Here's The Reader's Ben Joravsky on the underlying reasons for Mayor Daley's insistence that the Chicago Children's Museum move to Grant Park:
Compared to the waste and destruction promised by the Olympics, the Children’s Museum is chump change. After all, the museum only affects one little part of one park. And if it gets built after the inevitable court battle, it’s going to cost the public just $4 million or so a year in the form of a Park District subsidy. The Olympics, on the other hand, threatens to devour prime lakefront parkland from Irving Park Road on the north side to 63rd Street on the south and will undoubtedly cost the public hundreds of millions of dollars. Furthermore, the Children’s Museum will at least be open to Chicagoans. The only way average residents will get into any Olympic events is if they’re selling popcorn. The games’ real legacy will be the bill.
Let’s put aside for a moment the pros and cons of moving the museum to Grant Park. The fight waged in the City Council last Wednesday was really about Mayor Daley flexing his political muscle to assure the IOC [International Olympic Committee] that his word is law in Chicago. If there was ever any hope for a check to keep the mayor from exercising unlimited power it was the council, which by law has the final say on just about every major project he proposes. But that hope died during the June 11 debate, as alderman after alderman rose to affirm his subservience.
Read the whole thing here.










