[mikeelm]

Well today marks 30 years since the most famous mayor Chicago ever had passed away.

Did you think he was good for Chicago or not?

Were you around durring his tenure and if so what were you doing when you 1st heard the news?

[Steely Dan]

wow, i was all of 10 months old when richard the first passed away, so i can't say i remember anything first hand about the guy. everything i know about daley I is from the history books.

as for whether he was good or bad for the city, i think any honest critique of the man's tenure at the helm of the city would be mixed. he did some pretty downright despicable things regarding the warehousing and segregation of the urba poor with the CHA, but it's also important to remember how he almost single-handedly kept downtown chicago relevant during the chaos created by post war white flight. i have a strong feeling our downtown would be in much pooorer shape today were it not for the efforts of daley I to ensure that the loop remained the unquestioned center of chicagoland. afterall, we could have ended up like detroit.

[MayorOfChicago]

That's a rough question.

I think he truely loved and cared about Chicago like his son, but had some serious flaws. If asked whom I like more, him or his son - the answer would definitely be the younger Daley. (I hope I'm not alone here, right?) He did everything he could to keep the city running and not fall off into history, but he really did awful things to people who didn't deserve it.

I think a lot of Chicago's racism and segregation problems can be tied right back to him.

[the pope]

if i didn't bother reading, i would have thought this is a certified wheelingman thread.

[Jeff_in_Dayton]

Daley was the mayor during my childhood, and he was well liked by my dad and grandad, though they supported Adamowski when he ran for mayor (back in 1959, was i?), because Adamowski was a Polak. But they where still loyal to the machine...and my father was actually part of the machine, being a ward heeler when he was younger, during Daleys early years in the '50s.

Was Daley good for the city? He did have an alliance with the developers, which greased the skids for a lot of development that kicked-in in the 1950s and really in the booming 60s....that wall of condos and apartment towers along Lake Shore Drive and Lincoln Park happened while he was mayor...amoung other things...

There are other less positive things about him. You can read Mike Roykos' "Boss" (a good account of that era in Chicago) and "American Pharoh" for the other side of Daley.

The system Daley presided over was corrupt, but it was also effective.