DaMayor

He’s been Mayor since I’ve lived in Chicago, he’s been Mayor since some of the League’s staff have been alive. I’d been in town for four months and was working with a group of construction guys on a project and we had a meeting the day after Meig’s field went away. I knew next to nothing about Chicago or Mayor Daley but these guys were in absolute awe. Moving that much heavy equipment in the middle of the night is apparently not so easy, to do it in secret is nearly impossible. I was in awe too, not of the heavy equipment but of the man, who does that? That event helped to shape the way I feel about my adopted City, I love its brashness and its big shoulders, and its “we ain’t no second city” attitude. Since then, of course, I have come to admire the Mayor tremendously, I loved the Olympic bid, thinking about the photo of the plane carrying all the Chicago luminaries to Copenhagen with the American flag waving out of the cockpit – still brings a tear to my eye. I love that everything that is not in motion (and some things that are) is covered in lights during the holidays, I love Millenium Park, four years late and $300 million over budget, now our crowning glory and nobody remembers any of that. It takes vision and guts to get through that kind of thing. During his tenure Chicago theatre has become Chicago Theatre, and he has been a huge supporter. I will miss him.

Deb