...And That's My
Opinion©
By Sandy Goldman
The Rogers Park Community Curmudgeon
New York! New York?
This first issue, I’m sure, will create some new enemies
but what the heck!!
Most of you who know me understand that I have no great love for New
Yorkers. In fact I place them just
alongside of Parisians. Arrogant.
Pretentious. Vain. Boastful.
Haughty. Overbearing.
Audacious. It is plain to see that I do
not belong to the “I Love N.Y” group.
Samuel Johnson said “ A Frenchman must always be talking whether he
knows anything of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say nothing
when he has nothing to say”. The first
part of that quote applies to New Yorkers as well.
But now I think that New York City has plunged into the Whirlpool of The
Ridiculous!.
Two aging flower children, Christo and Jeanne Claude, have spent 26 years
formulating, conceiving, and financing a project called “The Gates” which
opened in early Feb and closed Feb 27th. Hundreds and hundreds of New Yorkers were agog. Lest you missed
it, this mish-mash posing as art was a $20 million project of 7,500 vinyl and
aluminum arches 16 feet high,
resembling gargantuan croquet wickets covered with orange bed sheets,
ranging in width from 5 ½ feet to 18 feet spaced about 12 feet apart and
covering 23 miles of pedestrian walk in 843 acres of park.
These are the same “artists” who denied visitors the sight of the German
Reichstag building in 1995 when they “wrapped it”. In 1969 they wrapped the Swiss Art Museum. In 1969
they also “wrapped” the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art in its first
home at 237 E. Chicago Ave. My art professor at Lake Forest College, Franz
Schulze, commented that the project “ was not pretty”. (They) made no efforts to make the thing
elegant. It simply looked like a big
building wrapped in brown canvas and secured by a rope”. Originally the Fire Department thought it
was a fire hazard.
In 1976 they constructed a 24-mile long clothesline hung with fabric
down the northern shoreline of California ending in the Pacific Ocean. This was followed by a planting of 3100 umbrellas in California and then
repeated the “artistic planting” in Japan.
ln 1985 they covered the Pont Neuf in Paris with 65 million square feet
of fabric.
New York experts expected the Central Park “Gates” to draw 200,000
visitors and bring in$ 80 million in the 16-day run. I have not read any of the results but I’m sure it met that
goal. Avant-garde boondoggle. These are the same “experts” who said no to
Wal Mart.
Maybe Alderman Joe Moore (49th) could talk to the Cristos’
about Morse Ave and Howard Street. Can
you imagine?
Well, it might be a beginning.
Wrap them up so no one can see the truth!!!
In a recent column (Chicago Tribune Feb 17th) Eric Zorn wrote
about the demise of the Lerner Newspaper logo and the shift of the Lerner
Community Newspapers to the Pioneer Press Publications. He chronicled the history of this community
newspaper and quoted many of the former and present employees.
I would like to add my comments.
In the years that Carol and I have lived in Rogers Park—and that would
be 47 years—the “Lerner Paper” has always been in our house. But more then that when I was active in
community fundraising for the Rogers Park Community Council (first as committee
chairman and later as President) Lerner never turned us down for pro bono advertising
and consultation on a variety of things.
Lou Lerner never said no to any reasonable request nor did Joe Ferstyl,
the advertising manager. We could
always count on Lily Venson and later Joel Schatz, the community reporters, for
some well-placed plugs about any of the events we conducted. This included attendance and accurate
reporting of the RPPC community meetings, which were held on a monthly basis.
Eric concludes with this, “—offering a farewell tip of the fedora—“
Me too!!!
Speaking of the Lerner News—I think that it will always be known by that
name—I note that after more than a decade Marcella Tardy has written her last
column. I will miss her.
Adios. Aloha. Auf wiedersehen. Arrivederci. Au
revior. Do widzenia. Na shledanou. Shalom and Good-bye.
May the wind always be at your back.
...And that's my opinion.
And I'm Sandy Goldman
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me your e-mail address or those of others who would be interested and I'll add
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Sandy: smgoldman@ameritech.net