Mindful Metropolis September 2009 : Page 29
Alderwoman Sharon Dixon (24th) at a community meeting in Douglas Park PHOTO: jACOb WHEELER Marathon start at Buckingham Fountain PHOTO: COURTESY OF CHICAGO2016 their television. Imagine August whitecaps on Lake Michigan and sunbathers on North Avenue Beach, and hearing those attractions described in countless languages. Imagine kings and heads of state, Brazilian soccer gods and Greco-Roman wrestlers shopping together on Michigan Avenue. Imagine the world’s greatest amateur athletes pursuing the pinnacle of their dreams, in our city. Imagine President Barack Obama, his hair turned a wise grey, returning home to Hyde Park with only months left in his second term, to ring in the 2016 Olympics. Like that night in Grant Park last Novem- I ber, and like the World’s Fair in 1893, this metropolis on the lake would once again command the world’s attention. The Olym- pic torch, that symbol of progress and sport, would pass so close that we’d feel its heat. We’d smile when the Parisians admired our lakefront, the Scandinavians took photos of our solar panels and rooftop gardens and the New Yorkers admitted that perhaps they had underestimated “flyover country.” Then imagine opening your eyes to a hazy, Dickens-like scene. It’s the dead of winter and the snow is falling, wet and heavy. Weary and disgruntled Chicago citizens are plowing their own streets, filling their own potholes and policing their own neighborhoods. The city is magine two glorious weeks of summer when the entire world comes to Chi- cago—either via airplane or through broke, and no longer provides these services. Families are packing up and moving further west, unable to afford to live in the once- working-class neighborhoods where Olympic venues were built. The few who still go down- town carry bags of quarters with them, to pay the parking meters, the toll collectors on Halsted St., the lifeguards and the attendants at Millennium Park. The city lost so much money back in the summer of 2016 that City Hall was forced to sell off assets and privatize everything. The 21st century Chicagoan can no longer visit the beach, bike what’s left of the Lake Shore Trail or play in the park. Imagine that all the money promised to flow into the city’s coffers from corporate sponsors, advertising, ticket sales and tour- ism never came close to what Chicago spent to build the venues and Olympic Village, ca- ter to the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) needs for the world’s stage. To balance budgets in the aftermath, the city shut down bus lines, schools and hospitals. You get the picture. Two pictures actual- ly—two opposite visions of what winning the right to host the 2016 Olympics could mean for Chicago. A giant door will either open wide or slam shut for Chicago when the IOC gath- ers in Copenhagen on October 2 to choose between the Windy City, Tokyo, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro. That decision will forever change one of those cities. Blue-green games The website, Chicago2016.org, lays out the city’s vision for the Olympics in visceral, con- vincing fashion. Glamorous pictures of Mil- lennium Park with skyscrapers in the Loop lit up with the numbers 2016, and other iconic shots of downtown flash across the screen. A voice reminds us, “We may not all be fleet of foot, but each of us can be part of the Olympics, for the games touch us all….” And then Obama, himself, the would-be master of ceremonies, comes on the screen to an- nounce that the White House fully supports Chicago’s bid for the Olympics. A series of Olympic athletes with Chicago roots take the baton and lead us on a tour, from Buckingham Fountain, where the relay race would begin, north to the tennis center in Lincoln Park, back south to the hockey arena in Grant Park and Monroe Harbor for rowing events, to Soldier Field for the football (soccer) finals, to McCormick Place and the United Center and finally to Washington and Jackson Parks on the South Side. We even see comput- er animations of the posh apartments along the waterfront where the athletes would stay. “This is our vision for Chicago, along the shores of a great Lake, a city that will wel- come the world in 2016,” proclaims Brian Clay, a decathlon champion in the 2008 Bei- jing Games. You’d have to be heartless not to get at least a little excited about the prospect. But mindfulmetropolis.com 29
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