Report from the vortex
There's a lot going on and yet, at the same time, a remarkable amount of nothing. All of Chicago is closed. It's -15 out. Soup & Bread is cancelled and I am under a blanket and a cat on the couch.
I am lucky that I don't have to go any further than the mailbox anytime soon (and even that would be pointless, as it is currently frozen shut). But even though it's hard to actually breathe outside, the polar vortex is allowing a bit of a breather inside. I caught up on back episodes of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and the latest in Chicago political shenanigans and, speaking of, finally watched Widows, which is excellent and not just because Steve is in it.
And, now, I can catch you up as well.
On January 17 I went to Puerto Rico for a week, the second of several trips funded by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting for a project on property rights in three vulnerable communities. (It was also my birthday, and flying to the Caribbean on the morning of your birthday is highly recommended, I must say.)
This project is one with many tentacles, and one that continues to shape-shift as we do more on the ground reporting, but on this trip some of it came into sharper focus. In particular, I'm learning a lot about land reclamation, informal communities, and Puerto Rico's long history of squatters rights, which play out in different ways in the three areas we are looking at: the San Juan neighborhood of Santurce, the town of Loiza (just to the east), and the island of Vieques. Kari Lydersen, Isabel Dieppa, and I spent most of this particular trip in Santurce, exploring its rapidly gentrifying strip, Calle Loiza.
The photo up there is of one of the more than 40,000 abandoned or vacant buildings in San Juan, on Calle Loiza. Looming over it is the Doubletree Hotel, built in 2013 and generally cited as the project that kicked development on the strip into high gear. (It's also where, in 2014, Jet Blue put me up when I was stranded in PR for four days during the first polar vortex that January and, weirdly, the site from which my mental map of the area expands.)
In Santurce, and all over San Juan, activists and artists are hustling to put teeth behind an ordinance passed in 2016 that would make it easier for the government to sell abandoned property to individuals and nonprofits who can prove they will use the property for some public good. The ordinance is on the books but there appears to be little political will to see it put into action -- of those more than 40,000 buildings only the most miniscule fraction are eligible for this program, which is curious and fascinating. We're working on looking into why, and what solutions might change things for the better.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, some very different struggles are happening over vacant land -- namely at the formerly industrial site now known as "Lincoln Yards." I wrote about this massive development, and how it affects the Hideout, for the Baffler last week and I'm very happy the story still seems to have legs. As the cloud of scandal choking City Hall right now continues to thicken -- and oh god, if you haven't been following along you really should because this is the best scandal ever, which now involves not just standard-issue property tax chicanery but also both sex AND street sweeping -- it seems almost a little possible that someone will be able to put the brakes on Lincoln Yards. Various aldermen are stepping up to say they won't support the TIF, and the new head of Zoning (see above re: sex and street sweeping if you're wondering what happened to the old one) is an outspoken affordable housing advocate, which is heartening and novel but, well, we'll see. I don't want to be cynical but they don't make it easy.
I talked with Gary Zidek, of WDCB, about all of this on Tuesday, just before the ice descended, and our conversation is slated to air on Sunday (2/3) on his show The Arts Section, between 8 and 9 am Central.
About circus, oddly, I have little to say. Right now I'm just trying to get the $^% routine down and remember to keep my legs straight in the beats. It's funny, they feel straight -- and then I look at a video and it's like, Oh. No. Here's proof:
And yes, I'm wearing a hat. It's cold!