8-Jan-16 – The city has asked a Loop resident to take down the pile of snow that made him a celebrity this week.

David Sudler, who lives at Columbus Plaza on Wacker Drive, says he got fed up with buildings in his neighborhood not shoveling snow off their sidewalks fast enough, so he started shoveling. Thousands of people, he says, rely on the sidewalks to get to work at nearby Aon Center and Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower, as do elderly residents of his building going to CVS Pharmacy.

Wanting to get the snow off the street but be economical with space, Sudler stacked it like bricks in the median of Wacker Drive at the intersection of Columbus Drive.

In the Chicago media attention that followed, some people thought it was a snow fort. Some thought it was a shelter constructed by a homeless person. 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly’s office, however, thought it was a “structure.”

“They called me up and said, ‘we need you to take it down so that you’re not cited,’ said Sudler on Thursday. “I said, where do you want me to put it, back in the intersection? Back in the crosswalks? I could go and put four blocks of snow in each crosswalk.”

(Above) Sudler uses the saw blade to cut the ice. The 58-year-old does volunteer work, including gardening, for the Chicago Fire Department. He lives at Columbus Plaza, the white building in the background, with his wife, who is an interior designer. In distance at right is Hyatt Regency Chicago.

Although there is habitable space in the center of the snow pile, and salt has been used to make the blocks look like they’re tuck-pointed, Sudler insists it’s not a “structure.”

“This is merely snow that is stacked in a way that may resemble a structure to their minds but it is simply four walls stacked up.”

Snow piles because drains plug

Sudler says he has complained to Alderman Reilly’s office about snow piling up because drains are plugged with asphalt from a resurfacing of Wacker Drive last fall.

“We’ve got 14 drains on this block. We have ten of them plugged. There’s not a single working drain at the west tower of the Hyatt. Everything from Stetson [Avenue] down to Michigan Avenue, not a single drain works on the south side of the street. They plugged every single one with asphalt.”

Some drains, he says, have been plugged for ten years.

“I keep on calling [Alderman Reilly] and all I get are the cards, every Christmastime. I told my wife, this time, don’t even bother to open it.”

According to Sudler, the drains are so plugged, that when a portable toilet tipped over during the Chi-Town Rising event on New Year’s Eve, the waste flowed down to Lower Wacker Drive through gaps in the street that accommodate concrete and steel expansion.

Last year, Sudler created a pumpkin patch in an empty lot on East South Water Street. His grandfather was Louis C. Sudler, opera singer, chairman emeritus of the parent body of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and senior partner of one of Chicago’s largest real estate firms.

Alderman Reilly’s office politely declined to comment.