Chris Koziol <Koziol@CAHS.Colostate.edu> Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999
To: David C. Broski,
I am a graduate of UIC (M.Arch 1985; MUPP 1986) and have always been an advocate of the university. Hence, it is with great regret that I learn of your continuing quest to bulldoze what was and IS great about Chicago. As I sure you realize by now, I am speaking of Maxwell Street. I grew up on the near northwest side (i.e., Wicker Park, between the times it was fashionable), and Sunday morning visits with my father to Maxwell Street were a part of my childhood; and provide vivid memories of a city I love, and a continuing love for urbanism....
Now, before you assume I am merely another sentimentalist, (which, by the way, is not a bad thing) let me direct you to some more scholarly considerations of the value of urban memory. I do this, so that you not be so enchanted and seduced by the words of your recent celebrity hire, Fish, that you conclude all reasonable people agree with the power elite's court jester. I suggest you consult Peter Marris' excellent Loss and Change for a scholarly appraisal of the redevelopment of the London Dockland's and its effect on community memory. In a more proactive manner, Dolores Hayden, in The Power of Place, provides an excellent account of the preservation of places of community memory in Los Angeles. She demonstrates how physical memory of a place can valorize a "people's history" despite the onslaught of the urban growth machine.
However, as I am writing, I realize that UIC does not have much taste for a valorization of public history. I think back to the demolition of the Near West Side (I had invited Florence Scala to speak about this in one of my classes in the BSB building, while at UIC), the demolition of the Hull House 'campus' (what was saved was the least typical building and the least significant from the point of view of the settlement house mission), and the erection of granite walls and huge gates to contain "rioting students"....... Hmm, quite a history. Well, here's hoping that even a university administration can learn, and turn course from what has so far been "a sub-optimal path dependency" (scholarly term for the sake of credibility).
Let a university that was built for first generation college students like myself learn to respect both our ambitions and our memories. Save Maxwell Street, another great learning institution.
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