Meigs Field Nature Sanctuary plans

ScottM

ScottM

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iBazinga!
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-northerly-island-meeting-20101127,0,2683620.story

What's left of the former Meigs Field would be turned into a nature sanctuary and park, under plans to be unveiled this week by the Chicago Park District and its design team.

Plans for what is now called Northerly Island include stripping the old terminal building of its walls, transforming the internal structure into an open-air pavilion. The area would also include an underwater paradise for fish, plants and birds and an eco-friendly concert venue near Adler Planetarium.
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Great idea! What would be even better would be to put in a runway so folks could fly in and visit the city and park.
 
Oh wait for it. Daley is going to try to have it declared subject to the 2000' AGL nature reserve minimum suggested restriction with a 3SM radius around the island. (Yes, this is speculation.)

And I love the picture accompanying the article. As if we don't already have enough geese around here!

Mike, any comment?
 
Daley has a few months left to carve a 50 foot deep 100 foot foot wide water trench across the island to make sure that Mayor Rahm can't rebuild the airport.

Let's look forward to the day when we can take advantage "except as required for takeoff and landing" on the condos just to the south - where Daley lives.
 
I will come back to Chicago only if I can land at Miegs. Even then I don't know why i would want to go to Chicago. Dave
 
mikea said:
Daley has a few months left to carve a 50 foot deep 100 foot foot wide water trench across the island to make sure that Mayor Rahm can't rebuild the airport.

Let's look forward to the day when we can take advantage "except as required for takeoff and landing" on the condos just to the south - where Daley lives.
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Here we go, "Daley's Parting Gift:"

Mayor Richard Daley’s infamous “midnight raid” on Meigs Field, when city backhoes carved giant X’s into the runway of the tiny lakefront airport, was one of his defining acts. Now, as Daley prepares to exit the political stage, the former airstrip could become one of his defining legacies -- a people-friendly showcase of 21st Century ecology.

...

Some nature lovers may be troubled by her comparison to the crowded, raucous park, but the plan strikes a persuasive balance between active and passive outdoor space, shifting priorities from technology to nature, planes to people. In doing so, it affirms the ends, though not the means, of Daley’s airport shutdown — a dictatorial move that had a democratic outcome, banishing private and commercial planes from precious lakefront land and restoring it to public use.


... In 1996, after Daley announced he would close Meigs and turn it into a park, then-Gov. Jim Edgar pushed the General Assembly to authorize a state takeover of the airport, leading to a deal that kept Meigs open through 2002. Then, in 2003, as the Iraq war began, Daley bulldozed the airport on the flimsy pretext that terrorists might crash small planes into downtown skyscrapers.
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune...is-of-ecology-and-daleys-last-hurrah-.html#tp
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Now he'll just make sure that contracts are signed before he leaves office. No matter that the Park District has no money at all.

I guess the boat slips right next to it that have locked wrought iron gates are public use? How about the golf courses that require membership fopr VIP access? There was a gun range for a gun club until a few years ago. That's "more public" than a place where anybody could buy a seat to fly to Springfield or elsewhere? :incazzato:
 
Whatever they do with the patch of ex-airport, it's going to be expensive and I'll certainly end up paying for it.
Sometimes I wish I'd just moved to Wisconsin full time.
 
Telemakhos said:
Whatever they do with the patch of ex-airport, it's going to be expensive and I'll certainly end up paying for it.
Sometimes I wish I'd just moved to Wisconsin full time.
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Join me up in Pleasantville in damnnearWisconsin. Lake County is solvent and the village has $0 debt and there are no city stickers to buy at all.
 
mikea said:
Join me up in Pleasantville in damnnearWisconsin. Lake County is solvent and the village has $0 debt and there are no city stickers to buy at all.
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I did much of my growing up years in Lake County, and I went to high school there. I'm very fond of many towns up there.
One of these days I'd like to move back up, get a place with some land that's close to C81 (dip in the runway and all).
 
Telemakhos said:
I did much of my growing up years in Lake County, and I went to high school there. I'm very fond of many towns up there.
One of these days I'd like to move back up, get a place with some land that's close to C81 (dip in the runway and all).
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The dip is still there, but all of the taxiways have been paved.

Here ya go:
I think it sold:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/354-Belle-Ct-Grayslake-IL-60030/4786430_zpid/
But this one didn't (price is too high):
http://www.homefinder.com/IL/Grayslake/69009436d_323_Belle_Ct

Or build your own:
http://www.robertefrankrealestate.com/html/0_belvidere__lot_3.html
http://www.robertefrankrealestate.com/html/0_belvidere__lot_4.html
 
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Telemakhos said:
Whatever they do with the patch of ex-airport, it's going to be expensive and I'll certainly end up paying for it.
Sometimes I wish I'd just moved to Wisconsin full time.
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Come on up! I'm still a Blackhawks season ticket holder, and make it to downtown Chicago for fun more now than when I worked downtown and lived in Lake County.

Oh, and it's fun being a Bears fan in Packer country, though this week is a little insufferable:
 

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nddons said:
Come on up! I'm still a Blackhawks season ticket holder, and make it to downtown Chicago for fun more now than when I worked downtown and lived in Lake County.

Oh, and it's fun being a Bears fan in Packer country, though this week is a little insufferable:
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From the picture, it appears that some TSA employees are Green Bay fans.

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Once Daley is gone I might consider a return to the Windy City. It is one of America's great cities, and while she has seen the capitals of Europe and the Orient, Mrs. Steingar has never laid eyes on Chicago. It will be a pity to land at an airport other than Meigs, though.
 
steingar said:
Once Daley is gone I might consider a return to the Windy City. It is one of America's great cities, and while she has seen the capitals of Europe and the Orient, Mrs. Steingar has never laid eyes on Chicago. It will be a pity to land at an airport other than Meigs, though.
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Mayor Rahm is from the same mafia. In any case, even the pizza cannot entice me to visit Chicago again. For a fresh eye, here's how a famous web designer cum travelblogger Artem Lebedev summed it up: "If Nazis flew to Mars and settled it, they would've built Chicago" (http://www.tema.ru/travel/usa-6/). Of course being a visitor from Russia he knew absolutely nothing about Daley, but that is pretty much what Chicago looks like to fresh people.
 
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