Windy City Pizzeria (2622 S. Fourth St.) has great pizza, but it also has steps -- a couple -- at its entrance.
I say, thus, that it's "inaccessible to wheelchair users." However...
One day when we were in there at lunch we saw the door open and a group of wheelchair users come in.
There were maybe 2 or 3 folks in wheelchairs and several more walking, and the walking folks lifted up the wheelchairs, with their riders in them, up over the steps while somebody held the door.
I don't know why, but I got the feeling that this group dined at Windy City regularly -- maybe they worked nearby.
And it didn't seem to bother them at all about getting in this way.
It left an odd taste in my mouth.
I've been trained by years -- ok, decades! -- working with disability activists around the country. I've been to meetings, conferences, demonstrations in Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, DC with lots of folks in wheelchairs.
I've hung out with them, talked with them, sat in groups with them, interviewed them, written about them. Almost to a person, they believe firmly in this dictum: you don't let yourself be carried into buildings by well-meaning helpers. Besides not being dignified, it's dangerous for both the person being carried and the ones doing the lifting. Wheelchairs -- motorized ones -- can weigh a couple of hundred pounds, before even counting the person in the chair.
There's another issue at stake as well: activists say access is a civil rights issue, and they should not have to depend on "helpers" to get them in and out of buildings. As long as business owners can fall back on the "we'll help them" solution, real access will be resisted, because it's a bricks-and-mortar thing and it costs money.
But most people who are not disability activists think the activists' attitude is overly righteous.
What do you think?
