As he headed into the Oak Park Public Library on Dec. 10, Nick Wesley, 27, of Oak Park stopped to answer a few questions for the Oak Leaves.
Q: I notice your cup from Courageous Bakery and Cafe. Had you been before? What did you think?
A: Yeah, I got a coffee from there. I just had breakfast there, too. I had the pancakes, they were really good.
Q: What brings you to the library today?
A: My Wi-Fi is out.
Q: Occupation?
A: I work for a nonprofit called Urban Rivers. We create floating gardens in the Chicago River. We did our first install in the river in June.
Q: Do you feel the river can be transformed?
A: It’s kind of been something that’s been more or less ignored. We kind of made it for shipping, which is why it looks the way it does. These floating gardens create habitats in the river. Even though it’s dirty, it’s not dirty enough to stop some of that life.
Q: Travel destination you’ve visited recently and one you’d like to get to?
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A: I went to Berlin this year. Berlin and Amsterdam, I’d highly recommend. Shenzhen, China, has always seemed interesting. My house is full of random computer parts from there. … I got to see the Flussbad Berlin in the Spree Canal, where they took a portion of the river, built a large wetland to filter the water and there’s a pool at the end.
Q: Favorite winter activity?
A: I like skiing. I thought I would be much more excited for the cold than I was when it set in. But I do like skiing. I do a lot of shoveling snow, too.
Caitlin Mullen is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.