Alderman: Preferential seating for Chicago residents at Millennium Park
Fed up with suburbanites who park their fannies in Millennium Park’s 4,000 seats, a Northwest Side alderman on Wednesday suggested preferential seating for Chicago residents.
“You have people from the suburbs who get there earlier and glom onto all the seats. ... They’re putting their blankets across rows and rows of chairs,” said Ald. Eugene Schulter (47th).
(Sun-Times file)
What it cost to build the park and a breakdown of who paid:
Projected cost: $150 million
Final cost: $475 million
Chicago taxpayers' share: $270 million (57%)
Private donors' share: $205 million (43%)
“I was just wondering if there’s a way that there could be like a 15-minute time period where the people from our city have the opportunity to be seated first. Then after that, anybody” could be seated.
Testifying at City Council budget hearings, Cultural Affairs Commissioner Lois Weisberg said, “Everyone is given a period of time when they’re able to be seated, no matter where they come from. And I’m there an awful lot of the time. I don’t think we have an influx of suburban people coming.”
Schulter countered, “Oh, you do. You really do. Send your staff there this coming season. You’ll see what we’ve been observing for a long time — ever since we’ve started the free concerts there — and the complaints I have from my residents when they go there. There are no seats available for them.”
“It’s just a question of fairness. If you go to other cities, you’ll see city residents are given discounts to go to their museums. It’s a fair thing to consider. What we’re trying to do is look at — especially during these hard times — that our city residents are at least given some consideration somehow."
When the hearing ended, Weisberg shot down the idea in the strongest possible terms.
“I don’t believe in any kind of favoritism — whether they’re city residents or suburban people. ... That’s how we treat tourists. ... The first rule is treat them exactly the same way as you would a Chicagoan,” Weisberg said.
She added, “I don’t think they’re coming in in such great numbers because they have Ravinia that they go to out there” in Highland Park.
Millennium Park holds roughly 13,000 people, including 4,000 seats at the Pritzker Pavilion and a capacity of 9,000 on the lawn behind those seats.
Seating is expected to become an even bigger issue this summer when the Country Music Festival, Celtic Fest and Viva Latin are moved from Grant Park to Millennium Park to save money.
“You don’t have to close streets. That’s a huge expense,” Weisberg said.
Despite the budget crunch that has forced Mayor Daley to cut services and raid reserves, Chicago taxpayers are still paying $7 million-a-year to support operations and maintenance at Millennium Park.
The dream of creating a Central Park-style conservancy that would make the showcase park self-sustaining is still just that: a dream.
“It took 20 years to do [it] in New York. You have to get a lot of money to be able to have an endowment. In Central Park, the money was raised primarily from a great many millionaires who lived around the park — and they still keep it up,” Weisberg said.
And there aren’t enough millionaires living around Millennium Park?
“Probably not. We may have enough millionaires around the whole city — and the people of Chicago who are millionaires have been very generous to the park so far. But, right now is not a really good time for anybody,” she said.