OUR RESPONSIBLE MEDIAWho needs crazy pills when Bill Smith has historical analogies?

You may have heard that some powerful men want to build a 49-story tower in downtown Evanston. It would be across from Sherman Plaza, which they also built. And nothing — not shitty journalists, not cracked out aldermen, not rival developers, not fledgling Daily reporters — can stand in their way.

Wait wait wait. Could it be there's another constituency here, as yet unheard from in the whispering fray? Yes! The people!

Or so it seems when you first read EvanstonNow spinster Bill Smith's article today. The plans have "brought out a chorus of critics," he writes.

Then he veers off into journalistic la-la land, preaching about how, usually, Evanston's tallest buildings are about a quarter as high as Chicago's tallest in the same time period. What? Yeah, I know.

And it goes on! What with the Chicago Spire, a huge, beautiful, Calatrava-designed tower going up in River North, we're historic-relationshiply due for a 49-story tower!

What do you think? That, maybe next week, someone will take up how people who live in Evanston feel about this? Um, agreed. Meanwhile, the search for intelligent life in Evanston media goes on.

How tall is too tall for Evanston? [EvanstonNow]

EVEN BETTER THAN A $3,600 BOTTLE OF KRUGThe club wars hit the courtroom

Remember May, when everyone was slinking off from events at Enclave to go to Crescendo, which was kind of sort of maybe doing a soft opening? Right, and it was.

And it was getting quite a bit of buzz. You know, it had that supper club thing going on, and it was playing heir to Reserve (those are underage Northwestern students on Reserve's website, which unsurprisingly has nothing to do with why it got shut down in July), and it had a 4 a.m. liquor license.

And you know what? Now Crescendo is dead! And about the least likely person in the world figured out why.

Back in July, a Chicago Tribune columnist named Jon Kass reported that the owner of RiNo, a club about a block from Crescendo, was kind of pissed of about the new club. The owner has that weird type of blue-blood Chicago political pull. He got people looking into the finances of the owner of Reserve and Crescendo, Antony Demasi.

Onwards. It turned out they had no money! At this point Kass' series of events becomes a little foggy—there were some emergency loans, some political strings, some muffled threats.

It all ended when armed guards "seized" Reserve and Crescendo on July 5. I don't know if it happened at night, but let's all entertain the possibility.

Regardless, the bank that made the emergency loans is now thinking of selling the properties to RiNo's owner, which would really add insult to injury, don't you think?

Whatever. The real question here is, with two of Chicago's best 19-year-old-friendly clubs shuttered indefinitely, where will the weekly, boozy migration of Northwestern students park next year? Crobar? Le Passage? Hit us.


Feds getting hip to Chicago club scene [Chicago Tribune]

ANNALS OF RETARDATIONIn brief: There are 24 homeless people in Chicago

True, this report comes from that far-away city reachable only by cripplingly torrid elevated-train service. But nonetheless I'm compelled to share today's news: there are just 24 homeless people walking the streets of Chicago.

I'm pretty sure there are that many outside the CVS on Davis, but I don't work for CBS so what do I know?

Regardless, links. Try not to get hung up on the screamers between the headline and the article. I know it's hard when there are four of them, and they are all about celebrities. Ah, television.

Only 24 Homeless People Downtown [CBS2Chicago]