- Alison Green
- Christina Morris and Jonathan Fine, recently photographed for our Best of Chicago issue.
Was it Prentice? Preservation Chicago announced last Friday that architect Jonathan Fine, the face of the organization since its founding in 2001, had stepped down from his post as executive director, effective that day. Fine noted in the announcement that “being a preservationist is hard.”
Fine, who made the Reader‘s 2013 Best of Chicago critics’ list for Preservation Chicago’s efforts to save Bertrand Goldberg’s Prentice Women’s Hospital, cited that failed campaign as one “for the textbooks.”
Preservation Chicago, which runs a high-profile advocacy effort on a shoestring, had a tight year in 2012. Tax records show a $28,000 deficit on a budget of about $134,000. Board president Ward Miller says a late-arriving grant and a shuffle in fund-raiser dates were responsible for the red ink, and maintains that the organization is stable.
Accomplishments during Fine’s run include a role in the city’s passage of a demolition-delay ordinance, the establishment of various historic districts, and preservation of the old Cook County Hospital building.
Miller has taken on the job of acting executive director.