Congratulations to the Tribune for acknowledging the press operators (“Tribune press operators say goodbye to an era,” May 19).
I recall that when I was a teenager, there were more than 100 linotype machines in Tribune Tower cranking out hot type for the composing room. When the Freedom Center was opened, I saw a marvelous modern facility for producing this newspaper. Destroying this for a casino is appalling.
The Tribune’s people rightly deserve accolades for the good, steady job they have done. I have empathy for them because I ran a commercial printing company for 35 years. It’s in our blood.
— Robert C. McCullough, Des Plaines
Dedicated men and women
Thank you for featuring the photos and brief biographies of the Tribune press operators. I agree with night shift press operator Sharol Walker Jackson. She and her co-workers have special jobs.
I am very grateful for the work that these dedicated men and women do behind the scenes so I can enjoy my print copy of the Chicago Tribune every day.
— Diane Christian, Aurora
State of print journalism
It was with a bit of sadness that I read the two reports about the closing of the Freedom Center.
Not that the building was being turn down and replaced by a casino, but for the state of print journalism today.
Sunday’s piece gave voice to seven of the many, many workers who kept the huge presses rolling at the site along the Chicago River. But it was Robert Channick’s piece on Monday (“Freedom Center’s final edition”) that put focus on the fate of today’s newspapers.
Yes, there are 10 huge printing presses at the Freedom Center. All 43 years old and not in the best of shape. When those presses first rolled, they churned out hundreds of thousands of Tribune papers daily. Now, even with printing several other daily newspapers, the press run is only a fraction of what it once was.
Why?
Just look at an average streetscape. People have their eyes on their phones. At home, they are glued to their computers or TV screens.
Today, as Channick writes, we are living in a digital age. Print news is old news. The electronic age has offered immediate news. And that is why the newspaper business nationwide is on continuous decline.
Is digital news the same as is found in a newspaper? I for one disagree with that premise. I still take two daily papers during the week, plus the one on Sundays. I take comfort in the printed word. To me, the printed word “speaks” more loudly and clearly than what I find online or on a screen. The printed word offers deeper insight into what is really happening locally, nationally and internationally.
Early every morning, I still take satisfaction going out onto my driveway and picking up my newspapers.
— Bernard Biernacki, Aurora
Tavon Tanner’s hardships
What a thrill it was to see Mary Schmich in the Sunday Tribune (“Scarred, but blessed,” May 19). I was filled with emotion reading about the hardships suffered by Tavon Tanner and his committed family leading up to this important point in his life. In 2016 and again when Schmich paid him another visit in 2020, I read with horror about the gun violence wrought on this young man.
I can carry a sign, I can write my lawmakers, I can march on Washington and yet I continue to read about Tavon and all the other children just like him. Tavon is such a tough soldier, as are his mother and sister. Congratulations to him on his graduation. Keep marching forward.
— Moisette Sintov McNerney, Arlington Heights
An offering of good hope
Thank you to Mary Schmich for her most heartwarming feature article about Tavon Tanner’s success and his mother’s fortitude, as well as his sister seeing him through to graduation. His smile is most engaging.
Schmich is wonderful to follow him through these years and have now published this story of conquering all these difficulties. It should provide good hope to all.
And I am so very pleased to see her photo and writing in the Tribune. I have missed her.
— Patricia Paxton Edwards, Gurnee
I’ve missed Mary Schmich
How wonderful it was to see Mary Schmich’s article. Is there any possibility she could be persuaded to be a guest writer from time to time?
She has been greatly missed.
— Janice M. Schmid, Chicago
Reasons against stadium plan
I’m a devout Bears fan, but I fail to see why the new Bears stadium, if one is to be built at all, needs to be on the lakefront.
It doesn’t make sense for several reasons: First, people go to a Bears game to watch football, not to admire lake views, so why devote a prized part of the lakefront to football? And for a night game, who could possibly care if the stadium is on the lake?
Second, putting the stadium on the lakefront deprives all Chicagoans of the activities that can occur only at the lakefront, such as swimming, fishing or just gazing at the sunrise. Why should all Chicagoans give up precious lakefront for the benefit of those Bears fans who go to games? Creating a lakefront panorama for TV networks cannot be a reason to do this.
Third, a stadium on the lakefront doesn’t work logistically because no one can drive or walk to the stadium from the east, which just increases congestion in the other directions.
Fourth, it deprives other, certainly more needy, parts of Chicago of the commercial development and employment that are being used to justify the expenditure of public monies on a new Bears stadium. If public monies are to be used (which I also oppose), why not create a new “Wrigleyville” in a part of the city that truly needs to be revitalized? The lakefront certainly doesn’t.
The only possible reason I can see for the obsessive push for a lakefront stadium is to satisfy the vanity and self-importance of team owners who feel that their pet project deserves to be on the choicest land that Chicago can offer, even if there are other locations that would serve their purpose just as well.
I admire and praise for Friends of the Parks for opposing the construction of the Star Wars museum. I am cheering them (and the Bears) on to victory again.
— Jim Junewicz, Kenilworth
Will I encounter cicadas?
I first encountered cicadas, then commonly called 17-year locusts, in 1956. I was 4 years old. I was terrified. Our house on the east side of Northbrook abutted the forest preserve, so there were lots of trees and lots of cicadas. I remember going outside holding my red sweater over my head to keep the insects from going into my face. The older boys in the neighborhood filled jars with cicadas to gross out the older girls. When we went to Glencoe Beach, there were cicada corpses and cicada skins all over.
A few years later, my teacher told the class she’d spent the summer as a 21-year-old in Spain. By then, I could add. I did the math and realized that the cicadas were coming back when I was 21. I could go abroad, too! As it turned out, I spent the summer of 1973 in summer school in Columbia, Missouri, which did not have a cicada invasion. I worked, went to class, partied and watched the Watergate trials without having to dodge cicadas.
Cicadas returned to Chicagoland in 1990. We lived in Maine. No cicadas. Whew!
In 2007, we were back in Illinois, living just west of the lake and just south of the state line. Though there are forest preserves and the wooded Illinois Beach State Park, the cicadas stayed farther south in Cook County.
2024 is the fifth 17-year cycle in my lifetime. Am I finally due to experience a close encounter of the cicada kind?
— Nann Blaine Hilyard, Winthrop Harbor
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