A generation from now, people will likely drive by the institutional building on the West Side and ask: Who was Robert Stein?
The same kind of queries will eventually be made about the futuristic steel and glass oval in the Loop that has always gone by the utilitarian name State of Illinois Center but which next week becomes the James R. Thompson Center.
If there are skeptics that those kinds of questions will be asked some time in the future, then answer this: Who was Merrill C. Meigs or John Kluczynski?
“One thing that is interesting about Chicago is how many things are named after people no one has ever heard of,” said Robert Bruegmann, associate professor of the history of art and architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
That may be the truest proof of all for the concept that while buildings may last for centuries, people are entitled to only 15 minutes of fame.
But changing the name of a building is certainly cheaper than, say, building a palace or erecting statues to honor a statesman, as earlier generations would do.
For the Cook County Board, it was a quick and inexpensive affair Tuesday to rename the county morgue the Robert J. Stein Institute of Forensic Medicine.
Commissioner Ted Lechowicz put it succinctly: “It is a small token of our esteem.”
Few might feel so honored to have their name applied to the 10-year-old storehouse of the dead, with its vaults and its autopsy rooms and its overriding odor similar to the scent of week-old fish.
But the tribute was certainly fitting for Stein, the pathologist with the gravelly voice and the colorful personality, Cook County’s first and only medical examiner, who retired March 31 after 17 years in the post.
And he was moved by the gesture to rename a building that replaced the antiquated Morris Fishbein Institute of Forensic Medicine.
“It’s the most marvelous thing to do something (for people) while they’re still alive,” said Stein, who took what he called an early retirement at the age of 80.
If the name of the workaholic, diminutive Stein is appropriate for the small, utilitarian building, then Thompson’s name would certainly be apropos for the state building.
Admirers of the former governor, who oversaw construction of the Helmut Jahn-crafted building, would say few governors have left their mark on the state the way Thompson did and that this would be a lasting tribute. Those less kind would say the naming is suitable for another reason: The building is kind of like the former governor himself, blustery and gargantuan.
In fact, the christening of the building is being done in a way befitting both the man and his “mansion.”
Saturday night, state officials and Thompson friends will throw a dinner and dance at the 16-floor center at 100 W. Randolph St. on what also happens to be Thompson’s 57th birthday. The turnout, expected to be 700, will pay $125 a head. Other Thompson fans have sent in contributions to help defray the cost of the event, including the $1,500 rent to use the center.
A formal rededication ceremony for the 8-year-old building will be held at noon Monday, with Thompson and Gov. Jim Edgar attending.
It literally took an act of government to put the former governor’s name on a building that has been likened to everything from a bird cage to a flying saucer. In their typically partisan way, state lawmakers approved the change last year as part of a resolution that originally only called for renaming the state-owned Centennial Building in Springfield after former Secretary of State Michael Howlett, who died last year.
The suggestion had come from Secretary of State George Ryan, Thompson’s lieutenant governor from 1983 to 1991.
“I called him and asked him whether he wanted to be included in the bill,” Ryan said Tuesday. “He said, `Certainly.’ And I said, `Good because I don’t know anybody else who wants that building named after him.’ “
Indeed, any Illinois voter who found the Thompson years problematic would say there was another good reason to name this building after him.
The building, fraught with its own problems, wound up costing $172 million, more than double the original estimate. Thompson argued that the estimate didn’t include furnishings.
And workers in the center initially sweltered because of air conditioning problems.
Thompson, now a lawyer in private practice, said Tuesday that he was flattered by all the attention and proud to have the building carry his him.
“I think it’s one thing my friends and enemies agree on,” Thompson said. “Those who are my friends and who like the building think it’s great. And those who aren’t and who don’t like the building want to make sure my name is on it.”
What has made the honors for Stein and Thompson unusual is that they are both alive and kicking. After all, the Civic Center wasn’t named for Mayor Richard J. Daley until after his death, and the Harold Washington Library Center was under construction at the time of the former mayor’s passing.
But then, there are tributes to living Chicagoans scattered about the landscape, even if they are more modest in scope. For example, there is a playlot just off the Kennedy Expressway named for U.S. Rep. Daniel Rostenkowski.
Call it tribute or call it ego, but the tendency of politicians has been to name their public buildings after their brethren.
Private buildings go by the names of their users or their builders like Sears or Stone Container or, most recently, United Center, the name for the new basketball and hockey arena. In Europe, the names of cultural figures are lent to structures or public works.
In Chicago, it is names like Dirksen or Metcalfe that become the identifier.
But there is a danger to erecting so permanent a monument to any public figure that human flaws could tarnish the tribute. The residents of the posh suburb of Lake Forest discovered that when a park was named for Irving Boberski, the onetime head of a Chicago savings and loan that donated the land for the park. Boberski was later convicted of converting bank funds to his own use, and his name was stripped from the park. It now carries no name.
And then there is the danger that eventually everyone will forget exactly why the building was given the name:
Cook County Board President Richard Phelan, who said he suggested that the morgue be named for Stein, offered this lapse Tuesday:
“I don’t even know who Morris Fishbein was.”
