For immediate release: (11/4/98)
Contact: Professor Steve Balkin, 773-549-2545
The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) announced to selected reporters their plan for preservation in the old Maxwell Street neighborhood. It is to consist of demolishing 55 historic buildings, and temporarily "saving" five buildings on the East Side of Halsted and three facades. Those five buildings on Halsted were the one's that, earlier this year, UIC announced it would keep for a while, due to its planning logistics, and then tear down eventually.
"This is a typical effort of UIC to misdirect attention from their real purpose. It is tokenism in its most ludicrous form.", says Steve Balkin, Secretary of the Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition. There is nothing new here except the addition of saving three facades. We already agreed to a compromise plan with the City and UIC for saving 36 whole buildings and now they renege. That plan is the Daley-Decker-Vinci Plan."
In March of 1998, Mayor Daley called together an Ad-Hoc Maxwell Street Advisory Committee to work out a compromise solution. The Committee consisted of representatives from UIC, The City of Chicago Department of Planning and Economic Development, the Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition, and City hired architect consultants, Howard Decker and John Vinci. The outcome of these meetings was the Daley-Decker-Vinci compromise plan calling for preservation of 36 out of the 60 old buildings. Control of the use of the buildings would be with UIC. There was unanimous agreement this was a win-win plan.
Janelle Walker, Indiana University graduate student at the Folklore Institute, says, "That UIC wants to save some facades is revealing. The words Facade, as its connotations suggest, hides something. In this case, facades would hide the ugly truth that the University of Illinois cares not at all about the real history of Maxwell Street or the conservation of culture in the area. Saving facades is not preservation, for the same reason a cubic zirconia isn't a diamond, that Formica isn't wood, that Disney World isn't the real world. The University of Illinois is throwing out a bone -- the people of Chicago should insist on some meat."
For more information, visit the Coalition's website at <http://www.openair.org/maxwell/preserve.html>.
web page provided by OPENAIR-MARKET NET
return to Preserve Maxwell Street