Michigan Avenue has roared back to life with new businesses. From Falconeri to Intimissimi, Hello Kitty to Harry Potter and JP Morgan Chase to the Velvet Taco, Boul Mich now is trending to the upside. After penning more than a few alarmist editorials, we now are breathing a sigh of relief. It has been a very trying three or four years on the Magnificent Mile. But a lot of folks there have worked very hard to turn those retail fortunes around. And they are seeing rewards.
Time, now, to turn our attention to State Street, an iconic Chicago thoroughfare if ever there was one and a corridor that, frankly, looks to be in terrible shape.
It’s difficult to remember State Street looking much worse.
Part of the problem at the north end, of course, is the ongoing construction of the CTA’s new State and Lake station on the elevated line.
The ongoing three-year construction.
We complained at the time that the eye-popping cost (at least $444 million) and mind-boggling length of the construction timeline was way out of whack with the needs of a downtown still recovering from the COVID crisis. To our minds, if shortening the disruption had necessitated a less fancy station, then the less fancy station should have been the choice. There also were better ways to spend $444 million, be it federally funded or not. Sure, that train has left the station. But it was a poor decision.
At the time, we were kvetching about the cost, first and foremost, and to a much lesser degree about the length of the disruption to CTA riders. What we now see more clearly is the price being paid on the street below.
In most people’s minds, the Chicago Theatre marquee is emblematic of the city, and the restaurant-filled block outside the venerable old theater is one of the most inspiring in town and, historically, a big tourist draw. Of late, it’s been the home of the Chicago Loop Alliance’s “Sundays on State” concerts and fairs.
Yet, right now, visitors and residents alike are treated to an ugly construction site blocking off southbound traffic on State Street and making the entire area unpleasant for everyone. ABC-7’s showcase studio has a window on sewage pipes. A trip to the gorgeous Chicago Theatre is anything but glamorous outside. Meanwhile, Lake Street, also a staging site, is virtually impenetrable between State and Wabash Avenue.
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Patience is needed, one might argue. The new station will be lovely, necessary and worthwhile, one might insist (as did one of our more critical readers last December). And, in fairness, the Chicago Department of Transportation pointed out to us this week that the work includes street-level benefits to both pedestrians and the State and Lake Red Line station.
But three years (did we mention this is taking three years?) to our minds is simply far too long.
By 2029, we’re worried there won’t be much left of State Street unless someone (and that someone should of course be the mayor) pays attention to the spiraling decay.
Speed up the time frame. At least, get the heavy stuff off State Street as quickly as possible and reopen the street. Something has to give. We’ve effectively shut down a big portion of the North Loop.
For how long? Three years.
Our attention was drawn this week to online chatter about the sorry current state of the windows at State Street’s Macy’s department store, once the flagship of Marshall Field’s and thus a locale that commands outsize attention from the emotional memory bank.
Macy’s cannot be held responsible for the decline of department stores, of course, and window displays are both seasonal and much less important in our digital age. Still, we were motivated to go and take a look for ourselves on Tuesday and we did indeed see a lot of blank windows and perfunctory displays that do not hold a candle to the work of those retail artistes of not-so-long-ago.
Few pedestrians were even bothering to look. Few pedestrians even were present. We mused as to whether this was because there was so little to see or because the aforementioned CTA station project was so invasive that few folks wanted to walk amidst a long-term construction site (three years!). Our minds went to the summers of a decade or two ago, when State Street was filled with visitors whose hosts wanted them to see the beating heart of the North Loop entertainment district. What a disappointment now.
For years, Chicago debated whether pedestrianization served State Street. In 1979, the street notoriously was converted into a pedestrian mall; it took until 1996 for that mistake to be corrected. We’ve now effectively let a construction project re-pedestrianize State Street, at least in its northern reaches, for three years, not to mention disrupt CTA riders and cyclists to boot. And if you think the street’s issues are confined to that portion, we suggest you take a walk to its south. We doubt you will be charmed by the empty storefronts.
Of course, you might see them doing things they don’t do on Broadway, but that is unlikely to be a positive.
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