Activists Force Re-Opening of Uptown Pedestrian Mall for Everyone, Including Homeless

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LSD Viaduct Reconstruction Will Force Out Homeless, and Without the Mall, Leave Them With No Place to Go

Mall Re-Opening Press Conference - 10 AM, Friday, March 24 at the south end of the mall, Broadway & Kenmore Avenues

CHICAGO, 3/23/2017 – Activists with the Uptown Tent City Organizers (UTCO) group announced today that their permit battle with the City and their threat of a suit has forced the re-opening of Uptown’s Stewart School pedestrian mall, the former site of a homeless encampment which was forced out when a construction company illegally fenced off the public mall last fall.

UTCO activists learned that the permit that Morningside Construction Managers (MCM) had taken out last fall was expiring March 18th, and so on March 7th applied for their own Assembly Permit, set to begin the day after MCM’s permit expired. On March 15th, the City of Chicago wrongfully denied UTCO’s permit application and, according to the activists, violated several provisions of the City’s own Public Assembly ordinance in doing so.

On Wednesday afternoon, March 22nd, Kelley A. Gandurski, Senior Assistant Corporation Counsel at the City of Chicago’s Law Department, telephoned UTCO’s Andy Thayer to inform him that the MCM’s erection of a chain-link fence was “illegal” in their view, that the City would force MCM to remove their fence immediately, that MCM’s “no trespassing” signs that accompanied the fence were also “illegal,” and that in view of the City’s re-opening of the Mall to the public, the City wished to cancel UTCO’s appeal of the City’s rejection of UTCO’s Public Assembly permit for the public mall.

Upon receipt of the City’s written confirmation at 11:07 am today that the Mall would be open to the general public for the foreseeable future, today UTCO has cancelled its appeal of the City of Chicago’s denial of its Public Assembly permit application.

“The Stewart School pedestrian mall is public property. It is therefore open to all Chicagoans, including our neighbors who are homeless,” said UTCO’s Andy Thayer. “If and when the City and State of Illinois begin renovations of the Lake Shore Drive viaducts where so many of our homeless neighbors currently live, it is now legally established that they can stay on the public right of way that is the old Stewart School pedestrian mall. Uptown Tent City Organizers invites our homeless neighbors to occupy that space as needed.”

At 10 AM, Friday, March 24, representatives of Uptown Tent City Organizers will host a press conference at the southern end of the Stewart School Pedestrian Mall, corner of Broadway Avenue and Kenmore Avenue, to discuss their victory in re-opening the Mall to everyone, and defending the rights of homeless people in the process.

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