Quote:
Originally Posted by wierdaaron
There's a group of LSE residents now who are upset about the tennis courts intended to be built in Peanut Park once Maggie Daley Park is finished.
The story goes that the president of NEAR really wanted his tennis courts, and he knew that nobody else in the community does, so he left them out of the newsletter and never mentioned them again, telling the Parks District that the whole community wanted them. Now a bunch of community members realized that the park would be junked up with pointless tennis courts, so they're trying to mobilize a grassroots movement quickly to demonstrate to the parks district a wide opposition to the courts. There was a stand set up on Randolph street to try to get written statements, guy said they had over 400 of them already. They have a website at www.savepeanutpark.com
What do you guys think? Personally I think tennis courts are a dumb 90's throwback but I assumed there must have been significant demand for them since they were shoehorned into the new park plan, and I don't have a hard time believing that a neighborhood group's leader would try to slip something like that past the neighborhood.
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Wrote this thing up here:
http://chicago.curbed.com/archives/2...eanut-park.php
The guy I spoke to was trying to play down the homeless people claims, I think he realized they were unpopular. A few homeless would use the area around the Daley Bicentennial tennis courts for sleeping, so he thought that if they re-built them in Peanut Park the homeless might return. The stronger message, I think, is just about how many people actually play tennis vs how many would be able to enjoy the land without it.
Bonus fact, the main guy for the campaign is the former
Copper Cowboy street performer.