One year after the surprise midnight closure of Meigs Field, Mayor Daley said Tuesday that his decision to bulldoze the little lakefront airport was “one of the best” he’s made as mayor.
And despite his assertion at the time that the move was meant mostly to secure Loop airspace from would-be terrorists, Daley talked on the anniversary only of returning public acreage to the people.
Private aviation interests “really don’t care whether or not we have 100 acres for public space,” Daley said. “They don’t care, but we care in the city of Chicago. I live here, and people live here, and they want that lakefront. It belongs to them and not to private businesses and not to small planes.”
Before his move on Meigs, Daley complained that the federal government was more concerned about keeping the airspace safe above Disney World and Disneyland by prohibiting planes there than it was about the skies over Chicago.
But now it’s clear that the mayor’s nose has been growing, said Bill Walls, a spokesman for the newly formed Committee for a Better Chicago.
“When Mayor Daley claimed public safety was his reason for carving up the public’s property–stating, ‘If Mickey and Minnie can have a no-fly zone, then Chicago should too’–it seems he was portraying Pinocchio at the time,” Walls said. “He lied again and again. And then, after the runway was destroyed and there was nothing anyone could do about it, he admitted he lied.”
Not true, said Jacquelyn Heard, Daley’s press secretary.
“For years the mayor has expressed his desire to make Meigs Field a park,” she said. “That should come as a surprise to no one. But at the time the airport was closed, security was the prevailing concern.”
The Committee for a Better Chicago, billed as a coalition of about 90 community groups, on Tuesday pushed for creation of a combination airport and park on the former Meigs site.
But the proposal for the “Bessie Coleman Skypark” was shot down before it could get off the ground. The Chicago Park District, which owns the land, said it has no intention of altering Daley’s vision for the land.
“We are moving toward development of this site and creating additional and increased access to the public,” said parks spokesman Julian Green. “That doesn’t include an airport. If anything, that would reduce public access.”
