“The soul of Chicago.”
An easy enough phrase to toss out. It’s emblazoned on Willie Wilson t-shirts: “Restoring the Soul of Chicago.” Only $31.67.
Brand new mayor Brandon Johnson also invoked the soul of Chicago, in his inauguration address Monday, repeatedly, seriously. So it seems worthy of serious consideration.
What is the soul of Chicago?
Johnson began his exploration by suggesting the soul of Chicago is a general human condition, like opposable thumbs. The soul of Chicago, he said, is “alive and well in each and every one of us here today.”
Unless he meant just the people in the room. I hope he wasn’t implying that the soul of Chicago is a thing possessed only by those who’d go out of their way to see him inaugurated in person. If that’s the case, it’s going to be a long four years.
Besides, Johnson immediately opened the category up to “the Miami, the Sauk, the Potawatomi, who lived on this land for centuries.”
Hmmm. I see how mentioning Native Americans helps Johnson check off a box. But the Potawatomi war-danced out of town in 1835. A proud heritage, for certain. But if they are the soul of Chicago, today, then why are all these buildings here? I don’t think Johnson is saying the true heart of Chicago is the dispossessed, the exiled. The city does sometimes seem headed in that direction. I hope the soul of Chicago isn’t something that gets driven to Arizona.
I didn’t notice any glaring gaffes, except when Johnson said “the tears of Adam Toledo’s parents are made of the same sorrow as Officer Preston’s parents.” Technically true, but also guaranteed to be interpreted as a tone-deaf middle finger to the entire Chicago Police Department, who will not like seeing an officer murdered by robbers mentioned in the same breath as a kid shot by a cop a split second after tossing away a handgun. Bad optics.
It was a speech of vague goals. “Fix our public transportation system.” Great idea. How? With the taxes that residents and businesses fleeing to Phoenix won’t be paying? The speech reminded me of the New Yorker cartoon where the catcher walks over to the pitcher and suggests, “Strike him out.” Another great idea. How?
Brandon Johnson seems a nice man, and Chicagoans are hoping he’ll rise to the occasion. Though the soul of Chicago does not usually smile upon neophyte mayors, who traditionally become the tools of the powers that installed them — think Eugene Sawyer. Or rush to embrace the corruption they purported to oppose — think Jane Byrne.
He did pose an interesting question. What is the soul of Chicago? I’d say it is a city built on swamp. A sandy portage, where Native-Americans would carry their canoes from the Chicago River — really just a stream with aspirations — to the Des Plaines River. The speculators who platted the land and sold it off are also the soul of Chicago — not much honored in Johnson’s 41-minute speech. He offered little comfort to owners of office buildings wondering when their tenants are coming back, except “our downtown commercial corridors still bear the scars of the pandemic.” Ya think?
It’s a city that literally raised itself out of that swamp, jack-screwing buildings eight feet into the air so their sewers would drain, in some cases while commerce went on unimpeded. A city with wooden sidewalks that burned down, and was raised up again, in stone and brick this time. A city that used risky technology — the railroads — to become a portage again, crossroads of the nation, then held a great fair and invited the world to admire its Ferris Wheel (“let’s make an Eiffel Tower that spins,” is a very soul-of-Chicago sentiment), Little Egypt and Cracker Jack.
Johnson evoked the great migration which brought his grandparents to Chicago, and I’d say that was where he came closest to touching upon the city’s true soul. Chicago is, at heart, the place where people come to better their lives. To get out of Mississippi and Moline and join something bigger.
If four years from now that’s still true, that Chicago is a place where people are coming to, instead of fleeing from, then he will have been a success, or at least as much of a success as someone in an impossible job can be. Good luck, Mayor Johnson. You’ll need it.
