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PostJul 08, 2021#601

I once went with a friend to watch fireworks from the 40 something floor. They parked in the base of the building.  If I had to guess there were no more than 30 spots inside if that.
Of course  there is also the vibe-sucking parking garage next door connected to the building by a bridge.

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PostJul 09, 2021#602

I was having a discussion with a architect friend of mine here in Chicago over coffee and he thought this would be a cool use to turn the building into a vertical urban garden and wind farm attached to City Garden.

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PostJul 09, 2021#603

imran wrote:
Jul 08, 2021
I once went with a friend to watch fireworks from the 40 something floor. They parked in the base of the building.  If I had to guess there were no more than 30 spots inside if that.
Of course  there is also the vibe-sucking parking garage next door connected to the building by a bridge.
Did that once as well when my wife had an office on 30ish something floor.  Can't recall the year but it was a while ago, 15-20 years ago.   She wasn't part of executive floor but did have a parking spot in garage next door so it work out pretty to watch fireworks in AC comfort.

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PostJul 09, 2021#604

imran wrote:
Jul 08, 2021
I once went with a friend to watch fireworks from the 40 something floor. They parked in the base of the building.  If I had to guess there were no more than 30 spots inside if that.
Of course  there is also the vibe-sucking parking garage next door connected to the building by a bridge.
^Parking garage next door?  Is there parking in the data center? 

And for whatever it's worth, the bridges connected to 909 Chestnut have been gone for a long time.  That was the one and only silver lining to ATT's abandonment of the building.

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PostJul 09, 2021#605

^ meant the parking garage one block over but with the bridges in place you could go from parking garage to data center to 909 when it was all ATT/SBC once upon a time.

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PostJul 10, 2021#606

I've never found a satisfactory answer for this, but haven't really done much research:

Aside from the fact that the historic Southwestern Bell building had the large parking garage attached to it, why did ATT choose to consolidate their office space into the old building rather than the 909 Chestnut tower?  Was it simply because the larger building was more valuable/easier to sell, and they needed the cash?

It seems like that one decision set up this intractable problem of one huge vacant tower.  Even if ATT only leased half of the newer tower, it would have been much easier to renovate and lease the remaining space over time.  And then the historic building could have been converted to residential, for which all the windows and terraces would seem to make it ideally-suited.  It may have even been eligible for historic tax credits.

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PostJul 11, 2021#607

urbanitas wrote:
Jul 10, 2021
I've never found a satisfactory answer for this, but haven't really done much research:

Aside from the fact that the historic Southwestern Bell building had the large parking garage attached to it, why did ATT choose to consolidate their office space into the old building rather than the 909 Chestnut tower?  Was it simply because the larger building was more valuable/easier to sell, and they needed the cash?

It seems like that one decision set up this intractable problem of one huge vacant tower.  Even if ATT only leased half of the newer tower, it would have been much easier to renovate and lease the remaining space over time.  And then the historic building could have been converted to residential, for which all the windows and terraces would seem to make it ideally-suited.  It may have even been eligible for historic tax credits.
1010 Pine has a central switching office, which can't be transferred to another location.

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PostJul 12, 2021#608

I walked past this tower the other day, specifically through the covered sidewalk on 10th. They need to send a cleanup crew ASAP to clean up the human doodoo all over the place. I was following a group of very disgusted tourists. So embarrassing.

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PostJul 12, 2021#609

^ you should tweet at CSB about it if you're on the Tweeter.

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PostJul 12, 2021#610

urban_dilettante wrote:
Jul 12, 2021
^ you should tweet at CSB about it if you're on the Tweeter.
https://twitter.com/stlcsb

They really are quite responsive as long as you include an exact address and pictures if possible (though in this case... ew.)

-RBB

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PostJul 12, 2021#611

^ yeah they're very responsive—at least in terms of reporting things to the appropriate division. after that it's kind-of out of their hands, i think.

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PostJul 13, 2021#612

bprop wrote:
Jul 11, 2021
urbanitas wrote:
Jul 10, 2021
I've never found a satisfactory answer for this, but haven't really done much research:

Aside from the fact that the historic Southwestern Bell building had the large parking garage attached to it, why did ATT choose to consolidate their office space into the old building rather than the 909 Chestnut tower?  Was it simply because the larger building was more valuable/easier to sell, and they needed the cash?

It seems like that one decision set up this intractable problem of one huge vacant tower.  Even if ATT only leased half of the newer tower, it would have been much easier to renovate and lease the remaining space over time.  And then the historic building could have been converted to residential, for which all the windows and terraces would seem to make it ideally-suited.  It may have even been eligible for historic tax credits.
1010 Pine has a central switching office, which can't be transferred to another location.
I guess that explains it.  I assumed they had moved all of that infrastructure to the data center building.

PostJul 13, 2021#613

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote:
Jul 12, 2021
I walked past this tower the other day, specifically through the covered sidewalk on 10th. They need to send a cleanup crew ASAP to clean up the human doodoo all over the place. I was following a group of very disgusted tourists. So embarrassing.
What's the point, unless the city cleanup crew comes by every day, which they won't.  The hosed-off urine n' doo is immediately replaced with fresh urine n' doo...  

Maybe they should bill and fine the owners until they clean it up themselves, daily?

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PostJul 14, 2021#614

The city could also just put a couple port-a-johns out there.

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PostJul 25, 2021#615

BellaVilla wrote:
Jul 14, 2021
The city could also just put a couple port-a-johns out there.
So you think that the problem is that the people (to use the term loosely) who are doing this, have no place else to excrete?

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PostJul 26, 2021#616

Yikes

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PostJul 26, 2021#617

urbanitas wrote:
Jul 25, 2021
BellaVilla wrote:
Jul 14, 2021
The city could also just put a couple port-a-johns out there.
So you think that the problem is that the people (to use the term loosely) who are doing this, have no place else to excrete?
In general, I would say yes.

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PostJul 26, 2021#618

We make downtown as inhospitable as possible to the homeless. No public restrooms (even the library's hours are still greatly reduced). Seating removed en masse. Monuments that were makeshift seats fenced off.

At some point you have to start treating them like humans with basic human needs rather than unwanted vermin.

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PostJul 26, 2021#619

^Maybe, just maybe, Downtown doesn't exist for the homeless' use more than anyone else's. 
Just maybe, a part of the City should be dedicated to providing for the homeless that is not Downtown. 
And maybe, just maybe, Downtown doesn't exist for loitering. 

I'm all for the humane treatment of our fellow people, but I'm not for giving the homeless access to the City's monuments to use as dedicated places to sit. There's definitely lots of land to go around. It doesn't need to be in Downtown. 

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PostJul 26, 2021#620

I agree that downtown can't be the region's sole provider for the homeless.

But I'm going to strongly disagree on the loitering. We have tons of parks and most have been retrofitted to prevent loitering. If not for loitering, what does one even do in a park?

That's certainly what people do in European cities. There are also public toilets.

This kind of making downtown inhospitable to the homeless also makes it inhospitable to residents. How many acres of parks do we need where you can't do anything but walk through or take your dog out? The homeless don't need to sit on monuments. That's why we need to put back all the (dozens/hundreds?) of seating areas that have been removed in downtown parks.

It's reminiscent of all the hubbub over the new NYC train station.
https://secondavenuesagas.com/2021/01/1 ... re-to-sit/

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PostJul 26, 2021#621

^You know, I'm understanding to the plights of the homeless, having lived in Downtown for a number of years right near Larry Rice's old place, passing people on the streets on a daily basis while I worked Downtown, and being rather empathetic towards their circumstances. That stated, it is not the purpose of parks for the homeless to hang out. 
If not for loitering, what does one even do in a park?
The purpose of parks are to visit, but not to loiter. I don't want to get into semantics about the differentiation between the Webster definitions of visiting versus loitering. But, I will say that they weren't made for the specific purpose of giving the homeless prime real estate to just hang out. 

Where it comes to 909 Chestnut (the topic of this thread, after all), I'm in favor of doing whatever it takes for this building to be sold and redeveloped to some party that will make productive use of it. I'm not really thinking putting up port-a-johns for the homeless will really make it that much more marketable, but I'm not a real estate agent (all that assuming the port-a-johns are even used for their purposes). 

The point is clear, though, that this building is less likely to be bought and redeveloped if there's always homeless people crapping on it. 
This needs to be fixed. 

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PostJul 26, 2021#622

bprop wrote:
Jul 26, 2021
urbanitas wrote:
Jul 25, 2021
BellaVilla wrote:
Jul 14, 2021
The city could also just put a couple port-a-johns out there.
So you think that the problem is that the people (to use the term loosely) who are doing this, have no place else to excrete?
In general, I would say yes.
So there are no alleys with dumpsters anywhere in the vicinity of 9th and Pine?  Huh, I could have sworn I saw a few last time I was down there.

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PostJul 26, 2021#623

urbanitas wrote:
Jul 26, 2021
bprop wrote:
Jul 26, 2021
urbanitas wrote:
Jul 25, 2021
So you think that the problem is that the people (to use the term loosely) who are doing this, have no place else to excrete?
In general, I would say yes.
So there are no alleys with dumpsters anywhere in the vicinity of 9th and Pine?  Huh, I could have sworn I saw a few last time I was down there.
I assumed you meant shi*ing in passageways. If you'd like to argue that one passageway is better to sh* in than another, I won't stop you.

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PostJul 26, 2021#624

urbanitas wrote:
Jul 26, 2021
bprop wrote:
Jul 26, 2021
urbanitas wrote:
Jul 25, 2021
So you think that the problem is that the people (to use the term loosely) who are doing this, have no place else to excrete?
In general, I would say yes.
So there are no alleys with dumpsters anywhere in the vicinity of 9th and Pine?  Huh, I could have sworn I saw a few last time I was down there.
You might be a bad person

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PostJul 27, 2021#625

^Yeah, but that's beside the point...

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