FlyerTalk Forums - Is overnight parking allowed in Chicago?

Quote:

Originally Posted by biggestbopper (Post 13411769)

Ahh, how quickly we forget.

The City is VERY gun shy about no parking on streets in snow season because Jane Byrne more-or-less beat the Machine to become Mayor in 1979 due to Mayor Bilandic's failure to have the streets cleared after the great snows of '79. See more below.

(By the way, I was there and it was quite remarkable. The City failed to even try to clear the streets on the [Black] South and West Sides and did a really crappy job even in the ethnic and lakefront wards. The streets were impassible for weeks and there were gun fights over dug out parking spaces. It was so bad I was unable to go to Lutz's pastry at 2501 W. Montrose for weeks! :p The whole thing was one of the big factors in eventually bringing Chicago's first Black Mayor Harold Washington to the Mayor's Office)

"Byrne responded by announcing her decision to run for the Democratic nomination for mayor. Campaigning with funds mostly donated by her new husband, Jay McMullen, and lacking an efficient political organization, Byrne's chances of winning seemed nearly impossible. Even her major campaign issue, the taxicab fare increase, lost its potency when a federal grand jury found no wrongdoing. But snow, which started to fall on New Year's Eve, 1979, gave her an issue to win the mayoralty.

The heavy January and February snow brought Chicago to a near standstill, interrupting public transportation and garbage collection. The inability of the mayor to devise and implement an adequate snow removal plan angered the city's residents. Charging that under Bilandic Chicago was no longer "the city that works," the underdog rode the issue to victory. A break in the bad weather permitted a record turnout to the Democratic primary and secured Byrne the upset victory. In the general election the following April, heavily Democratic Chicago gave Byrne a landslide with 82 percent of the popular vote over Republican Wallace Johnson. Her victory, which included a sweep of all 50 wards, gave her the largest margin of votes in the history of Chicago's mayoral contests. "

from http://www.bookrags.com/biography/jane-byrne/

I was here too. Another factor was that parking lots at schools supposedly had been cleared so the public could park in them. When people arrived at the lots, they hadn't been cleared of snow.

Ironically, when primary day dawned sunny and beautiful, the first day with sun in weeks, people came out in droves. Of course, another thing leading to Washington's election was that Mayor Byrne was a disaster. :)