Editor’s note: This week, TOC revealed its list of our 40 cultural heroes: The icons of Chicago who keep this city’s artistic pulse steady. We’ve posted video interviews with several of our picks, including Steve Albini, Achy Obejas, and Alpana Singh. Over the next few days, we’ll be publishing select expanded interviews with some of our heroes. The first is our conversation with Mayor Daley. At his City Hall offices, the mayor spoke with TOC editor-in-chief Frank Sennett about his plans for the Olympics, the Uptown music district, and a 24-hour skate park in the city.

Mayor Richard M. Daley: I enjoy your magazine. I’m an avid reader. I do a lot of clippings of different things going on, not only in your magazine in Chicago, but in New York and other places–different trends in music, art, books, all types of reviews, what’s happening with people, especially younger people. I really enjoy the magazine.

TOC: Thank you. And culture is what we’re here to talk about. We’re honoring you because of how much impact you’ve had elevating Chicago as a world-class cultural city. Let’s first look to the future. You just got back from Beijing: How excited are you about Chicago’s prospects for landing the 2016 Olympics?
Mayor Daley: Well it’s exciting. The Beijing Olympics was China’s coming out party. I mean they spent $300 million on the opening ceremonies, $45 to $80 billion overall. London has the 2012 games, and that’s going to be completely different [than what Chicago would do]. The great excitement that the Olympics have brought back, a lot of sports people never really watched it or knew about it and all of a sudden there is a lot of excitement especially among younger people. We have found out in our surveys here, younger people are excited about having the Olympics in 2016. They’re excited about hosting that many Olympians and Para-Olympians in the city.

TOC: We often see great facilities often come out of the Olympics. What else culturally might we see for Chicago out of the Olympics in 2016?
Mayor Daley: I think you’re going to see a lot of ideas coming up and that’s what we’re going to be asking people: What do you think the Olympics should bring to Chicago? What do you want to see? Obviously transportation is more common than anything else. But if you look at Barcelona, Sydney, Athens, and China, they built transportation. That’s one thing everybody does. And Salt Lake City, same thing, Winter Olympics–they fixed their transportation. Same thing in Atlanta with transportation. So that’s always the number one. But what do you want to see after that culturally? What do you want to see as some form of legacy besides the opening and closing ceremonies facility? What do you want to see? Maybe a sculpture park. What do you want to see? Maybe more expansion of park land along the lake. More skate parks, more extreme sports in the city. You have to look at another generation, what do they really want? We’re going to do a survey and start asking everyone: What do you want the Olympics to bring both sports wise and culturally to our city? I think that’s an important question to ask them. What do they want to see?

TOC: What’s next on your cultural agenda for the city? We’ve got Millennium Park, we’ve got this wonderful theater district downtown, what are we winding up for now? What’s the next pitch?
Mayor Daley: We’re working on transportation. Other cities, like Madrid, Paris, London–not London–but Berlin, Shanghai they have poured a tremendous amount of money into this infrastructure. I think Americans need to get back to that. Infrastructure is green technology, infrastructure is parks, schools, open spaces. I think America has to get back to rebuilding American infrastructure and making sure the infrastructure compensates homeowners, renters, condos, whatever it is in regards to their energy costs. That’s one thing we’d better deal with. If we don’t, more money will come out of people’s pockets for their energy costs. And that’s really unfair as food prices go up and everything else goes up. How do you deal with the energy crisis?
 
TOC: Now, looking back a little bit, we were talking about the theater district, Millennium Park, all the accomplishments since you were first elected in 1989. You’ve come a heck of a long way since people said, "Well, he’s a wrought-iron fence guy," pushing for fences to be installed all over the city…
Mayor Daley: Right. It’s amazing. Kind of sad, isn’t it? The reason why is, if you go to Europe and how important parks and property are, [the fences] made a statement that this is my property–not the city’s property, the city doesn’t. It makes an important statement that it wasn’t treated like another open, ugly parking lot, just driveway. We started planting trees and learning how to conserve water around there. What kind of pavement you’re putting in, what kind of reflection of the sun [you get from various roof and parking surfaces], and what kind of trees you’re planting. If you live in a suburban area with beautiful homes why can’t you make your factories and parking lots commensurate for the people living in the city?

TOC: So with all the big cultural projects you’ve have brought to fruition, do you have a favorite that’s going to go down with you as the one you really have in your heart?
Mayor Daley: I think the theater district. Everyone asked, Why are you building theaters, it’s a waste of time and all that. But we have great theaters, not just downtown, but wonderful community theaters all over the city. Artists love to come here. We have great had [critical] recognition recently for a number of institutions here. Steppenwolf and Chicago Shakespeare and Victory Gardens. When you think of how they got started as simple ideas, I give them all the credit for where they are today.

TOC: What is the import of fostering a world-class cultural city in terms of visibility and the economy?
Mayor Daley: First off, it brings a lot of people from around the country, from around the world here for theater. It’s amazing how many people come. It also offers a lot of job opportunities. Younger people come here, a lot of young artists who maybe go to school or want to go into the field. They are coming here to Chicago. They really are. You can see them all over the city. It’s funny, a lot of politicians think they make an imprint upon the city. But those that are in the cultural field have a long-lasting effect on the history of this city. It goes over generations. My wife is very involved in the city’s cultural life. Look at After School Matters, one of the largest programs. This summer if you go over there and see their productions and what they’re doing, it reaffirms your faith in creativity in young people’s minds. They’re down there being creative. The not-for-profit organizations and leading institutions have really developed Chicago. The opera, the dance theaters, the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. It really highlights us internationally. At the same time, these theaters have really grown the respect for Chicago all over the world.

TOC: In terms of music it looks like Uptown Theater finally has light at the end of its tunnel. What do you think restoration of that theater will do for the transitional Uptown neighborhood?
Mayor Daley: I think it will complement it. They need parking and good public transportation, a combination, and [adding Uptown Theater to the neighborhood's other live-music venues] will reinforce us during the winter months and all that. In the summer, Lollapalooza is great. They’re usually out in cornfields when they get their events in other cities, and they lose it. Here they’re in downtown Chicago, next to the lakefront, the skyline, people use restaurants, people use hotels. It’s a huge event. Not only in Chicago, but people a couple of Americans in Beijing, they wanted to know, "When is Lollapalooza?" Because they were coming here in late August. I said, It’s over with. See the Jazz Festival. But Lollapalooza has become a real destination now. It’s done very, very well in terms of marketing. The bands are great. There is a lot of diversity in these bands. It’s well organized, but it’s the only one in a city. That’s what really makes it unique. You got public transportation. Friday when it started, I saw a lot of young people coming off the trains and the El and all that. It’s really worked out well. I think they’re going to sell out again next year. But I always think they have to do something different. They can’t keep it the same or else it’ll get boring and repetitious.
 
TOC: Let me ask you about the trade-offs culturally in terms of a theater district bringing in big destination theater or Lollapalooza generating big destination traffic. Does that ever come at the expense of some of the smaller venues?
Mayor Daley: No.

TOC: Is it a case of a rising tide lifting all boats?
Mayor Daley: I think it’s all one. It becomes all one because more and more younger people say, Wait–this is a great place to be. All of a sudden they’ve graduated from college and they are looking for a job and they say, I’d like to settle in Chicago; I want to come here. There are so many festivals and so many cultural activities, so many museums. It gives people a totally different perspective and everyone’s welcome. There’s no set class that you have to be in. It’s a pretty open city, to welcome people.

TOC: Along those lines, you were mentioning the Jazz Festival, and it is impressive seeing the large number of cultural events that are free to the public in Chicago.
Mayor Daley: Isn’t it?

TOC: How does the city pull off that many free events, especially throughout the summer months?
Mayor Daley: We have a lot of sponsors that really work it out. We try to get sponsors and it really helps. We try to get foundations and other organizations that really realize what we’re doing both for students and for people in the city. It’s one of the few cities that has that. Look at the fashion industry: We started a fashion council and every year we keep expanding it. We have a big fashion show, with both international and local designers. We’re gonna highlight all the designers and all types of boutiques in the city.

TOC: And there’s a big event [Chicago Gourmet] showcasing the city’s culinary scene coming up this fall.
Mayor Daley: That’s gonna be great. We’ve got the culinary and we’re bringing in some international chefs from some sister cities. We’re really highlighting that because now culinary and hospitality–we’re about the second city almost, close to New York. We have great restaurants. Really, New York they always have some top three or four, but we’re very, very close. We have original, original creators and all types of chefs. We’re doing very well. I mean, this is gonna be quite a show.

TOC: What’s a favorite night out for you?
Mayor Daley: Well, I like the opera, I like some theater. I like to see a movie once in a while and enjoy just relaxing, and I like people.

TOC: Do you like to go to the ballpark still?
Mayor Daley: Oh yeah. I go to the ballpark, sure. But Chicago has so much to offer. I take off Sundays and I’ll go out and do a lot of things, and on Saturday nights, too, which is always good. People are very friendly in Chicago. I go to restaurants. I’ll go in, not with a big entourage, and people are very friendly and very respectful. I’ll talk to them. One thing we’re trying to do is an indoor skate park. We’re working on that. I found out by going to a lot of restaurants that younger people love it and younger people, artists, college students work at restaurants. They get off at one o’clock in the morning–and this is their time they’re supposed to exercise. So we’re working on a 24-hour skate park.

TOC: Where at?
Mayor Daley: Indoors, can’t tell you more. We’re working on it. I’ll tell you once we get it going. We got a not-for-profit trying to come in, and maybe charge people $10 or something a month. Because they get off work at one o’clock. What do they do at one o’clock? That’s the issue. That’s when they want to exercise. So we do a skate park and it’ll be one of its kind in the country. That’s what you have to generate today. I like skate parks because it gets a lot of people together from different backgrounds and I love it.

TOC: Is there anything that we haven’t covered about the culture of Chicago that people don’t know about?
Mayor Daley: Yeah, I think Renzo Piano, when he does the beautiful addition to the Art Institute [the new Modern Wing]. When you think about that bridge coming across, that pedestrian bridge, that’s going to be remarkable. And the Museum of Contemporary Art is a great museum. A lot of younger people are very active in there. My daughter is active in there. It’s a great museum. It give people an outreach especially to contemporary art. [Ed. note: All due respect to the mayor, but we've been all over Renzo Piano.]
 
TOC: So you think providing things that people of different ages want to experience is what Chicago needs to keep succeeding culturally?
Mayor Daley: Yes. I think that’s fabulous.  

Photo: Martha Williams