ML - Michigan Avenue

2012 - Issue 3 - April/May

Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!

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IN the daycare Chicago's nonprofit, kids whipped have at oldest the into been a frenzy by all the strangers. A dozen reporters and photographers are in the playroom at Metropolitan Family Services, toddlers whirling around their legs, the grown-up at the center of attention making the children the center of his. Seconds after hitting the door, he's at a tiny table, suit jacket off, working Play-Doh with a five-year- old named Angel. A tiny girl in a frilly, sea-green dress wanders by. They smile like old friends. She falls into his arms, chats awhile, pirouettes away. The cameras and reporters file out, the mayor of Chicago still crouched with the kids, smiling like he's forgotten why he's there. This is Rahmbo? If Rahm Emanuel has a tough-guy reputation, he's come by it honestly. Days later, in his fifth-floor office at City Hall, he leans in close, his tone very precise. "Look," he says, "I am passionate about getting things doing his best to be unobtrusive, reading the paper while heads turn and cameras come out. A young commuter in a Schlitz cap notices the mayor with a bit of a start. "I probably wouldn't even have seen him if it wasn't for that guy," he says, nodding at our photographer. The mayor's never done this com- mute with a reporter before. He doesn't like it. Even with the security detail, he's pretty good at flying under the radar. Our being there changes that. He says it's mostly about commuting. Obviously, it's also about connecting. "People have a cynical view of politicians. We're up in the box seats, we're in a limo, we have all these ben- efits that come with the job and we exploit them. There ain't nothing more street-level—except for it's elevated—than the L." In fact, it's some of the things he's seen around the L that drive his furi- ously passionate alpha-male agenda. On the stage at the Chicago Cultural Center, Ameena Matthews is telling a story. She's a vio- lence interrupter with the outreach group CeaseFire, at a private screening of a much- anticipated documentary. The Interrupters about CeaseFire's effort to curb gun violence But I'm at a point in my career that the job is not more important to me than doing what I think is right." "I love this job. I think it's the greatest job I ever had. done that I believe in." At this range, it's tough to doubt him. "Nobody asked me to come here and keep the status quo. I ran on change. I'm trying to make change happen. It is tough. On educa- tion and safety, I will not allow, when we know what we need to do, politics to prevent us." His first year in office has brought plenty of opposition—on education reform, public safety, fees, cuts, and transparency. A coalition of alder- men formed to oppose his first budget before the City Council passed it unanimously. In the city that works, Emanuel is unapologetically getting things done. At the daycare event, he explains. "I'm driven by, to quote Dr. Martin Luther King and his speech on the Mall, the 'fierce urgency of now.' I cannot wait another year and allow a child to be caught in a school system that for five years running has been on the watch list with no prospect of getting off it." As if instinctively acknowledging his critics, he adds, "I understand the noise around change. I'm sensitive to it. But I also can't stand by and watch the silence—which is deafening—of failure." He rides the L to work once or twice a week, 102 michiganavemag.com and gang killings in some of the city's toughest neighborhoods. Matthews is talking about inter- vening in a fight, which resulted, as it often does, in her driving around with a carload of young boys, cooling them off. They wind up along Lake Shore Drive. There are excited whispers from the backseat: "Ask her! Ask her!" "Miss Ameena," one of the boys finally pipes up. "What ocean is that?" "Ocean?" she recalls blurting out, "You mean you guys have never seen Lake Michigan?" For gang territory and safety reasons, they never had. The story stuns the room. The mayor picks up the point. "The thing that gives me pause about this job," he says, "is when I was campaigning, you'd be out at an L stop and there are kids with nothing in their eyes—a look I would never accept from where kids can see the promise of downtown Chicago and it's not in the same zip code. It's not in the same city." At his office, the mayor leans in again, his eyes His reps stayed on-message: There would still be thousands of members of the global media, they said, thousands of dignitaries and protesters; but in that last group, many fewer. A major reduc- tion in hysteria. Seven of the G8 leaders, we were reminded, would still come to Chicago, arriving on the heels of an April summit of Nobel peace laureates ( Jimmy Carter and the Dalai Lama were among the first to confirm), the first such meeting ever held in North America. President Obama's decision to move G8 met with a nearly audible sigh of relief from the city's business community. NATO Host Committee boss Lori Healey says they needn't have worried. "We do this all the time. People are immune to the fact that the president comes in and out of here all the time. The security measures that are in place are extensive—but they're invisible. my own children. And I think about your story, We've got the background, we've got the experi- ence, and we've got the talent to make sure this comes off great for the city of Chicago." America's ambassador to NATO puts it another way: A summit here is what the White House wants. "America is a country of immigrants," says is shining with something close to fury. Not anger, but something else. "I love this job," he says. "I think it's the greatest job I ever had. I really mean it. But I'm at a point in my career that the job is not more important to me than doing what I think is right. It's not. And I will do what I think I need to get done for the children of the city of Chicago." One of those things is making sure their city is pulling its weight. During his transition to the mayor's office, he learned some facts that floored him. Chicago ranks 10th among the country's top destinations for inter- national tourists. Every notch up equals $1.3 billion a year. The city needs money. Enter NATO. "How many times have we heard this one statement? When people arrive, they go, 'Wow, what an incredible jewel', right? So I'm supposed to deny people the chance to see what we all know to be true?" He personally lobbied his ex- boss for the unprecedented and risky twin summits—NATO and G8. When the president moved one of them to Camp David, the mayor didn't bat an eye, he just kept moving, taking an "off-the-books" trip to New York seeking unspec- ified business opportunities for Chicago.

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