Economist.com Cities Guide: Chicago Briefing - December 2005

News this month

Black Tuesday

Conrad Black, a disgraced former newspaper magnate and British peer, failed to appear for his trial in a Chicago federal court on November 22nd—he claims he was assembling a defence team—and has a new court date of November 30th. Lord Black headed Hollinger International, which in its heyday was the world's third-largest English-language newspaper publisher, owning the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post and the Daily Telegraph, among others. Lord Black is accused of cheating Hollinger’s shareholders out of nearly $100m, including $51.8m from the sale of some Canadian newspapers that he allegedly funnelled to himself and two friends, $1.5m for renovations to his apartment on Manhattan's Park Avenue, and $42,000 for a birthday party held for his wife.

Lord Black's indictment on November 17th came after years of tumult. In 2003, Hollinger fired him from his post as chief executive; in 2004, the company sued to recover money he allegedly stole, only to be countersued by Lord Black. Besieged by both Canadian and American regulators, Lord Black had recently laid low in his native Canada (he was a duel citizen of Canada and Britain before giving up his Canadian citizenship to sit in the House of Lords). He faces eight counts of mail fraud and up to 40 years in prison. But he remains optimistic, and on November 24th denounced his charges as “one massive smear job”. Three other former Hollinger executives were also indicted in November.

Keep on trucking

The federal investigation of Chicago’s Hired Truck programme keeps on reeling in the guilty. The programme, designed to steer municipal contracts to private trucking companies, has become notorious for its corruption, rampant even by Chicago standards. On November 18th, federal prosecutors charged Robert Ricciarelli, a former supervisor in Chicago’s Streets and Sanitation department, with shaking down truck companies who wanted to do business with the city, pocketing more than $30,000 in bribes over five years. He is the 37th person charged in the federal probe; 24 of them have pleaded guilty, as Mr Ricciarelli is expected to do.

The investigation initially targeted the truck programme, but has mushroomed to examine hiring practices in City Hall. Prosecutors charge that some city departments have bypassed hiring rules and doled out jobs as political favours. Under scrutiny from investigators and a new patronage monitor, the city’s personnel department announced in mid-November it would hire new staff to oversee hiring policies.

For love or money?

The trial of George Ryan, a former governor of Illinois charged with fraud and racketeering, got a jolt on November 17th, thanks to the testimony of a former senator. In 1995, Mr Ryan, then Illinois’s secretary of state, endorsed the presidential campaign of Phil Gramm, a Republican senator from Texas. Prosecutors charge that Mr Gramm’s campaign paid Mr Ryan an $11,000 “consulting fee” in exchange for his endorsement; Mr Ryan claims he earned the fee by introducing Mr Gramm to local political figures. In court, Mr Gramm testified that he did not know his campaign was paying Mr Ryan for consulting, nor would he have approved such a payment, because, he explained, “it’s sort of like the difference between love and prostitution. You don’t pay people to like you.”

The comment caused a ruckus in the courtroom and beyond: the judge asked Mr Gramm to curb his thoughts on prostitution, while Mr Ryan lashed out by telling television crews that Mr Gramm may have been involved in the scandal over Enron, adding testily, “If Senator Gramm wants to use the word prostitute, perhaps he should look within.”

Burning bridges

A woman who spent a dozen years earning an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago returned to her alma mater to set it on fire. Julita Groszko, who lived in a western suburb of Chicago, earned a degree in chemistry last spring following an eight-year leave of absence. In mid-November, she returned to the prestigious institution with a can of petrol in her backpack, slipping in and out of classrooms to set three fires, because, according to a Chicago police lieutenant who heard her complaints, “she felt that maybe the university took too much out of her, made her work too hard”. She was charged with two counts of aggravated arson, three counts of attempted aggravated arson and one count of felony damage to property. No one was injured.

You say torture, I say delicious

Chicago may once have been “hog-butcher to the world”, but is it turning green? Joseph Moore, a Chicago alderman, has proposed an ordinance banning the sale of foie gras within city limits. Mr Moore calls the production of foie gras “torture”: to make it, tubes are stuffed down the oesophagi of geese and ducks twice daily, and they are force-fed a mash of corn. The process unnaturally fattens the liver, resulting in a delicacy with a name that translates from French as “fat liver”.

A council committee approved the ban in late October (with some comparing the ducks’ treatment to torture in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison), and a full council vote is believed to be imminent. The ordinance could affect at least 19 restaurants. Richard M. Daley, Chicago’s mayor, has made his opposition clear, grumbling that once you start banning foods, “pretty soon, you can’t drink.” Only three foie gras farms operate in the United States, and several European countries have banned its production on grounds of animal cruelty.

Catch if you can

December 2005

Hiroshige: The Winter Scenes

Until December 18th 2005

Try to catch this exhibition of Japanese prints at the Art Institute of Chicago. Utagawa Hiroshige, perhaps the finest woodblock artist in Japanese history, worked during the first half of the 19th century, just before the Meiji emperor opened Japan to outside influences. His work presents the last breath of the now vanished world of ukiyo-e. The prints portray quotidian scenes of Edo—as Tokyo was once known—as they struggle through snow and grey skies.
Unlike Hokusai, an artist who mostly eschewed people in his famous prints of nature, Hiroshige lavishes equal care on both the natural world and those making their way through it. Admirers of Japanese prints, and anyone whose heart quickens at falling temperatures and impending snow, will find much to relish.

The Art Institute of Chicago, 111 South Michigan Ave. Tel: +1 (312) 443-3600. Entry: $12. Hours: Mon-Fri, 10.30am-4.30pm; Thurs, 10.30am-8pm; Sat-Sun, 10am-5pm. For more information, visit the museum's website.

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