The holiday lights in my neighborhood come on slowly at first, and then with a flourish in the days after Thanksgiving. Where one might see a house decorated here and there in mid-November, by early December our street turns into a veritable outdoor light show. We have lighted reindeer, icicles hanging from eaves and gutters, light-covered bushes and lampposts wrapped with greenery and more lights. Christmas trees pop up in front windows, drawing the eye indoors to even more festive decorations. The houses here in Evergreen Park are close enough together that the displays all play off one …

When I first moved to Chicago, I worked in the suburbs but I spent many weekends walking around downtown Chicago and the near North and South sides. I eventually got over my small-town tendency to say hello to, or at least nod at, pretty much everyone I passed on the sidewalk. I also quickly realized that if I gave loose change or a few dollars to every person who asked, I would in short order not have much money of my own. But that reality was in direct conflict with my desire to help and the intense discomfort I felt simply passing by someone asking for my help. So I decided to concentrate …

I had hoped that someday more trains would run along the Grand Trunk Western Railroad tracks – the ones that cross 95th Street and Kedzie Avenue near where those two streets intersect. Freight traffic, however, wasn't what I had in mind. A hundred years ago, there was a rail station in Evergreen Park, on 95th Street, just east of Kedzie. That's according to this map from 1911. The Grand Trunk Western Railroad line ran from the old Dearborn Station down toward Blue Island and then southeast toward the state line. Passenger trains stopped here. How great would it be to be able to catch a train …

I try not to get too into partisan political discussions with people outside my circle of immediate family and friends. It's not that I dislike discussing politics – quite the contrary. It's more that with people I don't know I fear the discussion descending into a bitter and very personal dispute that has little to do with the political differences that prompted it. This kind of thing has happened before, often enough so that now I think twice. I did not initiate these disputes, nor did I seek to engage them once they started, which led to name calling, expletives and one time someone …

See if this sounds familiar: A medium-sized Chicago suburb with a failed regional mall desperately wants to redevelop that mall into an economic engine. The mall property is privately held, and the community has little actual control over what happens to it, beyond reviewing plans the owner submits to the village. The longer the status quo drags on, the more of an eyesore the mall becomes. I could be describing The Plaza at 95th Street and Western Avenue in Evergreen Park. I could also be describing the Charlestowne Mall at North Avenue and Kirk Road in St. Charles. Both malls are struggling…

With the aid of a metal walker, a thinner and slightly stooped Evergreen Park Mayor James Sexton walked into the village board council chambers on Monday, Oct. 15. For the first time since July 16 he sat down behind his nameplate and promptly gaveled a village board meeting to order. When his name was called as part of Village Clerk Catherine Aparo's roll call, the entire room stood and applauded. "It's been a while," he said. "I've missed you all." Sexton has been recovering from the effects of West Nile Virus since late July. Much about his illness, including where he had been hospitalized …

And so much for the "lazy days" of summer. Summer 2012 was a blink. I look back on it and I can barely discern early August from mid-July and they both closely resemble the entire month of June, at least in my head. I look at the calendar and I know logically that it is September 26, but I can't help but wonder, how did I get here? What do I have to show for the summer? I look north out one of our upstairs windows, across the rooftops to the honey locust trees that line part of 97th Street. The tops are turning yellow already. No doubt they have had a stressful summer, which for them probably…

I have always thought the TCF Bank building on the northeast corner of 95th Street and Pulaski Road is one of the coolest buildings in suburbs. Now it's essentially empty. TCF Bank and the Evergreen Park Chamber of Commerce have moved out. The building's future is uncertain. I don't know what sort of condition it's in – whether it needs significant restoration or whether it's even worth saving. It would be a shame to lose it, though. It's by far the best building at that intersection. And by "best" I mean most interesting, most architecturally relevant and classiest. If it were go be knocked …

Amid all the talk about what might happen at the Plaza, one fact sometimes gets forgotten: There are still businesses there. Not many, relative to the size of the mall, but there are some, and most of them are hanging on by their fingernails. These are small businesses run by people for whom the Plaza is one of the best options out there from a rent perspective. Bruce Provo, president of the Provo Group, which owned and operated the Plaza, has very little at this point to do with the future development of the site. The property has been foreclosed upon and he's running it at the request of …

Bruce Provo, president of the entity that owned and operated The Plaza shopping center, told the Southtown Star on Monday Aug. 6 that a deal to acquire the struggling property out of foreclosure and redevelop it has fallen through. GMX Real Estate Group, in conjunction with the Janko Group, was to buy the mortgage on The Plaza, effectively taking control of the property, which is in foreclosure and under receivership. Neither GMX nor Provo returned calls made Tuesday, Aug. 7, seeking comment. If what Provo told the Southtown is true, that would seem to put The Plaza back at square one in …

There is no "For Sale" sign on the empty lot on the southwest corner of Kedzie Avenue and 99th Street, but that doesn't mean we can't speculate about what should go there. It's been empty as long as anyone I know can remember. There's probably a reason for that, but I don't know offhand what it is. It's likely not even in play from a real estate perspective. Nevertheless, it is empty and it is a prominent location. There's nothing preventing us from using our collective imagination. In case you haven't walked or driven by, the other three corners of that intersection are occupied by Evergreen…

Back when I worked at daily newspapers, getting assigned the "weather story" was usually a sign you were either in the dog house with your editor or had drawn the short straw. Nobody wanted to report about the weather because … it's weather. Almost by definition, weather isn't news. In the winter it's cold and it snows (usually). In the spring and summer there are thunderstorms. Yawn. Nowadays, though, it seems like TV, radio and news websites spring into Full Storm Coverage Mode in response to relatively minor changes in the weather. Snow's coming? Better get a team of reporters out there – …

Growing up in the west, dry summers are nothing new. Rain falls in the fall, winter and spring, and summers are warm and dry. Some winters you don't get the snow in the mountains, and by July the reservoirs are low and water restrictions are in place. But in this part of the country, the majority of the rain is supposed to fall in the spring, summer and fall in the form of thunderstorms. Not so much this year. It's dry. It's been 76 days since the last rainfall of 1.5 inches. But you don't need statistics to know it's dry. Just look at local lawns. Or most of them, at any rate. For the most …

A couple of weeks ago at the Patch community forum on what to do with the Plaza site, I wondered aloud what it might be like if someday we lived in a world where small, locally owned businesses forced the Walmarts and other big-box retailers out of business. I didn't conceive it as an applause line or anything. I really believe a world like that would be a place we'd all enjoy living. I also think that day is coming, inevitably, as large-scale retail operations collapse under the weight of their massive supply lines and rising costs. There was some agreement among the people at the forum, and…

Returning from the Evergreen Park village fireworks show, it was refreshing to walk into a cool, dry house. It was a hot one out there. I have a quick poll question for you all this week, but first a note of thanks to everyone who came out for our Community Forum to discuss redevelopment at the Plaza. Thanks also to Patch Editor Renita Young and the rest of the Patch crew for hosting and Jacob's Well Church Community for use of their space. I'll be typing up notes my wife Kimberly took at the meeting, as well as the bits I scribbled. We'll give the finished document to village officials at …

As part of our open forum discussing The Plaza Shopping Center this week, our Evergreen Parker Chris Clair opened with a presentation showing us the possibility that could exist at 95th Street and Western Avenue. On Thursday, Clair and residents discussed the necessity of a sustainable development, one that will be able to withstand short-lived societal trends, and set Evergreen Park apart from other municipalities. Clair commented that this type of development should be "interchangeable." In this presentation, Clair takes us through the town center concept which dates back to Pompeii in 600 …

There used to be – and maybe there still is – an old signboard ad for The Plaza on a building near the 99th Street Metra station in Beverly. It reads "the plaza IS the place. 95th & WESTERN." The sign is old and the boards are buckling in places. It obviously harks back to an earlier time when the Plaza was The Place. When I saw it, it reminded me of those faded mural ads for long-gone stores that you see on buildings in Chicago. Like the Boston Store "ghost sign" on the north façade of the 1 North Dearborn building (which, in fact, used to be the Boston Store). They are reminders of times …

Here's a tough one – the empty lot along the south side of 87th Street between Troy Street and Albany Avenue. There are a lot of uses around this lot, which makes figuring out a single use more difficult. On the surface, it seems to make sense to build – this will shock regular readers – a mixed-use development. To the west across Troy Street is an apartment building. Across 87th Street is a school. To the south are single-family homes. To the west are a giant strip shopping center with a grocery store on the northwest corner of 87th and Kedzie, a little strip mall carved out of the cemetery …

It doesn't matter whether you think the old Evergreen Plaza mall should be bulldozed and turned into a town center, rebuilt as an indoor amusement park or made into a strip mall, we want to hear from you on June 28. That's when Patch is sponsoring a community forum to discuss the Plaza property, the proposed plan to build a strip mall there, and other options. The meeting takes place at 7 p.m. at Jacob's Well Church Community, 3450 W. Maple St. in Evergreen Park. Regular readers of this column know I favor a town center-style development to replace the old mall, not another strip center. I …

If you drive west out Illinois Highway 38, near where Geneva and St. Charles meet, you'll find an empty parcel of land, just east of Randall Road. Weeds poke through where the asphalt has cracked. The land has been scraped, save for a couple of outlot stores that are now empty, too. It's just sitting there. It looks horrible. It used to be the 294,000-square-foot St. Charles Mall. The mall opened in 1979 and was fairly successful until another mall opened across town. By 1996 the last tenant had closed at the mall. The structure was torn down. Since then, local officials have been trying to …