City's graffiti blasters defied request to "do no harm"

Having been mutilated a couple of weeks ago, one would hope no more harm would come to the historic former The Peoples Light & Coke Company building, 1520 N. Milwaukee Ave. However, the City's graffiti blasters showed up.

Early Monday morning, Aug. 22, Scott Rappe, architect, called to say that he was shocked to see the City crew blasting away. As he called Alderman Moreno's office, this reporter contacted David Ginople and ran out the door, camera in hand.

The blasters had done their "work" leaving behind a faded version of the destruction and terra cotta worse for the experience. Raymond Valadez, Moreno's Chief of Staff, was on the scene and said that as a result of our previous calls, he had contacted the blasters requesting "NO" work was to be done. He was to find out why the blasters came to the site.

In a conversation with Emily Zader of Structure, the building's management firm, she indicated that she was working on getting three bids to do the work. According to her, she still did not have the necessary three bids, required for the WPB (SSA #33) façade rebate program. However in a conversation with at least one company, they had given a bid of $300, below standard price because he cared about the building and thought it was an opportunity to do business with a company that buildings.

As of Wed., Aug. 24, Valadez still had no response from the graffiti blasters, in his search to find out why the request was not honored.