Meeting Minutes July 18, 2019
The July 2019 meeting of Logan Square Preservation (LSP) was held at the Minnekirken and brought to order at 7:02pm by president Andrew Schneider. Over 40 members were present including 12 directors and officers
Several new guests and members were welcomed including Patrick Johnson and new member Julia Hare.
The June 2019 minutes were approved without changes.
The Logan Square Arts Fest was the main topic of the evening. It was a popular event despite inclement weather and was considered a great success. Thanks to Charlie Ockerlund and Steve Isakson for coordinating the LSP effort, staffing volunteers etc. Geary Younker, the head of the LSAF was introduced to speak briefly about the fest and said next years fest may have to move due to work beginning on the Bicentennial improvement project. The festival donates to various arts programs in the neighborhood and LSP receives a 20% donation from the gate receipts which amounted to $9600 this year.
The Presidents Report
- Grace Furniture project is slowly moving along. A banquet hall is now planned for the top floor. They are hoping for approval in September to proceed.
- Grace Church-a group is forming to hopefully continue to use the building as a church as well as other purposes in order to save the building. A meeting is scheduled in a week to discuss the project.
- War Memorial at Fullerton and Francisco has new flags donated by Liberty Bank
- The Whale restaurant donated $484 to LSP from an opening day promotion
- Block Club Chicago featured photos of Father and Son for its Throwback Thursday feature
Treasurers Report
LSP had income from 13 new members and 10 renewals, sales of tshirts. And expenses from the newsletter, comfort station expenses, flyers and the archival committee expenses.
Committee Reports
Preservation & Restoration
- volunteers are needed to attend a Zoning Board hearing Friday July 19.,
- the regular meeting of the zoning committee is the 3rd Monday of the month.
- LSP is now working in the 30th ward on 3614 Diversey thanks to the effort of Vicki Logan.
- 3535 Wrightwood is an ongoing issue, letters are being sent
- The Whale-thanks to Jill Brady for keeping track of businesses and monitoring their plans of operation
- Emmett St-this goes before the Chicago Plan Commission on August 15
- Grace Furniture-thanks to Barnaby Wauters for his continued ongoing arduous work on this project!
- Minnekirken might get landmarked pending an inspection
Beautification
A grant has been applied for from Open Lands. Betsy did some weeding at the Comfort Station and noticed deferred maintenance. It was suggested to work on getting grants from the city and state for improvements. John Parizek worked on the Berm at Logan near Western and got free mulch. A motion to approve $166 for supplies was approved.
Membership
Meetups were explained and thanks to Marcy Marzuki for handling these. More volunteers are needed to help staff them. The next planned event is tentatively August 11. A candidate forum is being discussed for October 3.
Outreach
Steve Isakson said the newsletter was being printed for retail distribution. Thanks to Vicki Logan, Leslie Gray and Ian for their work. Steve discussed a new visual display and kiosk that will improve the sales of our archive photo reproductions.
Archival
Matt Bergstrom is working on cataloging the items. John Parizek donated some LSP documents and files to the archive.
Old Business
ATA-The Boulevard Bike lane plan adhoc committee suggests LSP set our own proposal for bike lanes to counter the ATA plan to reduce the boulevard traffic lanes. The unauthorized use of LSP and St John Berchmans names by ATA was discussed.
Leslie Gray is looking for ideas for the next newsletter
John Parizek mentioned there was a gang shooting on Washtenaw near Brentano school and urged all to be aware and pro active in public areas. Stay safe. Peter Kohn said the shooting on Fullerton was discussed at the CAPS Meeting.
New Business
Paul Levin commented on the positive perception of LSP by others noting an article in the July issue of United Airlines inflight magazine
Andrew Schneider mentioned he recently visited Naugatuck CT where a monument similar to our eagle exists. It was designed by the same people as ours.
Elizabeth Blasius announced a talk at the Comfort Station on Sunday 7/28 at 1pm about the Chicago Historic Resources Survey
Steve Niketopolous announced a talk on the history of Chicago sports at the Comfort Station 7/21 1pm
Greg Hare mentioned getting some drone pictures of the monument
A block party will be in the 2700 block of Mozart Saturday at 2pm. A Sloth is to be present for some reason.
Koz park will screen Black Panther as part of the movies in the park program at 7pm Tuesday
The meeting was adjourned at 7:56pm