Date: Feb 17, 1999
Note: Studs was born in Chicago in 1912. His books include best-sellers Hard Times (1970), Working (1974), Race (1992), and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Good War (1985). For over 40 years he worked as an interviewer on his daily one-hour radio show broadcast from WFMT in Chicago.
In 1945 he was a disc jockey, introducing Chicagoans to folk musicians such as Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, the Weavers and "race music"- Mahalia Jackson and Big Bill Broonzy.
His latest book, Coming of Age (The New Press, 1995), is a documentary of people's lives who are over 70 years old. It includes ordinary thoughtful people and luminaries like John Kenneth Galbraith, Victor Reuther of the UAW, Rep. Henry Gonzalez, dancer Katherine Dunham, former representative Charles Hayes, ex-alderman Leon Despres, and Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz. - S.B.
To Chancellor David Broski:
We're losing a lot of landmarks in Chicago. This diminishes the value of the Chicago we leave for future generations. Maxwell Street was a really important and unique place. It was full of vibrancy and a celebration of who we are as Americans, with roots from all over the world.
It deserves to be recognized by UIC and given respect. A grassroots avenue for survival got created there for masses of immigrants and poor people. It preserved old world culture, whether from the Ukraine, Mexico or Mississippi and mixed it with the new, creating art forms such as urban electrified blues. The people to be remembered by those old buildings are the ancestors of many of us. Maxwell Street was influential in making us who we are. Its existence, though old and weary, gives meaning to our daily living and working in Chicago.
By preserving the buildings of Maxwell Street's past, Chicagoans of today give a gift of heritage to future generations. This is what a University should be about, being a repository for learning. For UIC to remain a university of Illinois and in Chicago, it must not demolish the remains of old Maxwell Street area but, instead, should work with the Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition to preserve history and build a great university.
Sincerely,
Studs Terkel
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