Where Have All The Fountains Gone? Obama's Economic Miasma at Work

A somewhat poetic journalist of the World War II era wrote of the early 1940's that "the lights have gone out all across Europe."

Despite our $4 a gallon gas and seemingly endless double digit unemployment, that can't be said of Obama's America - yet.

The Legion Park Fountain
in happier times

But it does seem that Obama-era austerity has caused the outdoor fountains to go off all across Northern Chicagoland.

Astoundingly, here, well into summer 2013, the large architectural fountain at Chicago's Legion Park reminds dry for want of repair.

And the same for the fountains at the Leaning Tower YMCA landmark in Niles.

The Legion Park fountain sets at the very corner of Lincoln Ave. and Peterson on Chicago's far north side. It occupies a site that was until recently, the locale of a notorious "no-tell motel" favored mostly by Russian prostitutes and their enthusiastic clientle.

About a decade ago, after one of the emigre ladies-of-the-evening was found stuffed in a suitcase along the adjoining MWRD canal -- quite dead -- the Peterson Park neighbors clamored for its demolition.

The Legion Park Fountain this morning

Mayor Richie Daley complied and had his Chicago Park District erect an enormous fountain there at the gateway to the adjoining Legion Park lands -- on the site of the demolished house of ill repute.

The fountain subsequently became a favorite of dog walkers, whose mutts would chill out in the waters and of burkha-clad South Asian women who used it as a wading pool for their kiddies.

They did this despite the "No swimming or wading sign" because the English language imperialists at the park district did not translate it into Urdu or Gujarati - so the non-English speaking "New Americans" don't know what the hell is going on.

The fountain had also become a favorite of Mexican and Filipino photographers who used it as a cheap backdrop for their wedding party photo shoots.

Most summer weekends you would see blushing third world brides with their entourages, all bedecked in garish finery and cheap shoes, smiling for the birdie in front of the fountain's gushing aquatic output.

But that has all stopped, because the Park District can't afford to fix the damned thing anymore.

And the same has happened at the Niles Leaning Tower YMCA.

No Gushing Water at the
Leaning Tower YMCA this summer

The Y there is fronted by an almost full scale replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

It was built by an eccentric millionaire in the 20's to compliment his elaborate gardens. His estate was purchased by the Y and the Leaning Tower remained as something of a Niles landmark.

But despite getting piles of federal money to house SSI welfare recipients, the Leaning Tower YMCA still has loads of rooms going begging and says it can't afford the upkeep on the gushing fountains.

This is somewhat disconcerting to the hordes of touristas who, almost daily, flock to the tower to snap digital photos to send back home. Presumably they think it might delude the folks back in Keokuk into thinking they actually vacationed to Italy.

But visually, the Niles Tower is almost as good and you are far less likely to have your purse snatched or pockets picked by gaggles of Gypsy children in Niles than in Pisa.

Anyway, it's apparently too costly to fix the damned thing there too, so no spewing waterworks this summer.

In 1919, the United States went dry under the hapless Democrat Woodrow Wilson, when alcoholic prohibition went into force.

Today, with its double digit unemployment and seemingly endless economic miasma, the United States is again, apparently going dry under the hapless Barack Obama.

And wasn't he supposed to be the "infrastructure President?"