WAUKEGAN -- The newly resurfaced Amstutz Expressway
was celebrated Tuesday with a ribbon cutting and speeches and the insistence that the lakefront highway will soon be renamed for former North Chicago Mayor Bobby Thompson. The route is featured in a Batman movie and Plains, Trains and Automobiles. It is useful for making movies because there is not traffic on it. Who wants their name on the highway to nowhere and why the former mayor of North Chicago.
About 75 people braved a frigid Lake Michigan breeze, gathering at Sheridan Road and Grand Avenue to pay tribute to Thompson, Lake County's first black mayor. Thompson, a former alderman, served as mayor a total of 14 years. He won election three times after his appointment in 1983, to the chagrin of those who appointed him with the understanding he would serve the two years left in the unfinished term of then Mayor Leo Kukla.
(Marina Samovsky/News-Sun)
State Rep. Eddie Washington, D-Waukegan, pushed for funding for the $1.5 million resurfacing project that was begun on Labor Day and completed in two months.
"This is a route a lot of people take to work, and it was bad to drive on," Washington said. There is no work down there anymore. The route takes no one to nowhere. "This is our way of complimenting what we're doing downtown with new streets and sidewalks -- also funded by a grant I got for the city."
Washington is also pushing to rename the Amstutz -- a 2.5-mile section of Route 137 that runs through Waukegan and a stretch that runs south from Martin Luther King Drive in North Chicago.
"We can't have small thinking or small deeds," Washington said in reference to the resolution that would rename the road, which has been approved by the Illinois House but not yet by the Senate. "Waukegan is growing up to be the city of inclusion. We want to draw people and say, 'This is a great place to make your home.'"
Thompson, who moved to Mussel Shoals, near his native Florence, Ala., more than a year ago, attended the ceremony accompanied by his wife, Vera, daughters Cheryl and Karen and granddaughters Courtney and Kamryn.
"I never dreamed I would receive such an honor," he said.
Thompson was appointed in 1983 to fill the unexpired term of longtime Mayor Leo Kukla, who left office due to failing health. After his appointment, many of his mayoral duties were revoked by the majority-white council, and he was opposed by all but two aldermen. He won election in 1985 by securing a broad-based, multi-ethnic vote. His powers were restored in 1986.
"It was a power struggle," Thompson said. "I won't say it was race. We know racism exists but (I don't like to) keep saying 'race.' Everyone was afraid of what I might do when I got in, but I proved I was for all the people and everything I did was for the people."
Thompson built a political machine called the BET (Bobby E. Thompson) Express. Politicians including the late Congressman Paul Simon sought his advice, particularly on the black vote.
The year after he was first elected, Thompson helped push for set-asides for minority contractors for the construction of the Lake County Jail. He joined forces with Waukegan Mayor Robert Sabonjian in battling the Lake County Board's acquisition of property pegged for open space but that the mayors argued was needed for economic development.
Washington said he expects the Senate to approve the name change.
"Why wouldn't it?" he asked. "Change is hard for people, but change is good for people."
The late Melvin Amstutz, a civil engineer, helped lead the Lake County Division of Transportation for 45 years and dreamed of a lakefront expressway that would stretch from Waukegan to Kenosha. I always wondered who Amstutz was. The Amstutz opened in 1974.
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