Dan Rostenkowski - For Chicago

For Chicago

In his book Naked economics: undressing the dismal science, author Charles Wheelan wrote “We Chicagoans can drive around the city and literally point to things that Rosty built.” Dan Rostenkowski did deliver federal funds for Chicago and the State of Illinois. Some of his notable projects include: securing thirty two million dollars for the Blue Line of the Chicago Transit Authority which expanded travel from the loop to O’Hare Airport, four hundred and fifty million to repave and expand the Kennedy Expressway, twenty five Million to fix the dangerous S Curve on Lake Shore Drive four billion dollars for the Deep Tunnel Project, which was designed to keep raw sewage from entering the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, while also protecting over half a million suburban and city home owners threatened by flooded basements.(Cohen,176) He followed that with $42.4 million for reservoirs in McCook and Thornton Townships and by O'Hare airport, $16.8 million for downtown's State Street Mall renovation, $3.5 million for the construction of the Cook County Boot Camp, a military-style alternative for first-time youthful offenders. When the Chicago White Sox baseball team was considering moving to Florida, Rostenkowski secured a $150 million bond authority for the construction of US Cellular Field. Once nearly abandoned and left in disrepair, he ensured $75 million in tax-free bonds for the remodeling of Navy Pier, which today has become Chicago’s preeminent tourist attraction. To ease erosion that threatened Lake Shore Drive and several harbors and museums along the Chicago lake front, Rostenkowski secured $2.2 million for the Chicago Shoreline Protection Project, and laid the foundation for a coordinated partnership among the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal government and the City of Chicago. He also was responsible for securing funding for the upkeep of Chicago area bridges including the Chicago Skyway, the Division, Cermak, and Roosevelt street bridges.

In January 1983 Plitt Theaters filed a lawsuit to obtain a permit to demolish the historic Chicago Theater. Mayor Jane Byrne and other civic leaders appealed to Rostenkowski to assist them in obtaining a federal Urban Development Action Grant to save the theater. Grants of this kind were being frozen from Chicago by housing secretary Samuel Pierce in reprisal for Rostenkowski's opposition to the Reagan administration's Urban Enterprise Zone bill.{{Merriner, 187] Rostenkowski considered these zones a Republican gimmick that would help businesses escape taxes without addressing chronic inner-city unemployment. Rostenkowski called his friend Vice President George H. W. Bush, “If I don’t get that grant,you're}} going to have one very pissed off chairman of the Ways and Means Committee for your administration's pending tax bill”. Shortly thereafter, Pierce phoned Rostenkowski to ask if he could come up and see him. Sure, the congressman replied, just bring the papers for the theater project.

In a move that was controversial at the time, Rostenkowski won tax breaks for local developers to build Presidential Towers, a large four-tower apartment complex in the middle of what was then a Skid Row neighborhood. The project spurred development of Chicago’s West Loop and led to thousands of young professionals moving to downtown Chicago. The once blighted area grew to attract restaurants and other industries, including Harpo Studios, where The Oprah Winfrey Show was taped.