City to Provide Rooms at Sloop's Hotel Essex to First Responders

Looks like a prominent new Sloop hotel is playing a major role in the city's response to the Covid-19 pandemic (via Chicago Tribune):

The city will provide 274 hotel rooms for Chicago’s paramedics, firefighters and police officers as a respite for those who may have been exposed to people with the coronavirus, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Tuesday.

The rooms will be provided by the Hotel Essex, 800 S. Michigan Ave., the mayor said, speaking at a graduation ceremony for new Chicago Fire Department paramedics.

“These rooms aren’t for first responders who are themselves sick," Lightfoot said. “We have hospitals for that. However, the reality is that they are coming in contact with the virus everyday and working long, hard hours. And some of them may prefer to stay downtown rather than going home to their spouse, kids or friends.”

Jim Tracy, president of Local 2 of the Chicago Fire Fighters Union, said the new accommodations were a relief.

“Everybody’s got a different situation that they live with, whether they’ve got young children, whether they have somebody with an autoimmune deficiency, whether we have senior citizens or grandparents that we’re taking care of, or grandparents,” Tracy said.

As a reminder the new hotel opened in April last year to much fanfare.  The complex also has a huge, high-end apartment tower next door.  The shared amenities at the building are drool worthy, but we imagine the city's first responders won't be taking advantage of those.  At least they will have the sweeping views of Grant Park, Lake Michigan and our beautiful city.

Obviously the first responders likely don't care about those amenities...but glad to see our local heroes are getting some top-notch care themselves.