I was out of school, out of work and out of ideas when the new owners of the Tinsley Building hired me. It was 1968, and they had just restored the building at Sixth and Adams, believing it prudent to preserve the only remaining Springfield building in which Abraham Lincoln maintained a law office. The […]
James Krohe Jr.
Posted inOpinion
Remember to not forget
The bronze sculpture commemorating the 1908 race riots was finally dedicated this summer on Aug. 6, a century late. As all mayors must, Mayor Davlin said a few words at the ceremony in Union Square Park. “I think we also put up a monument over here,” he said, “to remind . . . current and […]
Posted inOpinion
UIS, the educational city
I complained here recently that the University of Illinois at Springfield’s recently adopted master plan will make the future UIS campus the kind of sprawly, inchoate, inefficient place that alert urban planners everywhere are abandoning. (“Stuck in the ’70s.” Sept. 3). How backward-looking, I wrote. In fact, this vision of the future UIS is not […]
Posted inOpinion
The great tradition of central Illinois oratory
The political speech in all its forms — from the stump harangue to the platform oration — figures significantly in central Illinois literature. Lincoln and Douglas are only our most famous Ciceros. William Jennings Bryan came to the attention of the nation because of his famous polemic against the gold standard delivered in Chicago at […]
Posted inOpinion
‘Great Refrigerator Roundup’ is a bad bargain
Until Springfield develops a taste for warm beer, refrigerators will continue to account (with air conditioners) for the major part of every household’s electricity bill. That’s especially true if the fridge is old. City Water, Light & Power estimates that there are 40,000 ice boxes built B.C. — Before Clinton — that are still running […]
Posted inOpinion
Three into one won’t go
To build or not to build, that is the question. The answer will depend not on the review of high school facilities needs underway at School District 186. It will be determined by the voters — appropriately, if you are concerned about democracy, inappropriately if you are concerned about education. Common sense and consultants made […]
Posted inOpinion
Life in the Big House
Now we know. The reason that Rod Blagojevich disdained the governor’s mansion in Springfield was to save his kids from, well, the mansion. “Growing up in a big governor’s mansion, surrounded by staff is not normal,” Blagojevich writes in The Governor. “We didn’t want our children growing up spoiled with a sense of privilege and […]
Posted inOpinion
Stopped by a train
In the early 1850s, the brand new Alton & Sangamon Railroad needed a north-south track corridor through the capital city. The City of Springfield also needed a railroad, so the city council granted the A&S a right-of-way for its tracks along Third Street. Through the city, mind you, not around it. The city center was […]
Posted inOpinion
Who gets the last word?
Poet and critic Helen Vendler has observed that an epitaph is a form of lyric that must, among other traits, “assert a final judgment.” Ah, but whose? Composing the words to adorn one’s gravestone is one of those end-of-life chores that most people put off until it’s too late, like telling the kids about that […]
Posted inOpinion
Stuck in the ’70s
Last fall, the University of Illinois trustees approved the most recent UIS campus development master plan. The document maps the preferred locations of hoped-for new student housing and office and classroom buildings. Also provided for, at least on paper, is a much-expanded athletics complex — NCAA-standard baseball stadium and practice field, a golf driving range […]
Posted inOpinion
Six days a week
A while back, I remarked on the spreading use of the so-called year-round school calendar to remedy so-called summer learning loss. (See “The Pause that Regresses,” Aug. 13.) The start of another real new school year brings to mind questions left unasked in that piece. What about the learning that is lost the rest of […]
Posted inOpinion
Dem bones
The scam was, said the Sun-Times, “every family’s nightmare.” Maybe not. Some families’ nightmare is that Uncle Delbert will come back from the dead to live with them. But news of the foul burial plot at Alsip’s Burr Oak Cemetery was unsettling. Caskets and their contents were removed from at least 300 graves that were […]
