BLAST FROM THE PAST
From lake to land Remembering Loyola’s quest for more campus
sound of construction. But 20 years ago, on June 22, 1990, silence settled over the campus as work halted on one of Loyola’s most ambitious enterprises. That date marked the end of the University’s nearly three-year effort to expand the campus 18 acres into Lake Michigan, a plan that came quite close to completion. As early as 1929, only 23 years after the pur-
T
chase of the Lake Shore Campus, Loyola began an attempt to reclaim land along its shoreline. In the 1960s, when Northwestern University successfully increased the size of its campus by extending a lagoon into Lake Michigan, a legal pathway for Loyola to do the same seemed feasible. The matter became imperative in the 1980s, when the lake’s water levels reached a historic high and erosion along the lakefront became a threat. A storm in the winter of 1987 seriously damaged Loyola’s concrete pathway along the lake, forcing its closure. It looked like
1990
Loyola’s already cramped campus was in danger of slipping underwater. That fall, Loyola unveiled a plan to expand its
campus with landfill in the lake that would not only protect its threatened shoreline, but also increase recreation space for students and the local community. Funded entirely by the Uni- versity, the reclaimed land would include a track field, amphitheater, landscaping, a promenade, and an expanded public beach. University officials initiated a large-scale community and public relations campaign. Loyola administrators met with dozens of community and environ- mental groups, convincing most of them of the plan’s benefits. Over the next three years, Loyola won battle
after battle. Every major Chicago-area newspa- per endorsed the plan. On July 29, 1988, Illinois
hese days, as Loyola continues the largest building project in its history, the Lake Shore Campus rings with the
Renderings of the landfill and promenade on Loyola’s Lake Shore Campus proposed 20 years ago. The plans were never executed.
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LOYOLA MAGAZINE
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