Fletcher Farrar: Reporter at Large

The visiting architects and city planners who made up the Regional/Urban Design Assistance Team said over and over that Springfield is poised on the edge of greatness. “The new museum may move Springfield from a sleepy town to a world-class city,” said Chuck Davis, the San Francisco architect who headed the team. “The bar has […]

The Esquire Theatre was brand new, and several other businesses had located near it on Springfield’s burgeoning southwest side. “South Grand and West Grand District is Rapidly Developing,” read a headline in the Illinois State Journal of Jan. 28, 1938. The greatest excitement surrounded the new Piggly Wiggly store, where Aunt Jemima herself would make […]

Here’s an idea: Instead of reluctantly agreeing to run for governor as a means of rescuing the Republican Party and then trying to survive four years without damaging his good reputation, how about if Jim Edgar gets back into politics with enthusiasm, determined to make life better in Illinois? Edgar is the one potential gubernatorial […]

My summer reading has turned to cities, realizing the good that is in them, solving their problems through leadership, and deciding what personal role to play. My books aren’t typical beach reads, not your fun fiction or the means to while away lazy days. I tend to take summer too seriously, using it to catch […]

It was yet another report of the U.S. government’s participation in human-rights abuses. On Sunday, 60 Minutes reported on the CIA’s practice of kidnapping terror suspects and flying them to places of torture. According to CBS, more than 100 people have disappeared under a CIA practice called “rendition.” Masked men in an unmarked jet seize their […]