A ‘significant place of public engagement’: Preservationists protest state’s efforts to sell and potentially demolish Thompson Center – Chicago Tribune*

Jonathan Solomon, co-founder of Preservation Futures, compared its condition to being born in 1985 — the year the building opened — and never showering, eating healthy or going to the doctor’s office. “You’d look pretty bad too,” Solomon said over the song “1985” by the band Bowling For Soup. “That’s what the state of Illinois did to this building.
3 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Curious Observer
4 years ago

Helmut Jahn wanted to be so avant garde with this building that his product was designed for failure. If you equate avant garde with weirdness, impracticality, impossible heating and cooling as well as wasted space he succeeded spectacularly. Tear it down, it is a horrible mistake.

The Paraclete
4 years ago

Yea, the place is a dump! Let’s save it! Let Barack buy it and build his shrine downtown. Better yet just move the shrine right in! Everybody is happy?

debtsor
4 years ago

This building is a perfect metaphor for the dysfunction of IL. Why would anyone want to save it?

SIGN UP HERE FOR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER

Home Page Signup
First
Last
Check what you would like to receive:

FOLLOW US

 

WIREPOINTS ORIGINAL STORIES

Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades

Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.

Read More »

WE’RE A NONPROFIT AND YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS ARE DEDUCTIBLE.

SEARCH ALL HISTORY

CONTACT / TERMS OF USE