By William Lavicka, Structural Engineer and Preservationist <312-82-5562>

(9/2/99)

Dear Editor:

Frank Scott is a bluesman's man. He plays the keys, yes an 18-inch string of house keys that he shakes and rattles to the beat. Frank is 72 and used to play the guitar, but arthritis has slowed him down and he can't use his hands as sweetly as he did in his youth. Frank is a game old guy and for the last 6 months he has produced and organized a Sunday blues jam session at Maxwell and Halsted. It's great summer music sung at the birthplace of Chicago Blues, Maxwell Street, USA.

Frank walked into the University of Illinois at Chicago Board of Trustees Meeting last Wednesday resplendent in a candystriped shirt, red suspenders and a kerchief. He's interested and worried about the future of his 60 year blues home at Maxwell Street. Frank basically integrated the Republican room of 150. His first mistake was compounded by the second when he sat close to the Chief of Staff for the Chancellor. Immediately, a 25 year old UIC security guard was directed to sit between the Chief and the Bluesman.

The Chancellor, Himself, had warned earlier that he expected trouble. The room was filled with UIC security both plain clothes and in uniform, probably 2 or 4 for each of us Maxwell Street Preservationists and an extra for Frank. The room had all the aura of a Soviet Gulag with all the jailers and hundred thousand a year black suits standing guard. We were to keep to our seats, no passing out flyers, no talking to the press, close the cell doors. Security kept an eye on the 5 Maxwell Street weirdos: that bluesman, that professor, that doctor, that architect and that engineer who were plotting to free Maxwell Street from its jailers.

You see Maxwell Street is in grave threat of extinction after over 100 years of economic and social diversity where all were and still are Welcome. You see Maxwell Street like Frank Scott made the mistake of blackness. Sure the Mexicans hang out and shop there now. The UIC students when they need socks or shoes go there. Sure teachers, artists, and students all over Chicago shop at the Creative Reuse Warehouse for supplies and materials. And yeah everybody goes to Jim's for a Polish or a pork chop sandwich. And how about those three tailor shops where you can get a cuff done for a buck fifty. Maxwell is Chicago nitty gritty and yes thankyou it has a blackness, a sweet down home blackness that has been a major part of its appeal since the great southern migration started in the 20's.

UIC wants as its President was heard saying "To clean up Maxwell Street". What this means is that remaining 11 buildings on Maxwell will be torn down and the best of the facades will be pasted on a UIC garage and the area will be completely sanitized with no undesirable hangers on, street vendors and/or customers. A total UIC takeover instead of an integration, a weaving of the old and the new, a tapestry of the immigrant Jew or Italian, the Black, the Mexican, the Oriental and their sons and daughters who are now students at UIC.

I am an engineer, a builder, a doer who for 25 years on the westside renovating modest structures and restoring National Register monuments. I am a hands on guy who designs, builds, sets tile and am not a bad taper in a pinch. I am a licensed Professional Engineer, Structural Engineer, and the City of Chicago Electrical and Masons Contractors. I have presented a plan to save some 30 buildings completely renovate and restore the same for the same cost as building new. In this I am not unique with 1000's of Chicago buildings now being rebuilt by 100's of owners and builders. This has been rejected by a phalanx of naysayers and talkers who never built a two car garage. But shame on the Meisrow Stein Company, UIC prime developer who are now profiting greatly with restoration up at Fort Sheridan and to the Wight Co of Downers Grove, UIC's chief planner and architect, who have never restored an old building in ten years, for saying that preservation will cost 8 to 10 million more. These are professional organizations who have sold their integrity. And shame on the City of Chicago.

UIC has planned Maxwell Street into a ghetto through years of acquisition and demolition and presently owns some 20 buildings which they have vacated and thrown out the tenants, some of which were willing to pay $3000 a month rent. The City has stopped services and let the streets and sidewalks run down. All private redevelopment has been stopped by the UIC eminent domain control and wrecking ball.

Hope, however, does spring eternal because as the last funeral presentation of the death of Maxwell was being presented at the Board of Trustees wake; after one board member joked that since the granite street pavers were being reused that UIC was in fact saving Maxwell Street: Board member Dr. Ken Schmidt stood up and went over to revive the patient by saying that more study to save buildings was imperative and that saving thirteen facades was not good enough.

So if you are down to get down on Maxwell Street this Sunday you'll probably hear Frank Scott's keys national anthem of the blues and its sweet sour hope and cry for the future. Until that time we hope that Mayor Richard M. Daley will figure out his constituency.

Sincerely yours,

William L. Lavicka

Structural Engineer and Preservationist, 312-82-5562

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