Dirty Waters: Confessions of Chicago's Last Harbor Boss

by R. J. Nelson

Overview

A wry, no-holds-barred memoir of Nelson’s time controlling some of Chicago's most beautiful spots while facing some of its ugliest traditions.

In 1987, the city of Chicago hired a former radical college chaplain to clean up rampant corruption on the waterfront. R. J. Nelson thought he was used to the darker side of the law—he had been followed by federal agents and wiretapped due to his antiwar stances in the sixties—but nothing could prepare him for the wretched bog that constituted the world of a Harbor Boss. Dirty Waters is the wry, no-holds-barred memoir of Nelson’s time controlling some of the city’s most beautiful spots while facing some of its ugliest traditions. Nelson takes us through Chicago's beloved “blue spaces” and deep into the city’s political morass, revealing the different moralities underlining three mayoral administrations and navigating the gritty mechanisms of the city’s political machine. Ultimately, Dirty Waters is a tale of morality, of what it takes to be a force for good in the world and what struggles come from trying to stay ethically afloat in a sea of corruption. 
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226334493
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	10/31/2016
Series:	Chicago Visions and Revisions
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

R. J. Nelson is a former Superintendent of Special Services and Director of Harbors and Marine Services for the Chicago Park District, positions he held from 1987 to 1994. He is also the retired CEO of the Hammond Indiana Port Authority. His other positions included vice president of Grebe Shipyard in Chicago, administrator at the University of Chicago, and chaplain at Cornell University. He lives in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Acknowledgments

Dawn City
Harbors as Neighborhoods
Harbor Rats
A Boat Slip and Fall
Feet Wet
Harold
Rainbows and Riots
Indictments
April Fools
Harbor Fire
Sand Traps
Wulky
Moving on Up
Fog Bowl
D-Day
Batman
Paul McCartney
Golf Dome from Hell
MBE/WBE
“Lakefront’s Small Wonder”
A Coast Guard Station Restored
A Reporter Falls Overboard
Tagline Contest
Daley’s Underground River
A Tale of Two Conventions
From Malcolm X to Mohammed Ali
So Sad, Too Bad
Glatt
Afterglow
Filan Report
Basement Dreams

Afterword
Notes

Editorial Reviews

10/15/2016
Nelson was the last public official to be in charge of Chicago's many harbors. At the time, people were curious why the former college chaplain was put into such a position and then even more perplexed when he became the superintendent of special services within a year. Here the author shares his views guiding Chicago's harbors and special services in the late 1980s/early 1990s from the corrupt officials who ran the harbors the previous 30 years (the previous four directors all ended up in federal prison) to managing Paul McCartney's "last" concert at Soldier Field. Lawsuits, politics, protestors, Nelson dealt with it. Periodically hearing the voice of the biblical tax collector Zacchaeus both guiding and chiding him, Nelson tried to run the harbors through pneumatocracy—following the spirit of the law (Holy Spirit) rather than the letter of the law. While the frequent mentions of pneumatocracy and conversations with Zacchaeus become distracting, the various stories of harbor issues and Nelson's handling of them are fascinating. VERDICT This intriguing look into managing harbors, a subject that not many people know much about, is recommended for those who enjoy city politics, melding of secular and religious management, and, of course, harbors.—Ryan Claringbole, Wisconsin Dept. of Pub. Instruction, Madison

Library Journal

A joy to read. Nelson’s achievements are undeniable, detailed with good if rough humor. He declared war on the age-old system of gratuities and outright bribes that had maintained the Harbor’s operations in harmony with the citywide culture of ‘where’s mine?’ The results of this campaign are recounted in a feisty, highly entertaining fashion.

James T. Fisher

"An entertaining, insightful work on the way things worked in Chicago."

Choice

Dirty Waters is a revealing insider’s tale of a Harold Washington-era reformer battling for change. It tells the stories behind the headlines of the ‘Last Harbor Boss’ of the Chicago Park District. It is written for those who want to know how government really works and how a former protestor, college chaplain, and college administrator opened up the green space and blue space of Chicago and made a cumbersome bureaucracy work for us. Students, scholars, and citizens will read it avidly and celebrate the often unsung heroes of reform.

Dick Simpson

Is it the water in Lake Michigan that makes Chicago such a politically corrupt city? That might sound like an outlandish theory, but R. J. Nelson’s Dirty Waters: Confessions of Chicago’s Last Harbor Boss makes a compelling case. . . . There’s a certain Chicagoness to Nelson’s storytelling that’s highly entertaining—the book reads like a series of anecdotes being told by a lifelong resident of the city.

Chicago Reader

Dirty Waters is an insider’s account of what has become known as the ‘Chicago Way,’ the corruption at the very heart of the city’s political machine. This book is an honest, fascinating, and often startling story of how politics, bribery, and just plain ineptitude often plagued the ‘City that Works.’

Dominic A. Pacyga

"An entertaining, insightful work on the way things worked in Chicago."

-- "Choice"

"Dirty Waters is an insider's account of what has become known as the 'Chicago Way, ' the corruption at the very heart of the city's political machine. This book is an honest, fascinating, and often startling story of how politics, bribery, and just plain ineptitude often plagued the 'City that Works.'"--Dominic A. Pacyga, author of Slaughterhouse: Chicago's Union Stock Yard and the World It Made

"Dirty Waters is a revealing insider's tale of a Harold Washington-era reformer battling for change. It tells the stories behind the headlines of the 'Last Harbor Boss' of the Chicago Park District. It is written for those who want to know how government really works and how a former protestor, college chaplain, and college administrator opened up the green space and blue space of Chicago and made a cumbersome bureaucracy work for us. Students, scholars, and citizens will read it avidly and celebrate the often unsung heroes of reform."--Dick Simpson, professor of political science at University of Illinois at Chicago and former Chicago alderman

"A joy to read. Nelson's achievements are undeniable, detailed with good if rough humor. He declared war on the age-old system of gratuities and outright bribes that had maintained the Harbor's operations in harmony with the citywide culture of 'where's mine?' The results of this campaign are recounted in a feisty, highly entertaining fashion."--James T. Fisher, Fordham University

"Fascinating."-- "Library Journal"

"Is it the water in Lake Michigan that makes Chicago such a politically corrupt city? That might sound like an outlandish theory, but R. J. Nelson's Dirty Waters: Confessions of Chicago's Last Harbor Boss makes a compelling case. . . . There's a certain Chicagoness to Nelson's storytelling that's highly entertaining--the book reads like a series of anecdotes being told by a lifelong resident of the city."-- "Chicago Reader"

From the Publisher