In the span of one year, a short street behind the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago’s financial district was closed, opened and closed again as security concerns bumped up against political clout.
Quincy Street, in Ald. Burton Natarus’ 42nd Ward, was closed permanently only after a political contributor to Natarus who was disgruntled by the closure had his rent slashed by the Federal Reserve Bank.
The story of Quincy Street illustrates how even a national security issue can get bogged down in the Chicago way of local government.
The tale begins with the Sept. 11 attacks, which prompted the Federal Reserve Bank’s governing board in Washington to instruct branches across the country to ramp up security.
Officials at the Chicago Fed saw a potential danger in the stretch of Quincy behind their building on Jackson Street. They feared that the side street left their building vulnerable to an attack by truck bomb.
“It presents a security challenge to secure that area if pedestrians and cars are going through there,” Chicago Fed spokesman Doug Tillett said.
The Chicago Fed asked Natarus to close the street to traffic.
At the first City Council meeting after the attacks, on Oct. 3, 2001, aldermen directed city workers to install signs closing Quincy between LaSalle and Wells.
That move met opposition from two tenants in the Chicago Fed building: an Au Bon Pain sandwich shop and the Chicago Clearing House, which offers check clearing and settlement services to banks. While Au Bon Pain quickly agreed to give up its first-floor restaurant at the building, the Clearing House went to its alderman in early 2002.
Natarus said Robert Fitzgerald–a prominent banker who was the Clearing House’s president at the time–told him that his business was hurt by the closure of Quincy. Before the Sept. 11 attacks, the Clearing House was able to receive deliveries of checks through a back entrance to the building off Quincy.
Talks between the Clearing House and the Chicago Fed had failed to produce a satisfactory solution for the Clearing House.
On May 31, 2002, Fitzgerald made the first of three $1,500 contributions to People for Natarus, the alderman’s campaign fund.
A month and a half later, on July 10, 2002, the council repealed the previous ordinance that had closed Quincy Street at Natarus’ urging.
“We were surprised that [the street] was reopened,” said Tillett, the Chicago Fed spokesman.
The reopening of Quincy led rapidly to talks between Chicago Fed President Michael Moskow and Fitzgerald.
The Chicago Fed agreed to reduce the Clearing House’s rent for 7th-floor office space in its building by more than 15 percent, or $2,258 a month.
With the lease running until 2011, the deal meant total savings of about $245,000 for the Clearing House.
In exchange, the Clearing House agreed to vacate a 700-square-foot space it had been using for clearing checks on the first floor of the Chicago Fed’s building.
“We were trying hard to work out an arrangement with the Clearing House so we could control Quincy Street,” Tillett said.
Once that deal was struck, the council again closed Quincy on Sept. 4, 2002.
Fitzgerald made two more $1,500 contributions to People for Natarus, in October 2002 and January 2003.
And in June 2003, the city gave up its ownership of Quincy between LaSalle and Wells, giving the block over to the Chicago Fed.
Fitzgerald declined comment. He left the Clearing House late last year, when it merged with its counterparts in California and New York, and henow is senior vice president of commercial banking for Bank of America in Chicago.
Natarus said that campaign contributions played no role in his actions on behalf of the Clearing House.
Natarus acknowledged that he sought to reopen the street after Fitzgerald brought the Clearing House’s concerns to his attention.
“We had some businessmen beef about it,” Natarus said. “We reconsidered the situation.”
His subsequent push to close the street a second time came after the Chicago Fed and its unhappy tenant “worked out an arrangement,” Natarus said.
Natarus said he was not aware that the Clearing House’s rent was reduced.
“That’s none of my business,” he said.
He added: “I’m not going to take a chance on national security. I’m not going to have someone come in and blow up one of our most important banks.”
