Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
City officials claim they’re using the Olympics to benefit the west side, but I have a hunch they’re really leaving it with a white elephant. According to Philip Hersh’s account in Saturday’s Tribune, the aquatic center “would have a roof but open sides and ends during the Games and later be turned into an indoor facility.”
Olympic or city officials didn’t say who was going to pay to build the walls, though I think we all know the answer. Let’s face it, there’s not going to be much incentive to winterize it after the Olympics, unless, of course, the area rapidly gentrifies by then. If the center gets built, I predict it will sit empty for nine months a year once the Olympics leaves town; for the other three months, the Park District, forever short of operating cash, won’t have enough money to adequately staff it.
But when it comes to Douglas Park, it’s straight-up blackmail: go with the Games or the west side doesn’t get its pools.
