An open letter to the Chicagoland area: You know the ol’ saying: “Caught between a rock and a hard place”? Likewise is the dream for a proposed bike-hike-nature trail (beginning near the Harlem Avenue/Stevenson Expressway juncture, at the Chicago Portage Historical Site) in southwest Chicagoland. The plan is — so to speak — temporarily “caught” between a canal and a railroad track. It is a stretch of land paralleling the Illinois & Michigan Canal (the I&M) on its southern bank, specifically between Harlem and Cicero avenues.
The dreamer of this dream is new-found friend and community environmental activist, Chester (Chet) Kos.
The trail itself, according to Chet’s conceptualization, would be designed out from an existing (but currently unkempt) frontage road, Canal Bank Road, that runs along a section of the I&M, here and there marred by piles of “fly dump.” (Some decent clean-up attempts have been made, but there is still more work to do. Hear that, volunteer clean-up crews?) What lies hidden beneath this site is pristine Illinois ecology yearning to be free to grow green once again. According to the 2002 book, A Natural History of the Chicago Region, by Joel Greenberg, over 150 native plants can and do grow in such a dolomite prairie ecosystem.
It’s an idea whose time has come! As it now stands (and has for too long) this near-southwest sector has been virtually an underutilized wasteland. After all, many of our own immigrant forefathers labored by the sweat of their brows and on a wing and a prayer to build the I&M Canal. Shouldn’t their descendants be able to enjoy the fruits of their ancestors’ toil? Allowing a parcel of this land along the canal to be restored “to the people” as a green corridor segment would actually be a most wondrous and enhancing gift to all of Chicagoland.
Yes, it’s a grand dream and a do-able one, if Chester Kos and friends have their way. Greater Chicagoland, you have all once before contributed to the renown of our “City of Big Shoulders” when you helped build the I&M Canal. Let’s do it again by coming together in the 21st century. Heave ho!
If you want Chet’s dream to become our legacy and wish to lend your unique expertise and support, email Chester Kos.
— Stephanie Sweas, Chicago
Spirituality is an Intensely Personal Thing
I have noticed that your new owners really, really like Eastern religion. That’s just great...for them. But we exist in a nation that is overwhelmingly Christian, and populated by liberals and progressives (your core audience) who are largely agnostic. It’s not that there is anything wrong with Swamis, it’s just that it is an experience that is not close to most of us.
Spirituality is an intensely personal and emotional thing. Just look at the war and destruction being waged this very minute in the name of three separate religious worldviews! If you are going to go heavy on spirituality now, you should offer a variety of views and practices. Will you give equal coverage to Gaiaists, Wiccans, Quakers? What about those who simply pray to a lampshade?
I love the new look, but I’m afraid that if you lose the editorial content that made your reputation as a publication, you won’t survive long. You have to have material that your readers connect to. As much as you may think that “West Coast culture” is superior to us boring old Midwesterners, and as such you have a mission to convert us all, I think perhaps the better approach is to seek out a balance of story topics and try to please everyone.
— Mary Capes, Chicago