So, have you ever played Microsoft Flight Simulator?
Well, if you haven’t… frankly I’m kind of confused how you ended up on this channel,
but still glad you’re here.
If you have, and it was before 2006, you’ll be familiar with Meigs Field Airport, which
long served as the game’s default starting place—a small, single-runway lakefront airport
in Chicago from which you could take off and enjoy a beautiful view of the Chicago skyline
before inevitably crashing into the middle of Lake Michigan.
But if you’re the type of person who gets annoyed by literally any change, and we know
you are, you may have noticed that starting with Microsoft Flight Simulator X, not only
was Meigs Airport not the default airport: it was gone.
But not because of some kind of programming glitch–instead it was because of a sort
of real-world glitch in Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s brain, which led him to secretly
destroy the airport under cover of darkness like it was that short about North Korean
haircuts that I unlisted because it made everybody mad even though it was right.
Richard M. Daley was the mayor of Chicago for 22 years from 1989 to 2011, the longest
mayoral tenure in Chicago history, just surpassing the 21-year tenure of Richard J. Daley, no
relation.
Basically since Daley got into office, he started trying to shut down Meigs Airport
to build a park.
Why?
Well, in part because it was a beautiful piece of city-owned lakefront land used mostly by
elites for private flights, in part because a new park would help boost sagging real estate
values in Chicago, and in part because Daley lived near the airport and reportedly hated
the noise it made.
But hey, if you don’t use political influence to advance your own self-interest, are you
really an Illinois politician?
In 1994, Daley announced plans to close the airport and build a park, and actually did
manage to successfully shut it down from October 1996 to February 1997.
But then, the Republican state legislature threatened to claim the airport as state property
and reopen it, forcing Daley to make a deal with the Republican Governor, Jim Edgar, to
keep Meigs open for another five years, after which Daley could finally build his park.
But then, once that five years was up, Daley was forced to use Meigs as a bargaining chip
once again, making a deal with the new Republican governor, George Ryan, to keep Meigs open
until 2026 in exchange for, among other things, a metric boatload of money for expanding O’Hare
International Airport.
But then, the federal legislation required to make that deal happen fell apart in Congress,
because the United States Congress is basically a retirement home for obstructionists masquerading
as a legislative body, meaning Daley was suddenly free from his obligations to honor his deal
to keep Meigs open, and saw an opportunity to strike.
Every time in the last decade that he’d tried to close Meigs, right after he announced
his plans, interest groups and political opposition had organized to make it impossible.
So Daley figured: why not give democracy a well-earned night off, and just go auto-crazy.
Just before midnight on Sunday, March 30th, 2003, Mayor Daley ordered a demolition crew
to sneak onto Meigs in the dead of night and destroy the runway–an action that served
the dual purpose of both rendering the airport useless, and also answering the age-old question,
“What would it be like if a Batman villain was mayor of Chicago?”
The mission was so secretive that the demolition workers had to hand over their cell phones,
and in true cartoon heist fashion, even shone a massive spotlight on the 24-hour webcam
set up by a pilot’s association to stream live footage of Meigs so nobody could see
what they were doing.
The demolition crew didn’t actually have time to destroy the whole runway, so instead,
they did something even pettier–carving giant, three foot deep X-shaped gouges into
the concrete runway, making it look like some sort of giant, extremely one-sided tic-tac-toe
game.
Daley then claimed in a press conference that he’d done it to protect Chicago from potential
terrorist attacks in the wake of 9/11.
You know, terrorist attacks: like, say, destroying airports in the middle of the night.
The move stranded 16 airplanes that were parked at the airport, though they were eventually
cleared to take off from the airport’s taxiway, which ran parallel to the destroyed runway.
Perhaps the craziest part of this whole saga is that an inbound flight to Meigs had to
be diverted by air traffic control, because the FAA didn’t realize Meigs had been destroyed
until after the plane headed there was in the air.
Imagine being a pilot about to land and hearing you need to turn around because the airport
has been destroyed, not by a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, but by the mayor.
Daley was sued by interest groups and the FAA, but as tends to be the case for mayors
named Richard Daley, he came away pretty scot-free.
The courts found that because the city had paid back its federal grants related to Meigs,
the airport was city property, and thus the city had the right to destroy it.
And although it has been done in flagrant violation of FAA policy, the FAA had never
really anticipated anyone being crazy enough to secretly destroy their own airport overnight,
so its only mechanism for punishing Daley was a policy that requires 30 days notice
for airport closures.
Daley had given no days' notice, but could only be fined $1,100 a day, for a total $33,000
fine.
However, the city later agreed to also repay $1 million of grants from the FAA Airport
Improvement Program because it turned out Daley had used those funds not to improve
the airport, but to destroy it.
In 2015, Daley’s long-awaited Northerly Island Park opened atop the grave of Meigs
Field, proving that if you want to get something done, sometimes it’s easier to ask for forgiveness
than for permission…
except that Daley also never asked for forgiveness.
Alright: now we have some exciting news.
The second episode of Half as Interesting’s Crime Spree is out right now on Nebula, so
please go watch it.
The response to episode one was amazing, which we’re so grateful for, so we hope you keep
watching.
As a reminder for the uninitiated, this is the show where I got $5,000 to run around
the country over 72 hours and try to break eight weird laws, while simultaneously the
HAI writing team got $3,000 and a live tracker to try to catch up to tag me so I’d lose
a point.
Of course, the only way to watch Crime Spree is on Nebula–the creator-owned streaming
site where you can also check out exclusive ad-free versions of our YouTube content, HAI’s
40-minute bricks special, three-part trivia show, a boatload of Wendover documentaries,
and even more originals from other creators that you probably already watch.
The best way to get access to Nebula is with the CuriosityStream-Nebula bundle, with which
you also get access to CuriosityStream for the same price meaning you can watch their
great non-fiction shows and documentaries like the one the Wendover team made about
the entire western US being on the brink of the water wars or something.
Of course, the craziest thing is that this bundle of both streaming sites costs less
than a dollar a month when buying annually, and you’ll even be supporting us by signing
up, so click the button on-screen or head to CuriosityStream.com/HAI today.