I wonder if that bulldozer demolition crew is still available.
Posted on 04/01/2023 11:38:26 AM PDT by KeyLargo
The most Chicago thing ever happened 20 years ago — an airport was bulldozed overnight
Then-Mayor Richard M. Daley boldly showed how he ran the city the night he ordered the destruction of Meigs Field on Northerly Island. When the sun came up over Chicago on March 31, 2003, it shone down on six large Xs that were bulldozed overnight into the runway of a small downtown airport.
Under the cover of darkness, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley made it clear who ran the city when he ordered the destruction of Meigs Field on Northerly Island without alerting the City Council, the statehouse or the Federal Aviation Administration. The former airport is now a park, which the mayor had wanted for years.
Daley defended the move the next day by citing safety concerns and told reporters it was a risk to have planes that close to skyscrapers in a post-9/11 world.
(Excerpt) Read more at wbez.org ...
I remember the MEIGS Field debacle. One of the groups flying out of there were the Tuskegee Airman who provide free flights to inner city kids to educate the children and provide some better role models for them.
I think they were able to take off on the taxiways,
Daley was the last of the old Irish street gangs to run the city. Compared to the filth that followed him he was a jewel.
Lucky dog!
Very much so.
Daley was a hero in my parents Democrat voting house.
Remember back in 1975 when Halas threatened to move the Bears to Arlington Heights, Richard J. Daley, the good Daley, told the Halas that they can use the name Arlington Heights Bears, but they'll never use the name of Chicago if he was still the mayor. The old man didn’t take crap from anyone, and built up the city in twenty years time, but Shortshanks as mayor trashed the city, gave away the house to enrich himself and family/friends.
The son was a conniver, and a dullard, a bad combination. How many attempts did it take for him to pass the Illinois Bar exam, three? Two of his advisors (handlers) were Rahm “never let a good crisis go to waste” Emanuel, and David Axlerod. Enough said.
His nephew killed a man
https://news.yahoo.com/daley-nephew-pleads-guilty-man-39-death-222220696.html
And that wasn’t Vanecko’s first altercation, he was involved in a brawl at Daley’s Grand Beach, Michigan summer home where someone was hit in the head with a baseball bat. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor in that case.
He got a sweet plea deal for manslaughter for killing Koschman, and served his 60 day sentence in McHenry county jail, not Cook county jail. If that were me or you, we would still be in prison. A lot of detectives retired before they could face discipline because of how they “botched” that case.
I got to fly in & out of there once with my boss who was the pilot. This was in the mid-70s. Handy little airfield that I knew nothing about previous to that time. From the air, the first-time landing there & it looked the size of a postage stamp.
My office had a window on Meigs. It was hardly used. I am sure that some people found it convenient. But I rarely saw a plane landing. I bet less than ten a day, Monday thru Friday. In the winter you could go weeks without a landing.
Well, sure. And they weren’t wrong in some ways.
Somebody pointed out that people will tolerate a crook, so long as he’s competent. Daley was by most accounts pretty shady. But he did his job, and I think he probably loved Chicago.
And - people will overlook incompetence to some degree, if they aren’t a crook. The problem now, is our “leaders” are in too many instances completely incompetent as politicians, and brazen crooks.
This is a situation that resolves itself, eventually.
Yeah
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.