Trump's harrumph | Chicago Tribune

Donald Trump hung up on me this week after he phoned to defend the blatantly commercial, 10-foot-tall Michigan Avenue kiosk for his 92-story hotel-condo.

Frankly, I was hoping he'd say, "You're fired!"

It was a week of frenzied to-and-fro after an Oct. 20 Tempo story about the kiosk, which is on the sidewalk in front of the Wrigley Building. The back-and-forth included negotiations between a Trump lieutenant and Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), who had threatened to force the advertising off the kiosk even though he had backed legislation allowing the ad.

It's ending with Natarus claiming that all the advertising will be removed, but with Trump making only a minor concession -- agreeing to remove price and sales information from the kiosk. The New York developer still will be allowed to display an information panel that touts the building and its amenities, according to Trump Vice President of Development Jill Cremer, who flew out from New York to dicker with Natarus.

In other words, the ad will shift from hard sell to soft sell.

But it will be an ad nonetheless -- and still outrageously out of place in the public way.

The significance of this battle transcends the tiny stretch of North Michigan Avenue sidewalk where Trump's kiosk was planted. Cities around the country are struggling with similar conflicts as they weigh whether to let outdoor advertising companies erect bus shelters and other street furniture that provide an amenity for the public but are plastered with advertising.

Trump's kiosk, which displays a street map on one side with the other detailing price information and a litany of the skyscraper's selling points, raises the same tension. But it deserves special scrutiny because the New York developer is a megawatt celebrity who's erecting the tallest skyscraper in America since the 1,450-foot Sears Tower. His 1,362-footer is rising on a choice riverfront site a block west of North Michigan.

When he called me, Trump argued that the kiosk is justified because he spent $18 million to rebuild the superstructure of Wabash Avenue next to his tower. "This is a very small element of a very big commitment that I made to Chicago," he said.

He also dismissed Natarus' threat to remove advertising from the kiosk, which the alderman issued last week. Natarus apparently forgot he backed legislation in 2003 allowing one side of the kiosk to display advertising.

"Fact of the matter is, I have a lot of things that come across my desk," Natarus said this week. "It may very well be that I didn't pay as much attention to this as I should have." Then, as if to minimize his mistake, he added, "Is there an explosion on the street? Is there a fire? What are we talking about?"

Just the gateway to one of the world's most celebrated shopping streets.

The Streeterville Organization of Active Residents gets the significance of North Michigan, the grand boulevard Daniel Burnham proposed in his celebrated 1909 Plan of Chicago. SOAR joined the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association in urging Natarus to remove the kiosk and its offensive advertising.

SOAR President Gail Spreen wrote Natarus that such kiosks "are intrusions -- blights -- on Chicago's public way."

But where, exactly, should cities draw the line between practicality and purity, legitimate exceptions to keeping ads out of the public way and unwarranted intrusions that serve little or no public purpose?

A review of City Council legislation for the Trump kiosk shows that aldermen redrew the line not once, but twice -- in each case allowing Trump to make the kiosk more commercial.

On July 31, 2002, as part of the planning agreement for Trump's tower, the council took the unusual step of allowing the developer to build a kiosk on North Michigan Avenue, outside the project's eastern boundary near Rush Street.

But the legislation spelled out that the kiosk was to direct pedestrians to the Trump tower's riverwalk and plaza, along with transportation facilities at or nearby the project. There was no mention of advertising.

That changed Nov. 19, 2003, when the City Council passed a law allowing the kiosk to go in front of the Wrigley Building at 400-410 N. Michigan. One face of the kiosk, the ordinance said, would provide "way finding" information for key facilities in the area. The kiosk's other face "would have advertising signage," the law said.

Drawings revealed that the kiosk would follow the traditional design of the City Information panels that the J.C. Decaux outdoor advertising company has installed on downtown streets this year. The panels, which consist of metal posts with a curving top, bring their own form of urban blight, with ads that can revolve, or scroll, like those in suburban malls. Still, the council didn't allow Trump to have a specially designed kiosk that would stand out from all the others.

Then, last March 29, he got that too.

Another ordinance withdrew the traditional kiosk look of 2003 and allowed a modern replacement by Cincinnati-based Catt Lyon Design + Wayfinding. This wafer-thin, dynamically curving composition of stainless steel is topped on both sides with big, shiny letters that say "Trump International Hotel & Tower."

The design, while sophisticated, nevertheless has an obvious commercial agenda: to project the Trump tower's sleekly modern imagery onto North Michigan Avenue.

After I asked him repeatedly about whether the kiosk belonged on the sidewalk, Trump detailed the many approvals he got from the city. Then he said: "Write it any way you write it. I've had it with you. Thanks Blair." Then he hung up. It wasn't quite "You're Fired," but it was close.

The result of all this?

Natarus and the Daley administration allowed a sign with a legitimate public purpose to morph into an advertising vehicle that does the public little good.

The precedent is as alarming as the kiosk is out of place in front of the Wrigley Building. Other developers with residential high-rises on Wabash and nearby streets must be salivating at the prospect of littering Michigan Avenue with advertising kiosks of their own.

The deal between Trump and Natarus is essentially rear-guard damage control, a bone thrown to public space advocates. The kiosk's map is essentially a mask, concealing the sign's true purpose: luring customers to Trump's tower.

To see this process is like watching sausage get made -- and seeing one little corner of the cityscape get butchered. This is a small but significant case study in how to mar public space.

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bkamin@tribune.com