Department of tact. Graham Grady, the city’s new building commissioner, who wants to increase city demolitions of abandoned buildings from 751 last year to more than 1,200 this year: “Contrary to stereotype, I think most city employees are basically good people who are capable of quality work. But there are some knuckleheads” (Chicago Enterprise, March/April).
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You have reached the foundation. Please do not leave a message. It will not be returned. From Forum Notes (February): “The J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation will no longer accept grant applications. The Foundation is making a significant new commitment to three specific projects, the MacArthur Justice Center in Chicago, the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., and Article 19 in London….[Therefore] the Foundation will not be hiring a new president or executive director. It will reduce its entire staff to one person, Marylou Bane. As a result, no staff will be available either to communicate with potential donees or discuss potential grants. For similar reasons, no Foundation staff member will be available to discuss this change in policy.”
Only in Hyde Park. According to the University of Chicago Chronicle (February 17), at a January benefit auction for Blue Gargoyle Youth Service Center, an autographed copy of Michael Jordan’s Rare Air sold for $280–and lunch with emeritus law professor and 1991 Nobelist Ronald Coase went for $420.
Ah, springtime in the city of neighborhoods. “Wicker Park I’ve met you before,” writes Zack Anderson in the Lumpen Times (volume 2, number 14). “Wicker Park I’ve tasted the grey flesh of your rotten fruit, planted in vanity and watered with conceit. …Wicker Park echoing with the same old sounds, the young and the beautiful trying on attitude and political correctness and literature as if they were Chanel accessories. Wicker Park I hate you.”
