University across the street wants to buy the seminary and expand into it. But the archdiocese needs lots of money. “Doing other things I’m sure would be financially better than selling it to Loyola,” Franzman said. He said calls from developers who want to do other things have been pouring into the chancery.
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Architect Daniel Coffey, who specializes in historic structures, dropped by Quigley the other day. Franzman said Coffey suggested “we put a tower up over the gym wing, the Chestnut Street wing. We’d put legs through the interior of that wing, and some other supports would wind up in the courtyard, and we could build a 40-story structure above it.” Quigley would occupy the first five or six floors and stay where it is. “The rest of it might be residential or hotel space, something like that. It would ultimately fund the school.”
The letter, signed by Secretary General Ian Martin of Amnesty International, should be arriving in Springfield just about now. Bath was reluctant to discuss the contents, but she told us that among the matters AI wants to learn more about are the investigative procedures of the Chicago Police Department’s Office of Professional Standards.
The police station was the old Area 2 headquarters at 91st and Cottage Grove, the officers the violent-crimes unit under the command of Lieutenant Jon Burge. Represented by the People’s Law Office, Wilson sued Burge, some other officers, and the city. Conroy wrote that Wilson complained of receiving “burns and electric shock, the shock delivered by two different devices affixed to his genitals, his ears, his nose, and his fingers” while in custody at Area 2. According to that parade of other men turned up by Wilson’s lawyers, they too received electroshock, “or had plastic bags put over their heads, or had their fingers put in bolt cutters, or were threatened with being thrown off a roof” during interrogations that spanned a decade.
Marjory Byler explained the distinction as Amnesty International makes it. “We define torture as the use of excessive force during interrogations carried out by official representatives of police forces, security forces, or the military,” she said. “Usually with the collusion of or some amount of awareness by government. This is to separate it from police brutality, which is widespread but which Amnesty doesn’t work on.”
