Pretty funny actually. And is Daley running or not? Lots of people are speculating, even people who don’t live in Chicago city limits.1
[Mary Bartelme Park, aka Adams and Sangamon Park]
Second Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti says he hasn’t yet decided whether he’s running for mayor next February, but his flirtation with the idea appears to have gotten the attention of Mayor Richard M. Daley.
At least that’s Fioretti’s take.
Daley told Fioretti and community groups this morning that he’s planning to dedicate a new park Thursday at the corner of Adams and Sangamon on the near West Side. The only problem is that Fioretti and the groups had already planned a dedication ceremony there for this Saturday, and the alderman thinks the mayor is simply trying to upstage him.
“He must be very frightened of something,” Fioretti said. “That or he’s just being the child that he is.”
Rosa Escareno, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said Fioretti is flat wrong. The mayor’s office has been planning to dedicate the new park for weeks, she said, but because Daley has a conflict Saturday they decided to hold a ceremony tomorrow.
“The mayor has numerous park dedications we’ve been trying to get on his schedule,” Escareno said. “We had this time open up.”
Martha Goldstein, executive director of the West Loop Community Organization, said community leaders have worked on the park with the Chicago Park District and city officials for nearly a decade. She said she didn’t know anything about the mayor’s event until today but planned to attend.
“We’re excited he’s coming,” she said. “We were disappointed when we’d heard he wasn’t coming Saturday.”
(click to continue reading Alderman: Daley Being A ‘Child’ / Chicago News Cooperative.)
and a classic Daleyism, for your pleasure, even if it was uttered by a staffer
Escareno said Daley isn’t available Saturday—she said she couldn’t say why—and so his schedulers were planning something for the middle of next week. But when they learned about Fioretti’s plans they decided to move the mayor’s event up.
“It didn’t make sense to dedicate a park that’s already been dedicated,” she said.
But now that’s what Fioretti will be doing Saturday. Escareno says he’s welcome to attend the mayor’s event tomorrow. “The alderman is invited, and we’re hoping to have him on the agenda.”
“Less than 24 hours notice for this?” Fioretti said. “This is just unfortunate.”
[former buildings at Adams and Sangamon]
and from the Chicago Journal a few months ago:
The two names usually used as shorthand for the West Loop’s new park are the Chicago Park District’s administrative-feeling Park #542 and the more informal (and geographic) Adams-Sangamon Park.
Recently, Ald. Robert Fioretti’s office pitched an official name for the space to park district superintendent Timothy Mitchell.
The honoree: Mary Bartelme.
Born near Halsted and Fulton in 1866, Bartelme became the first female judge in Illinois in 1923 and the second female judge in the nation, according to a biography of Bartelme written by Brian Hays, Michael Levy and Gwen Hoerr McNamee and included the Chicago Bar Association’s 1998 book, 125 Years of Women Lawyers in Illinois.
After being admitted to the Illinois bar in 1894, according to the biography, Bartelme began her legal career as a probate attorney with Barnes, Barnes & Bartelme.
Her practice, however, ultimately focused on the plight of children and young people during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Chicago was industrializing and immigrants were filling the city. In 1897, she was appointed Public Guardian for Cook County, the first woman in the country to fill that role. She used the post to improve the lot of teens and children in Chicago who needed assistance. It was a role that brought her into close contact with such renowned social reformers of the era as Jane Addams, the founder of the Hull House settlement house on the Near West Side.
(click to continue reading Fioretti pitches name for West Loop park | News | Chicago Journal.)
Mary Barthelme was born in Chicago, the daughter of an Alsatian immigrant Balthasar Bartelme and his wife Jeannette. She had two sisters and a brother, and attended West Division High School. She graduated from Chicago Normal School, a teachers’ college, and taught for five years, before deciding to attend law school, at the age of 25. In 1892, she enrolled at Northwestern University Law School, from which she graduated; she was admitted to the Illinois Bar by 1894.
Known as a social reformer, during the Progressive Era, Mary Bartelme devoted much of her life to the reform of juvenile laws and the welfare of children. In 1897, she was named Cook County Public Guardian, the first woman in this post.
She became known throughout Illinois as a tireless advocate for children; her compassion for the girls who came before her earned her the nickname “Mother Barthelme.” She would later acquire another nickname– “Suitcase Mary,” because when she sent girls to foster homes, she always provided them with clean clothes, packed in a new suitcase.
Bartelme believed that there was dramatic social neglect of girls, that parents must speak frankly with their daughters about sex, and that poverty was the main cause of delinquency. In May 1912, she was named an Assistant Judge in the Juvenile Court of Cook County.
Then, in March 1913 Bartelme convened a special Girls’ Court, which heard cases of delinquent and dependent girls, many of them prostitutes. All personnel in this closed court were female, which was felt to encourage a more open discussion of sexual and other private matters. Bartelme later established three Mary Clubs for girls who were not able to return to their parents, supported by volunteer services, as an alternative to state institutions. The first two clubs, which started in 1914 and 1916, accepted white girls; the last one, started in 1921, accepted girls of color. More than 2,000 girls passed through these group homes in a space of ten years.
In late 1923, she was elected Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, and she was re-elected in 1927. After a distinguished career, she retired in June 1933. Prior to her official retirement, in May, more than 2000 well-wishers honored her with a luncheon, at which she was praised for her many achievements.
(click to continue reading Mary Bartelme – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)
Footnotes:
- Chicagoland is a big area, but most of those folks don’t vote in the municipal elections, right? [↩]