Lynn Becker describes one appalling item on the Commission on Chicago Landmarks’s Thursday agenda (12:45 PM in the Cook County Commission board room, 118 N. Clark): Prism Development Company‘s plan “to demolish the Farwell [Building, 660-664 N. Michigan], a legally protected landmark, erect a new parking garage, and then reassemble the Farwell’s severed skin over the new building.” The draft agenda is here (PDF).
This proposal is to architectural preservation as taxidermy is to your dog. The unwritten item on the agenda that commissioners David Mosena, John W. Baird, Lori T. Healey, Lisa Willis, Ernest C. Wong, Phyllis Ellin, Christopher R. Reed, Edward I. Torrez, and Ben Weese will have to consider is whether their job is to preserve Chicago’s landmarks or provide cover for Chicago’s developers.