James Krohe Jr.

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

The kids at District 186’s Southern View elementary school began classes in July again this year. The school is one of two in the district that operate what is almost always called year-round school, even though “year-round” school it isn’t. What is also known as the balanced or all-year schedule is merely the same part-time […]

The now-stalled beautification project to transform Capitol Avenue into a ceremonial gateway to the Statehouse and Lincoln sites confirms what longtime residents already know, which is that Springfield is not especially good at gateways. Several disgraced governors ago, the gateway to the city from the airport, Walnut Street north of North Grand, was dressed up […]

Capitol Avenue’s progress toward becoming the capital city’s Champs Elysees has hit a pothole. Completion of the latest phase of rehab work will soon leave the stretch from Seventh to Eleventh improved, but the roughly $17 million that will be needed to finish this prairie Pennsylvania Avenue is nowhere to be found. Capitol from Seventh […]