By Ben Joravsky
“I think we’ve gone beyond the point of lunacy here–it’s less than a sliver, it’s a shaving,” says Ronald Litke, a friend of mine who lives in the condo building that’s about 18 inches from the new building. “Next thing they’ll be converting potholes here into condos. If this keeps up I’m going to sell the air rights over my parking spot, which may be a little bigger than the building next door.”
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The sliver’s being built on what was once a vacant lot piled high with debris. Four years ago Litke and his fellow condo owners cleared away the garbage, installed a fence on the Willow end, laid some sod, and planted a garden, turning the dump into a mini park–a site for barbecues, dog walkers, and even games of touch football.
Last spring the sign finally came down, suggesting the land had been sold. And in December a construction crew came to clear away the grass and garden and to dig the hole for the new building’s foundation.
On the day in early January when Jim’s crew came to pour the foundation, the city dispatched an inspector to make sure the plot line was not exceeded. “It was a matter of inches, and I was measuring,” says Litke. “The lot’s 25 feet, but the CTA has a ten-foot easement on either side of its tracks. That means they have about 14 feet to work with, and once you’re done with closets, studs, the outer brick, you’re talking maybe 12 feet of living space. Look, I know what it’s like to live in a start-up apartment. I used to live in a studio so small I called it a parking space. But at least it wasn’t under the el.”
“Listen, there’s nothing I can do. If someone wants to live in a dark box filled with noise and without sunlight, it’s not my problem.”
Chicago Women in Trades examined hiring statistics at four publicly funded projects in Chicago and two in other cities. The best hiring rate was on a bridge-construction project in Portland, Maine, in which women made up 9 percent of the workforce. In contrast, the female labor force for such local projects as the new post office, a juvenile detention center, McCormick Place, and Cook County Jail was no higher than about 5.5 percent. “These are real good numbers for the Chicago area, but what we discovered is that if you set high goals and have resources to recruit women, then you’ll have more women on the job,” says LeBreton. “That was especially the case in Portland, where they had a goal of 15 percent as well as advantages that other sites don’t have. They started planning way before construction began. They had full-time affirmative-action staff on site. They had child care. OK, they didn’t make that 15 percent goal, but by setting higher standards they did better than anyone else.”
