Dear Bob Greene (c/o the Reader),
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Now two evil empires of modernity and progress–the Old Town School of Folk Music and the Chicago Public Library–have joined forces with the city of Chicago to upset Bob’s/Jack’s placid existence. The parties to the arrangement can better point out your various misrepresentations regarding the sale of the Hild Library building to the Old Town School and its ostensible effects on the surrounding neighborhood. You will, however, want to think through a few general points on the matter, if only so that your next appearance as “Jack Clark” might be somewhat more plausible:
- Conversely, the Old Town School was searching for a new location to escape the physical confinement of its Armitage address long before the city of Chicago made an attractive offer of the Hild Library. For the school to turn down such an offer without good reason would have been foolish and financially irresponsible. The school was serving over a thousand adult students per term on Armitage by that point, some in rooms that were administrative offices by day, others in unfurnished and unheated portions of the basement. Perhaps “Jack” would have had Jim Hirsch and the Old Town School board of directors mull it over briefly and issue an official proclamation: “The city of Chicago will give us a large building for a steal if we can raise the money to refurbish it; it’s tempting, but we’re going to take a pass, so as to preserve the atmosphere for fashionably disheveled ‘writers’ in the Lincoln Square area who find their inspiration in the status quo.” This seems a little self-centered, if not naive.
N. Sawyer
