Free Republic

While promoting his book “Southern Exposure” about architectural design on the South Side, former Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey questioned both the design of the Obama Presidential Center and its proposed placement in Jackson Park. “The design of the library, I do not like. I think that that tower is foolishness. I think the design is foolishness,” Bey said. “It’s clad in limestone or granite; it’s shoved in this park. If it’s going to be in a park, I think I say in the book, it needs to be a more organic and alive building.” He further questioned the necessity...

A wrongfully convicted man filed a $40 million lawsuit on Tuesday against Northwestern University, a former journalism professor, a private investigator and an attorney, accusing them of framing him for a double murder to get another man released. Alstory Simon, 64, of Ohio, claims in the lawsuit that he was the victim of unethical tactics by a team focused on freeing another man in what became a celebrated Illinois wrongful conviction case. Simon was imprisoned in 1999 after confessing to the 1982 murder of two people in a park, and spent more than 15 years behind bars before he was...