May common sense be with us.
OK, so maybe that’s not as memorable a catchphrase as “May the force be with you,” but it gets to the heart of the matter: The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art might land in Chicago after all if common sense prevails.
The rumor mill rumbled all Friday that Friends of the Parks, a small group of lakefront protectionists elected by nobody, might be willing to drop their opposition to building the museum on Chicago’s lakefront. First we heard they were dropping their lawsuit, then we heard they were not, then we heard — as the evening sun sank on another squabbling Chicago day — that, well, at least everybody’s talking again.
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Maybe what’s finally sinking in for the folks at Friends of the Parks is that they are not alone in their fierce desire to protect Chicago’s jewel of a lakefront. And maybe they’re feeling the pressure from thousands of Chicagoans, from the muckety-mucks to regular folks, who wonder just what the Friends have against a project that would by no means diminish the lakefront’s free and open spirit, but enhance it.
Better a charming new museum than the thing it would replace: An ugly parking lot or a hulking convention center. Building the Lucas Museum on the site of a McCormick Place convention building would result in an actual increase in open parkland.
The common sense is hard to miss, which might explain why the board of Friends of the Parks reportedly no longer is unified in its opposition, if it ever was. The Friends released a statement Friday saying they remain “fully united on the preservation of our lakefront” — well, sure, who isn’t? — but what’s telling is what they did not say. They did not say they are all of one mind that the Lucas Museum has no place being built on the lakefront.
On the contrary, a source told the Sun-Times, the board voted to “get things moving.”
If Friends of the Parks really is softening in its opposition, looking to negotiate, we doubt it’s because Mayor Rahm Emanuel or other power-brokers have succeeded in bribing them. The mayor has hinted he might push a long-dreamed plan to extend the city’s lakefront parkland north and south if the Friends would budge on the Lucas Museum, reports Fran Spielman of the Sun-Times. But that would take money the mayor does not have.
More likely, the Friends have been listening, while feeling the pressure from all sides. If they are coming around, it is because they are beginning to see they are on the wrong side of true lakefront preservation on this one.
May common sense be with us.
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