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From today's Chicago Tribune, regarding the City Council's decision to ban street performers from certain sections of North Michigan Avenue . . .



Mum's the word on the Mag Mile

Published February 10, 2006


The Chicago City Council has voted to ban street performers on a four-block stretch of North Michigan Avenue around the Water Tower, and before commenting, we feel compelled to declare a conflict of interest.

The Tribune is headquartered on Michigan Avenue a few blocks south of the new forbidden zone, and the editorial board offices overlook prime street performer turf. If the ban pushes more nerve-wracking, harmonically challenged vaudeville acts this way, the increased ruckus is likely to make some of us crankier than we already are.

We've heard and seen them all. Kids who beat on 5-gallon buckets and get tourists to reward them with cash. The "Flintstones" guy who blows the theme song of the old cartoon show on his sax about 9,247 times per day. The tuba team whose oompahs were tolerable for a couple of days, but that was a couple of years ago. The flutists from the Andes Mountains who seem to play the same song over and over and over. The late Tribune columnist Mike Royko once paid them handsomely to take their act down the Magnificent Mile and out of his earshot.

The City Council crackdown, with fines ranging to as much as $500 for violators, applies to a heavily trafficked stretch of North Michigan between Delaware Place and Superior Street. The ban also applies to areas around Millennium Park, but only when concerts are under way.

It was championed by Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), who represents the Streeterville neighborhood and who had gotten an earful from fed up residents. Ban backers also complained that street performers were attracting big crowds that clogged sidewalks, forced passersby onto the street and served as magnets for pickpockets.

But if the street performers--including gymnasts and mimes--are attracting big crowds, somebody out there must like them. Maybe not the neighbors so much, but the tourists and shoppers drawn to the area by their variety and verve.

Sure, the performers can cause problems. A ban on street performers in certain areas isn't the answer. Reasonable limits on their decibel levels, which are included in the ordinance, should resolve most of the problems. This is one in which the council went a little overboard.

Chicago is an exciting and fun place to be. It offers world class shopping, museums, parks and theater--indoors and out. The street performers, however aggravating to some, help make things vibrant. Banning them, even in just a small area, renders the city experience a little more sterile.

How about securing some mutes and music lessons for some of the, ah, performers? Encourage them to expand their repertoires.

How about it, Flintstones guy? Maybe you could mix in the theme from "The Jetsons."

I've always liked the street performers. I pass a lot of them on my way
from the train station to my office and it always feels like the circus is in town. They range from absolutely not a hint of talent to really can play.

There is a chubby cherobic guy with a full accordian who is a couple of sandwiches short of a full picnic and he just pushes buttons and makes noise and sways back and forth. He is out there every day of the year in all different weather. He sits there on his folding chair even in sleet stroms. I give him a buck or so because he is trying and not just begging. There is a guy just outside of the University Club at Monroe & Michigan Ave. who just pounds on a bass drum. I could even hear him up on the 9th floor while dining in Cathedral Hall.

There is the guy (Aaron Dodd?) that plays the tuba just down the street on Michigan Ave. in front of Orchestra Hall. The CSO low brass section led by Gene Pokorny bought him a tuba when his was stolen. I've never heard him, but he is supposed to be pretty good.

There is a group of 12 or so students who I think are from one of the magnet schools and they play like the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and they are real good. They sell people their CD. You see them in fair weather on the commute home.

There is a drummer on the middle of the Madison Street Bridge over the Chicago river plays a drum set of about 6 different sized paint buckets and one real symboll that has about 9 inch traingle sized chunk missing. He plays a marching band street beat and I tell you people pick up their walking tempo on the way to the train. To me it feels like being in a parade.

I've seen flute quartets, string quartets, violinists, guys with car battery powered electric pianos, and lots of saxaphone players. Saxes range from really bad to quite good jazz players. Last week I saw a guy in Lederhosen playing polkas on a French Accordian. He was unbelievably good and when I tried to talk to him he could only speak what I think was Hungarian.

I think this is just a stupid law created by over fed yuppies who aren't so much worried about the noise as they are about people with tattered clothing cluttering up "their street". Why not let the less fortunate make a buck by actually providing entertainment rather than begging for a hand out. If folks did not like it they wouldn't form "crowds. They already make these "musicians" buy permits from the city to be a street performer.

A few years back, there was a guy who played guitar and sang at the Clark & Lake subway stop. I'm being charitable when I say "played" and "sang." He was blind and had a black lab guide dog that sat next to him. He picked up a fair amount of cash but I think that was out of sympathy for the dog, who was known to periodically roll his eyes and slump to the floor in a "Someone get me outta this place" manner.

Aaron Dodd can still be heard from time to time outside O Hall. My office is a few doors away and I can occasionaly hear the sounds of tuba wafting up from the street 17 floors below. I wish I could play as well as he does. Last I remember, he was playing some bell-front BAT and I can't figure out how he can hold that thing up for as long as he does.