columns by Peter Zelchenko 2005-2007 columns by Peter Zelchenko 2005-2007August 29, 2007 It's a breezy autumn day in 1977, outside the elite Latin School of Chicago. Three friends-the gawkiest of freshmen nerds-skateboard out onto the Gold Coast streets to spend yet another afternoon consuming pinball and junk food on Rush Street and hanging out on the lakefront. Oh, and fiddling around with CB radios and mainframe computers. That's what every kid did in those ancient times. ...
August 8, 2007 I could probably get arrested just for thinking about her. She's such a regular vice for me now, I will admit it to you. I need fixes more frequently than I ever did when I just started casually watching. I derive a kind of illicit pleasure, a need to notice her somewhere new each day on my way to and from the train. She's devilishly familiar to me. And some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. ...
July 25, 2007 Recycling has come full-circle in our area in a way that should teach us all everything we need to know about Chicago politics. Fred Bruno Barbara is nephew to the late 1st Ward Alderman Fred Roti, who left that office for a prison cell a mere 16 years ago. For decades, their extended family has been a primary bridge between the mob and municipal lucre, Barbara being the major bridge-tender of our generation. ...
July 4, 2007 We prefer to spend billions on Hallmark-manufactured constructs like "Valentine's Day" and "Christmas." This isn't the sort of anniversary that Chicago likes to dwell on, so this little scrap of newsprint may well be the only place to memorialize it. ...
June 7, 2007 Half a century ago, my father was a staff editor at the City News Bureau, the legendary boot camp for Chicago journalists. Pop's 93 now. Recently, I told him we'd been invited to a memorial for Mike Royko, whose career began at the bureau and who passed away 10 years ago. ...
April 16, 2007 The last vote is tallied. The last blue election supply carrier is rolled unceremoniously onto the floor of a dingy warehouse in the South Loop. Campaign offices are cleared out and padlocked, and the last stacks of literature disappear down the street with the trash. ...
April 25, 2007 Did you know that if you as a concerned citizen call to help correct a widespread transit problem on a Saturday morning, it goes into CTA's general voicemail and you won't get a call back until Tuesday? It's as if CTA officials don't understand that people actually need to get places on weekends. ...
April 11, 2007 It's April 1. A nice Sunday morning, nice and early. Nice city garbage truck, emptying the nice sidewalk trash baskets, going from stop to stop like a nice spring morning baby-blue bumblebee. The only sound on the nice Sunday morning street are the truck's air brakes as it pauses at each basket, then the heavy diesel grind as it takes off again. ...
March 21, 2007 The problem with progress is that it is more often a convenience to the producer than the consumer. On Claremont, a neighbor pushes snow around with his cheap shovel. Observe: there is not enough weight in it, nor is the edge sharp enough to cut through the stubborn snow. It often takes three strokes to do what a heavier shovel did for grandpa in one stroke. It also bends and breaks easily. ...
Nov. 29, 2006 When does Wednesday come before Tuesday? It seems to happen more often in the 1st Ward than in any other ward in the city. ...
Nov. 15, 2006 Autumn is fast giving way to months of utter cold. Yellow leaves blanket the East Village and parts yonder. The wind strives for us from gangway to gangway between the three-flats. Field and farmer alike are exhausted: one more circle is closing, one more year of planting seeds and policies in our Near Northwest Side. ...
Oct. 11, 2006 Skulking around Chicago Board of Elections headquarters a few weeks ago, I heard a commotion in the back room. "Oh, it's just a petition challenge," the receptionist told me. ...
Sep. 6, 2006 "Prayer circles and tears." That's how the University of Illinois at Chicago Education Department's Heather Horsley characterized the anxiety among parents trying to get their children into enhanced schools. ...
Aug. 9, 2006 Editor's note: Forget running for 43rd Ward alderman. Columnist Peter Zelchenko's real dream is to become the next Heloise of 'Hints from Heloise' renown. If that happens, it won't be on our pages. However, we are letting him indulge himself THIS ONE TIME. ...
July 12, 2006 The corruption trial of Richard Daley’s patronage staff has, to an extent, been a balm for those of us who screamed bloody murder about the devastating effect patronage has had on the well-being and political life of our city. ...
June 14, 2006 I’ve asked leaders of the West Town Chamber of Commerce for more detail on the West Town Special Service Area, in effect since 2005. This SSA covers Chicago Avenue from Halsted to California and several intersecting streets. After about 800 property owners were given notice of the two meetings on the SSA last year, only 34 people showed up - "a dismal display," Chamber Executive Director Kara Salgado acknowledged in a phone interview. ...
May 10, 2006 Well, I’m in deep now. I knew selecting a school for my son wouldn’t be easy. But I never realized it could be this tense, this competitive. In November, I wrote about the fluffy new Chicago Public Schools catalog and how parents’ obsession with test scores, encouraged by the administration, segregates our schools ethnically, economically, and academically. ...
April 12, 2006 How interesting politics get when election season rolls around. ...
March 29, 2006 I’d like to return to the night of the Jan. 24 bicyclist memorial and share a related story that hasn’t yet been made public. ...
March 8, 2006 In January, on Frank Avila’s "Issues Forum" on CAN-TV, I linked Forrest Claypool, candidate for County Board president against incumbent political heavy John Stroger, Jr.; Edwin Eisendrath, Democratic gubernatorial candidate, against Rod Blagojevich; and also whichever reformer should run against Daley in 2007. ...
Feb. 15, 2006 SSA update: The Wicker Park-Bucktown SSA is moving forward as proposed. I recently pointed out that the tax will be coming primarily from residents and will go to benefit primarily business. Unless residents try and convince their alderman to vote against it, and quickly, this will not change. ...
Feb. 1, 2006 I’m holding in my hand a valuable collector’s item, a New Year’s Eve gift from the Chicago Transit Authority. It is Chicago’s very last paper transfer. Printed with the expiration time of "11:59PM 31DEC05," this is a completely unique object, commemorating the last breath of Chicago’s centurylong paper transfer tradition. Wanna buy it? Effective Jan. 1, 2006, transfers became a thing of the past. ...
Jan. 18, 2006 You may be tired of the Wicker Park Committee conflict surrounding the Association House development on North Avenue. Things are still tense, and the WPC is splintered. I heard reports that the membership meeting two weeks ago was very emotional. Happy New Year, everyone. ...
Dec. 21, 2005 Here in the City of Richard, even in the precincts of Manny and Ted, as the holidays near, the snow and wind are blowing, and people are bustling about with their plans. ...
Nov. 16, 2005 In 2006, my little boy Abraham will enter a public school kindergarten, preferably somewhere in West Town. The deadline for applications is Dec. 16 so, like thousands of other parents, his mother and I are agonizing about our choices. ...
Oct. 12, 2005 I’ve got mixed feelings about the grocery situation in the area.
Sep. 28, 2005 Having been on the front lines of the debate for almost a decade, I have to clarify part of the Journal’s Sept. 15 editorial ("Landmark it already") regarding East Village preservation, where it was written that Alderman Manny Flores "didn’t help matters [regarding the ongoing demolition in East Village] by being indecisive once he took office." Flores did try to impose a moratorium on demolition permits pending serious debate of the problem, but he failed. He gets partial credit for that effort. ...
Sep. 14, 2005 I was just on the phone with my dear old neighbor Sophie Czernek. Sophie turns 78 in October, around the time the new library is expected to open at 1701 N. Milwaukee. ...