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31. spatny
    Member

    Corbi: "...the park should compliment the town. Openness is one thing you cannot get in buildings. Picturesqueness you can get. Let your buildings be as picturesque as your artists can make them. This is the beauty of a town. Consequently, the beauty of a park should be the other. It should be the beauty of the fields, the meadow, the prairies, of green pastures, and the still waters. What we want to gain is tranquility and rest of the mind." FLO

    Olmsted saw his parks as the beautification of nature, not idealizing it. His idea was that the suburb was more capable of ameliorating urban conditions than the park. Here one could live within a natural setting yet retain the proximity and conveniences of the city. The plan of Riverside clearly expresses Olmsted's desire to include the observation of natural scenery as part of the every day experience of its inhabitants. The Swan Pond and some of the riverbanks are about the only areas left that approximates what Olmsted intended. The Big Ball Park was to be much more heavily wooded than it is now. Trying to insert a soccer field into the Swan Pond is just plain silly, just as putting Turtle Park in the narrow part of Longcommon close to the traffic was a mistake. Now we are going to slow the traffic on the main street of the Village to 20 mph and slaughter all the understory growth - as was done over at Blythe Park - so the "stalkers" can't hide there. Really, there are lots of people here who are smart enough to make the money to buy in and pay the freight, but most of them don't seem to exhibit much taste - as recently witnessed by many of the Xmas decorations I saw. I'm going to apply for the job of feeding and herding all the different mechanical species I see coming out on the lawns each December. If this Village government wants to do something important to insure that Riverside remains even a little as it was intended to be, they should pass an Ordinance that requires any new building or remodel job that applies for a variance for size or height to put up storey poles for 60 days and then have the comment and decision. If that had been done with the VC, as I asked on numerous occasions, better sense would have prevailed. Why don't you lobby for that?

    Posted Saturday Jan 20, 2007 22:40 #

32. MikeT
    Member

    Some of the recent forum entries, almost wistful, and imbued with a longing for the quiet charm and tranquility of Riverside reminds me of the song 'California Dreaming'.
    I have even seen some people who do not live in town anymore chime in
    http://www.riversideinfo.org/how-tif-districts-can-impact-local-schools/#comment-64

    Hey, 'new demographic', it's-the-charm!

    If today indeed be the winter of our discontent, let us try to keep dreaming and hoping and working for the real Riverside to come through and persist.

    Coincidently, the main singer who sang this great anthem of longing, Denny Doherty, from the Mamas and Papas, just died.

    "What made the group special was their haunting and sumptuous harmony singing," according to "The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll."

    "Everybody used to think that John Phillips, who wrote the songs, was also the main voice of the group, but it wasn't —” it was the angelic voice of Denny Doherty," said Larry Leblanc, Canadian editor of Billboard Magazine. "He was often overlooked but it was really his voice that carried the group."

    I thought that voice was FLO.

    I just confirmed: Riverside was granted National Landmark status in 1968, the same year/time frame that 'California Dreaming' was playing everywhere...

    I'll tell you one thing that is haunting to me during this time, when I hear the main proponent of the TIF keep saying that there is a 'silent majority' that loves composite EAV in the CBD more than this intangible quiet charm!! Every time I hear that, I google in my mind to Richard Nixon in 1969!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_majority

    Talk about a poetic deja vu!

    FLO, California Dreaming, Nixon,
    National Historic Parking Lot
    We're finally on our own.

    .
    miket
    sometimes 'indirect communication' can say things louder than mere words directly.
    Mr Admin, sir, this IS on topic!

    Posted Sunday Jan 21, 2007 01:24 #

33. corbi328
    Member

    Mr. Spatny,

    To further clarify, I meant nothing should be built on any of the greenspaces you listed or the ones you didn't list. As far as the soccer fields are concerned, most of the places you listed are already used as soccer fields. Let's remember that the rec department is scheduling games for Pre-schoolers all the way up to fifth or sixth grade. My oldest son is in fourth grade and this past year there were 10-12 fourth grade soccer teams. In order to accommodate this many teams we need to use all logical green space in town, and that includes swan pond.

    I understand that you and many others yearn to keep Riverside looking like Olmsted originally conceived it. But let's be realistic. Riverside was conceived as the weekend country getaway for a handful of Chicago's elite families. If we stuck to a strict interpretation of Olmsted's original vision, most of us would not be living here. This town has evolved and now is HOME to approximately 9,000 residents composed mostly of families with young kids. The Village has to cater to their needs and that includes structuring and maintaining our parks in such a way that they can accommodate the recreational activities that our many kids yearn to participate in. I am sure you understand this and hope you can accept it because it is not going to change.

    Posted Sunday Jan 21, 2007 08:02 #

34. spatny
    Member

    Corbi - you asked me where I thought kids could play soccer (and other sports) and I told you the places I knew. I was simply advising you that the single field I see in use in the Swan Pond is ill sited - both for soccer and for reasons of aesthetics. Sure keep using it, but don't try and use that field as an excuse for some TIF related engineering project that probably won't - and shouldn't - work anyway. If you and your kids and lots of other kids want to play there, as it is, that's fine, and please do pick up the trash when you leave. Frankly, after seeing what those kids consume I would be concerned for their health. When we were kids - I'm talking high school now - we drank from hoses not sports bottles, we rode our bikes to school instead of being carpooled, we played outdoors without our parents or the rec dept. to arrange it for us and we had friends instead of gameboys or whatever they are called. Later we drank a pure natural product - beer - and walked with our girlfriends there. So it is sacred ground, if you get the drift.

    Posted Sunday Jan 21, 2007 09:40 #

35. corbi328
    Member

    Mr. Spatny,

    I want to make sure you understand my point. Most of the other spaces you quoted are already used for soccer or other athletic events and Swan Pond is a last resort space that needs to be used given the sheer number of kids we have in town.

    As far as the habits of today's generation, I don't disagree with you. I often am coaching those rec soccer or basketball teams and I can't tell you how many times I have to remind these kids to clean up after themselves. I also have to continuously prod my wife to let the kids walk or bike to school and to force the kids out of the house to go play with friends. While the kids of this generation certainly don't show the desire or initiative to do these things, I put the majority of the blame on the parents who are overprotective and shelter these kids. Just to give you an example, my daughter is a sophomore in High School who regularly takes the Metra to attend a Catholic HS on the near west side of Chicago. One of the main benefits I saw in having her attend this school was the experience and sense of responsibility she would gain by having to commute on her own through a Chicago neighborhood that is quite different from the neighborhood we live in. Recently, my daughter and some of her friends were planning to go out for dinner and a movie in LaGrange and decided to take the Metra to LaGrange. Do you know that many of the parents were initially afraid to let these kids take the Metra to Lagrange! These are sophomores in High School who two years from now will be on their own in College. If you can't trust a 16 year old to take a train to Lagrange how do you think these kids will handle the freedom they experience when they land on a college campus with no parents to look over their shoulders?

    Posted Sunday Jan 21, 2007 11:42 #

36. spatny
    Member

    Well that's why so many of these kids are going to need "gated communities" to live in - the people in the real world - the one that's all around us - will eat them for breakfast. There are people who have dogs and won't train them or discipline them, so of course the poor dogs can't be let off the leash and thus lose out on the fun. I'm glad you are instilling self-reliance in your kids - they'll be the better for it. When we were in RBHS we used to take the train to the city and walk over to Maxwell Street, grab a sandwich at Leavitt's - that wonderful place where they cooked outside on Halsted and Maxwell, and go look at the wild clothes at Smoky Joe's. We also heard blues on 35th where the DJ's were in the storefront windows spinning music. (What was then called "race music.") Much better than the stuff that was on the Grill-ette juke box. Then cars made us mobile, and we went to other ethnic neighborhoods - not to fight but to sample the food. Jim's Clam Stand on North and Fifth was a lot better than Skip's Drive-in or Russel's BBQ - but the girls were better at Skips. We even went to dances at places like Keyman's Club Ballroom on Madison - I had a classmate that used to go around and drink people's drinks when they were dancing. Nice old times. But getting back to the Swan Pond - I don't think there are any more kids in town now than there were in the fifties - RB was about 1400 total then. Of course everything is a lot more organized now, and it's compulsory to go watch your kid play, and I see (and hear) the Dads getting carried away yelling at the kids. I got tired of listening to one of them out on the Hauser playground so I went out and shut him up. The good old fashioned way. He'll be a better person for it. In my view the field in the Swan Pond can be used or not used - as it is - but it should not be enhanced and the SP doesn't need to be redeveloped. If anything, it should be left to be more original - and I mean 1930s era - it can never be what it once was.

    It's just like the curbs and the electric lights downtown - they are "improvements" that in the eyes of many detract from Riverside's native ambiance. Of course the place was designed in a different time - before automobiles - but that doesn't mean it has to be "modernized" or redeveloped to be just like every other place. There's enough tacky crap within just a few miles of here to satisfy anyone's appetite for that, I would think. Just don't use the SP for an excuse to launch this ill-conceived agenda.

    Posted Sunday Jan 21, 2007 13:08 #

37. MikeT
    Member

    Yes, I agree with Spatny on the no redevelopment at all in Swan Pond. Is that in the tif and is there an intention to 'redevelop' it w/ tif funds?

    I hope not.

    Sorry about a question whose answer I probably should know. I have been watching other parts of the tif district.

    As I have said on this forum that I do believe that Riverside can be a 'destination' for archi-tourists and for other people who want to see and experience how good landscape urban design should be done. We don't need to muck up that landscape with paving it.

    We can have souvenir shops, but will do that outside Swan Pond - may at the museum, for example? or in the chew chew / grumpys / or in that new space at VC etc.

    Here is where I said some stuff about attracting people to our town.

    http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic.php?id=16&replies=32
    and
    http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic.php?id=103&replies=10#post-1364

    I have to admit that later I was expressing ambivalence about letting the secret of Riverside get out.

    http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic.php?id=107&replies=24#post-1583

    We have to, in the end, ALL agree what 'successful improvement' of Riverside is - before breaking any more dirt and letting even more horses out of the barn.

    mike

    Posted Monday Jan 22, 2007 00:09 #

38. Elisa
    Member

    I know this isn't directly related to the TIF discussion, but it is related to this thread. My husband purchased (on ebay) some postcards; and has one that has "Mr. H. E. Reagan's Residence" on the front. He's done research to find information on the house, but he can't even tell if the home still exists - and if it does, what home it is. With all of the expert historians on this forum, maybe this rings a bell for one of you!

    (If it still exists, he'd like to give it to the homeowner.)

    Posted Friday Feb 23, 2007 13:42 #

39. Aberdeen
    Member

    Elisa - I'm not sure this is the same one, but if it appears to be red brick on the bottom, with cream stucco on the top, and an awning over a front open porch, take a drive by 130 Nuttall. (It's a Silsbee.)

    Posted Friday Feb 23, 2007 14:27 #

40. Elisa
    Member

    Abdereen - I looked up 130 Nuttall on the Village's landmark site and it's definitely not the same house. Maybe Reagan "commissioned" a different house as well. The house on our postcard has the same sort of look as the house on Scottswood (the one that was on the housewalk this spring)- it has the same kind of turret, but it's much bigger.

    Posted Friday Feb 23, 2007 14:34 #