CAA: GA News, "Discord Aloft as Airport Foes Vow to Fight Chicago Park Plan for Meigs Field"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thursday, March 29, 2001

Discord Aloft as Airport Foes Vow to Fight Chicago Park Plan for Meigs Field
By Lori Rotenberk
The Boston (MA) Globe


CHICAGO - When not in his presence, some high-level city employees refer to
the leader of this city as Mayor Richard M. Daylily.

A passion for planting by Mayor Daley has spread greenery from service
stations to old industrial buildings to the roof of City Hall. His latest,
most ambitious project is designed to bring campgrounds, snorkeling lagoons,
bird sanctuaries - even sand dunes - to the current site of a small,
lakefront airport called Meigs Field.

The 10-year-long transformation is to begin with the closing of the airstrip
next February. Daley says the end product will be an urban reprieve in the
spirit of Daniel Burnham, the city planner whose 1909 blueprint is credited
with making modern Chicago a habitable city. But the mayor's plan has also
stirred up a controversy that reveals Meigs Field as a Windy City landmark

even though many Chicagoans have never set foot there.

Known as Northerly Island, what is now Meigs Field is a landfill peninsula
that was built in the 1930s and became an airport in 1948.

On a clear day, pedestrians and boaters stop to watch planes glide over Lake
Michigan and onto the runway just a few feet above water level. Of interest,
too, is the occasional downed plane and dramatic rescue effort. Closed at
least 6 percent of the time because of thick fog and powerful lake winds,
the airport has become a favorite of private pilots, mostly for the
spectacular Chicago skyline view.

The airport's fans have banded together as the Friends of Meigs Field and
are fighting to keep the airport open. The international group's 5,200
members range in age from 6 to 85 and either fly or have a memory of Meigs.
Many are youths who are familiar with Meigs as the airport in which they fly
on Microsoft's popular Flight Simulator software.

"Meigs Field is the best known single runway anywhere in the world," said
the group's leader, Steven Whitney, a pilot who has fulfilled his boyhood
dream of landing at Meigs. "Now what will happen is that the flights that
used to land there will fly over a real nice park on the lakefront on their
way to Midway or O'Hare [airports] and be two hours late because of it."

At the same time, avid gardeners would rather see a lovely designed
landscape rather than the "Disney-esque"

attractions proposed for the island. "Too much clutter," said Chicago artist
Barbara Koenan, who works for the city's outdoor art program.

"I remember going to a presentation the mayor was making at the Cultural
Center," Koenan said. "His back was to the big eastern picture windows. And
throughout his talk I watched planes taking off and landing at Meigs
thinking, 'This is what a city is all about. Beauty, business, and the
future. The Jetsons.' "

Whitney notes there are already 26 miles of park along the lakeshore, plus
the City Hall rooftop garden to be completed in May, plus numerous existing
gardens and sanctuaries downtown. When is enough enough? he asks.

Daley appears intent on having Chicago live up to its Latin motto - Urbs in
Horto, or City in a Garden.

Mum on exactly when this nature bug took hold, Daley will say that he spent
much of his boyhood at a woodland cabin with his family. He attributes his
more recent obsession with greening the city to "lots of reading," as well
as visits to cities beautified by lighting and gardens, such as Paris and
Hamburg, the inspiration for the City Hall roof garden.

"Our lakefront is precious, and restoring beaches and making more beaches
and creating a nature center is important," Daley said in a telephone
interview. "The island is going to be all about nature, about the importance
of the environment. Birders will be able to go there; I like to bird, you
know. The lakefront belongs to the people."

He added, "Too many people are turning their backs on the environment and
it's wrong. You don't have to be in a national park to save the
environment."

The use of Meigs Field has dropped to about 37,000 flights in 2000 from a
peak of 80,000 annually in the 1980s. The mayor says Meigs is used mainly by
state employees, but the Friends of Meigs says that's untrue, and that
50,000 or more of the passengers are on business from around the Midwest.

Whitney says the drop in flights results from extremely high rates the city
charges pilots. But he adds that Meigs relieves congestion at both Midway
and O'Hare, and generates at least $450 million a year for Chicago from
landing, parking, and takeoff fees, as well as passengers' spending in the
city.

Whatever the arguments, Daley aides say the mayor isn't about to change his
mind on Meigs Field.

And where will it all end? Daley says it won't.

"Beautification is ongoing," the mayor said. Community gardens are sprouting
all over the city. Environmentally friendly businesses are opening on former
brownfield sites. Wetlands are on the drawing board for the inner city.

"This is a man with his heart in nature," said Debra Shore, who is editor of
Chicago Wilderness Magazine and works with a preservation consortium. "The
lakefront is a vital flyway for migrating birds. They are exhausted and
hungry when they arrive here."

To Whitney, who adds that he's a great park lover, the loss of Meigs is too
much to consider. "If it becomes a park, I'll never go there," he said. "I
couldn't bear remembering it as that great little airport."

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