City: Porch was illegal

Chgo. Tribune ^ | 7-1-03 | David Heinzmann and Sabrina L. Miller

[JustPiper]

The porch that collapsed early Sunday killing 13 and injuring more than 50 in Lincoln Park was built illegally without a city permit, Buildings Commissioner Norma Reyes said Monday.

Kelly Pagel, of Minnetonka, Minn., the 13th fatality, died Monday at Illinois Masonic Medical Center.

After making no public statements about the tragedy earlier Monday, Reyes appeared at a late afternoon news conference and said the owner of 713 W. Wrightwood Ave., Philip J. Pappas, applied for permits for heating, cooling and plumbing improvements in 1998 but then renovated the entire building without permission.

[JustPiper]

I am not comfortable with blaming the victims alone for overcrowding. My husband is a carpenter and found several things wrong with this construction and I know the City of Chicago, everyone here must share this complicity!

[Semper Paratus]

Bad for the owners, but what percentage of structures in Chi town get permits?

[JustPiper]

Very true and most of the bad porch 'accidents' have been in this very area.

[wideawake]

(1) Pappas has had quite a bit of litigation and has gotten off almost entirely scot free, which means he has been paying the right people off for some time now.

(2) I doubt he is unreachable - he's probably debating whether or not to avoid prosecution in the US. He won't be able to graft his way out of this one.

(3) It speaks volumes about Mayor Daley's character that he didn't cut his Ireland trip short for this tragedy.

[coloradan]

Well, then! If only people had to apply for a permit to renovate their porch, this wouldn't have happened!

[TankerKC]

Would a permit have prevented this, or just line a union workers pocket?

Serious question.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Pappas is reachable. He is on a GPS phone in northern Canada.

I noticed that the porch was put together with nails, not bolts. Very shoddy construction.

[Trust but Verify]

I disagree only with your point on the Mayor. I don't see any reason whatsoever for him to run home for this type of thing.

[wideawake]

If a permit had been issued, the city might actually have sent an inspector around to assess the work done and there is an outside chance that the porch could have failed inspection.

[JustPiper]

Muhammed Hameeduddin, 25, who died in the porch collapse.

Sam Farmer, 21, of Winnetka, killed in the porch collapse.


Julie Sorkin, 25, of Glencoe.

Margaret Haynie, 25, of Evansville, IN.

Eileen Lupton, 22, of Lake Forest.

Kelly McKinnell, 26, of Barrington.


John Jackson, 22, of Kansas City, Mo.

Robert Koranda, age 23, of Naperville.

Katie Sheriff, 23, of Chicago.

Eric Kumpf, 30, of Hoboken, N.J.

God Bless these young people and their families!

[JustPiper]

Permit does not equal good craftmansship for sure. Chicago under the Dem glare always gets shortcuts!

[wideawake]

I don't see any reason whatsoever for him to run home for this type of thing.

When constituents die, it's a classy move for a mayor to comfort their loved ones.

Mayor Giuliani of New York often returned early from trips or postponed meetings in order to express his condolences.

It's a mark of a person who actually cares about the community which elected him.

[JustPiper]

The treated wood was warped and the floorboards these kids stood on looked like thin 2 x4 sheets of plywood.

[AZLiberty]

Shame on him for not getting a permit, but it sounds like the new porch was better than what it replaced. Who builds multistory wooden porches to support 60+ people? Who could afford to?

[JustPiper]

We are having several memorial services and funerals are beginning. Most likely Pappas, hey is this joker related to Maria?

[JustPiper]

[Husker24]

And thus the distruction of a mans life begins.

[discostu]

The correct term is politicizing tragedy and it's sick. 13 people out of how many million in the Chicago area? Doesn't add up. The guy is 6 time zones and 14 hours in a plane away, best to go on with life and let the investigation run its course.

[JustPiper]

Pappas and his management companies, L.G. Properties and P&A Properties, control as many as 40 buildings on the North Side. The Wrightwood building is operated by L.G. Properties.

Pappas was on a canoe trip in Canada and had not yet been notified of the tragedy by Monday evening, officials said. A business associate of Pappas, who fielded questions for L.G. Properties on condition that he remain anonymous, said company officials still believe the porch had a proper permit, although they could not produce any documentation.

It would not be the first time Pappas has built a porch without a permit. The city cited Pappas in Housing Court in 2002 for building a similar back porch without a permit at his building at 1415 W. Belle Plaine Ave.

Maria Pappas Bio

Ms. Pappas was born June 7, 1949, the granddaughter of Greek immigrants. She grew up in Warwood, a small town of about 2,000 near the small mining community of Wheeling, West Virginia, where her parents still reside. During Pappas' childhood, she was a steady honor-roll student and attended Greek school five nights a week. A music enthusiast, Ms. Pappas plays the piano. She is also known for twirling a baton in area parades and competing in triathlons. This year, she has also participated in the 500-mile Midwest AIDS Ride bicycle fund-raiser from Minneapolis to Chicago, the Cowalunga bicycle tour to benefit an American Lung Association camp for children with asthma, and the Ground Zero-to-Pentagon bicycle tour to benefit victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

As a child, Pappas and her brother John helped their parents, Ted and Irene, run family businesses. Their family ran a restaurant, toy store and floral shop adjacent to the area hospital. It was there Maria and her brother formed friendships with members of the medical community, ultimately influencing their careers in human services. John is a dentist in West Virginia.

[Normal4me]

As a carpenter working in Florida, we build to extreme excesses because of hurricanes and high wind loads. I have seen pictures of this deck and in my opinion it what not just poorly built but severely overloaded for its size. Building a shed without a permit is one thing but building a structural platform 30 feet in the air is another.