Originality is a Point in favor of ‘DuSable Drive’
Yes, the name Lake Shore Drive is iconic and evocative, as opponents of the now seemingly inevitable move to rechristen the famed roadway for Jean Baptiste Point DuSable frequently remind us.
It’s perfect for the sinuous, multilane roadway that lines the waterfront from Hollywood Avenue to 67th Street on the city’s eastern edge, unmistakable and resonant.
But it’s also hackneyed and unimaginative, stale and common.
Nearly every state has at least one Lake Shore Drive or Lakeshore Drive. And sometimes many, many more.
A 1995 Tribune feature story reported that “In the 56-square-mile region covered by the Wauconda Fire District … which encompasses western Lake County and portions of eastern McHenry County, there are about 10 Lake Shore Drives,” leading to confusion for first responders and delivery drivers.
The story quoted a longtime resident of Lake Shore Drive in Tower Lakes: “Anyone with a pond has a Lake Shore Drive.”
My hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has a Lake Shore Drive even though there is no lake there — the street in question is a quarter-mile dead-end that runs along the Huron River.
And, yes, admittedly, Chicago’s is the quintessential and most nationally prominent Lake Shore Drive, immortalized in song and featured in movies and TV shows.
I like the name just fine, and I’d vote to keep it if there were a ballot referendum on the change.
I’d vote to instead put DuSable’s name on Millennium Park, which is misleadingly named since it didn’t open until 2004. Or on the Chicago River, given that it was at the mouth of that river where DuSable, a Black man of Haitian descent, established a trading post and settlement in the 1790s. (Such a change would require federal approval.)
It’s a stretch to say, as some have, that without DuSable there would be no Chicago. A city would inevitably have risen at the confluence of two important waterways. But he deserves founder’s honors. A local park, bridge, high school and harbor
already bear his name, and something even more grand is certainly appropriate.
And, as noted, evidently inevitable. An ordinance proposing a DSD for LSD swap passed the City Council Transportation Committee with a unanimous vote on April 29 despite Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s objections and a lingering dispute about whether the change will apply to the so-called Inner Drive, separate street segments that parallel the main thoroughfare just north of downtown and are lined with dozens of high-rise buildings where residents would have to change their legal addresses.
Assuming these disputes will be ironed out, approval for DuSable Drive seems likely later this month.
What we’ll lose in tradition we’ll gain in originality. And history will likely smile on us in the end.
Who lives on First?
Lake Shore Drive doesn’t appear on the most recent list of the 76 most common U.S. street names, though Lake was 19th and Lakeview ranked 74th.
“Second Street” came in first, “Third Street” finished second and “First Street”
was third.
The buck stops over there
The fatal police shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo on March 29 in the Little Village neighborhood was one of the biggest and most controversial crime-related local news stories in many months, and Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx was not on top of it.
On April 10, Foxx left it to trusted prosecutors beneath her in the chain of command to offer at a court hearing a summary of the evidence against Ruben Roman, the 21-yearold man who was with Toledo that night. Roman is charged with child endangerment, reckless discharge of a firearm, unlawful use of a weapon and a probation violation.
But because “the checks and balances that should have been in place for someone to be able to review” that summary “didn’t work,” as Foxx put it in an interview with the Tribune, prosecutor James Murphy gave a misleading summary of the moment a police officer fired the fatal shot. Specifically, Murphy made it sound as though Toledo had been holding a gun the moment the officer fired, when, in fact, Toledo had apparently discarded his gun a fraction of a second earlier.
It was a legally irrelevant detail, since Roman was not directly involved in the shooting. And obviously a blunder, since the Civilian Office of Police Accountability was poised to release bodycam and other videos of the event, which it did April 15. But public impressions are important, moment to moment, when a community is in turmoil, and misleading narratives erode public trust.
Foxx suspended Murphy for two weeks. Then, after an internal investigation revealed that communication breakdowns had caused him not to be accurately informed, she reinstated him and appeared to place the blame on her second-in-command, Jennifer Coleman, a 26-year veteran of the office, who resigned Wednesday. Coleman had been in a position to know the facts of the case and to review Murphy’s proffer for accuracy.
But you know who else was in a position to know the facts and to review Murphy’s proffer for accuracy? Kim Foxx.
Nobody expects the county’s top prosecutor to micromanage every hearing and every motion in every case, even the big cases. But when the city is on edge, when there are protests in the streets demanding answers and when every word matters, she needs to take charge and be accountable.
Those “checks and balances”? She oversees them. She’s responsible for making sure they’re in place. So she’s responsible for Murphy’s “inartful” language, as her office put it. She must fully own it and move on.
The way Foxx has blamed, punished and effectively fired underlings to distract from her failure is infamous.
Re: Tweets
The winner of this week’s reader poll to select the funniest tweet was “If Fox News had been around in 1955, we’d still have polio,” @HelenKennedy’s sharp dig at the bleating vaccine skeptics on the irresponsible cable channel.
The poll appears at chicagotribune.com/ zorn, where you can read all the finalists. For an early alert when each new poll is posted, sign up for the Change of Subject email newsletter at chicagotribune.com/ newsletters.
Join me and the other regular panelists every week on The Mincing Rascals, a news-review podcast from WGN-plus that posts Thursday afternoons.