NU to Build New Lakefront Visitor Center

Pizzagirl
Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:09:43 +0000

We oldsters don’t recognize it - well, south campus hasn’t changed much, but north campus really has, with the Ford building south of tech, and the Slivka and Ayers dorms taking up what used to be the space where guys would play football and everyone would hang out on a nice day.

What we really don’t recognize is downtown Evanston, which has really bloomed into being a vibrant place for young people. “In my day” (mid eighties) the stores were much more geared towards the geriatric and there were few quick options other than Burger King. Evanston is a real asset these days to the university; well done.

During new student move-in, I was very impressed by the parent reception on North Beach. The vast majority of new students / parents wouldn’t even know that North Beach existed, and the reception was in a tent, on the beach, in 75 degree weather, with the waves lapping at the shore and the Chicago skyline in the distance. Really well done, and that’s another property to leverage.

I think that unlike a lot of schools, NU was sort of built piecemeal and while the sorority quads and Deering Meadow are nice architectural anchors, there are other areas that just feel poorly zoned, as the plan I linked to indicates. In particular, I dislike how the Allen Center breaks up an area that (IMO) should be dedicated to undergrads, who are the heart of the school.