No matter what, the end resut will be TEAR IT DOWN!

If we should happen to not be able to get the financing to work this year, we do get a consolation prize: We get to tear the house down this year no matter what.

I went over to meet with our local alderman last night at his "ward night." If anyone is not familiar with an alderman, its essentially a councilperson that represents a specific area of neighborhood in the city. There are 50 wards in cook county, and each one has an alderman. The alderman is responsible for local city politics, issues like parking permits and trash removal, and any sort of building permit needs to have the sign off of the alderman.

So thats what brought me to Alderman Ariel Reboyras' office - getting whats called an alderman's letter for both the general building permit process, and one specifically for the demolition and excavation. I just needed to sit down with the alderman and his right hand man Carlos to show them the plans, and talk to them about what we are trying to do. This is really just a formality, but its part of the way that Alderman Reboyras gets to know his constituents, and its a good way for people who are applying for permits get to understand the direction and focust of the neighborhood.

Nevertheless, we got the sign off from the Alderman, and he is excited to see the project come to fruition. What I did confirm with them was this: they would much rather have me tear the house down and put up a temporary fence if we dont get the financing, then to leave the house stand through the winter. The reasoning is fairly simple: empty houses are just asking for squatters, and we dont want to foster any of that in our neighborhood. Therefore, this place is going to go down in the 2-3 weeks either way, and for this I am grateful.

If nothing else, it will be nice to have some sort of physical progress on the site for the future of the house. Speaking of which, the trees in the back are coming down on Thursday. Depending on the weather, I may document some of the process just to show everyone the before and after.