While police and protesters kept wary eyes on each other at the outset of NATO summit weekend, people around Chicago tried to go about pursuing their own agendas. There were lifelong commitments to be made, baseball feuds to settle, social wrongs to right, furnishings to pack and fish to feed, among other things.
Tim Greive was pretty proud of his wedding-planning prowess last fall, and rightfully so.
After he and Rebecca Cliff decided to get married in May 2012, Greive visited a Chicago website with calendar listings of upcoming conventions and found none for the weekend of May 19-20.
“So, I was like, ‘We are so golden. I’m a genius, baby,'” Greive, of Chicago, said.
The couple reserved Old St. Patrick’s Church, a popular wedding site at 700 W. Adams St., for May 19 and started calling four-star hotels to book blocks of rooms for out-of-town guests.
That’s when he perhaps started feeling a little less brilliant. The hotel reps told him rooms were locked up that weekend for the G-8and NATO summits.
About the same time Greive and Cliff set their wedding date, James D’Angelo and Jillian Miller scheduled theirs for the same day and place. Then the D’Angelo/Miller party booked the Art Institute, site of their first date, for the reception.
But in January, the Art Institute notified D’Angelo and Miller that the museum would be unavailable because of the summits. Moving G-8 to the Camp David retreat had no impact.
But true love has a way of adapting.
Like D’Angelo and Miller, Greive and Cliff have a deep affection for Old St. Pat’s and couldn’t find an alternative weekend there. So, Greive and Cliff booked boutique hotels and “decided no matter what happened, we’re getting married,” Cliff said.
Plans came together for D’Angelo and Miller too. After some negotiations, the Art Institute found reception space in the Trump Tower and “helped out with the price difference,” D’Angelo said.
“So, it’s not like we’re slumming it or anything,” D’Angelo said.
As for plans to navigate transportation hassles, the couples have given guests alternative travel routes and are getting updates on road closings. Some local guests are taking Metra.
And Greive has a contingency reception plan. He reserved his condo building’s rooftop courtyard. The CVS store in the building has plenty of beverages.
“We’re going to clean the CVS out of cold beer, party on the deck and order pizzas,” he said. “If all hell breaks loose, I think we’re covered.”
— Ted Gregory
There was cold beer but no signs of unrest, at least not of the NATO variety, before or after the Crosstown Classic between the Cubs and White Sox.
Dmitri Mitalas, a street vendor who sells T-shirts, said Friday that he was expecting police to give him a harder time than usual. He was particularly concerned they would not allow him to carry around the large duffel bags he uses to haul his shirts because of NATO security precautions.
“To tell you the truth, I thought they would give us problems,” said Mitalas, 28. “But it’s actually been pretty chill, which is nice.”
Mitalas, who works most Cubs home games, said he did notice more police outside the park than usual.
“And there’s been birds in the sky all day,” he said. “Usually there aren’t helicopters flying by all the time for a Cubs game.”
Bosko Nedovic, 30, who drives fans to and from games on his rickshaw, said he thought the additional officers could have had as much to do with the fights that are known to break out after Cubs-Sox games as they did with NATO.
“It’s Cubs and Sox — 40,000 people getting drunk in one place,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll see any protests up here.”
— Bill Ruthhart
The protest is quiet in a church in Uptown, where a different kind of summit is taking place — one where a heavily tattooed woman will take your name and point you toward meeting rooms, where people arrive by bicycle rather than bulletproof SUV, and where big pink posters read: Make Love Not War.
This is the anti-NATO, a two-day conference held in The People’s Church of Chicago, 941 W. Lawrence Ave., where roughly 200 activists and concerned citizens from 39 peace, faith and economic justice groups have gathered to listen to speakers and attend sessions on workers rights, nuclear disarmament and grass-roots organizing.
Organized by Peace Action and the American Friends Service Committee, the conference — running through Saturday afternoon — aims to make the case that money going to fight wars should be redirected to battle poverty and inequality. “Cold War politics are a thing of the past, and so is NATO,” said conference spokeswoman Roxane Assaf.
Attendees came from around the world to discuss the connections between military and political policies and the realities of life for those in the middle and lower classes. They dubbed NATO “the global 1 percent,” Assaf said.
— Colleen Mastony
Maybe not 1-percenters but still enjoying economic benefits from NATO, George Smolucha, 19, and three co-workers from a Chicago moving company stood stranded in the bright sunshine after finishing a packing job at a nearby high-rise apartment on the corner of East Huron and North Rush streets early Friday afternoon.
Usually for such a job, Smolucha and the other movers would drive to a job site, park the company truck in the building’s garage, then drive back together to headquarters when they were done.
But because of security measures in place for NATO, the moving company had to drop off packing materials — boxes, tape and bubble wrap — several days ahead of time, then arrange for employees to be dropped off for the job.
After completing the job in four hours, Smolucha and his team debated whether to call company headquarters for a ride or hop on a city bus. But they weren’t complaining.
“I see this as extra hours,” said Smolucha, adding that he was looking forward to a fatter paycheck thanks to the summit. “I only see benefits.”
— Vikki Ortiz Healy
The heightened security brought mixed feelings to Eric Hoffman and Gina Saunders as they watched police and other stepped-up measures around their home in the John Hancock Center.
Saunders, 47, said she can’t help but feel a bit anxious about what the NATO conference could mean for Chicagoans like them who live in skyscrapers.
“It is a targeted building,” said Saunders, who ventured out on foot for a late pizza lunch on Michigan Avenue with Hoffman but planned to be homebound the rest of the weekend. “I’ll just probably stay in and watch from the windows.”
Hoffman, 51, on the other hand, said he had been impressed with the security presence he has seen at every turn, so impressed that he and friends made plans to go out Saturday night.
“The security has been pretty intense,” Hoffman said, a cluster of Chicago police officers standing nearby. “I’m not going to walk through the path of protesters or anything, but I’m not going to change my normal routines.”
— Vikki Ortiz Healy
The inhabitants of the Shedd Aquarium aren’t changing their routines either, so employees reported to work with pillows and blankets in preparation for a three-day slumber party during summit weekend.
Earlier this month, aquarium officials announced that it would close to the public Saturday through Monday because of the partial shutdown of Lake Shore Drive and parking restrictions at the Museum Campus.
But whales and dolphins need to be fed. In case of an emergency that might cut off access to the aquarium, animal care specialists didn’t want to find themselves on the wrong side of a police barricade. That’s why 60 employees will be bedding down “all over” the aquarium this weekend, said spokeswoman Andrea Smalec.
Some will sleep in offices, but others are rolling out their sleeping bags under the curved 20-foot, 400,000-gallon shark tank in the Wild Reef Exhibit, where a 13-foot sawfish, named Ginsu, will be among their bedmates. Said Smalec: “Who doesn’t want to wake up under some wonderful aquatic life?”
— Colleen Mastony
