The ballyhooed gang peace summit wasn’t the only thing happening at the Congress Hotel last weekend. The notion of drug-running killers holding court while in another room medical professionals discussed emergency-room issues seemed so ironic that the item topped the “Inc.” column in Sunday’s Tribune. But there was another event taking place at the old Michigan Avenue hotel that Saturday that helps explain–in ways that bullet-riddled bodies never will–why Chicago is in such a sorry state.
Singing the praises of a dilapidated South Loomis bungalow, the auctioneer guaranteed that “this is the only piece of real estate in the city of Chicago at that address.” When nobody topped the opening $5,000 bid, he admonished the crowd, “Remember, we’re talking real estate.” His eyes moved quickly through the room, and he reminded his audience that “snoozing is losing.” A roomful of silence led him to move to the next listing, but not before pouting that Inland would hold this bargain for private sale.
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At the Congress Hotel, one of Inland’s boys hustled like someone whose most ardent dream is a corner office. This rotund, pink-faced fellow was in constant motion, walking up and down the rows of chairs, echoing the auctioneer’s pitch about each property. He stood over one man, encouraging him to up the ante. With help from a colleague on the other side of the room, the price on a drab-looking house quickly rose by $5,000. When a nightclub came up for sale, he became positively animated. “Own this and the babes will love you,” he said, though nobody seemed interested. “For that price you can use the place just to have over the family.”
Willis asked a Conservative Vice Lord to repeat what he’d told an audience in Cleveland. The fellow mumbled about having apologized because “during drive-bys you don’t know who you hit.” Another fellow admitted that at first he didn’t like the idea of stopping the violence because “I kind of like it.”
