CHICAGO — After reading [Blair Kamin’s] story on the city’s color-coding system for landmarks (“Ripe for the picking,” April 9), I wanted to take a moment to tell you what a great service he is doing for Chicago.
As always, his analysis of the situation was concise and cogent — and offered a constructive solution to the problem as well as an accurate assessment of what is wrong. His conclusions — including the idea that the mayor should put more money into staffing the Landmarks Commission and less into planting flowers — were right on the mark, in my opinion. Now if only Mayor Daley would listen!
I am deeply distressed that the city — and its citizens — are going to lose an important building, the old Mercantile Exchange, because of a bureaucratic snafu, though I guess the short-sightedness and insensitivity of the Crown family and its developers also are to blame.
Since everyone seems to think that the Building Department’s decision to issue a demolition permit can’t be reversed, I would urge the building’s owners to reconsider and do the civic-minded thing: save a piece of our architectural heritage that can never be replaced.
— Anne Spiselman
