chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Virtual hugs, curbside brunch pickup, drive-up photo booths — Mother’s Day will look different amid

Virtual hugs, curbside brunch pickup, drive-up photo booths — Mother’s Day will look different amid coronavirus pandemic

“ It will be very hard to be in the same household and have to tell him to stay 6 @ @ @ @ @ all times , ” she said .
“ He does have some awareness of that @ @ @ @ @ to my sister ’ s , we had explained it to him , but of @ @ @ @ @ .
”

John Keilman, Jessica Villagomez, Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas, Alice Yin

Ruanda Mejia, 41, an advanced practice nurse for the Sinai Health System, hasn't seen her 6-year-old son Gabriel since April 9, 2020. She sent him to live with his aunt on the North Side of Chicago after she tested positive for COVID-19. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)
On Mother’s Day, Ruanda Mejia will receive a simple but priceless gift: a reunion with her 6-year-old son Gabriel after spending a month in COVID-19 quarantine.
Mejia, a nurse who works for Sinai Health System, started showing signs of the disease in early April despite taking extensive precautions to avoid it. Her sister Jennifer took in Gabriel as Mejia hunkered down alone in the bedroom of her Berwyn home to fight off dry coughs, fevers and body aches.
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Since then, she has interacted with Gabriel only through FaceTime calls, for which her son would dress up as Spiderman, Batman or Aquaman. Though Gabriel is finally coming home, Mejia said she will try to maintain social distancing to minimize the chances of reinfection.
Jennifer Mejia with her nephew Gabriel, 6, who loves to dress up as superheroes, outside Mejia's home in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood on May 7, 2020. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)
“It will be very hard to be in the same household and have to tell him to stay 6 feet away from me at all times,” she said. “He does have some awareness of that because prior to him going to my sister’s, we had explained it to him, but of course he would start crying.”
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Such are the compromises of this most unusual Mother’s Day. The typical routine of brunch, church and family get-togethers has gone by the wayside as COVID-19 has closed restaurants and barred gatherings of more than 10 people.
Even a visit to grandma’s house is a bad idea this year, state officials say.
“Virtual hugs are still, I would say, the order of the day,” Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said at a news conference Wednesday. “Expanding your circle will increase your risk of infection. It’s that simple.”
Such caution suits Peggy Cashman fine. She and her husband, Jack, live at the Park Place of Elmhurst retirement community, and they’re accustomed to celebrating Mother’s Day by getting together with their two children and four grandchildren.
But with visitors restricted this year, the gathering will take place via the Zoom teleconferencing app — a first for the 87-year-old Cashman.
“I’m looking forward to seeing all their faces and experiencing my time with them,” she said. “ … (Quarantine) is a challenge, but both my husband and I have breathing issues, so with that in mind, we are used to being protected, especially in the wintertime. We’re OK with that. We just try to be very positive.”
Businesses heavily dependent on the holiday have adapted, too, and are trying to make the best of an uncharted situation.
“It isn’t the same,” said Diana Nesovska, a bartender at the popular Lincoln Square restaurant Himmel’s Chicago, which will be doing a boxed Mother’s Day brunch available for curbside pickup. “Mother’s Day and Easter are the busiest days of the year. It’s different, but we still will be so happy to see (customers) as we hand over their orders.”
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Restaurants accustomed to packed dining rooms are making some of the biggest adjustments during the lockdown. Found Kitchen in Evanston is assembling Mother’s Day picnic baskets with upscale sandwiches, sides and desserts that families can pick up at the restaurant.
“We all know the world’s not going to be the same for a while, if ever, so we just really wanted to make it fun,” owner Amy Morton said. “What can we do to bring a smile to someone’s face?”
Front of house manager Tara Young takes a customer call while sorting through bags of to-go pantry items at Found Kitchen on May 8, 2020, in Evanston. The restaurant will be assembling Mother’s Day picnic baskets. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
In Midlothian, Randy Spears, owner of Bella Mia Fine Dining, is doing home delivery with a twist. When he or his staff drops off a meal Sunday, they’ll also take a photo of the recipients and email the picture to their families.
Most of his customers are older, he said, and he figured their families would appreciate the image since they can’t get together in person.
“It’s just a sad thing to go through if you’re a senior,” he said. “We’re all going to be delivering, just to see them. We really haven’t seen our customers, and they’re more like family to us.”
Mother’s Day will also look different at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Chicago Downtown Magnificent Mile, which is hosting front-line medical workers who are living apart from their families to protect them from the possibility of infection. The hotel will recognize mothers with a gift of pamper kits that contain a loofa, face mask, bath salts and snacks.
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“I’m inspired by these women who are working in the most challenging circumstances and sacrificing their own time with their family,” Hilton general manager Kathy Heneghan said. “We are honored to extend our hospitality and show them that we’re thinking of them this Mother’s Day.”
At the nearby The Greer stationary shop in Lincoln Park is seeing a heavier than usual demand this year for Mother’s Day cards; customers are getting multiple cards to recognize all the mothers in their lives, owner Chandra Greer said.
That, along with increased online orders for other types of appreciative cards, has helped to support the business even after it had to close its physical location, she said.
“It’s been really gratifying to see how people are trying to support each other through greeting cards,” she said. “It’s been a lot of ‘Hang in there, it’s going to be OK, the universe needs more people like you’ — very encouraging, supportive, almost soulful type of greetings. It’s been a privilege to witness how people are reaching out to each other.”
The Quentin Road Baptist Church in Lake Zurich has suspended in-person services since Illinois’ ban on large assemblies, and instead has been livestreaming its services. On Mother’s Day, though, the church is inviting people to stop by for a “drive-up photo booth” where families can get a snapshot to commemorate the day.
“We’re a large ministry, so it’s really hard to keep in touch with all these people and make sure they’re doing well,” church spokesman Josh Julian said. “It’ll just be good to see their faces, even though they’ll probably be wearing masks and gloves.”
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Church member Kristin Tanney, of North Barrington, said she’s planning to go with her husband, Jon, and her kids Kate and Luke. The family will also livestream the morning’s service and pick up takeout to complete their socially distant Mother’s Day.
“I guess it will be different than other Mother’s Days, but we’re still going to do our Mother’s Day things — just a little bit adapted to the current conditions,” Tanney said.
For Jeanne Hansen, the greatest Mother’s Day gift is being alive with her two daughters.
The 63-year-old was admitted to Advocate Condell Medical Center with the coronavirus in April and could not see them in person for weeks while she was hooked to a ventilator inside the intensive care unit.
Nearly a month later, she was discharged to her Round Lake home. Hansen credits her daughters for encouraging her when she told them she wanted to give up. As she was fading in and out, her oldest daughter reminded her of upcoming trips to the zoo with Hansen’s 1 ½-year-old granddaughter. “You’re a fighter, you’re the strongest woman I know. You can do this,” Michelle Hansen, 32, said.
“That’s what really snapped me out of it,” Jeanne Hansen said. “I was at death’s door. … I realized I couldn’t give up.”
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Currently, Hansen’s other daughter, Rebecca Haynes, 29, is taking care of her while she recovers. Michelle will drive in from Iowa on Monday, and the three will celebrate a belated Mother’s Day.
Hansen doesn’t know exactly what her daughters have planned.
“I do not want or need anything,” Hansen said. “I just want them to be here with me. And that is the biggest blessing, and better than any gifts they could spend any money on.”


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Lightfoot administration says expired hand sanitizer it distributed is still effective in fighting c

Lightfoot administration says expired hand sanitizer it distributed is still effective in fighting coronavirus despite its past-due date

“ And that ’ s because , first of all , there ’ s like one active ingredient in hand @ @ @ @ @ s alcohol , ” she said .
“ Alcohol is a natural preservative , and @ @ @ @ @ bottle of hand sanitizer is good because you can look at the bottle and see @ @ @ @ @ .
If the bottle is full , that means the alcohol has not started to @ @ @ @ @ alcohol has not started to evaporate , then the alcohol solution is intact and alcohol @ @ @ @ @ There really are not concerns about it .
”

Dr. Allison Arwady, director of the Chicago Department of Public Health, speaks at a news conference March 26, 2020, about stopping the further spread of COVID-19. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration is defending its distribution of expired hand sanitizer for Chicago aldermen to pass out to residents around the city, saying the products get checked regularly to make sure they still work.
The bottles of Safetec hand sanitizer dated from 2012 have long been part of the city’s stockpile of emergency preparedness products, according to Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicago’s health commissioner who has been heading up the local response to the coronavirus pandemic.
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After the city recently gave each ward 240 bottles of the hand sanitizer as public health officials continue to recommend people clean their hands throughout the day to slow the spread of the virus, aldermen raised concerns that some of the products had a 2015 expiration date.
It’s a simple process to make certain the sanitizer still does what it’s supposed to, Arwady said.
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“Of all of the things to worry about, this is not one of them,” Arwady said. “Hand sanitizer is actually one of the very easiest things to make sure that we can do the quality checks and the life-cycle testing to make sure that it remains appropriate for use.
“And that’s because, first of all, there’s like one active ingredient in hand sanitizer, and it’s alcohol,” she said. “Alcohol is a natural preservative, and basically you know if a bottle of hand sanitizer is good because you can look at the bottle and see if it’s full. If the bottle is full, that means the alcohol has not started to evaporate, and if the alcohol has not started to evaporate, then the alcohol solution is intact and alcohol is a natural preservative. There really are not concerns about it.”
Still, Arwady said she’s been fielding calls from City Council members seeking assurances about the hand sanitizer they’ve been receiving from the city. “I get it. People want to make sure the materials they’re using are appropriate and protected,” she said. “So yeah, we’ve been working to answer questions."
Mayoral spokesman Patrick Mullane said calling into question the effectiveness of the hand sanitizer might make residents less likely to use it.
“Any notion that these hand sanitizers are ineffective is not only completely false but discourages residents from accessing materials designed to keep them safe throughout this crisis," Mullane said in a statement.
The Food and Drug Administration requires over-the-counter products such as hand sanitizers to list an expiration date “unless they have data showing that they are stable for more than 3 years,” according to the agency’s website.
Safetec representatives did not respond to questions for comment.
The hand sanitizer also has been passed out to Chicago police during the pandemic. Chicago Fraternal Order of Police official Patrick Murray, who has had his run-ins with Lightfoot, questioned the city’s claims about how well it works.
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“They’re handing this stuff out to cops on the street, and we don’t know if it’s doing what it’s supposed to protect these guys who are out there protecting the public right now," Murray said.
And concerns remain among aldermen.
“I do have questions,” said West Side Ald. Jason Ervin, 29th. “I spoke to (city Office of Emergency Management and Communications Executive Director) Rich Guidice, and he said because the bottles were unopened, the alcohol content is still good. I have nothing to refute that. I haven’t heard anything to contradict that assessment.”
jebyrne@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @_johnbyrne


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Health clubs and fitness studios are prepping for a comeback. But will people feel safe getting off

Health clubs and fitness studios are prepping for a comeback. But will people feel safe getting off their Pelotons and sweating next to strangers?

Life Time Fitness , which has more than 150 clubs in the U.S. and Canada , has chosen to wait @ @ @ @ @ parts of the country that have started to allow gyms to operate .
In some @ @ @ @ @ due to local restrictions like closed locker room and shower facilities .
Life Time also @ @ @ @ @ surveys indicate most people in a particular location are ready to return .

Pedestrians in face masks walk past a closed XSport Fitness center at 3240 N. Ashland Ave. on May 6, 2020, in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood. All fitness centers statewide are closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
For nearly eight weeks, Lakeshore Sport & Fitness has been overhauling its two Chicago clubs, spending more than $200,000 on new cleaning equipment and making other changes to meet new standards for hygiene and personal space, even as members’ dues stopped flowing.
But like other fitness club operators, Lakeshore managing partner Peter Goldman still has little sense of when he’ll be able to roll out the changes, even after Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a five-phase plan to reopen the state’s economy.
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That’s a problem for gyms that have seen little if any revenue while forced to shut their doors to slow the spread of COVID-19. When they can reopen, it’s uncertain how eager people who have spent weeks avoiding physical contact with others will be to start working out with a bunch of sweaty strangers — especially if they’ve bought home workout equipment while cut off from their favorite studio.
At Lakeshore, members will be able to reserve 10-foot-by-10-foot workout “pods” with a piece of cardio equipment, exercise mat and their choice of bands and weights, all of which will be sanitized between uses.
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Both the total number of members in clubs at a time and participation in group classes will be limited and require registration through Lakeshore’s app. And the facilities will step up cleaning procedures, spraying disinfectant throughout the day and using ultraviolet light to clean overnight.
Under Pritzker’s plan, announced Tuesday, health and fitness clubs can begin conducting personal training sessions and outdoor classes in the third phase of recovery, when the rate of infection is stable or declining. That phase would begin no earlier than the end of the month, when the state’s stay-at-home order is set to expire.
A man jogs past Studio Three, a fitness center that is closed because of COVID-19 on May 7, 2020, in Chicago's River North neighborhood. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
To reach the following phase, which would allow gyms to open with capacity limits, will require “a continued decline in the rate of infection” and enough capacity in hospitals to keep up with surges in new cases. It’s not clear how long that could take.
On Friday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a plan that set different standards for rates of infection and testing capacity before easing stay-at-home rules in Chicago, which could mean a longer wait for local gyms.
That’s a tough pill to swallow for fitness clubs that hoped the next step would mean reopening their doors, even with strict limits, for something closer to normal operations.
“This solution does not keep us in business or help us reopen and pay people,” Goldman said.
Just how tough it will be depends on the gym.
At Runaway Fitness, which has offered classes that mix treadmill running and strength training at a studio in Streeterville since late 2018, being a small, independent studio makes it easier to adapt and host workouts that comply with Illinois’ limits, said owners Ted and Kristine Theodore.
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But they’re unlikely to break even on outdoor workouts and personal training alone. That usually requires five or six busy classes a day.
Without help from their landlord on rent, “we have a real problem,” Ted Theodore said. “That’s why it’s day to day. Those kind of rules could paralyze us.”
Personal training was never a big source of business for Runaway Fitness, and people struggling with the financial fallout from the pandemic will be even more hesitant to pay for it. There’s a park nearby where the company can hold outdoor classes, but it would likely have to cut fees since participants wouldn’t have access to the usual equipment and facilities.
The Theodores had hoped to open sooner with limits on the number of participants in a class, which could be offset with more frequent sessions.
“At least then they’re getting on the treadmill and slinging weights. They can do a lot of the outdoor stuff on their own,” Ted Theodore said. “We have a loyal following, but they pay for the experience here and you don’t fully get that outside.”
Larger gyms with spacious facilities and a variety of activities, including individual workouts, are more confident they can weather the shutdown, but said they weren’t sure it was worth reopening for the earliest, most restrictive phase of the governor’s plan.
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Life Time Fitness, which has more than 150 clubs in the U.S. and Canada, has chosen to wait to reopen clubs in other parts of the country that have started to allow gyms to operate. In some cases, that’s due to local restrictions like closed locker room and shower facilities. Life Time also waits until employee and member surveys indicate most people in a particular location are ready to return.
The first reopened Friday in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
When clubs reopen, in addition to stepped-up cleaning and capacity limits, group fitness classes will require reservations and there will be half-hour breaks between each class so instructors can sanitize equipment. To encourage social distancing, fitness equipment has been spaced out and in the locker rooms, every other shower and certain lockers are off-limits.
During personal training sessions, employees will stay 6 feet away from clients and sanitize equipment before and after each use. Basketball courts will be open but games, at least initially, will not be permitted and on tennis courts, only pros — not players — will retrieve balls.
“We want to get back in business as soon as we can in all markets, but we need to do it in the right way,” Bushaw said.
Sayre Masters poses next to a stationary workout bicycle placed behind a sheet of clear plastic at Studio Three, May 7, 2020, in Chicago's River North neighborhood. When the fitness center reopens, it will use plastic sheets as dividers to mitigate the possible spread of COVID-19. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
David Blitz, CEO of Chicago-based Studio Three, which has studios in the Park West and River North neighborhoods, said the company’s high intensity interval training, cycling and yoga classes would be hard to conduct outside. It likely wouldn’t be worth resuming operations on such a limited scale, he said.
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“Consumers want more from us than that,” he said.
First Ascent, an indoor rock climbing company with five Chicago-area gyms and one in Peoria, could provide something close to its usual experience if climbers can visit in groups of two while practicing social distancing, said co-founder Dan Bartz. Climbers usually work in pairs, with one person on the wall and another holding their rope, ready to catch them if they fall.
But if each member must be paired with an employee, it likely wouldn’t be worth reopening until later phases of the recovery because so few people would be able to take advantage of the one-on-one sessions, he said.
Mike Flanagan, CEO of Chicago-based LifeStart, which has 100 fitness centers that operate as amenities in office buildings across the country, said the company likely would offer outdoor programs like walking and running clubs in Illinois as it awaits a full reopening. But he would rather see Illinois follow the lead of other states that have let gyms allow members inside, with restrictions.
“What we’re seeing as a better plan is member management — ensuring people can keep 6 feet apart and opening activities that allow that,” he said.
An XSport Fitness center at 3240 N. Ashland Ave. is devoid of activity, May 6, 2020, in Chicago. All fitness centers statewide are closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
In Texas, for instance, fitness centers will be allowed to reopen at 25% capacity May 18, but locker rooms and showers must remain closed. Gyms in Georgia were told to limit capacity to a level that allows for social distancing and to check members’ temperatures at the entrance. Group classes, pools, basketball courts, hot tubs and saunas are also off-limits.
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LifeStart is preparing to reopen a handful of gyms in Atlanta, Dallas and Nashville, Tennessee, Flanagan said. Members can sign up for access in 45-minute slots, separated by 15-minute periods when clubs will close for cleaning. No group classes are planned, but members can reserve studios and take virtual classes on their own.
LifeStart also purchased $4,000 electrostatic disinfectant sprayers for all 100 locations and is providing reusable antimicrobial hand grips members can use to avoid directly touching equipment.
While they wait, fitness clubs and gyms say they are investing in protective equipment like masks and new cleaning equipment and planning to allow extra time for cleaning between classes.
Studio Three, like LifeStart, plans to check people’s temperatures before they can use facilities and install plastic partitions, like the “sneeze guards” at grocery store checkout counters, between cardio equipment.
Runaway Fitness has been buying extra dumbbells, kettlebells, benches and ropes so people won’t have to share as much equipment and developing cleaning protocols.
First Ascent is setting up a reservation system that will let gyms control capacity and plans to split the day into morning and afternoon sessions, with a midday cleaning break. Different climbing routes would be open during each period, both to encourage social distancing and help employees keep up with cleaning.
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Gyms have also been creating virtual workouts and fitness challenges for customers who can no longer visit in person. Some charge reduced rates for online classes. Others make them available for free to keep members engaged.
But online, they’re competing with gyms across the country and companies that specialize in virtual fitness, like Peloton, which makes indoor bikes and treadmills that let users stream live or pre-recorded classes.
On Wednesday, Peloton reported a 66% increase in sales during the quarter that ended March 31, despite canceling some planned advertising because it was having trouble keeping up with demand.
Overall sales of fitness equipment rose about 130% in March compared with the same month last year, according to market research firm The NPD Group.
Chicago-area fitness club owners said they are confident people will be eager to return and reconnect with friends or a favorite instructor. But some were concerned regulars will be slow to come back, whether because the shift to remote work means the gym near the office is no longer convenient, or because they remain wary.
“We need to figure out how to tamp (the fear) down at some point, or consumers aren’t going to come back,” Lakeshore’s Goldman said.
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lzumbach@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Curbside sushi and daily dance breaks: How one hotel is surviving the coronavirus crisis

“ Our bell and valet staff are the ones who do the curbside delivery of the food , ” Barba @ @ @ @ @ ve been able to keep our housekeepers and maintenance staff busy on special projects , @ @ @ @ @ hard to do in public spaces when you ’ re open .
The silver lining @ @ @ @ @ get some of these other things done .
”

Deer Path Inn's general manager takes a video of employee Catonious Nathan dancing to DJ Kool's "Let Me Clear My Throat" in the hotel's kitchen. Nathan's daily dance breaks have become frequent fodder for the inn's Instagram account during the pandemic. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
In a typical May, the Deer Path Inn would be hosting weddings at its north suburban Lake Forest estate, putting on a lavish Mother’s Day brunch buffet and posting close to an 80% occupancy rate at the 57-room Tudor Revival hotel.
No one, including general manager Matt Barba, needs to be reminded that this is not a typical May.
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Deer Path Inn hasn’t had an overnight guest since late March, when the hotel portion of the property closed indefinitely as the pandemic ground travel to a halt.
Most of the weddings slated for summer have been postponed until next year.
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[ Pandemic pivot: How Chicago-area businesses and workers are managing the coronavirus crisis ]
And while the inn’s kitchen still will be making prime rib, sauteed salmon and chocolate raspberry cake for Mother’s Day, this year’s spread will be served to-go, with customers picking up their food curbside under the valet station’s forest green awning.
“We’ve always done carry-out but not to this extent,” Barba said. “It’s now our primary business.”
Matt Barba is the general manager of the Deer Path Inn in Lake Forest. The inn hasn't had an overnight guest for weeks, but its carry-out business is booming. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
The nearly century-old inn, modeled after an English country manor house, also has stepped up its social media game. Several times a day, Barba takes to Instagram to post short videos of the staff singing, playing guitar, dancing, doing bar tricks — “any hidden talents or funny things,” he said.
“With all the seriousness going on, we wanted to provide a distraction and a little entertainment,” Barba added. “It’s a way to stay connected with the community and guests who follow us on social.”
When the inn’s banquet and catering business is in full swing, it employs roughly 130 people. The on-call workers who would be brought in to staff weddings, business meetings and other large events haven’t been needed during the stay-at-home order. But Barba said he’s been able to keep about 60 employees working on reduced hours.
Kitchen staff have plenty to do executing the inn’s expanded lunch and dinner carry-out options, which include family meals that feed four people, available seven days a week. A full sushi menu is offered after 5 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday.
Catonious Nathan, left, and Matt Barba, review a video Barba posted on the inn's social media channels. "Our business model now is curbside carry-out service and being an entertainment venue virtually via Instagram," Barba said. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
“Our bell and valet staff are the ones who do the curbside delivery of the food,” Barba said. “We’ve been able to keep our housekeepers and maintenance staff busy on special projects, like painting, which is hard to do in public spaces when you’re open. The silver lining has been being able to get some of these other things done.”
Owned by Lake Forest Investments and managed by Charlestowne Hotels, the inn hasn’t applied for loans, grants or the federal Paycheck Protection Program.
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It held an online auction in April to help other businesses hurt by the health crisis. The event raised more than $55,000 in four days. Auctioned items included future use of the courtyard for a private event and cocktail classes with head bartender Jorge, whose Old Fashioneds, Palomas and spicy margaritas have been popular to-go offerings during the pandemic.
Another auction prize was a year’s supply of the inn’s signature chocolate chip cookies.
“The person who won that is paying it forward,” Barba said. “We give them six dozen or so every Monday and they’re shipping them off to frontline and healthcare workers.”
Barba has more than two decades’ experience working at hotels, with the last five years being spent at the inn. Like many in the hospitality industry, he’s trying to navigate a future full of uncertainties.
“When can we reopen, and what conditions are attached to that?” he said. “Our wedding season is May through September. It won’t feel normal around here without a wedding every weekend. And what’s the impact on travel? How many companies have realized how productive employees can be doing things virtually versus getting on a plane? How does that impact us moving forward?”
Lake Forest's Deer Path Inn, seen here May 4, is modeled after an old English manor house. The Tudor Revival-style building dates to 1929. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
For now, Barba is focused on what he can control: the inn’s carry-out business. This week he started offering take-away birthday boxes filled with cake, cocktail ingredients and a message from the staff.
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“People can pick up 10 of these boxes and distribute them to their friends,” he said. “Then they can get on Zoom for a virtual party and have a Deer Path Inn birthday.”
lrackl@chicagotribune.com
The coronavirus pandemic is forcing Chicago-area companies and workers to face harsh realities about their paychecks and their place in the local economy. The Tribune is reaching out to hear, and share, their stories.


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Column: The Scottie Pippen of skyscrapers: An impressive No. 2, a new apartment tower stands tall at

Column: The Scottie Pippen of skyscrapers: An impressive No. 2, a new apartment tower stands tall at Wolf Point

But even the best master plans need a little luck to make the leap from promising vision to satisfying reality @ @ @ @ @ here : When there was no demand for the original planned use , an office @ @ @ @ @ became a residential tower .
That changed everything : The floor plates nearly shrank in @ @ @ @ @ the tower thinner , and ensured it would not crowd the riverwalk or block views @ @ @ @ @ the Salesforce Tower .

An exterior view of the 60-story Wolf Point East apartment tower on May 4, 2020. It's the first major piece of downtown real estate completed during the pandemic. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
With the coronavirus pandemic shuttering stores, emptying streets and generally making downtown Chicago resemble a heavyweight boxer knocked to the canvas, it’s tempting to cite the Tribune’s immortal words after the Great Fire of 1871: “CHICAGO SHALL RISE AGAIN.”
But there’s no need for such boosterism at the extraordinary site of Wolf Point, the historic peninsula-like chunk of land that overlooks the confluence of Chicago River’s three branches.
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There, Chicago already is rising again in the form of an impressive new apartment tower called Wolf Point East, With thin layered planes that riff on the strong vertical lines of the neighboring Merchandise Mart, the 665-foot-tall high-rise offers a welcome contrast to the brute hulks of concrete that began blighting the area north of the river in the late 1990s.
Construction of the Salesforce Tower is ongoing May 4, 2020, next to the 60-story Wolf Point East apartment tower, not seen. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
An even taller tower is on the way. When I visited recently, construction crews were boring holes in the ground for the foundations of an adjoining 813-footer, an office building for Salesforce, the San Francisco-based software company. When it’s completed in 2023, that soaring setback skyscraper will mark the culminating piece of the reinvented Wolf Point, whose chief co-developers are Houston-based Hines and the Kennedy family, the site’s longtime owners. (The first phase, an attractively thin apartment tower, by bKL Architecture of Chicago, opened in 2016.)
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To be sure, the long-term urban design success of Wolf Point is hardly guaranteed and, due to the pandemic, the short-term real estate picture is far from rosy.
As of last Monday, only a quarter of Wolf Point East’s 698 apartments were leased and just 12 percent were occupied. Mirroring the eerie emptiness of the city’s shuttered lakefront, the tower’s ample common spaces, which range from the de rigueur indoor lap pool to a dog spa nicknamed (groan!) Woof Point, are temporarily closed. Eventually, though, they’ll open, probably with social distancing.
Pandemics and other crises, like the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which had some experts wrongly predicting the end of the skyscraper, may traumatize us, but they don’t last forever.
“My own feeling is that things will gradually open up and we’ll go back to figuring out the kind of social animals we always were,” said Fred Clarke, a principal at the New Haven, Connecticut, firm of Pelli Clarke Pelli. He shares design credit on the tower with the firm’s Mark Shoemaker. Chicago’s Pappageorge Haymes Partners served as the architect of record, helping to execute Pelli Clarke Pelli’s design and planning the interior. The Chicago office of Seattle-based Magnusson Klemencic Associates designed a robust concrete structure that braces the thin high-rise against the wind.
A rendering of Wolf Point in Chicago, envisioning the Chicago River site once all towers are completed. (Steelblue)
Wolf Point East gives us what we have come to expect from the Pelli firm, whose other Chicago projects include the DePaul University Theatre School, the Wintrust Arena and the future Salesforce Tower: Context-sensitive urban design and an exterior that is handsomely tailored though not especially edgy. The broad outlines reflect the firm’s carefully conceived master plan for the prominent, but long-undeveloped, Wolf Point parcel, once home to a colorful mix of Native Americans, French Canadian fur traders and New England pioneers.
Unveiled in 2012, as Chicago was reemerging from another crisis (the Great Recession of 2008), the plan cleverly envisioned a way to put a lot of profitable square footage on the nearly 4-acre site without turning it into a dull forest of steel and glass, like the 1970s riverfront complex at Illinois Center. Among the plan’s key ideas: Devote more than half of the site to open space, including a riverwalk; maximize the distance between the planned three towers; and taper their glassy bases so they would, in Clarke’s words, “touch the ground lightly.”
But even the best master plans need a little luck to make the leap from promising vision to satisfying reality, and so it was here: When there was no demand for the original planned use, an office building, Wolf Point East became a residential tower. That changed everything: The floor plates nearly shrank in half, which simultaneously made the tower thinner, and ensured it would not crowd the riverwalk or block views of, and from, the Salesforce Tower.
Factor in Pelli Clarke Pelli’s skill at designing exterior curtain walls as well as the developers’ commendable decision to pay the extra costs associated with the setbacks and corners that give the tower its sculptural profile, and you have something admirable: A building that is both a skilled supporting actor and a leading player — the Scottie Pippen of skyscrapers, to put things in the terms of the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls now being featured in “The Last Dance” documentary.
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“Every corner costs something,” Clarke said.
Views of the Chicago River and the city's skyline from Wolf Point East. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
When seen from the east-west segment of Wacker Drive, Wolf Point East presents itself as a vivid vertical extension of the Merchandise Mart, echoing the limestone piers of the mountainlike Mart as its thin planes of glass climb, steplike, toward the tower’s summit. Yet in contrast to the gargantuan Mart, which Clarke jokingly compares to a sumo wrestler, the tower tapers inward at its glassy base, its thin columns making it resemble a ballet dancer en pointe.
Design details, like the white horizontal channels that occur every three floors, effectively break down the scale of the silver-blue high-rise. Projecting fins, also white, ensure that the tower changes in appearance as you move around it: More textured and solid-looking when seen from east-west Wacker Drive, more glassy and transparent from north-south Wacker.
The architects endowed the north- and south-facing facades with further visual interest via an inset 40th floor “porch" that provides an outdoor terrace for one of the tower’s amenity floors. The porch and a projecting lower-level balcony, which the architects call a veranda, crack open the sleek facade and reveal to passersby that the glassy tower is a place where people live, not just another glassy office building
The units, which range from studios that rent for $2,100 a month to three-bedrooms that run as high as $15,000, feature-floor-to-ceiling glass, clean-lined kitchens and, for those higher up, drop-dead views. But their 9-foot ceilings seem constrained in contrast to the expansive character of the building’s lobby and amenity floors, which boast ceilings at least 20 feet high. The Chicago interior design firm Soucie Horner Ltd., gave the amenity floors, which include spaces for socializing, working and working out, a fresh contemporary look.
A mural of the Chicago River branches on the 40th floor of Wolf Point East. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
While such features will enhance the attraction of urban living in the post-pandemic world, the big question remains: Will Wolf Point add to downtown Chicago’s urban vitality and benefit the public at large, not just the people who can afford to live there? There are some positive signs, but the jury is still out.
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On the plus side, the project’s riverwalk, which is supposed to stretch for more than 900 feet when the Salesforce Tower is finished, is emerging as an amphitheaterlike open space that should lure people with its stunning views and ample sunlight. Railings adorned with the Y-shaped Chicago municipal symbol, which represents the meeting of the river’s three branches, are nice touch. In addition, the Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to a roughly 10-foot extension of the riverwalk’s outermost point, or “nose." That will create a more generous public space.
But the architects acknowledge that they still have to figure out how to commemorate the colorful history of Wolf Point and its importance to Chicago. “It’s still in the works,” Clarke said, explaining that key features are likely to involve landscape elements that incorporate the municipal symbol and narratives that explain the site’s significance. The risk is that the effort will come off as too literal and didactic, like a high school science fair, or too cheery and sugarcoated, like something out of Disneyland.
For observers who prefer novelty to quality and geometric gymnastics to straightforward elegance, Wolf Point East will be a disappointment — less innovative, in their eyes, than edgier new towers in China and the Middle East.
While there is some truth to this criticism, the new high-rise nevertheless rises to the demands of its showplace site. Quality like this doesn’t go out of style. Yet such praise must be tempered. For only with the completion of the Salesforce Tower and the rest of Wolf Point’s riverwalk will we know for sure whether this development is the urban design equivalent of a Michael Jordan slam dunk.
Blair Kamin is a Tribune critic.
bkamin@chicagotribune.com
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Twitter @BlairKamin


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Coronavirus pandemic causes Via ride-share service to temporarily shut down in Chicago

Lyft on Thursday announced a new policy that will require both passengers and drivers to wear masks and confirm before @ @ @ @ @ not displaying symptoms associated with the novel coronavirus .
Passengers also are asked to leave @ @ @ @ @ , and not sit in the front seat .

Via, the smallest of the city’s three ride-share providers after Uber and Lyft, has temporarily suspended its Chicago operations due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Via, a New York City-based company that came to Chicago in 2015, specializes in multipassenger rides. The company’s mobile app connects passengers who are headed the same way, and customers may have to walk a block or two before and after the ride.
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A year ago ride share drivers were picking up and dropping off at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. Now the COVID-19 shutdown has caused rideshare activity to plummet. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)
Ride-share services nationwide have seen sales drop due to the pandemic, which also has caused falling public transit and vehicle traffic numbers because of people working from home or losing their jobs.
Both Uber and Lyft suspended shared rides in March.
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Via’s range included the entire city plus Evanston, Norwood and Harwood Heights. It accounted for less than 1% of total ride-share sales for the Chicago metro area in March, according to Second Measure, an analytics platform.
Second Measure found that in March around the country, Uber and Lyft sales fell 46% and 48%,respectively, compared with March 2019. Uber remains the dominant service, with a 71% share of sales nationally and a 72% share in the Chicago area, Second Measure said.
Uber said earlier this week that it would lay off 3,700 employees, or about 14% of its workforce. Lyft said last week it would lay off nearly 1,000 people, or 17% of its staff. Both companies are based in San Francisco.
Lyft on Thursday announced a new policy that will require both passengers and drivers to wear masks and confirm before each ride that they are not displaying symptoms associated with the novel coronavirus. Passengers also are asked to leave the windows open when possible, and not sit in the front seat.
Uber spokeswoman Kayla Whaling said on Friday that Uber also plans to require U.S. drivers and passengers to use masks or face coverings while riding, in a policy that will be be rolled out in the coming weeks.
mwisniewski@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Local Muslim community to break fast during Ramadan with virtual iftar Saturday

Known for its open houses during Ramadan , the Muslim community ’ s “ Virtual Reflections on the Power of @ @ @ @ @ event will be one of dozens across the nation .
It will feature faith-based speakers @ @ @ @ @ group ’ s 100 years in America , narrated by community member Mahershala Ali , @ @ @ @ @ officials , including U.S. Rep. Sean Casten and DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick , according @ @ @ @ @ Muslim Community Chicago ’ s director of public affairs .

Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA will host a virtual iftar open house at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
Known for its open houses during Ramadan, the Muslim community’s “Virtual Reflections on the Power of Prayer During the Pandemic” event will be one of dozens across the nation. It will feature faith-based speakers, a video about the group’s 100 years in America, narrated by community member Mahershala Ali, and appearances by local elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Sean Casten and DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick, according to Iftekhar Ahmad, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Chicago’s director of public affairs.
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“With the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re not able to do an in-person open house, but we still want to come together with friendship, prayer and support during these times,” Ahmad said. “Even though we’re physically separated, we just feel that unity is still very critical in this time.”
The Zoom meeting ID is 565 001 0410; the password is 786786.
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drockett@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--‘It’s one thing to survive the infection, but what’s next?’ Some COVID-19 patients need rehab to wal

‘It’s one thing to survive the infection, but what’s next?’ Some COVID-19 patients need rehab to walk, talk and problem solve

Quinn , like many severely ill COVID-19 patients , found that surviving the disease was merely the first leg of @ @ @ @ @ .
Each day in Illinois , more than 1,000 COVID-19 patients are fighting for their @ @ @ @ @ in hospitals across the state .
But when they get past the worst of the @ @ @ @ @ that they need help to return to normal life and must spend hours a day @ @ @ @ @ hospitals , rehab units within traditional hospitals , skilled nursing facilities , outpatient facilities or @ @ @ @ @ ’ s to say nothing of the longer-term health problems that some physicians say may @ @ @ @

Gordon Quinn goes through a grocery shopping exercise with occupational therapist Emily Sanders on April 27, 2020, at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab while recovering from being on a ventilator with COVID-19. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
In front of enormous windows overlooking Lake Michigan, Gordon Quinn sat at a small white table at a rehabilitation hospital facing speech language pathologist Kate Webler.
Only Webler’s eyes were visible from behind a mask, face shield and goggles. She asked Quinn to place a white plastic straw in his mouth, then suggested he sing “Happy Birthday” through it — an exercise meant to help him stretch and relax his vocal cords.
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Instead, Quinn began singing the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Webler laughed and urged him on.
It was a moment of levity in an otherwise difficult six-week-long journey for Quinn, a renowned Chicago documentary filmmaker — known for movies such as “Hoop Dreams” — who came down with COVID-19 in March. Quinn, 77, spent about a month at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, including nearly two weeks on a ventilator. He was so sick, at one point, that he told his doctors he’d rather obtain a do-not-resuscitate order than be placed on a ventilator again.
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By mid-April, he was well enough to leave the hospital, but he still couldn’t walk very far on his own. He couldn’t control his fingers well enough to type the pass code into his cellphone. He had trouble swallowing and speaking. So, instead of going home, he went to the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, a rehabilitation hospital in Chicago.
Gordon Quinn exercises with physical therapist Katie Palano on April 27, 2020, at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
“When you’re that sick, the question is are you going to live or die,” Quinn said. “Once you start rehab, the whole mindset changes because rehab is about getting your strength back, getting back into the world.”
Quinn, like many severely ill COVID-19 patients, found that surviving the disease was merely the first leg of the journey to overcoming it. Each day in Illinois, more than 1,000 COVID-19 patients are fighting for their lives in intensive care units in hospitals across the state. But when they get past the worst of the illness, many are finding that they need help to return to normal life and must spend hours a day in therapy at special rehabilitation hospitals, rehab units within traditional hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, outpatient facilities or at home. And that’s to say nothing of the longer-term health problems that some physicians say may follow COVID-19 patients.
“It’s one thing to survive the infection, but what’s next?" said Dr. Leslie Rydberg, an attending physician at the AbilityLab.
Patients recovering from COVID-19 face some of the same obstacles as others who have been on ventilators, such as trouble swallowing and talking. They also often must work on their strength, as do many types of patients who are laid up in hospital beds for weeks on end.
But COVID-19 survivors also face some unique challenges. Therapists say patients recovering from severe cases of COVID-19 often tire very easily, after only a couple moments of activity. They may have significant fluctuations in blood pressure, such as very high when in bed and very low when doing therapy.
Some have developed kidney problems, some have had trouble with blood clots, and others are having cognitive issues, such as being unable to solve simple problems.
“It’s unlike anything I’ve seen, and I’ve been doing rehabilitation for a long time, almost 29 years,” said Dr. Michelle Gittler, medical director at Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital and chief medical officer of post-acute care for the Sinai Health System. “What we see are people who appear to have pretty good strength on initial testing, but if you test them again, they can’t even talk, they’re so short of breath, or people who may be able to stand up once and if you ask them to do it again, they cannot. They get exhausted.”
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Cristobal Delgado, 22, of Portage Park, knows that feeling. When Delgado left Rush University Medical Center for Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital in April, he could walk and talk, but he felt run down after small tasks, such as folding a shirt. He had to take frequent breaks to sit down and catch his breath while walking down a hallway. Delgado, who also has asthma, was on a ventilator at Rush before arriving at Schwab.
After about 10 days of therapy at Schwab, his strength, endurance and balance improved, so he went home. At home, he can now walk a block or two.
“I take it day by day,” Delgado said. He’s still receiving outpatient therapy at Schwab, on the city’s West Side, twice a week.
Ed Paitl, of La Grange Park, also experienced many of those problems as he battled a severe case of the illness. He spent 2½ weeks on a ventilator at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood. Paitl had to go on dialysis, despite never having had kidney problems before COVID-19.
Patil, 70, believes he was near death. At one point, he said, he had a dream in which he saw two men walking away from him on a dirt road. One of them looked, from the back, like Jesus and the other was his son, who passed away suddenly about six years ago. He heard his son say: “You have to go back. This is not your time.”
“It was just a miracle that occurred because the doctors I don’t think gave me too much of a chance,” Paitl said.
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When Paitl emerged from the depths of the illness, he was still a long way from his usual self. He couldn’t get out of bed without help. He kept forgetting where he was. And despite a lifelong love of numbers, he couldn’t figure out simple math problems. A problem such as “10 + 5 + 5” was “beyond what I could comprehend at the time.”
He left Loyola for Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Wheaton in April and will likely stay there through mid-May. He’s made a lot of progress, thanks to hours a day of therapy. He can now take a few steps and get out of bed on his own. His voice is stronger. And he can do math again.
He’s looking forward to going home and seeing his wife soon, for the first time in about two months.
“They told me there are going to be setbacks, but I‘ve got to tell you, every day I had progress,” Paitl said. “There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t seen some kind of progress.”
Marianjoy had about 20 patients recovering from the illness this week and capacity for about 30 to 35. The AbilityLab started accepting COVID-19 patients in April, beginning with a 12-bed COVID-19 unit. The hospital has since expanded that unit to 24 beds to meet demand. Schwab had about a dozen COVID-19 patients this week, and expected to have at least 21 beds available, if needed.
Some skilled nursing facilities in Illinois are also accepting COVID-19 patients for rehab, but others are not. Local industry leaders say it depends on whether they’re already dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks and whether they have enough personal protective equipment and staff.
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Traditional hospitals sometimes have in-house rehab units that can take patients recovering from COVID-19. Rush University Medical Center created a COVID-19 unit in its inpatient rehab program in April and had admitted 32 such patients as of this week.
“There’s a huge need,” said Dr. Larissa Pavone, a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician and residency program director at Marianjoy, which is part of Northwestern. “Those patients that end up in the ICU for one to three to four weeks, a majority of those patients could use some rehabilitation when it’s time to leave the hospital.”
Gordon Quinn goes through a grocery shopping exercise with occupational therapist Emily Sanders on April 27, 2020, at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab while recovering from being on a ventilator with COVID-19. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
Gordon Quinn goes through therapy exercises with speech language pathologist Kate Webler at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
Quinn, the filmmaker who survived COVID-19, stayed about two weeks at the AbilityLab before he was able to go home. On a recent day, he spent about two hours in his final physical, occupational and speech therapy sessions before being discharged.
Occupational therapist Emily Sanders led him around a large therapeutic space on the AbilityLab’s 20th floor, sometimes placing her hand behind his back in case he needed steadying. Sanders directed him to pick up a small container that was on the floor, pick up another container from a stool, and place them inside the bag. The tasks were meant to imitate skills needed in everyday life, such as when grocery shopping.
She intermittently checked his blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen level to make sure he wasn’t overexerting himself.
Quinn also practiced walking up and down four steps with physical therapist Kathryn Palano. She placed a white belt around his waist, in case she needed to reach out and steady him. And he wore an oxygen monitor and heart rate sensor on his forehead.
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Quinn knew he would need to climb six steps to get into his home, once he returned.
When Quinn first arrived at the AbilityLab, he needed help to walk up stairs. But on this last day of inpatient therapy, he was able to make the short journey unassisted.
Toward the end of his time that day with the physical therapist, as they walked a final lap, Quinn, who had been cracking jokes, turned serious for a moment. He asked Palano how close she thought he was to being back to normal.
She said it might take some more time before he could bustle around the city like he used to. But he was moving in the right direction.
lschencker@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Smaller Illinois businesses are landing loans in round two of the federal PPP, but doubts remain abo

Smaller Illinois businesses are landing loans in round two of the federal PPP, but doubts remain about reopening

“ Her business is the exact business that this was meant to take care of , ” said Chris Dore @ @ @ @ @ law firm Edelson , which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Hawkins-Armstrong .
“ This @ @ @ @ @ from under her feet .
That is a travesty and a complete failure of the @ @ @ @ @ that so many people like her were excluded .
”

When Kyla Herbes was shut out of the first round of the federal Paycheck Protection Program, she was frustrated that larger businesses received millions of dollars in forgivable loans, while House of Hipsters, her vintage home decor shop in Barrington, got nothing.
Like many small business owners, the second round has been a different story for Herbes, whose $10,000 PPP loan application through BMO Harris rose to the top of the pile and was approved Tuesday.
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Herbes is "breathing a sigh of relief” that she will have money to pay her landlord, but with new state guidelines offering no clear target date for reopening amid a global health crisis, the government relief may not last long.
“Even though I have $10,000 coming to me, it’s gone already,” said Herbes, 45. “It’s gone, and my business is still closed.”
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Stacy Hawkins-Armstrong is seen at her store, Sha-Poppin Gourmet Popcorn, on May 6, 2020 in Westchester. She has been making popcorn for 20 years but just opened her bricks-and-mortar store two years ago. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
Launched in April, the federal paycheck program offers businesses with fewer than 500 employees forgivable loans of up to $10 million to cover eight weeks of payroll. The Small Business Administration approved more than 1.6 million loans, worth $349 billion, in less than two weeks before the first round of funding ran out.
Many smaller businesses were initially shut out, as banks allegedly prioritized larger clients ahead of mom-and-pop stores. That led to a number of class-action lawsuits and pushback from lawmakers and small-business advocates, pressuring some “larger” small businesses like Ruth’s Chris, Shake Shack and Chicago-based Potbelly to give back their loans.
The $310 billion second round of PPP has been more inclusive, with banks and the SBA pushing out more loans to smaller businesses. The average loan size through Thursday is about $74,000, versus $206,000 in round one.
Nationally, the SBA has approved 2.5 million loans worth $185 billion nearly two weeks into the second round, which began April 27.
“In the first round, we kind of assisted those larger small businesses,” Rob Scott, administrator for the Great Lakes Region of the SBA, said during a news conference Tuesday. “Now we’re kind of getting deeper and deeper into the small business communities.”
In Illinois, the SBA approved 69,893 paycheck loans worth nearly $16 billion during the first round. Through May 1, the SBA had approved 89,735 second-round loans worth about $6.6 billion in Illinois.
The PPP loans can’t come too soon for many small businesses, with more than 1 in 5 owners saying they are two months or less from closing permanently, according to a study released Tuesday by MetLife and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
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But as municipalities begin to relax restrictions and reopen in phases across the country, major concerns for small businesses include fewer customers, the need to protect their employees’ health and a resurgence of the COVID-19 outbreak forcing another shutdown.
Most small-business owners say it will take between three months and a year before the business climate returns to normal, according to the study.
On Tuesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker laid out a five-phase plan to reopen Illinois that will require a vaccine, herd immunity or an effective treatment to fully lift social distance restrictions on businesses and events.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading infectious disease expert on the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, has projected it may take at least a year to create a vaccine.
Stacy Hawkins-Armstrong, 48, owner of Sha-Poppin Gourmet Popcorn in west suburban Westchester, is taking it a day at a time.
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“You can’t plan ahead because you don’t know what’s ahead,” Hawkins-Armstrong said. "So taking it day by day is all we can do. "
A 20-year veteran of the popcorn game, Hawkins-Armstrong has operated her latest small storefront venture for about two years. She said business was booming, with a “massive amount” of shipping and orders for events such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, banquets, corporate gatherings and festivals.
Sha-Poppin was booked through September when the coronavirus pandemic hit Chicago. Then “everything canceled” and her revenue declined 60%, reduced to weekend-only curbside pickup.
During the first round of PPP funding, she was unable to even file her online application through her business bank, Chase, receiving error messages “for days.” She ended up getting a smaller $6,000 PPP loan through Seaway Self-Help Federal Credit Union before the $349 billion was depleted.
Stacy Hawkins-Armstrong is seen inside her store, Sha-Poppin Gourmet Popcorn, in Westchester. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune)
Hawkins-Armstrong filed a lawsuit seeking class-action status April 24 in Chicago federal court against Chase for allegedly cheating her out of the right to apply for a PPP loan.
“Her business is the exact business that this was meant to take care of,” said Chris Dore, a partner with Chicago-based law firm Edelson, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Hawkins-Armstrong. “This money was just pulled out from under her feet. That is a travesty and a complete failure of the implementation of this law, that so many people like her were excluded.”
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Chase spokesman Brian Hanover declined to comment on the lawsuit Thursday, but said larger clients were not prioritized.
Through May 1, Chase has approved $2.2 billion in loans for 19,500 Illinois businesses during both rounds of the PPP, at an average loan size of $113,000, Hanover said.
The issue of whether banks, which took in 1% to 5% in lender fees, had the right to steer business to larger clients, is at the core of several PPP lawsuits.
“On the SBA front, it is first-come, first served,” said SBA regional administrator Scott. “As far as the lending front, we can’t put leverage on (banks) unless we were given legal authority to do that, which we do not have through the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act.”
While some applicants have filed lawsuits, others have simply switched banks to get funded during round two.
Melody Spann Cooper, 55, is chairman of Midway Broadcasting Corp., which owns WVON-AM 1690, a small legacy urban talk radio station in Chicago.
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She applied online for a PPP loan in round one through her business bank, Bank of America. She was turned down a week later, also online, and instructed not to call the bank. Then the $349 billion funding ran out.
Outraged, she called her congressman. Then she reached out to a banker she knew at BMO Harris and applied again. The process was smoother in the second round. Midway Broadcasting was approved for a PPP loan April 27 and received the funding the following week.
“I’m not living and dying by stimulus,” Cooper said. “I want it as much as anybody else because I deserve it and of course, during times of uncertainty, as an entrepreneur, I want to make sure that I’m covered.”
Bank of America declined to comment.
Cooper was seeking “less than $100,000” to keep her 43 full- and part-time staffers on the payroll, and the advertising-supported radio station on the air for its predominantly African American audience during the health crisis.
She has already laid off four full-time administrative staffers, and has lost significant advertising revenue as retailers closed up shop during the state’s stay-at-home order.
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Cooper said the PPP loan will allow her to fill the positions she had to cut. But she is also preparing for an evolution in her business model, if things don’t go back quickly, or ever, to the way they were pre-COVID-19.
That could include shifting away from spot advertising toward paid programming in a variety of forms, such as selling extended on-air interviews for clients.
“I went into COVID understanding that I was going to have to make some adjustments,” Cooper said. “I am an entrepreneur and disruption is good. Everybody has got to reimagine their business in this environment.”
House of Hipsters owner Herbes, who also runs a popular blog under the same banner, is not expecting her retail business, which she runs on her own, to snap back any time soon. She thinks it may be more likely that a flare-up of COVID-19 returns before her customers.
While the $10,000 PPP loan is helpful, it is less than Herbes expected, and at best, a short-term solution. Down the road, she is considering closing her shop and pivoting entirely toward blogging.
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“I’ve got to figure out what I want to do with my business and how it’s going to look in COVID 2.0,” Herbes said. “Because COVID 1.0 sucks."
rchannick@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Column: Mother’s Day in a pandemic, and the virus-proof gift of gratitude

To those with hands that get grabbed when uncertainty becomes too frightening , the ones with shoulders always open for @ @ @ @ @ call first with news , good or bad .
The ones who are stern in @ @ @ @ @ the ones whose toughness sheaths hearts of gold .

This will be a Mother’s Day like no other.
Locked down. Zoom-centric, maybe. Minus the brunches out, the picnics in crowded parks. Absent the family flying in, the big gatherings. In some cases hug-less, hard as that is to imagine.
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No Mother’s Day crafts coming home from school. No misshapen ceramic knickknacks from first grade art classes, the ones that linger, and are loved, and become the stuff of family lore and laughter.
There is ample worry, grief in the worst cases, and fear and frustration.
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But we will still celebrate. In new ways. Focused on the good, the positive. Just as mom would tell us to do if it was our day turned upside down by things we can’t control.
Live in the moment. Be grateful.
That’s the gift that matters, unaffected by closed shops or longer-than-we’re-used-to shipping times: gratitude.
Thanks.
To the mothers who are doctors and nurses, risking all to help others in a time of crisis, working and working and working, blue masks tight below tired eyes still filled with compassion.
To the mothers behind the doctors and nurses, the techs and administrators, the coordinators and cooks and cleaners and cops. Heroes all, even more so than usual.
To the mothers working in grocery stores and gas stations, in pharmacies and on firetrucks, fears set aside to focus, as mothers so often do, on others.
To the mothers working from home, bosses and managers, owners and innovators, navigating a foggy future, worrying about their workers, other moms among them, and bearing the weight of the moment. Trying to find the positive.
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To the mothers working long hours, two jobs, sometimes three. Driven, determined, unwilling to give up.
To the advocates. The justice-seekers. The relentless.
To the teachers without classrooms, the caregivers, the volunteers, the leaders of men and women and families.
To those with hands that get grabbed when uncertainty becomes too frightening, the ones with shoulders always open for tears To the ones we call first with news, good or bad. The ones who are stern in the best ways possible and the ones whose toughness sheaths hearts of gold.
To the ones who give solace without hesitation, and know something’s wrong before we know it ourselves. To the ones who can see what’s happening behind them, the ones who know right where everything is.
To the ones we would be lost without. The ones who center us — our anchors in storms.
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To all the mothers, our own, our children’s, the ones here and the ones gone but ever-present: thank you. For quite literally everything.
This may be a Mother’s Day like no other, but we can still give you our gratitude. Face to face. Over the phone. Through a window. In a silent thought or prayer.
You are loved. And we are lucky.
Happy Mother’s Day.
rhuppke@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Column: In neighborhoods hit hard by COVID-19, some students get a surprise — personal delivery of t

Column: In neighborhoods hit hard by COVID-19, some students get a surprise — personal delivery of their senior rings

Cristo Rey ’ s students live in Pilsen , Little Village and nearby Southwest Side communities that are among the @ @ @ @ @ the novel coronavirus .
Many have parents who work in “ essential ” jobs that @ @ @ @ @ luxury and safety of quarantine .
Many parents have lost their jobs .
Internship jobs @ @ @ @ @ have been put on hold .
Some families are struggling to afford food , and @ @ @ @ @ them .

Cristo Rey Jesuit High School senior Nayle Garces reacts after school counselor Karen Laureano made a home delivery of a class ring to Garces on May 6, 2020. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)
Giselle Rico was in the apartment she shares with her mother the other afternoon when her cellphone rang unexpectedly. She answered. It was a school counselor asking to drop by to deliver some paperwork.
Paperwork? That was unexpected too, but Rico has grown accustomed to surprises.
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Spending her last months of senior year at home instead of in class at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School has been one surprise. Also surprising? She won’t get to walk across a stage in a cap and gown, and her mother, who left school after eighth grade, won’t get the thrill of watching her. In a pandemic, Rico and so many others have learned, surprising is often a synonym for sad.
Cristo Rey Jesuit High School senior Giselle Rico, left, reacts after school counselor Karen Laureano made a home delivery of a class ring to Rico on May 6, 2020. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)
Shortly after the counselor called, Rico descended the dark, narrow staircase of her apartment building, which is squeezed between a shoe repair shop and a beauty salon on a busy street in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. She opened the front door into the bright sun. She gasped.
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“Oh no no!”
Karen Laureano, the counselor, stood on the sidewalk wearing clear gloves and a yellow mask. She extended a small black box.
Surprise.
“Here’s your senior ring,” Laureano said. “I hope you like it.”
Rico laughed. And looked like she might cry.
“It shows I did it,” she said, looking at the ring. “Finally.”
A few minutes later, Rico headed back upstairs to show the ring to her mother, who was home, having recently lost her job at a laundromat, and Laureano hopped back into her gray Jeep, specially decorated with red and gold paper stars for the occasion, and headed east.
One surprise ring down, more to go.
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****
Every year since 1999, when Cristo Rey graduated its second class, every senior has received a ring. Not the fanciest in the catalog, just a simple, silver-toned ring with the school cross in the middle. It comes free with the education at a school where financial need is generally a requirement for admission.
In an ordinary year, the seniors would receive their rings at a special Mass, and family members, many of whom didn’t make it through high school, would crowd in to witness the honor. But the disease called COVID-19 exploded all those hopes and plans.
In some ways, it’s a common story. Seniors everywhere right now are deprived of the rituals — prom, graduation, parties — that mark the end of high school. But the deprivation is distinct for Cristo Rey students.
“They’re the sons and daughters of immigrants,” says Antonio Ortiz,the school’s president. “They’re carrying the dreams of their parents and grandparents. Now everything has been brought into question for them, not because of a lack of effort or desire, but because of the circumstances.”
School counselor Karen Laureano picks up a bag of rings and a homemade mask before making home deliveries of class rings to Cristo Rey Jesuit High School seniors on May 6, 2020. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)
Cristo Rey’s students live in Pilsen, Little Village and nearby Southwest Side communities that are among the Chicago neighborhoods hardest hit by the novel coronavirus. Many have parents who work in “essential” jobs that don’t allow the luxury and safety of quarantine. Many parents have lost their jobs. Internship jobs held by all the seniors have been put on hold. Some families are struggling to afford food, and the school works to help them.
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But hardship isn’t new to Cristo Rey families. The parents worked in risky jobs even before the virus was the risk. Money and space have always been tight.
“In the long run, I’m confident our seniors will bounce back faster and better because they’ve been pushing through obstacles for the better part of their lives,” Ortiz says. “But this is a kick in the gut to them.”
What could the school do to ease the disappointment? School leaders fretted until an idea emerged: Surprise the seniors by delivering their rings.
So on Wednesday, 30 or so teachers and staff members came to the cafeteria to pick up five rings each. They’d been given maps, phone numbers and stern warnings:
Practice social distancing. Wear masks. Avoid directly touching surfaces like buzzers and doorbells. Use hand sanitizer.
Fully equipped, they set out to let the students know that in a world scattered and shattered by a virus, they hadn’t been forgotten.
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***
Through the afternoon, Karen Laureano drove through the neighborhoods, past taquerias and Dunkin’ shops, past a storefront with a sign advertising “pollos vivos,” past a COVID testing station.
One student wasn’t home. On a narrow one-way street, she climbed a weathered wooden staircase to the home where Marilynn Moore lives with a cousin.
“Surprise!” Laureano said. Moore opened the black box, slipped the ring on and leaned in as if to hug Laureano, then backed away, remembering. No touching.
A few minutes later, Laureano was off again in her Jeep.
Next stop: Thania Martinez’s house.
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“What is going on?” Martinez said. “Is this our ring?”
Martinez started to cry. She stepped toward Laureano.
“I kind of want a hug.”
Laureano shook her head.
“I’m not sick.” Martinez said.
“It’s for social distancing,” Laureano said. She nodded toward the box. “Open it if you want.”
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Martinez lives with her parents, both Mexican immigrants, and two younger sisters. Her father is working seven days a week at two McDonald’s. After a co-worker tested positive for COVID, he exiled himself to his room.
Cristo Rey Jesuit High School senior Thania Martinez, left, and school counselor Karen Laureano give and receive air hugs after Martinez was surprised with the home delivery of her class ring by Laureano on May 6, 2020. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)
Martinez, who will be the first person in her extended family to finish school, loved her new ring, but she said it also left her confused.
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“Is this last time I’ll see Ms. Laureano?” she wondered. “I don’t know. I just need a hug.”
Laureano understands her students in a special way. Like them, she’s the daughter of immigrants. Like them, she graduated from Cristo Rey, class of 2011. She lives with her parents, a younger brother and her son. One of her dad’s co-workers, who’s also their neighbor, has COVID, so she understands just how close the virus is.
But on Wednesday it was her job, as it always is, to help the students believe in the future.
“We all love you and we’re so proud of you,” she said to Nayle Garces, the recipient of her last surprise delivery.
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Then she drove home, knowing that a surprise ring may not be a hug or a guarantee, but it’s a reminder to the students of everything they’ve accomplished and can accomplish, and of all the people who care.
mschmich@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @MarySchmich


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Remembering the lives of those in Illinois who died from coronavirus

As the number of deaths attributable to COVID-19 ticks upward , the Tribune is working to chronicle those who have @ @ @ @ @ Chicago area or who have connections to our region .
These are some of those @ @

They were mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. Many were proud grandparents. Two were sisters from a tight-knit South Side family. All were loved, relatives say, and will be forever missed.
As the number of deaths attributable to COVID-19 ticks upward, the Tribune is working to chronicle those who have lost their lives in the Chicago area or who have connections to our region. These are some of those victims.
If you know of someone or would like to offer a remembrance of someone please share your information here. To file a death notice, go here.
Subscribe to the Chicago Tribune: Our mission is to deliver trusted and meaningful local news. Your support allows us to continue providing the award-winning, watchdog and in-depth journalism our community deserves. Subscribe here.


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--US peace negotiator with Taliban calls for Illinois contractor’s release after capture by militants,

US peace negotiator with Taliban calls for Illinois contractor’s release after capture by militants, SEAL raid

The tweets by Khalilzad mark the first public statement about the capture from a Trump administration official .
They come @ @ @ @ @ investigation by The Associated Press last week that noted there had been no public indications @ @ @ @ @ of the peace negotiations between the United States and the Taliban .
Khalilzad could not @ @ @ @ @ for comment .
The State Department also did not respond to a request for comment @

Mark Frerichs, a contractor from Illinois, poses in Iraq in this undated photo obtained from Twitter that he would include with his resume when job hunting. Frerichs was abducted in Afghanistan in January 2020.
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — The U.S. envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation says he has called for the release of an American captured by Taliban-linked militants in discussions with Taliban leaders as continued violence threatens to scuttle a peace deal to end America’s longest war.
In a series of tweets from his official account on Thursday, Zalmay Khalilzad said he pressed Taliban leaders during an overnight meeting in Doha, Qatar, to secure the release of Mark R. Frerichs, a Navy veteran turned contractor from suburban Lombard, who was abducted by militants in late January.
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The tweets by Khalilzad mark the first public statement about the capture from a Trump administration official. They come on the heels of an investigation by The Associated Press last week that noted there had been no public indications that Frerichs has been part of the peace negotiations between the United States and the Taliban. Khalilzad could not be reached by the AP for comment. The State Department also did not respond to a request for comment.
American officials believe Frerichs was captured by members of the Haqqani network, a militant group aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan and designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the Obama administration in 2012.
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While little is known about the circumstances of how the 57-year-old Frerichs was abducted, U.S. officials believe he was held for a time in Khost, an eastern province along the border with Pakistan and its so-called tribal regions. The mountainous area has historically been a haven for Taliban and al-Qaida militants. The AP investigation revealed how Navy SEALs and the U.S. intelligence community tried to gather information that would lead them to Frerichs’ recovery but the trail went cold.
...acceleration of prisoner releases by both sides, actions necessary to secure the freedom of U.S. citizen Mark Frerichs, regional & international support for the peace process, and movement to intra-Afghan negotiations ASAP. Will meet again after my trip to India and Pakistan. — U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad (@US4AfghanPeace) May 7, 2020
“The Taliban kidnapped my brother in January. In February, the U.S. signed a peace deal with the Taliban. My brother wasn’t part of the deal,” Charlene Cakora, one of Frerichs’ sisters, said in a statement provided to the AP last week. “Now we are arranging for the Taliban and Afghan government to exchange thousands of prisoners, why can’t we make an American hostage be one of them?”
On Friday, the FBI released a kidnapping poster for Frerichs in multiple languages. The poster said he was last seen wearing “black boots, green tactical pants, a green jacket with a hood, and a silver scarf.”
While the Taliban-linked Haqqanis are known to carry out assassinations and kidnappings for ransom, there’s uncertainty within the rank-and-file over who exactly has abducted Frerichs and where he is located. Since his capture, no formal demands are known to have been made, and no group is known to have claimed responsibility for his abduction.
A poster released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for Mark Frerichs, a contractor from suburban Chicago believed to have been kidnapped in Afghanistan. (FBI)
“I have not received any information about him,” a Taliban official who wasn't authorized to speak about the case publicly told the AP on the condition of anonymity. “There has been no clue despite my contacts with every side to get information.”
In Doha, Khalilzad, the main architect of the February accord designed to offer the United States an exit from its longest war, said he had a long meeting with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar — the co-founder of the Taliban and the head of its political office — and his Taliban delegation on a host of issues that threaten to scuttle further peace negotiations.
“We sought progress on a range of topics: a reduction in violence, humanitarian ceasefire as demanded by the international community to allow for better cooperation on managing COVID-19 pandemic in Afghanistan,” Khalilzad wrote on Twitter.
He added, “Acceleration of prisoner releases by both sides, actions necessary to secure the freedom of U.S. citizen Mark Frerichs, regional & international support for the peace process, and movement to intra-Afghan negotiations.”
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Gen. Austin S. Miller, the head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, right, and Washington's peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, center, attend the inauguration of Ashraf Ghani at the presidential palace in Kabul on March 9, 2020. (Rahmat Gul/AP)
This is the second trip Khalilzad has made during the coronavirus outbreak to salvage deadlocked negotiations over provisions in the accord signed between the United States and Taliban leadership on Feb. 29. Khalilzad said he will be meeting again with Taliban negotiators after a trip to India and Pakistan.
President Donald Trump, like his predecessor Barack Obama, has sought to end the long war in Afghanistan, which has left permanently shattered thousands of American families and cost trillions of dollars. More than 2,400 service members have died in Afghanistan since the U.S. first invaded in October 2001.
But despite heavy losses on both the American and Afghan sides, Taliban insurgents have ignored appeals for a ceasefire, even amid the coronavirus outbreak. The Taliban has accused the United States of not upholding its end of the peace deal.
“It is the responsibility of all military sides to reduce the violence,” Army Gen. Scott S. Miller, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said in late April. “You reduce the violence so you can give the political process a chance to take hold. We need the Taliban to reduce the violence. If the Taliban continue to attack, then what they should expect is a response.”
[ Navy SEALs raided Afghan village in attempt to locate Illinois man taken hostage by militants ]
But as calls by American officials for a reduction in violence on Afghan security forces go largely ignored by the Taliban, a political power struggle has also stalled intra-Afghan negotiations. The rivalry between Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah — Ghani’s former chief executive, who has declared himself de facto president — continues to complicate matters. Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo voiced frustrations after he failed to mediate the political infighting between the two.
“This is going to be resolved through a political process, and it is time for that political process to begin with all the Afghans coming together around the table,” Pompeo told reporters last month.
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Kathy Gannon in Islamabad, and Eric Tucker in Washington, contributed to this report.
Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Chicago’s Poetry Foundation is sitting on millions — a petition asks it to do more in response to th

Chicago’s Poetry Foundation is sitting on millions — a petition asks it to do more in response to the pandemic

“ It ’ s not our job to make visible the work of writers and artists , but we ’ @ @ @ @ @ Without SPD , many presses wouldn ’ t have the resources or ability to get @ @ @ @ @ , but libraries , universities and major retailers , ” Low said .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ cases where the Poetry Foundation and SPD are part of the same ecosystem , but @ @ @ @ @ books into the hands of readers , authors won ’ t necessarily have the attention @ @ @ @ @ to have .

A couple weeks after the coronavirus lockdown began, a petition appeared on change.org, calling on the Poetry Foundation to establish a $5 million emergency fund to support the poetry community. The authors of the petition, the founders of a small publishing house, reasoned the sum would amount to about 2% of the well-endowed Foundation’s assets.
The Poetry Foundation doused the idea a few weeks later, issuing a brief statement noting that while it already has contributed $25,000 to the Arts for Illinois Relief Fund, it would not be making new commitments at this time.
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“The poetry and publishing communities are facing unprecedented challenges due to COVID-19, and while we are uniquely positioned, we are still no exception,” the Foundation’s statement said. “The economic downturn is causing significant immediate impact and unknown long-term impact to the value of our endowment.”
That endowment was valued at $257 million in 2018, according to the most recently available IRS filing for the Poetry Foundation.
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Ever since pharmaceutical heir Ruth Lilly donated $200 million to the Poetry Foundation in 2002, tension has surrounded how the Foundation spends its money. Peter Burghardt, speCt! books co-publisher and one of the authors of the change.org petition (which garnered more than 1,700 signatures as of publication), called the Foundation’s donation to the Arts for Illinois Relief Fund “vastly insufficient.”
“As layoffs and pandemic infection numbers continue to rise across America, the poetry community is looking to the Poetry Foundation for true leadership and assistance," Burghardt said, noting that the current donation amounts to .01% of the Foundation’s total endowment.
Nationwide, many major foundations have taken steps to speed the flow of funds during the crisis. The Ford Foundation and several other grant-making foundations created a pledge to promote “trust-based” philanthropy; nearly 750 organizations have signed on, promising to eliminate restrictions and requirements on current and new grants; contribute to community-based response funds; and listen to “communities least heard.”
Others have increased how much they’re planning to spend: The Wallace Global Fund announced it would pay out 20% of its $100 million endowment. The norm for spending typically hovers around the federally mandated 5% mark.
“The logic behind many of these foundations is they think they’re balancing the needs of the present with the needs of the future,” said Vu Le, who writes the influential blog Nonprofit AF. “If they only spend 5%, and they get a return of 5% to 10%, the endowment stays constant forever. … But if you have a giant fire and you have a whole bunch of water, you don’t give out 5% of the water to put out the fire.”
The Poetry Foundation, however, is different than the grant-making organizations noted above. It was established as a private operating foundation, which means it is obligated to use at least 3% of its endowment to support its own programming, said Foundation spokesperson Sarah Whitcher.
Whitcher said in an email that the Foundation was established to fund Poetry magazine in perpetuity; build and maintain the Foundation’s building; and to “bring the best poetry to the largest possible audience, whether that’s through the magazine, educational programs, website content, podcasts, events, workshops and the many programs we offer.
“Paying and supporting poets to enable their work is engrained into our everyday operations and mission, and unlike other organizations that may not be able to pay performers or artists at this time, our efforts endure.”
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Outside the Poetry Foundation building in Chicago on Friday. A petition calls on the organization to give more in response to the pandemic. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
A few blocks away from the Poetry Foundation, the Terra Foundation for American Art — a grant-making organization that supports museums, scholars and educators — recently announced an $8 million commitment to COVID-19 relief funding for visual arts organizations.
Elizabeth Glassman, president and CEO of the Terra Foundation, said once it was clear how disruptive the pandemic would be, she and her team talked with dozens of museum directors, curators and foundation heads to understand how the Terra Foundation could best use its funds to help. The result was a two-part plan: $4 million in emergency funding and $4 million to ease the burdens as far as two years in the future as cultural institutions reopen.
“We value the capacity to be nimble, to be impactful,” Glassman said.
The Terra Foundation also has granted the services of a staff member and $175,000 to the Arts for Illinois Relief Fund, said Claire Rice, executive director of Arts Alliance Illinois.
The Arts for Illinois Relief Fund has raised a little more than $5.3 million so far, Rice said. The first round of funding — $3.3 million to 166 organizations and 906 individuals — was just announced. Each individual recipient will receive $1,500; nearly 8,000 people applied. (The application window for a second round of funding will close Monday.)
“This is job preservation for small business. It’s rent and food and health care we’re funding on the individual artists’ side,” Rice said. “We need to demonstrate that we care about keeping our artists and our cultural organizations in Illinois. … This is not money to create paintings or to do performances. This is food on the table and heating bills.”
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But, Whitcher said, the $25,000 in relief funding the Poetry Foundation contributed wouldn’t count toward meeting IRS obligations — as it would for non-operating foundations — since it did not directly relate to fulfilling the Foundation’s mission.
And yet, a question lingers: If the Poetry Foundation’s mission is to bring poetry to the largest audience possible, then wouldn’t the continued health and well-being of poets, publishers and booksellers be essential to it?
After the Poetry Foundation issued its statement about COVID-19 relief funding, about 150 members of the poetry community signed an open letter responding to the statement. The letter questioned the Foundation’s characterization of its financial situation and demanded more transparency.
The Poetry Foundation’s IRS filings between 2016 and 2018 suggest the Foundation averaged about $213 million in assets that weren’t tied up in real estate or restricted. In 2018, the Foundation reported that it spent about $4 million on education, public programs and prizes; nearly $1.5 million on its website; and $1.2 million on Poetry Magazine, after accounting for $703,000 in revenue.
Trisha Low, who signed the change.org petition and works as a publicity manager for Small Press Distribution, said she just wanted to understand how the Poetry Foundation was using the money at a time when so many are in need. She said she wasn’t speaking on behalf of SPD, which distributes books for 400 small presses and recently launched a $100,000 GoFundMe campaign, and yet her work there influences her view.
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A change.org petition by authors, publishers and others calls on the Poetry Foundation of Chicago to give more of its money to support poetry and poets during the pandemic. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
“It’s not our job to make visible the work of writers and artists, but we’re necessary literary infrastructure. Without SPD, many presses wouldn’t have the resources or ability to get books into not only bookstores, but libraries, universities and major retailers,” Low said. “It’s one of those cases where the Poetry Foundation and SPD are part of the same ecosystem, but without the ability to get books into the hands of readers, authors won’t necessarily have the attention and the careers they want to have.
“And it looks like (the Poetry Foundation) has money to share.”
For other signers of the petition — like poet Michael Boughn, who co-edits Dispatches From the Poetry Wars — this is the latest evidence of the Poetry Foundation’s “bourgoisie” tendencies. The Poetry Foundation’s 2018 IRS filing reported $633,496 in compensation for its officers, including $388,165 for President Henry Bienen.
“I find it really awful,” Boughn said of officers’ salaries. “There are GoFundMe campaigns for poets to afford food, forget about medical care.”
One of those GoFundMe campaigns is for poet Sotère Torregian, who was associated with the New York School of poets in the mid-1960s. At 79, he now lives alone in Stockton, California. He has a number of health problems, including congestive heart failure and debilitating pain in his right hand and arm that make it difficult to write. He fears COVID-19.
Torregian said he hasn’t read Poetry magazine since Delmore Schwartz and William Carlos Williams were featured in it. But when he heard about the petition, he asked to sign it, even though he doesn’t have a computer.
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Perhaps you haven’t read Torregian’s work? You can find it on the Poetry Foundation’s website.
jeday@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @dayjenn


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--Freeze warning as late spring polar vortex descends on Chicago area

The warning is in effect from midnight Friday through 7 a.m. Saturday , when temperatures are expected to drop into @ @ @ @ @ 30s , according to the National Weather Service .

A freeze warning has been issued for the Chicago area early Saturday as an unusual polar vortex sweeps down from Canada.
The warning is in effect from midnight Friday through 7 a.m. Saturday, when temperatures are expected to drop into the upper 20s or lower 30s, according to the National Weather Service.
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The late spring cold is being pushed into the area by a jet stream that is diving south and creating a “tropospheric polar vortex” over the Midwest and Northeast, the weather service said.
In the Chicago area, temperates will drop from the 40s through the 30s Friday, possibly dropping into the upper 20s during early Saturday. The record for Saturday’s date is 27 set in 1987.


chicagotribune--2020-05-08--The latest from editorial cartoonist Scott Stantis

Boeing CEO David L. Calhoun and his wife , Barbara , paid $ 2.75 million March 4 to buy a @ @ @ @ @ the 16th floor of the Palmolive building in Gold Coast .

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