Crain's Chicago Business reports on Chicago move to get the 2016 Olympics:
But Chicago faces a huge sales job in winning over the 112 members of the IOC, who will choose a site for the 2016 Games. Mr. Ryan says he met last month with 102 of the IOC members during the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in Beijing.
“Unfortunately, a significant majority of IOC members have never been to Chicago,” he said. “And many of those who have been here were only changing planes at O’Hare.”
He found that most of them know the city only by outdated stereotypes. “They think that Chicago is this grimy, big industrial city that has gangsters — Al Capone’s still alive —
Capone might not be alive but his legacy lives on.As
Robert Cooley and Hillel Levin have said:
Most cities have one overriding claim to fame. Say Los Angeles and you think about the movies; say Paris you think art; and Detroit, cars. But when people, the world over, say Chicago, they think of something less marketable: Organized Crime. It is a stain that no amount of accomplishment or image-boosting will ever wipe clean.
The city’s grim reputation is rooted back in the Roaring Twenties when Al Capone emerged victorious from gang warfare and went on to become a household name. Oddly enough, far less is known about his successors and their grip on the city during the last half of the twentieth century. But that is when Chicago’s Mafia became the single most powerful organized crime family in American history.
As Chicago Mob linked Alderman
Bernie Stone has stated:
"Our skyline should say 'Roti' on it,'' Stone said at the funeral. "If not for Fred Roti, half the buildings in the Loop would never have been built."
For more on
Alderman Fred Roti and Chicago's "image" problem.
