It was a dark and stormy night.

When Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton chose those words to open his 1830 novel Paul Clifford, little did he realize they would be used in comic strips over 250 years later by the aspiring author (and world famous beagle) Snoopy. Nor would he probably have appreciated his name being used, thanks to that infamous seven-word phrase, for the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the worst opening sentence to an imaginary novel.

To his credit, however, although this sounds a bit strange, it takes a lot of skill and talent to write what is judged to be prize-winning-caliber terrible writing. The following sentence by David McKenzie of Federal Way, Washington is the 2009 grand prize winner of the contest.

Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the “Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.

The runner-up this year was Warren Blair of Ashburn, Virginia who submitted this one:

The wind dry-shaved the cracked earth like a dull razor – the double edge kind from the plastic bag that you shouldn't use more than twice, but you do; but Trevor Earp had to face it as he started the second morning of his hopeless search for Drover, the Irish Wolfhound he had found as a pup near death from a fight with a prairie dog and nursed back to health, stolen by a traveling circus so that the monkey would have something to ride.

I can only dream of being able to write so terribly so well…but dream I does.

Most of the leaves have fallen now and we are starting to have a lot of bare trees around campus. And, as Yogi Berra was once quoted as saying, “It gets late early out there.” With the loss of Daylight Savings Time, it’s now getting dark earlier and earlier which makes the campus a little scarier at night and some nights are both dark and stormy.

How about stringing thousands of those miniature lights in the aforementioned bare trees? It would light up the night and make places like the Quad winter wonderlands, replacing scarier with funner. (Maybe I should enter that contest…uh maybe not – my writing may be bad, but it’s probably not prize-winning-caliber bad.)

Question of the Week: Where should new lighting go?

Until, in honor of Thanksgiving, next Wednesday…

Morgan Fox

I was walking south along Morgan Street outside Daley Library the other day. Morgan is the western edge of part of the East Side of campus – the part that runs between that cul-de-sac / pedestrian thoroughfare outside the Newman Center to the north and Taylor to the south. (Until the mid-1980’s, Morgan was not interrupted by a cul-de-sac, it continued north, running right between BSB and UH, severing the peninsula of the East Side that runs west along Harrison to Racine where BSB and those huge Parking Lots 1A and 1B are situated.)

Where was I? Oh, yeah. I remember.

I was walking down the sidewalk minding my own business when a wild fox (!!) strutted out from between a couple of those townhouses that face Daley Library; crossed over the southbound lane of Morgan, the wide median strip, the northbound lane, and the sidewalk and then, much to the fright and chagrin of a couple of resident squirrels which raced up the nearest tree, sauntered under the chain fence and onto the grass by the Library.

I was not the only one who noticed this gorgeous, reddish brown creature, but, being more Fred Flintstone than George Jetson when it comes to technological gizmos, I was probably the only one not equipped with a cell phone / camera / PDA / whatever with which to snap its picture to capture the moment and instantly transmit to all my BFFs.

The fox was very patient and cooperative, assuming several photogenic poses for those of us lucky enough to be present at that place at that moment in time. There we were, on a large college campus at the edge of the downtown business districts of one of the biggest cities in the country, nay, the world, watching a full-grown wild fox do its thing. That was pretty cool.

Now comes the point (that always has to come in these ramblings of mine) where I have to relate my ramblings to the Campus Master Plan. This is the weekly “And now a word from our sponsor” moment.

Although I hope there is nothing in the implementation of the Master Plan that would prevent future generations of the genus Vulpes from entertaining members of the Class of 2040 and beyond, this is going to be about Morgan Street, its median strip, and its cul-de-sac, not Br’er Fox or any of its offspring.

According to the consultants, the cul-de-sac is not where it should be because it sits between where students and faculty are coming from (the aforementioned BSB and those monster parking lots) and where they want to go (the rest of the East Side) and vice versa. Its current location creates what the consultants like to call a “vehicular pedestrian conflict” – a nice euphemism for the threat of getting run over by a delivery truck.

According to the UIC College of Cycling (it’s really a club of two-wheeled enthusiasts, not a degree-granting campus organization, but don’t tell them I told you), that wide and tall median strip poses a major obstacle for connecting the two sides of campus via a potential Polk Street bicycle route. Coming from the west on Polk, a person on a bike cannot (legally) cross Morgan to get to the Library and beyond. There is no appropriate avenue inviting pedestrians to cross here either.

In the humble opinion of this rapidly aging blogger, the Morgan Street cul-de-sac needs to be pulled south to eliminate the student versus panel van confrontations and create a more appropriate walkway, while maintaining access into and egress out of the Newman Center parking lot. And, there needs to be a break in the median strip to facilitate the flow of bikes and pedestrians moving westward from the East Side of campus and, perhaps when the stars align, from the West Side eastward.

Question of the Week: Have you seen any foxes on campus lately?

Until next Friday…

Immediate Impact

“Deep Impact” was a 1998 sci-fi drama about the impending collision of a speeding comet and the Earth. The movie’s posters pretty much said it all:

Oceans Rise. Cities Fall. Hope Survives. Deep Impact

HEAVEN and EARTH are about to COLLIDE. Deep Impact

“Impact” also has another, less destructive, meaning. The word can connote something that makes a difference, something that influences the status quo, something that visibly shows a change has happened. As opposed to the impact of a comet on the surface of the Earth, which I think would be fairly universally described as a bad thing, the alternate meaning could certainly involve something that would be considered to be a good thing.

Both meanings involve some immediacy – the aforementioned comet, the results of an election, the birth of a child, a game-winning home run, a first kiss, etc. You won’t find the phrase “gradual impact” being used very often.

“Immediate Impact” would, therefore, be somewhat redundant. (BTW: The trope, “The Department of Redundancy Department” was first used on The Firesign Theatre’s 1970 Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers album.)

Redundant as it may be, our consultants have decided to use the term Immediate Impact Projects for “smaller scale, lower capital projects that will begin the transformation of the physical look, feel and functionality of the campus that work within the framework of the complete Master Plan.” (Having to write phrases like that is one of the reasons I’m not a consultant…any more.)

Some of these, uh, Immediate Impact Projects – most of which will take years to complete – are grouped as follows in their soon-to-be-issued, Phase 2 report: Buildings, Open Space, and Sustainability: (wait for it) Buildings & Open Space.

I’m so excited.

BTW: I Think We’re All Bozos on this Bus was The Firesign Theatre’s fourth album, released in 1971.

Question of the Week: There is no question of the week this week.

Until next Friday…

Changing Times

Come gather 'round people wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Bob Dylan

Saturday night is Halloween, the night before All Hallows Day (now usually called All Saints Day). This year, however, the hand-off between the spooks and the saints will take a little longer. There will be an extra hour to go trick-or-treating or for those costume parties to last or, in my case, to sleep.

This is because this year Halloween happens to be the night we change (or we forget to change) our clocks back to Standard Time. We finally get to cash in on that hour we “saved” back in the Spring.

This time change officially happens at 2 AM on Sunday morning here in the United States. For me, it will probably happen some time around 9 PM on Saturday night.

As a new grandfather, I have also been reintroduced to another, more odiferous type of changing things, but I digress…

So this weekend brings Halloween, the onset of November, the return to Standard Time, and, for all intents and purposes, the start of the non-stop Holiday Buying (uh…I mean Shopping) Season. That’s a lot to absorb in less than 24 hours. Is it too much?

How much is too much?

The Master Plan committees and their consultants are trying to get their arms around the same question.

How much change can the campus absorb at one time? How radically or modestly different should the campus of the future be? How many potential buildings should be shown on the conceptual plans before those plans become unrealistic, even 20 – 30 years out? How much additional structured parking, if any, needs to be added before the first surface parking lot is torn up and becomes a new, Frisbee-filled open space?

For the times they are a-changin’.

Question of the week: Which parking lot should be the first one to go away?

Until next Friday…

Turning Over a New Leaf

In June 2008, I became a proud grandfather for the first time. Actually, I became a proud grandfather for the first time twice – I now have twin grandchildren, a boy and a girl. My daughter, the twins’ aunt, decided to give them a sugar maple tree this summer for their first birthday. It’s about 10 – 12 feet tall and pretty skinny with about a two-inch diameter trunk and is now planted in our back yard.

This, then, was the first autumn of this tree’s life that was shared with us and the twins, who are now about 16 months old. The leaves of the tree turned red and twice I collected those that had fallen to the ground and kept them in a bucket for the kids to enjoy on their weekly visit to Grandpa and Grandma’s house. The leaves that are left on their new maple tree are now countable and soon countable on the fingers of a couple of hands. Sooner than I would like, those skinny twig-like branches will be completely bare and will remain so for at least the next five or six months.

Most trees lose their leaves and remain leafless during winters here in Chicago. Only evergreen and other non-deciduous trees bring natural color to the snowscape that we will soon (oh too soon) be surrounded by. Palm trees just don’t have a chance around here.

Of course, students are on campus much more during the annual leaf shortage months than when our 5,000+ trees are in their full glory. Our consultants, even those from California, recognize that a landscape which is only black and white for most of the academic year does not breathe as much life into the campus as one that has at least some splotches of color here and there.

Not all of those color splotches, however, have to come from plantings. Some of it could come from non-concrete benches. Some could come from new banners that get hung. Some could come from colorful murals on the exterior walls of buildings. Some could come from new lighting – maybe spotlights that change colors on that new all-season water feature the consultants keep talking about.

Some color could also come from the coats and hoodies we wear.

More UIC indigo blue and flame red here and there – what a concept!! That’s a new leaf we all could turn over.

Enjoy the leaves while they last. Then it’s our turn to change colors.

Question of the week: What color(s) should those new benches be?

Until next Friday…

The Preferred Option

In another life, yours truly was a professional whitewater raft guide, primarily in California, but also in places like Oregon and New Zealand. One thing I learned in that job was that there are often several different routes to make it safely through a rapid. When approaching a particularly tricky rapid, guides would often pull ashore upstream in order to scout it out from a vantage point where they could get an all-encompassing view of the entire rapid. Only after they had analyzed the conditions which lay ahead would they decide which route would be the preferred option to take on that particular run of the river.

Taking an all-encompassing view of the campus was the job of the various UIC Master Plan committees and their consultant team during Phase I. Looking at the implications of numerous conditions and proposing several options for how the campus could look and feel in the future has taken the majority of time during Phase II. This effort will culminate in a report to be issued early next month which focuses on the preferred option.

As a result of study, committee discussions, and campus and community meetings, the following provisions should be assumed within the preferred option and as we move into Phase III:

1. After their functions have been relocated to other appropriate spaces, alternative uses (including buildings and/or open spaces) can be envisioned for the land that currently lies beneath the following buildings:
   Applied Health Sciences Building
   Disability, Health and Social Policy Building
   Lecture Centers B and E
   Marshfield Avenue Building
2. The Commonwealth Edison Sub-Station site will be cleared and available for other purposes.
3. No further consideration should be given to the demolition of the following buildings:
   Behavioral Sciences Building
   School of Public Health and Psychiatric Institute
   University Hall
4. Surface parking should be phased out, structured parking should be expanded, and, in line with the Campus Climate Action Plan’s goal, a 30% reduction in drive-alone UIC commuting should be incorporated into parking and traffic assumptions and projections.
5. The concept of a modest, partial decking over the Eisenhower to create a landscaped open space and/or “transit-oriented development” (T.O.D.) can be carried forth, but only with the caveat that it would not be built with UIC funds.
6. The medical center and affiliated medical support facilities will eventually create major frontages on both sides of Roosevelt Road.
7. Projects which would require minimal capital, yet have major visual impacts in the short term, should be given significant emphasis in both the Phase II report and beyond.

Okay, now that we’ve got a plan in mind, let’s all forward paddle. STROKE, STROKE...

Question of the week: Fill in the blank: What the campus needs most is ______.

Until next Friday…

Blame it on Rio!

This just in from a faithful blog reader…

The Chicago Marathon is this Sunday with 45,000 runners from all 50 states, 100 countries AND UIC. The race starts in Grant Park at 7:30 AM with a route that will take these amazing athletes right through the UIC campus – south on Halsted, west on Taylor and south on Ashland – between mile markers 16 and 19 of the 26 7/32 mile course. Come out, line the streets and cheer the runners on. At this point in the race, they’ll really need your applause.

Now back to our regularly scheduled broadcast…

*****

Twenty five years ago, the movie Blame it on Rio! opened with the following tagline:

You can blame the night, blame the wine, blame the moon in her eyes, but when all else fails . . . you'd better . . . Blame it on Rio!

The same four words were used as a blaring front page Chicago Sun-Times headline last weekend for a story about Chicago’s loss to Rio de Janeiro for the opportunity to host the 2016 Olympics. Rio had been considered a favorite so that was not a huge surprise. The shocker was that Chicago, also considered a front-runner, was knocked out in the first round of voting.

I was sitting in a meeting in University Hall last Friday morning at about 10:30 when there was a knock on the door. A man stuck his head in and announced the news about the Olympics voting to those gathered there for a regular meeting. The room went silent. Not only had Chicago lost its bid, UIC had lost its opportunity to be the site for the Games’ boxing events as well as other support activities.

The possibility of the Olympics coming to Chicago in general and to UIC in particular had both Campus Master Planning and campus operations implications. Parking, crowd control, coordination of media trucks and personnel from around the world, traffic congestion, and the probable delay of classes for the fall term, etc. were all part of package. On a more positive note, improvements at the Blue Line stations at the edge of campus, street and sidewalk repairs, pedestrian crossing upgrades, etc. would also have given higher priority on the City’s to-do list given the global microscope the Windy City would have been under.

For some here on campus, Rio’s selection was a great thing – they were the ones who felt confident, given our propensity for using major capital project budgets as minimum guidelines, that the resulting cost overruns would ultimately be borne by local taxpayers. They feared Guinness Book record-setting traffic snarls and were planning out-of-town vacations for those two weeks. They worried our Olympic legacy would be a black eye and a mountain of debt.

For others, this was a chance of a lifetime for Chicago to shed its “Second City” inferiority complex and show the world the beautiful city-by-the-lake that we get to enjoy on a daily basis. The city skyline, the lakefront beaches, our campus, etc. would all be on display for the world to see and for us to unabashedly boast about. The image of Al Capone would be buried forever. Maybe the Cubs would even win the World Series that year and, as has so often been predicted if such an unheard of event should actually occur, Hell would indeed freeze over.

Which ever side of the Olympic bid fence you resided, our campus can now proceed with its Master Plan with the knowledge that the UIC Pavilion will be about 5,300 miles as the crow flies from the 2016 Olympics boxing venue.

Now get out and cheer on those marathoners!

Question of the week: Was the loss of the Olympics a good thing or a bad thing for UIC and Chicago?

Until next Friday…