University of Chicago - Cap and Gown Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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T106 Neighborhood T511665 014 d New Look Prime priority of the University? needs was a rebuilt neighborhood. A rose cannot bloom in an onion patch, and a great University cannot prosper in a slum, which is what parts of Hyde Park were becoming. The hrst project was urban renewal. The University has allotted $4,200,000 for neighborhood planning. Three years of plan- ning, and public co-operation were required 10 get the forty-seven blighted acres in Hyde Park ready for slum clearance. Obsolcscent commer- cial structures and buildings unlit for decent habi- tation will be replaced. Included in tentative plans are suggestions for single-family homes, two- story row-houses, four-story maisonette apart- ments, twelve-story elevator apartments, and a shopping center. Provision is made for a major imth-south thoroughfare, closing certain straws, offstrcct parking, and park and recreation areas. Regtoration of these forty-scwn acres to resi- dential and commercial value will mean much to the University: it will provide opportuntics for housing, and shopping facilities; and it will serve as an example of what can bf: done. Additional touches were added. On March 12, Chancellor Kimpton and Mayor Richard J. Daley announCCd that title to UN: Midway was given to thc Univcrsity and streets transversing it were to be closed. For the first time in its history, the Chicago campus would he one con- tiguous unit Plans for the area--n0t yet fully approvedh WOUld make the University of Chi- cago one of the nationjs most beautiful urban campuses. Mcltzer and Levy looking over a tenement area in the neighborhood. I

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Aerial view of campus showing Southeast Chicago Commission duevciopmenl. new dorms, the Law School. and highway.