By Ben Joravsky
The Park District approved the plan, appropriated money to implement it, and was set to hire a contractor in the spring of 1995 when the newly elected Colom halted the process. There was, she said, a silent majority of seniors and young mothers who opposed the courts for fear they would attract gangbangers. “Tots and teenagers don’t mix,” she told me at the time. “It would be dangerous if courts went up.”
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By early 1996 the fight showed no sign of abating. Residents picketed Colom’s office, wrote letters to editors, and badgered reporters from both downtown dailies into covering their story. They even wrote a song, “Meet Me at Unity Playlot.” One stanza goes: “The people voted for a basketball court / The alderman opposed their plan / The Park District turned its back on the children / To stroke the ego of the political clan.”
In the meantime the Logan Square Neighborhood Association bought two adjustable portable rims, which members of the advisory council have been setting out on weekends on the old parking lot. Last Saturday council members rolled the rims out of a nearby garage at about ten o’clock in the morning, while Dearborn and others spent a half hour in the hot sun sweeping away the debris left from all the firecrackers ignited the night before. By noon there were half-court games going on both ends of the court, supervised by Dearborn and Charles Perez Golbert, a lawyer who lives nearby. “We always make sure the little ones get to play–if necessary, we’ll have the big guys break up a full-court game so everyone gets a chance,” says Golbert. “There’s always at least two adults supervising.”
The advisory council members say they’re willing to drop their proposal for permanent hoops and continue to roll out the portables on weekends. “Amazing,” says Dearborn. “We’re giving the Park District a service, and they don’t want it. I think the exercise station’s a way to keep basketball out of here. It’s so petty–such a big waste of energy and time.” o
