Possible deal to rename Chicago’s LSD ‘DuSable Lake Shore Drive’ in the works
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A possible late City Council compromise would name Chicago’s iconic lakefront roadway for the city’s Black founder, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, but keep the beloved “Lake Shore Drive” moniker as well.
It’s a mouthful, but Mayor Lori Lightfoot and aldermen were considering Tuesday an idea to dub the street “DuSable Lake Shore Drive” in a bid to avoid another racially tinged City Council floor fight Wednesday.
An ordinance to strip out “Lake Shore Drive” and rename the outer drive solely for DuSable from Hollywood Avenue to 67th Street is set for an up-or-down vote at Wednesday’s council meeting, after opponents delayed it last month. Supporters and opponents of that controversial idea were working right up until the meeting to try to shore up their positions.
The potential compromise could still fall apart.
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South Side Ald. David Moore, 17th, who sponsored the plan to rename the road that got blocked in May, said he might consider the compromise, but only if other backers of the name change like it, and only if aldermen pass it Wednesday.
A proposal to send the plan back to committee, to package the new street name with Lightfoot’s idea to also christen the downtown Riverwalk and a nearby park for DuSable would be an unacceptable delay, Moore said Tuesday. “Come on, this has gone on long enough,” he said.
Lightfoot’s Riverwalk plan does not have enough support in the council by itself to defeat Moore’s ordinance, setting the mayor up to either take the loss or use a mayoral veto to try to defeat it, unless another idea emerges.
Aldermen also have been considering introducing a separate ordinance to rename Millennium Park for DuSable.
Moore is still smarting from his ordinance getting blocked in May, when two aldermen used a parliamentary maneuver to push a vote on it back by a month. Moore promised then to “block everything,” and used his own maneuver to temporarily derail several colleagues’ proposals.
And his DuSable co-sponsor, Ald. Sophia King, 4th, ripped Lightfoot, saying the mayor’s move in May to allow the DuSable opponents to stall their plan “is just inequity playing out, right here in front of us.”
Lightfoot has said many people are opposed to renaming Lake Shore Drive for the Black explorer of Haitian descent, calling the current name “one of the most iconic assets the city has. When you say Lake Shore Drive, people know you’re talking about Chicago, and I think that’s very important.”
Twitter @_johnbyrne
