A reader writes: "This is how it should've been for our beloved Wilson Red Line station. Note the beautiful new facade on the North/Clybourn station in Apple's promotional photography. The newly rehabbed station even gets its own dedicated thumbnail photo."
It is really great at Halsted and Clybourn. We love the many retail stores too that we shop at often. I know one thing for sure is that you can walk around there safely and you don`t see any of the trash that is always present on our Uptown steets hanging out. Maybe someday is right.
ReplyDeleteStill could. gee, I wonder if any artists in the area would be willing to draw some concept pictures of a re-developed Wilson stop with a mixed use development attached.
ReplyDeleteDuh why would any company build something like that in uptown? The residents would trash the park in no time.
ReplyDeleteWhen you have Apple financing and designing the renovation I guess you can do things like that. I always thought that stop was much worse than the Wilson stop.
ReplyDeleteI would be very interested in that. Keep in mind I am not a professional artist. But the price is right! I'll give it a shot Pro Bono...as the lawyers say in Latin.
ReplyDeleteFor Uptown! (raising glass)
I have some thoughts regarding the retail space(s) at Wilson Station and the arts. Will say more its quite a bit actually
A commitment to Arts, artists, and artisans in a high profile location like that would be a sea change for arts in Uptown.
Artists WILL respond.
The Apple el stop is beautiful....magnificent!
Maybe Someday!! It's the core of the core of the business district....enough said.
Cheers
Hate to be the pessimist...won't be long before the crooks figure out which stop has the ipods in the pockets of the commuters.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Uptown is concerned, we should just be thankful we have a Target at this point. Granted we had to be lied to in terms of the housing to get it, but still.
they didn't do anything at platform level, though. it's ok. surely apple's clientele in Lincoln Park won't ride the smelly subway.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with MetalStud. Some of the subway stations are WAY worse than Wilson - Clark/Division and Monroe come to mind.
Clark and Division is one of the only original stops left on the red line subway. I hope to god that someone at the CTA sees the value in refurbishining at least one of these stations so that it can return to the simplicity and beauty of what it once was. I am not a fan of the new subway stops on the red line. Nice new lights yes, but they can never keep them clean so they look dirty and dark in just a few weeks. Then again I'm tall and can see the caked on dirt on top of those lights.
ReplyDeleteIf we can get IBM, MSFT, Blackyberry, GOOG ...to do the same at Wilson or Argyle, that would be great for everyone.
ReplyDelete@J-Chi and Eye in the Sky, remember that only a few years ago (OK, like 10-15) that neighborhood was bad news. It was the station closest to Cabrini, there were hookers from Clark all the way to Western. It was the kind of place people just wanted to get through. Frankly, I think it was further down than the Wilson stop area is.
ReplyDeleteOf course, one big change was that people moved in who would not tolerate prostitutes and such silliness, and the projects were taken down. Not sure what is going to happen with the some of the faux projects near the Wilson stop . . .
Andy, it isn't lost on anyone that you're running for alderman, but you need to get with the program. Apple put money into the North/Clybourn stop because they have an actual physical presence there with a new Apple store...IBM hasn't had a real consumer presence in years, since they sold off their PC business to China-based Acer, and they don't have any physical presence anywhere near Uptown...I'm assuming that "MSFT" means "Microsoft", and while they are ubiquitous in the PC market, they don't really sell products directly to consumers and they don't venture far from Redmond, Washington..."Blackyberry" doesn't have stores either--Canada-based Research-in-Motion, the maker of Blackberry smart phones, sells its products through cellular providers...and "GOOG" (I assume you mean "Google") does venture away from its Mountain View, California, headquarters to put offices as close as Ann Arbor, Michigan--but THEY don't have any stores and don't have any offices in Uptown (they don't even have Chicago covered well with Google Streetview). So it's nice to think about tech companies suddenly sponsoring the Wilson or Argyle Red Line stops (why not Lawrence or Sheridan, though?!?), but it's just as likely that John Deere Company or Caterpillar Corporation would do it, since none of them have a foot planted in Uptown, and none of them would gain anything from such an investment. On the other hand, Target Corporation or Aldi or Harris Bank *would* get mileage from putting money into a Wilson station rehab, as would JAM Productions putting money into Lawrence (and the Uptown Theater) with their venues at the Riviera and the Aragon Ballroom.
ReplyDeleteBack to the drawing board, Andy--put some real thought beyond your campaign into this, or maybe you should open communications with "Blackyberry" about financing a Wilson station rehab...you can tell them that I use one of their products and that I use the Wilson stop--that ought to be enough for them to shell out a few million bucks!