Ald. Ed Burke doesn’t do “honorary” street names. He doesn’t bother with those brown signs that hang above a street’s real name, like Swami Vivekananda Way on South Michigan Avenue. Ed Burke blocks off a street, and names it whatever he wants.
On Monday morning, Burke is dedicating a “newly constricted portion of 54th Place,” between St. Louis and Central Park Avenue after Norman R. Bobins, who was appointed to the Chicago Board of Education in 1995 and served until this year. (Ed Burke also has the power to stop traffic. The new Norman R. Bobins Place is in front of Eric Solorio Academy High School, in Gage Park.)
"This is not an honorary dedication but an actual street naming,” according to a press release from Burke’s office.
Bobins is the past chairman, president and chief executive officer of LaSalle Bank. A certified member of Chicago’s elite, he is a past president and current member of the Banker’s Club of Chicago, serves on the Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago, belongs to The Economic Club of Chicago, previously serving on the board of directors, and is Chairman Emeritus of the Illinois Business Roundtable.
Bobins is chairman of the board of trustees of WTTW Communications, Inc., and a member of the board of directors of the The Field Museum, The Newberry Library, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He served on Chicago’s Olympic Bid Committee, and is a generous political donor, having served as a member of McCain-Palin Victory 2008.
Buy this book! Ward Room blogger Edward McClelland's book, Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the Making of a Black President, is available at Amazon. Young Mr. Obama includes reporting on President Obama's earliest days in the Windy City, covering how a presumptuous young man transformed himself into presidential material. Buy it now!
