The grassroots effort to renovate the two-acre area playground at Washington Park is in full swing. With nearly half the $450,000 needed for the project raised in just six months, planners predict new equipment for spinning, sliding, and climbing will be installed as soon as next spring. “It’s amazing the support we’ve gotten from the […]
Todd Spivak
Posted inNews
Room for pork
Among Rod Blagojevich’s first acts as governor was to freeze the controversial pork-barrel spending that flowed so freely during George Ryan’s administration. Blagojevich trimmed pork funding in half, and assembled a review board to examine each of the thousands of taxpayer-funded pet projects requested by state lawmakers. Only projects benefiting education, health care, public safety, […]
Posted inNews
Chi-town
“Chicago is an October sort of city even in spring.” So wrote the late author Nelson Algren, who chronicled the city’s vast underworld of street hustlers, ward bosses, and mob heavies. But in the summer, Chicago sheds its tough-guy veneer and transforms itself into a kind of carefree resort town. Sunbathers and volleyball players take […]
Posted inNews
Land grab
Memorial Medical Center has quietly acquired at least a dozen residential properties in the historic Enos Park and Oak Ridge neighborhoods since the end of February. The hospital apparently has plans to demolish many of the houses for more surface parking lots. The hospital’s real-estate activity can best be seen in the area north of […]
Posted inNews
Bo knows
Actress Bo Derek side-saddled into Springfield this week to promote legislation that would ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption. The Hollywood horse lover’s plea came just as Cavel International — Illinois’ lone equine slaughterhouse, based in DeKalb — sets to reopen after a fire shut it down in March 2002. Derek testified Wednesday […]
Posted inNews
Portraits from the street
Remarkably, Pamela Gray considers herself fortunate. She beams at the thought of her two daughters in college, her son’s good-paying job, and her baby granddaughter just five-months-old. They come to visit her from Chicago when they can. But Gray, who stays at a shelter on South 11th Street, can’t make the trip up north. Not […]
Posted inNews
The price of salvation
Since taking the reins of The Salvation Army last July, Captain Deon Oliver has concluded the agency’s shelter fails to meet the needs of the city’s swelling homeless population. Now he’s trying to get that message across to city officials in an attempt to secure funding and political support for a new facility that would […]
Posted inNews
Limited safety net
Though built like a bouncer, social worker Robert Brooks can’t help but wipe his eyes at the mere thought of the homeless man who froze to death in Springfield last winter. Brooks, now the director of S.A.R.A Center, which assists homeless people with HIV/AIDS, for two years helped run the emergency shelter at The Salvation […]
Posted inNews
Packed house
Every emergency and transitional shelter in Springfield remains filled beyond capacity despite the warm temperatures that signal the onset of spring. The names of men, women, and children are scribbled on waiting lists to occupy worn mats on cold basement floors rather than spend a restless night outdoors. Later this month, social service providers will […]
Posted inNews
Rest in pieces
This weekend some 30,000 people are expected to stroll the expansive, rolling hills of Oak Ridge Cemetery for Mother’s Day. And if someone is injured while visiting a loved one’s gravesite, Springfield native Robert Pinkston won’t be surprised. “The mismanagement of that cemetery has created a dangerous environment,” Pinkston says. “If a skinny 8-year-old kid […]
Posted inNews
Don’t be cruel
A new animal welfare organization has formed in Springfield to investigate incidents of animal neglect or abuse and establish spay/neuter assistance programs. Illinois Humane, a non-profit group comprised of unpaid volunteers, plans to work with local police and the Animal Protective League to crack down on animal rights abusers. Local authorities each year receive up […]
Posted inNews
Tombstone blues
The city of Springfield calls it a freak accident, but the family of 8-year-old Andrew Richards says the several hundred-pound tombstone that broke the boy’s leg was an accident waiting to happen. On the morning of April 12, Lillie Riney took Andrew and two of her other grandkids to Oak Ridge Cemetery to stroll through […]
