Little Richie told, "No"

Keeping with the (moreso than usual) Chicago theme today is news that Soldier Field has been stripped of its status as a national historic landmark status after it was ugly-fied a few years ago.

My immediate reaction? "They can do that? Sweet. Serves the bastards right."

It's one thing to upgrade a stadium (like Lambeau Field in Green Bay) or to add seating (like the Wrigley Field bleachers) but to do so like they did to Soldier Field? Pretty inexcusable. Had they stopped with extended seating and adding grass over underground parking lots, they'd have been fine.

Had they added the seating without disturbing the existing architecture or making an effort to blend the two, they'd have been in the clear.

But to push ahead and do whatever they damn well pleased, I think is where the problems began. It's worth noting that of the nearly 5,000 respondents as of right now, 82.1 percent agree with the move to strip Soldier Field of its status.

As noted by Blair Kamin in the piece, Mayor Richard M. Daley was a chief proponent of the redesign and now he gets left with egg on his face. This is a nice change of pace for the man who tore up Meigs Field under the cover of night, gouging giant X's into the runways before dawn and then moving ahead with plans to add park space there.

I was working as a reporter in Chicago at the time and after calling Daley's press secretary that morning was told essentially that it was no secret that Daley wanted green space there all along. That's fine, but there are ways to accomplish this, other than heavy equipment at 4 a.m.

It's kind of nice that the mayor who only hears the word "no" in the sentence, "No, sir, that shouldn't be a problem at all..." is left looking like a clown in this one and will be remembered as the mayor who destroyed Soldier Field.

Don't get me wrong, I've defended Daley on more than one occasion and point out that my trash was always picked up on the right day and my street got the snow cleared in a reasonable amount of time, but it's nice that he at least got slapped on this one.

For years to come (as they do now) tourists will visit the city and they come within view of Soldier Field, they'll ask, "What the hell is that?" And bemused tour guides, taxi drivers and city residents will half smirk and say, "Fucking Daley..."

(Photo from ChicagoTribune.com)