Letters

TREE TABLE

Dear Ms. Shore,

Your spring article on "Telling a Tree’s Age" was most welcome. Now on our walks, we bring along the table, measure our oaks, and know their age on the spot. Also, the table was used as an insert for our weekly activities bulletin. The researchers are to be commended for the many hours it must have taken to come up with this data.

Herb Demmel
Friendship Village
Schaumburg, IL

OLYMPIC DREAMS

Dear Chicago Wilderness,

Putting Mayor Daley’s proposed Olympic Park in the closed-down South Side steel mill would be a great opportunity to also clean up and restore the Calumet River, as opposed to putting it in Washington Park and damaging a city gem. Chicago’s Washington Park is a Frederick Law Olmsted masterpiece. It is one of the world’s greatest treasures…. Over the years, Olmsted’s Washington Park has lifted the spirits of hundreds of thousands of everyday people. That is what all true masterpieces do.

Placing a huge concrete sports pit in the middle of this historic open space will disfigure more then a large urban park. It will destroy the manifested dream of a world-famous dreamer, and it will diminish an ancient landscape once used by Marcus Garvey to inspire thousands of downtrodden Chicagoans with the words, “Oh rise ye mighty people!”

“Up! Up! Ye mighty race! You can accomplish what you will.” Let us as Chicagolanders be moved by Garvey’s uplifting words. Let us join forces and convert the abandoned South Side steel mill into an Olympic park. This 576 acres of vacated property runs from 79th Street to 91st Street…empty Chicago lakefront land that is one-and-a-half miles long and a half-mile wide. It is presently an unused area that is waiting for Chicago’s next visionary landscape architect to design an inviting new open space that will once again awe the world and forever improve Chicago.

This vast lakefront property is adjacent to Chicago’s beautiful Rainbow Beach. Chicago! Chicago! Up ye mighty people. You can accomplish what you will. Rainbow Beach/Olympic Park could be the next crown jewel of our city….A new American masterpiece created by an imaginative people with great visions of the future. It would also be a fantastic chance to finally clean up and restore the Calumet River, since the mouth of “Peace Pipe” River flows through this huge abandoned site.

Jim Hodapp, aka Hody Coyote
Elmhurst, IL

Dave Wendt
Joliet, IL

GARDENING GOLD

Dear Editor,
Thank you for your timely article on goldenrods in the Fall 2006 issue "Autumn Gold"). Having struggled for a number of years to find late summer blooming plants that would prosper with the limited light (3 – 4 hours direct sun) and moisture under the canopy of a mature elm and swamp white oak, I can attest to the fine ornamental attributes of our native woodland goldenrods under these growing conditions. From the end of August through the entire month of September, both Solidago caesia and Solidago flexicaulis put on a vivid display of abundant bright yellow flowers in only the first year in the ground. For gardeners with too little light for Echinacea, Heliopsis, or Rudbeckia and too little moisture for Chelone and Lobelia, the native woodland goldenrods are an ideal, low-maintenance solution for the late summer garden. Combining them with woodland asters such as Aster macrophyllus or Aster shortii further augments the display while maintaining a very natural appearance. Perhaps a future article could highlight the merits of these latter native treasures.

Bill Carroll
Evanston, Illinois

ROAD RUNNER

Dear Editor,

Reading the tremendous article again (“Roads: The Great Divide,” Fall ’06), just can’t absorb it all in one sitting. I-355 and the badly named Prairie Parkway are certainly environmentally damaging and deserving of the attention here, but I feel I have to mention the conspicuous absence of the proposed extension of Route 53 into Lake County. Its 20-plus miles will run through some of the most sensitive land in the six-county area and will change community character forever. Despite our best efforts, its proponents have convinced a good portion of the business and local community that Route 53 will alleviate all our congestion problems. If we are to keep it from happening, the entire environmental community must come together and convince our legislators not to pursue this folly. Thank you.

Susan Zingle
Wadsworth, IL

CRANING FOR OTTERS

Dear Editor,

It was impossible to miss the incredible flight of sandhill cranes one Saturday last March. They always remind me of a kaleidoscope as they surge and dance. On the listservs, there were dozens of reports of this species.

However, I couldn’t decide whether to look up or down as I found a RIVER OTTER on Poplar Creek! Several years ago, I had seen an unusual animal on the woodland pond that, as it climbed out of the water onto some fallen logs, looked like a mink on steroids. I tried to figure out what it was but had no luck until I learned that one had been found on Poplar Creek near the EJ&J railroad overpass. I knew immediately that was what I had seen!

It was wonderful to see the otter body-surfing along the strong current on a beautiful March morning. Although it is not “countable” on my bird list, it is something that I will always carry with me!

Judy Mellin
Palatine, IL