Soldier Field: So What? and now, Who Cares?

Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin was at it again yesterday, lamenting Soldier Field's loss of landmark status, singling out Mayor Daley for blame, and assuming everybody agrees with him:

From the first, the architects who designed the renovation of Soldier Field insisted that they were "saving one of Chicago's great landmarks." Those words, which appeared on the cover of the multimillion dollar stadium redesign plan they unveiled six years ago, were embraced by Mayor Richard M. Daley, the project's chief political backer. And they were swallowed whole by modernist ideologues whose blinders stopped them from seeing the architectural train wreck that was so apparent to everybody else.

In fact, a far better architecture critic than Kamin disagrees with him. But more important is the journalistic train wreck. Kamin still doesn't answer the question of "so what?" There seem to be no consequences whatsoever for the loss of landmark status. More importantly, Tribune-owned Chicagosports.com placed a poll next to Kamin's story yesterday asking readers whether they care. 56 percent said no, they don't care. That poll has since been replaced by a less embarrassing question for the Tribune, "Do you think Soldier Field deserved to lose landmark status?"

Nelson Algren observed a half century ago that the Tribune tries to impose its point of view on the city. When the newspaper crusades this stridently to impose a point of view, and its readers respond with "so what?" and "who cares?" it just proves how distant this city's newspaper is from this city's people.