When 50th Ward alderman Debra Silverstein and other city officials broke ground on a new bike and pedestrian bridge in the ward on February 15, they were metaphorically shoveling dirt onto a particularly perplexing aspect of former alderman Berny Stone’s legacy: his inexplicable effort to kill the project some 14 years ago.
During the 2007 municipal election, 50th Ward challenger Naisy Dolar used the bridge as a campaign issue. At the time, Stone told Time Out Chicago that he had vetoed the bridge because the eight-story Lincoln Village Senior Apartments building was being constructed just west of the trail near the proposed span site. “There’s just no place to put a bridge,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
When I brought up Sadowsky’s claim, Stone’s children vehemently denied it. “That infuriates me,” responded his daughter Ilana Stone Feketitsch. “Never did he ever dismiss anyone of any race, color, and creed. He was a great man who lived his life for his community, including people of every race and religion.”
Kastigar told me last week that whatever the real reason for Stone’s decision to kibosh the span, it’s all water under the bridge at this point. “I don’t think anyone knows what his motivations were, so it’s one of life’s great mysteries,” he said. “It took a long time, but the important thing is that we’re finally getting our bridge.” v
