Slice of Life: Church Light

In the six years I've lived in Chicago and the thousands of times I've walked past Fourth Presbyterian Church (125 East Chestnut Street) somehow I never noticed the sconces that protrude from the wall on either side of its main entrance.  They're ornate and lovely, but sadly don't appear to light up in the dark.

North Side Sonic Boom Warning

That noise you're going to hear this morning (Friday, September 18, 2009) echoing across the Gold Coast and Near North Side is a 21-gun salute at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Chestnut Street.  In the photo above we see Chicago police officers preparing for the event in front of Fourth Presbyterian Church (125 East Chestnut Street).  It's part of a series of events all week honoring veterans, especially those who received the Congressional Medal of Honor.  The photo below is from an event at Daley Plaza (55 West Randolph Street) yesterday.

Fourth Presbyterian Tower: Still Dead

Last week I told you about how the Fourth Presbyterian Church has given up on its plan to build a 64-story tower across the street from the 100-story John Hancock Center and the 66-story tower at 900 North Michigan Avenue.  Since then, I've been given a copy of a letter from Pastor John Buchanan that has some interesting details in it.

• The reasons cited for abandoning the tower plan are politics, the economy, and time.
  
• The church had been working on the tower plan for eight years.
  
• Alderman Brendan Reilly refused to meet with Fourth Presbyterian to talk about the tower.
  

According to Pastor Buchanan, "Attempts to met with him to present the new proposal and to discuss the church's mission and goals have been unsuccessful."  Didn't we elect Reilly to represent all the people?  Doesn't that mean he should listen to both sides of an issue?  Isn't blind one-sidedness the reason we kicked out Burt Natarus?

If the alderman won't even look at the new proposal, how does he know it's bad?  How could he use his position of power to help kill this project?  Was he operating on hearsay?  I wasn't information from the paper, because both the Sun-Times and the Tribune endorsed the project.

The church still has its space problem to solve, and will move forward putting together a new plan for that. It will likely involve a piece of property purchased along Chicago Avenue.  Assuming it, too, is not in the heart of NIMBY country.

Quickie: Fourth Presbyterian Tower Officially Dead

Crain's Chicago Business reports that the plan to build a condominium tower on Fourth Presbyterian Church's Michigan Avenue property is officially dead.

The idea was to use some property immediately behind the church to construct a tower with offices and meeting space for the church at the bottom, and condos at the top.  The church would have gotten $20 million to help keep it afloat, plus a lot of much needed space to conduct and expand its programs that help the community.

But that didn't sit well with the neighborhood NIMBYs, especially those in SOAR and across the street at the John Hancock Center.  They didn't want the 64-story tower taking away their views -- the same views they took away from people in other buildings when the 100-story Hancock Center went up decades ago.   They cited traffic, noise, light, congestion, and neighborhood character as reasons it shouldn't go up.  Interestingly, those are all the same arguments that were made against the construction of the Hancock Center back in the 1960's.

Now that the Fourth Presbyterian Tower is dead, what next for the church?  It's hard to say.  The tower proposal was a drastic step to keep the church alive and well, not just some money-making lark.  If Fourth Presbyterian moves or closes, we'll have the usual suspects to blame.