Instead, it turns out he bulldozed the little field house at Whittier, a public school in Pilsen, which had become a symbol of resistance to all-powerful mayors.
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As you undoubtedly remember, the field house—nicknamed La Casita—was the subject of a heated showdown about three years ago between Mayor Daley’s school appointees and local activists and parents.
In any event, residents staged a 43-day sit-in at the field house until Mayor Daley basically decided, the hell with this crap. Give ’em what they want.
Turns out that Whittier’s one of the 160 or so schools in CPS without a library. In negotiations with residents, Daley administration officials promised to give Whittier a library. In fact, for a brief moment I sort of hoped the showdown would inspire our city and civic leaders to make sure that every school had one.
“Sometime after the sit-in, CPS started to turn a classroom—room 202—into a library. They installed shelves and added tables and chairs. Then they got into a dispute with parents over how the library would be built. Eventually, they [CPS] ran out of gas. They didn’t buy books. And they didn’t set aside money to hire a librarian. So now we use the room for staff meetings, professional development and a cooling center on hot days.”
Ah yes, the joys of teaching in Chicago.
