If the UIC Campus had been built at Garfield Park (Chicago: crimes, neighborhoods)

[TBideon]

Man, the ghetto really is an unstoppable force of (American) nature. No matter what, it'll be somewhere.

And as to the OT, I'm sure the UIC campus and nearby areas (though it's not like Tri-Taylor is some utopia now) would have been much crappier without the students and nearby businesses smoothing the roughness. It's not like the Italians would have stayed.

[Vlajos]

How about if UIC were in Hegewisch?

[Chi-town Native]

If you haven't read the Daley bio American Pharaoh, I highly recommend it. There's a good bit of info regarding the UIC project, and yes, it seems like destroying Little Italy was part of the plan, and may have had organized crime overtones. There is certainly not enough info out there regarding post-Capone and how the Irish and Italian mobsters (street and political) co-existed.

[Ace Rothstein]

I've heard that UIUC almost ended up in Kankakee originally but have never been able to verify it. While Kankakee is currently a joke, both it and Chicago would have been better off with the state flagship school just 55 miles from downtown.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by Ace Rothstein

I've heard that UIUC almost ended up in Kankakee originally but have never been able to verify it. While Kankakee is currently a joke, both it and Chicago would have been better off with the state flagship school just 55 miles from downtown.

I agree.

[North Side Brandon]

Remember the West Side is a straight shot downtown. From Pulaski and Madison you are 5 Miles due West of Downtown you can see it from there. That was a great shopping area and it is also smack in between Harlem & Lake Oak Park's famous Commercial District and Downtown Chicago.

[JacksonPanther]

I can't think of a single positive reason to destroy a city park for UIC, especially one of Chicago's grand parks linked by the boulevards. If the park was run down, then the city should have its feet held to the fire and devote resources to keeping it up - no park anywhere will just maintain itself.

If people were getting mugged in it, the solution is not to destroy the park, it's to ake changes such that it no longer is a crime magnet. If people destroyed parks where there was once crime, we would no longer have Central Park in NYC, the Fens in Boston, or Piedmont Park in Atlanta. What short-sighted thinking.

[jonnynonos]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

If you haven't read the Daley bio American Pharaoh, I highly recommend it. There's a good bit of info regarding the UIC project, and yes, it seems like destroying Little Italy was part of the plan, and may have had organized crime overtones. There is certainly not enough info out there regarding post-Capone and how the Irish and Italian mobsters (street and political) co-existed.

Interesting. Most of the elite mobsters themselves had moved to the suburbs by then, but I'm sure Taylor Street and the surrounding area was still a hotbed for a lot of things.

[chet everett]

I suspect the greater driver was the potential for the residential character of the old west side to rapidly shift from old school types to the scary fist pumping rioters...

The architecture is a classic "brutalist" style that often accompanied "urban renewal" projects of that era -- the main classroom building even at DePaul's Lincoln Park Campus looks like something that could be used as a shelter during weeks long siege...

The specific paths of hemming in the campus serves to make a literally "blockade" against any potential angry horde storming into the Loop from the SW -- a potential that undoubtedly was not wholly impossible.

[jonnynonos]

^^ Yep and I noticed the windows on some of the buildings look like those built in the time period constructed purposefully so that one couldn't shoot/throw things through the windows. I'm talking about the ones that look like the MCC.