A few weeks ago we got quite a load of snow, but I was shocked to see not a single piece of household detritus placed in the street to claim a parking spot that had been carefully shovelled out. You see, the thinking here normally holds that if you go to the effort to excavate your car you shouldn’t have to cede the spot to some lazy schmuck when you drive off. This “tradition” of essentially claiming a property right for what is not yours is openly condoned by City Hall and often derided by suburbanites who love to highlight the irony of such un-neighborly conduct by the very citydwellers who bemoan the lack of sidewalk-centric community bonds in the suburbs.

Well, my worry was for nothing. This weekend we got an even bigger winter dumping (though not as big as what’s pounding the east coast) and, true to form, the crap is piling up in the street. Derelict couchs, two-by-fours, plastic lawn furniture — whatever can be tossed into the spot to prevent a would-be spot-stalker. There’d been some talk that gentrification was slowly killing this tradition, presumably because yuppies have garages and they like their streets not to look like the aftermath of a flea market. I’m happy to report that this does not seem to be the case. However, I will suspend final judgement on this trend until I see an altercation over a shovelled spot. (Certain brave drivers will actually move the impromptu barricades off the street to get a spot.) Only if the dispute ends in one neighbor deliberately icing another’s car with a hose will I consider the tradition to be thriving.

To the driver of Checker cab #5557:

Just a quick note of thanks for not killing my wife and son today as you hurriedly attemped to pass their parked car on Lincoln Ave. (Yes, I have two sons, but I’m rather fond of the blonde one you nearly mowed down.) I’m so relieved that you weren’t hurt and that you were able to get to your next passenger 4/1000^th‘s of a second before you otherwise would have. Think of the potentially lost income!

Also, I wanted to say thanks for the legal lesson you gave my wife. True, it might have been more effectively delivered if you were not screaming and gesticulating threateningly at her, but I admit that I have no law training so I’m not totally qualified to comment on your rhetorical strategy. One correction, though. It is not actually illegal for doors on the driver’s side to be opened into traffic when parallel parked. However, a friendly police officer to whom my wife spoke did note that it was her responsibility to make sure that she was not blocking traffic in any way when opening the door. Can you believe she was actually trying to put our toddler son into his car seat from the same side of the car that it is installed on? I mean, that’s just lazy. She clearly should have climbed over the other car seat on the other side of the car and inserted said toddler long-distance style. Who cares if that’s a physical impossibility. That’s what sun-roofs are for, right?

So, I apologize for any inconvenience. As soon as I get home tonight I will reprimand my wife both for her ignorance of the law and for showing such vehicular effrontery to you and the entire taxi driving community in Chicago. Please know that if I am ever in your cab in the future — #5557, easy to remember — I will make certain that my feelings on this matter are made even more forcefully than this letter permits me. You have my word on that.

Sincerely,

John Tolva

PS – Given your legal acumen, we were wondering if you could outline the law’s position on stopping your cab in traffic to deliver a lecture on municipal parking regulations to a mom and her kid? Thanks!

The city of Chicago envisioned by Alex Proyas in the movie I, Robot is set almost as many years in the future as I have been alive. Either I’m underestimating the last three decades of technological progress or Proyas is being too optimistic about how quickly his vision could be reality, but in either case the movie is an enjoyable one, teasing a pretty decent narrative out of a collection of loosely connected short stories and novels by Isaac Asimov. I especially enjoyed the film’s elaborate CG environments that create a clearly futuristic but also recognizable cityscape. (They had to, the movie was shot in Canada.) I’ve read that Proyas set the movie when and where he did because he liked the way the Chicago of today juxtaposes old and new architecture so comfortably and thoroughly. Of course, I agree, and for the most part the movie does a great job taking this trend into the future. I was intrigued by the choices the virtual urban planners made in removing and inserting new structures into the skyline. (And if you are too, you’ll want to visit the Art Institutes’s excellent 10 Visions exhibit.)

I’ve created a Flickr gallery of screenshots from almost all the scenes of Chicago in the movie. It is pretty clear where the designers placed the U.S. Robotics HQ building, but studying the images shows that they weren’t overly concerned with keeping it in the same place throughout the movie. A few things are clear from these shots:

1. By 2035 Mayor Daley is dead because he isn’t in office because if he was he’d never allow a plaza like the one in the movie without a single flower bed or row of trees.
2. The architect of 71 S. Wacker will be hired by USR to build their tower. His client’s only instruction: “make it taller.”
3. Yes, we have sentient machines taking care of us, but was it worth it to give up recreational boating on the river?
4. The L is way too silent and slinky. I can believe in robots with positronic brains, OK, but it simply defies belief that the CTA will ever get their act together for the effort required to replace the current clunky rolling stock (nor would I want them to, come to think of it).

These images raise a bunch of questions, some of which I’ve posed in the screenshot annotations and descriptions. Feel free to comment!