The pedestrian, Bruce Beavis, 51, complained to the police, his alderman, Vi Daley of the 43rd Ward, the news media and Mr. Jurinka’s business partner, who promised to send a cleaning crew to remove the advertisements the next day.

“We tell all our clients that this is an activity that some communities have no problem with, and other communities frown upon,” said Mr. Jurinka, the co-founder of Attack, a provider of guerrilla marketing services, who said they would not to stencil ads on Chicago streets again. “The law is somewhat cloudy.”

But Matt Smith, a spokesman for the Department of Streets and Sanitation, said Chicago’s policy on sidewalk stenciling was not ambiguous.

“We have zero tolerance for people who would use the public way for their promotions,” Mr. Smith said, “and will go after them any way we can.”

Companies may think they are going to gain an advantage, he said, “but instead they could be drawing a lot of negative publicity and fines.”

That is what happened to IBM in 2001, when it hired an agency that spray-painted ads across walkways in Boston, Chicago, New York and San Francisco without obtaining permits. The company was fined tens of thousands of dollars.

Russ Kellogg, director of sales for ICE Factor, another marketing agency that uses unconventional strategies, said the extensive permit process in Chicago was a disincentive to marketers.

“You either ask for permission or ask for forgiveness,” Mr. Kellogg said.

A six-month status report shows 665 vacant positions and 335 filled positions that have been eliminated. But of the filled positions, only about 100 workers were actually laid off.

“I don’t understand how you’re going to make this up by the end of the fiscal year,” said Tony Peraica, a member of the Cook County Board.

Michael Ayres, the health system’s chief financial officer, and William T. Foley, the chief executive, blamed labor agreements for the shortfall and promised additional staff reductions in August.

Mr. Ayres said that senior staff members had “bumping rights” — they can fill the positions of junior employees — and that “they moved into vacant positions that the hospital felt were necessary to maintain.”

The health system oversees three hospitals as well as the county’s Health Department, a network of clinics, medical services for jail inmates and a center for H.I.V. and AIDS patients. It has 6,000 employee positions.

The defense has indicated that Mr. Adam will echo the politics-as-usual theme he introduced in opening arguments seven weeks ago, as well as the contention that no extorted money ever found its way into Mr. Blagojevich’s pocket.

Mr. Adam has faced a similar challenge. Three years ago, he stood before a jury at the Cook County Criminal Court building, in the high-profile child pornography case of R. Kelly, the popular singer, and delivered an impassioned closing argument. Mr. Kelly’s acquittal made Mr. Adam famous beyond 26th Street and California Avenue.

And if Mr. Blagojevich goes free, the credit will largely go to the man whose father, Sam Adam Sr., the lead lawyer in the case, has been a fixture in Chicago courtrooms for 49 years.

Even though Mr. Blagojevich’s trial differs from Mr. Kelly’s in the charges and the venue, the closing arguments could be similar in several key ways.

“I think there are some comparisons,” said Richard A. Devine, who was Cook County state’s attorney at the time Mr. Kelly was acquitted.

Mr. Devine noted that both cases were largely based on tapes — a video in the case of Mr. Kelly and scores of audio recordings in the Blagojevich trial.

“In the R. Kelly case, it focused on the idea that this is not a criminal act,” Mr. Devine said. “In some sense, that is part of the theme he will be trying to get across with the ex-governor.”

But Mr. Adam, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has a much more complex case to sum up for a jury than he did in the R. Kelly closing statement.

The alleged victim in Mr. Kelly’s case, an under-age girl, “was not really complaining about what happened,” Mr. Devine said. In Mr. Blagojevich’s trial, the government has put several witnesses on the stand who testified that the former governor had tried to extort campaign contributions from them.

Mr. Adam was not originally supposed to close the Kelly trial. Ed Genson, the lead lawyer in that case, said he decided to let Mr. Adam handle the summation, in part because he thought the younger lawyer would connect better with the young jury.

“He exceeded my expectations,” said Mr. Genson, who originally signed on to be Mr. Blagojevich’s lead counsel but had a falling out with Mr. Adam’s father. “I wrote 18 things I wanted to put in there, and he ignored about 10 but thought about five more I hadn’t thought of.”

Experts note, however, that federal judges and prosecutors are not as likely to let demonstrative closings go uninterrupted as their state-court counterparts might be.

“If they let him alone,” Mr. Genson said of Mr. Adam, “if he gives a closing that doesn’t offend the judge, it will be wonderful.”

A mulberry tree (left) and a crab apple tree on 16th Street near Union Ave. in Chicago. According to the website neighborhoodfruit.com there are only 2 edible fruit trees registered on public property in the city of Chicago, the second tree, which is also a mulberry, is located on the Burnham Greenway bike path at 108th and avenue D.
John Konstantaras/Chicago News Cooperative

For many city dwellers — dependent as they are on flown-in supermarket produce or temporary farmers’ markets — fresh, seasonal fruit and vegetables feel like an unaffordable luxury.

Enter NeighborhoodFruit.com, the Bay Area-based Web site launched in 2009 to steer people to the location of fruit trees on public and private land. The idea is to give them access to free food, but the trees will not show up in the site’s maps unless they are identified and registered by local users. A recent search of a 30-mile radius around Chicago turned up exactly two fruit trees — both mulberry.

“Chicago is one of the cities we targeted,” said Kaytea Petro, one of the Web site’s co-founders. “I did a fly-over with the Google map and I just thought, ‘Wow, it really is a concrete jungle.’.” The site’s users get much better results in other areas. Is Chicago just a decidedly un-Green city?

Because it involves city government, the answer is complicated — enmeshed in zoning restrictions, union contracts and endless bureaucracy.

Chicago, like most cities, strictly regulates the types of trees that can be planted on public parkways — the spaces between buildings and the sidewalk, and near streets or crosswalks. According to Matt Smith, spokesman for the Streets and Sanitation Department, fruit-bearing trees are messy, attract pests and interfere with power lines and transportation.

But given the mayor’s Trees Initiative and the environmental benefits of urban agriculture, surely it’s just a matter of time before the city’s public spaces bear fruit trees, right?

Maybe. Some city officials like the idea of fruit trees — Harold Washington was “very interested” in planting them on parkways, according to Edith Malka of the Morton Arboretum. There are also foundations and nonprofit groups working toward self-sustaining, community-run orchards. But the bureaucratic process involved in planting fruit trees can be daunting.

“In one respect, I think the ideas in Chicago are very liberal, and well ahead of the rest of the country,” said Chad Bliss, executive director and founder of Cob Connection, a sustainability group that maintains community gardens. He said implementing their latest program, “CommuniTree,” in Humboldt Park, has been more challenging than any garden project.

“Once you start talking about anything that involves zoning, you’re going to get stuck,” he said. And forget about planting the trees yourself, he said. Streets and Sanitation has a contract until 2011 with a union that plants all of the city trees.

Even if the city signs off on a fruit tree, Mr. Bliss said, you can count on years of analysis and planning by a dozen city departments. “By the time you actually plant the tree,” he said, “it’s dead.”

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But before these revelations surfaced, Mr. Cohen apparently impressed Anthony Lynn Burrell, a Cook County judge who made three contributions totaling $650 to Mr. Cohen’s campaign committee, Citizens for Scott Lee Cohen. Mr. Burrell’s donations, on Aug. 12 and Aug. 14, 2009, were made public in an amendment to a 2009 campaign finance report filed Monday.

Mr. Burrell declined to comment.

Illinois judges are required by the state’s judicial code of conduct to “refrain from inappropriate political activity” but are not prohibited from making political contributions. The American Bar Association’s model code of conduct bars judges from contributing to political candidates unless they are currently candidates themselves. Mr. Burrell lost a primary election for a state appellate court vacancy in February.

“It’s very unfortunate that we have a system like that here in Illinois,” said Jeffrey M. Shaman, the Vincent de Paul Professor of Law at DePaul University College of Law and a former senior fellow at the American Judicature Society. Judges making campaign donations, Mr. Shaman said, “entraps them in this political system and politicizes the selection of judges.”

Mr. Burrell has not contributed to Mr. Cohen again, according to a Cohen campaign spokeswoman.

This so-called urban sharecropping has also been growing in popularity in Austin, Tex., and Portland, Ore., thanks to networking Web sites.

Kenwood, known for its arts-and-crafts mansions and President Barack Obama’s house, is considered a natural place for the partnerships because thousands of square feet of lawns dot the blocks between 47th and 50th Streets.

“It’s an unusual relationship,” said Deborah Hammond, a gardener who tends to 300 square feet behind a three-story mansion. “I’m not a service provider, I’m not a friend of the family, but I have a key to the back gate.”

Her use of the land has involved negotiating with the homeowner over who would pay for topsoil (they do), and plants (she does), and what to grow.

(Left to right) Co-Founder Jacquy Pfeiffer (Left) Chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago Cheryl Hyman and Mayor Richard M. Daley, with a chocolate replica of the Stanley Cup during a press conference at City Hall in Chicago.
Courtesy of The French Pastry School

The grill in the Jefferson Park neighborhood promises the Bungalow Belt’s traditional fast-food favorites: “The Chicago Way: Beef, Burgers, Dogs.”

It’s the gut-busting fare, for better or for worse, that has come to unofficially symbolize the city.

But in the Chicago of Mayor Richard M. Daley, the foods most celebrated by officialdom are more likely to be Kobe beef burgers, a Stanley Cup fashioned from French chocolat and sashimi-grade Hawaiian ahi tuna with what Mr. Daley once described as “glacamole.”

The mayor’s pride in Chicago’s growing stature in the world of haute cuisine was on display again this week. After spending much of last week in Idaho at a conference of the nation’s news media moguls, Mr. Daley’s next two public appearances in Chicago involved promoting the local gastronomy scene.

The mayor made a stop at the French Pastry School on Monday to tout its expansion into new teaching kitchens at the City Colleges of Chicago. The school’s chefs had recently visited City Hall to present the mayor with a chocolate replica of the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup trophy. The mayor beamed below the brim of a tall chef’s hat.

On Tuesday, he joined about 50 chefs from many of the city’s swankiest restaurants at a news conference to promote the third annual Chicago Gourmet event that will be held on Sept. 25 and 26 at Millennium Park, a sort of Taste of Chicago for connoisseurs. Admission to the event, which attracted 8,000* people last year, is $150 a person.

“These chefs, to me, represent the creative class of society,” Mr. Daley said. “We have to realize how important they are to the city.”

The mayor clearly shares the theory, expounded in Richard Florida’s 2002 book “The Rise of the Creative Class,” that cities must attract people whose livelihoods involve imagination and innovation.

The culinary convention, Mr. Daley said, fits well with the city’s strategy of promoting itself as a destination for those seeking fancy food and wine.

The event receives no money from the city, but when Mr. Daley was asked at the news conference what the city is doing to help, he said, “What do you think I’m here for?”

The chefs, including Rick Bayless of the highly regarded Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, seemed happy just to see the mayor. Billy Dec, the owner of Rockit Bar & Grill, used his cell phone to snap photographs of the mayor standing at a podium.

“He’s the best cheerleader for the industry that anybody could ask for,” said Sheila O’Grady, the mayor’s former chief of staff who is now president of the Illinois Restaurant Association. The association worked with the mayor to repeal the city’s short-lived ban on foie gras in 2008.

If he had to order a last meal, Mr. Daley diplomatically said, he would sample a morsel from each of the restaurants featured at Chicago Gourmet.

Left unsaid was whether he might also crave a Maxwell Street polish sausage or a pork chop “sammidge” from the place at the 31st Street viaduct in his old neighborhood.

*Correction: The original story incorrectly reported attendance for Gourmet Chicago at 3,000 people, rather than 8,000.

Applicants used to line up outside City Hall as early as 5:30 a.m. to present plans. That changed on May 1, when Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration began requiring scheduled appointments.

But the next available slot to meet with zoning reviewers is not until the end of August. And getting a date with officials to correct plans can take another two weeks. Contractors fear they may not get permits in time to finish projects before winter ends the outdoor construction season.

Peter Strazzabosco, the zoning department spokesman, acknowledged “mixed feelings” about the new process, but defended the change as an improvement in customer service.

“Previously, people might wait several hours to see an examiner and they’d have to leave if the walk-in schedule was full,” he said. “Now, people can schedule an appointment in advance and know for sure they’ll be seen.”

The city has paid $10.1 million in outside counsel fees for Mr. Burge’s legal defense in civil cases. Mr. Burge’s accusers and their advocates are questioning why the city is continuing to pick up the costly tab for his defense after he was found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice on June 28. Mr. Burge, 62, has been a defendant in 17 civil rights lawsuits filed in federal court.

“I don’t think Burge should get anything from the municipality, period,” said Alderman Ed Smith (28th) on Thursday.

The city’s financial responsibility for Mr. Burge is based on its interpretation of Illinois law and sections of municipal code, one which states that the chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee — with the approval of Mayor Daley — may appoint counsel to defend former employees in civil cases, said Jennifer Hoyle, the law department spokeswoman.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 1997 required the city to pay damages assessed against Mr. Burge in a civil case alleging torture. Ms. Hoyle cited this case as another reason the city believes it must continue to pay for Mr. Burge’s legal representation.

However, Laurie Reynolds, a professor of law at the University of Illinois, said the state law clearly allows local governments to choose whether to pay for attorney fees for former employees when they are sued for conduct that occurred on the job.

After reviewing the court decision and local code cited by the city at the request of the Chicago News Cooperative, Ms. Reynolds said “it’s pretty clear” that the city is not required to pay for Burge’s defense.

“There is no provision that you’ve shown me that seems to impose an obligation to pay for or represent him,” she said.

Luz Garban, 21, pulls down a girls dress at her fathers shop at the Mega Mall on Milwaukee Avenue in Logan Square.
John Konstantaras/Chicago News Cooperative

Depending on how you look at it, the Discount Mega Mall at 2500-14 North Milwaukee Avenue is either an eyesore or a hot spot for the frugal.

Jeorge Sandobal deals in 100 percent leather cowboy boots; Will Lopez outfits any car with speakers that have enough bass to rattle your liver; and Ludwig Tanchez custom airbrushes any surface that takes paint. All sales are final, but the prices are almost always negotiable.

That flexibility would seem to make the mall more attractive to consumers than a giant discount store like Wal-Mart. On the whole, “discount stores as a sector are doing well,” said Neil Stern, a senior partner at McMillanDoolittle LLP, a retail consulting firm based in Chicago. But this Discount Mega Mall is not.

Vendors — who rent their booths for a weekly rate depending on their size and location — say business has been pathetic.

“Before, you couldn’t walk it was so crowded,” Mr. Lopez, 23, said of the weekend crowd a few years ago. “Now it’s dead.”

Mr. Sandobal gave two thumbs down when he was asked about the economy. “Everybody is losing money here,” he said.

Mr. Sandobal has been in the same booth for more than 17 years, but his sales have never been so poor. “They are down 80 percent” from two years ago, he said.

The same sentiment could be heard around the mall. Vendors said sales of jewelry and clothing were down 50 percent, electronics 75 percent. The only person who reported rising sales was Mr. Tanchez, who said his airbrushing business had benefited from word-of-mouth and the fact that every T-shirt he paints is a virtual walking billboard.

In operation for nearly two decades, this mall has for years been the subject of a community fight over redevelopment plans: park vs. mall. In 2005, it was shuttered for numerous building code violations, and in 2007, a blaze destroyed a large section, which has not been reopened.

For Jasmine Jimenez, 28, who owns a hot pink, Marilyn Monroe-themed business, the mall was a new beginning after she was denied a small-business loan to open a storefront shop. Ms. Jimenez said she paid $200 a week in cash for her current space. She opened in March after being laid off from her job as a loan officer with Home Depot.

“It’s just a struggle,” Ms. Jimenez said. “No banks are giving out loans, and I get denials right and left.”

The sole customer at ABC Electronics on Monday morning, Luis Rivera, haggled with Scott Chung, the manager. Mr. Rivera, 30, wanted to buy two sets of Kicker audio speakers for his car, and have them installed that day — $300, then $250, sold. The price was a fraction of what a major chain would charge.

As Mr. Rivera waited for his car to be outfitted, he ambled around the mall with his 2-year-old son, Isaiah. At a nearby stall he bought Isaiah a miniature plastic M4 assault rifle for $5, down from $10. Outside, they shared a lemon-flavored ice.

At Kids Clothes #405, Lucas Garban, the 49-year-old owner, pointed toward the empty aisle. “I will wait it out,” he said. “Maybe next year it will be better.”

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