April 2009 Archives

Olympic Village site makes list of most endangered historic places in Illinois
 There's more heat on city officials gearing up to tear down the Michael Reese Hospital campus to make way for a planned Olympic Village.

On Tuesday, Landmarks Illinois named the campus to its list of the state's most endangered places. The Chicago-based advocacy group singled out the main Michael Reese building which is included in a zone marked for demolition, although city officials said last week that they plan to save it. Read Blair Kamin's blog and earlier postings on Reese

 Associated Press
MADRID  -- Spain's King and Queen will give Madrid's 2016 Olympic bid a boost by attending the final vote later this year.
The bid committee said Tuesday that King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia will travel to Copenhagen for the Oct. 2 vote. Madrid is competing against Rio de Janeiro, Chicago and Tokyo for the right to host the 2016 Games.  The International Olympic Committee will visit the Spanish capital next week to evaluate the bid.

 Though Chicago has an attractive big-city package with most venues near downtown, Tokyo's is close to flawless.

The Japanese also have a critical advantage - 100 percent guaranteed financing, no matter the cost of the Games, which usually run over budget. That's a blank check that no US city can write. So Chicago has devised an underwriting cushion from city and state guarantees plus private insurance and contingency funds, that the IOC might well accept.

One edge Chicago has, though, is one of its own in the White House. President Obama, who has promised to go to Copenhagen before the vote, could provide the kind of persuasive personal touch that Tony Blair did for London for 2012 and Vladimir Putin did for Sochi for 2014. (Obama might want to do a Berlitz blitz with French beforehand). Chicago might also want to bring Oprah along - she was a huge hit at the soiree the bidders threw for the evaluators. Full report from the Boston Globe

- The evaluating commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is set to launch Monday a secretive six-day visit to Rio de Janeiro. The Carioca candidacy is well aware of the fact that the visit may be its 'last chance' to pull ahead of Madrid, Chicago and Tokyo in the race for the 2016 Olympics. 

The city's collection of 'tricks' includes picking May 1 as the day in which inspectors are set to be taken around the different parts of the city to be shown the sports facilities chosen to host the Games. The May Day public holiday is set to ensure that IOC representatives do not have to deal with the traffic jams that are becoming more and more of a nightmare for residents as they seek to get from one end of the city to another.

The head of operations of the Rio 2016 organizing committee, Castelo Branco, admitted the 'trick,' but he noted that Brazilians are not the only ones who turn to such ruses.

'In Chicago, the city tour took place on a Sunday,' he recalled. Read the full report

The 13-member International evaluation committee wrapped up its Tokyo trip with a news conference on April 19 that echoed the one given in Chicago two weeks before.  Commission Chairwoman Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco:

Tokyo, April 19: "We have been most impressed to find what Tokyo could offer to the Olympic Games."

                      Chicago, April 7: "We have been most impressed to find what Chicago      could offer to the Olympic Games and the Olympic movement."
Read full account in Philip Hersh's Tribune column

Despite concern from some preservationists, the original building of Michael Reese Hospital will not be torn down as part of a redevelopment that could become the Olympic Village for the 2016 Summer Games, city officials insisted April 20. Read full Chicago Tribune report

Tokyo's plans and financial commitment to its 2016 Olympic Games bid have left a positive impression on a visiting IOC delegation last week, but it could still suffer from its focus on nonsporting issues and a lack of a recognizable figurehead. Read full report in Daily Yomirui

As the International Olympic Committee's evaluation team visits Tokyo, reporters from the Chicago Tribune evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the three cities vying with Chicago for the 2016 Summer Games: Tokyo would be the safe choice, Rio de Janeiro promises romance and a historic first, while Madrid fields the experienced team.

TOKYO has financial, technical aspects of hosting covered

With Mt. Fuji as a backdrop, Tokyo can boast of its compact city center and excellent mass transit.  But only 70 percent of people support the bid, polls show. (Kyodo Photo) 

MADRID seeks spot on world stage

Organizers of Madrid's bid hope that winning  the event will help the city overcome racial incidents at games for the Real Madrid soccer team. (Getty file photo 2007)

RIO bid focuses on atmosphere, emerging economy

Crowds celebrate beneath the famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro in October af the city was chosen as host of the 2014 World Cup. (AP file photo)

  Some of golf's top names, including Tiger Woods and Karrie Webb, have come together to lobby the International Olympic Committee to include the sport in the 2016 Olympic Games. Read complete report on Fox Sports

City officials are entertaining the possibility of tearing down nearly all of the Michael Reese Hospital campus for a  planned Olympic Village, including structures partly designed by eminent 20th Century architect Walter Gropius as well as a 102-year-old Prairie School hospital building that Chicago 2016 officials indicated they would spare, historic preservationists said Wednesday. Full report from Blair Kamin's blog

Chicago's Michael Reese Hospital.  (Nancy Stone/Tribune)

So what is still missing from the marketing mix of Chicago's 2016 bid in its final presentation in Copenhagen in October? We'd love to see -- or rather hear -- Chicago's very own Olympic anthem, recorded by the unmatchable Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Read Sun-Times columnist Lewis Lazare

A Chicago 2016 emblem appears in lights in a high rise building, left, as newly refurbished Buckingham Fountain welcomes the International Olympic Committee Evaluation Commission April 7 in Chicago. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

The Tokyo bid committee has dressed up the city with 50 000 flags along streets and at shopping centres as well as some 150 000 stickers on taxis, trucks and buses to advertise its bid with the slogan "Uniting Our Worlds." Read full report from www.iol.co.za 

International Olympic Committee Evaluation Commission Chairperson Nawal El Moutawakel, left, from Morocco, waves to wellwishers as she arrives at a Tokyo hotel. (AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara)

The $7 billion that Tokyo's governor, Shintaro Ishihara, estimates it will cost his city to host the Olympic games in 2016 is small compared to the $40-billion-plus that neighboring China splurged on Beijing last year. Tokyoites, however, might regret letting their combative city boss invite the rest of the world over. See full report from Forbes

Never carved in stone, the plans for a Washington Park amphitheater continue to shrink as Chicago's Olympic organizers delicately negotiate with park advocates who fear the 2016 Summer Games would damage the historic site. Complete Chicago Tribune story

Kathy Schubert of Chicago asks a question following an Olympic presentation April 9 in the Chicago Cultural Center. (Zbigniew Bzdak/Tribune)

While Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, basketball player Michael Jordan and other prominent Americans have offered their support in Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympics, perhaps no one has more influence than President Obama. Read The Caucus blog from nytimes.com 

Workers walk on the field during a tour for IOC members at Soldier Field April 5.  (AP photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Read the full New York Times story.

Chicago Tribune columnist Phil Hersh:  Vibrant. Outstanding. Highly professional. Excellent. Beautiful. Pleased. Fantastic. Energetic. Dynamic.  Listening to the top two officials of the IOC's evaluation commission assess its trip to Chicago, you would think there is no need for them to visit the other three finalists. Read complete column

Nawal El Moutawakel chairwoman of the IOC Evaluation Commission, and evaluator Gilbert Felli take questions at a news conference April 7 in Chicago. (Abel Uribe/Tribune)

Wrapped in a thick cream shawl against the night chill, Oprah Winfrey walked a red carpet for Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid Monday night, stopping to talk with a wall of reporters, Hollywood-style, before heading into a gala for visiting international Olympic officials at the Art Institute. Read complete report

Daley: Winfrey stole the show, wowed Olympic committee. Read Sun-Times story

Oprah Winfrey talks to reporters April 5 outside the Art Institute before heading into the Chicago 2016 gala for the Olympic evaluation team. (Nuccio DiNuzzo/Tribune)

 Plans for the proposed 2016 Olympic Village and lakefront sports venues would force cyclists, runners and walkers to divert from long stretches of the paths east of Lake Shore Drive during virtually all of July and August 2016. Read full report

Nawal El Moutawakel, chairwoman of the IOC team, gives a high five to Jerome Redmon, Jr., 11, a gymnast with the Chicago Park District gymnastics program, following a routine he did for her Sunday. (José M. Osorio/Tribune)

 Just in time for the International Olympic Committee's visit to Chicago this weekend, not to mention the upcoming celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Burnham Plan, new ornamental railings have been installed on one side of the Michigan Avenue Bridge. Read more

The new railing and decking of the west side of the Michigan Ave. bridge. (Tribune/Kuni Takahashi)

Chicago Tribune's letter:  There are some things we'd like you to know about us. Read more

Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky:  Why you do not want to give the Games to Chicago.  Read more

Columnist David Greising: Chicago Olympic bid needs more passion Read more

Columnist Steve Chapman: The Chicago 2016 cult Read more

Mayor Richard Daley greets several IOC members at O'Hare Airport Thursday. Left of Daley is commission member Mounir Sabet of Egypt;right of the mayor is Donna De Varona,1960 swimming gold medalist for the U.S.; and at far right is Nawal El Moutawakel, IOC evaluation chairwoman. (José M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)

The developing world needs to be given a chance to host Olympic games and Kenya backs Brazil's bid for the 2016 Games, Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said. Read complete report from The Standard.

At the end of the G-20 summit Friday, the president of Brazil pushed Rio de Janeiro's bid to host the 2016 Olympics, saying the global economic downturn would be over by then, according to an AP report.

It's hard for us to know how our city looks to outsiders. So the Chicago Tribune formed its own international panel by pulling tourists (from Chile, Poland, England, Wisconsin and Australia) off the street and taking them for a limo ride to proposed venues. Read their frank assessment

From the 35th Street Bridge, the tourists could see the propposed Olympic village site on their tour Wednesday. (Antonio Perez/Tribune)

Chicago must prove to IOC officials what the city has to offer for 2016 Olympic Games. Read complete Chicago Tribune story

 Chicago 2016 officials have been decorating the city for a visit this week by an IOC delegation. (Tom Van Dyke/Tribune)

"Chicago will be wining and dining members of the International Olympic Committee this weekend, and if you think that means deep-dish pizza and Italian beef sandwiches, think again. During the course of the visit, the committee will be dining as few Chicagoans get to do. Read Phil Vettel's column