At issue in the most recent letter from J-Spice to the Herald (September 7, 2007) is the burning question of how to respond to the University's plan to demolish the Doctor's Hospital and replace it with a high-rise Marriott hotel.
In the great tradition of Hyde Park activism -- or, considering the disintegrating revetments at the Point, perhaps the not-so-great tradition -- alternative plans for the Hospital site have been drawn up that purport both to accommodate the University's plans, and to re-use up to 80% of the original structure. This new-found spirit of compromise is certainly better than the pure obstructionism that has left the Point slowly washing into Lake Michigan, and so we say let's have a look.
We hope that the alternative plan, in addition to preserving the facade and layout, preserves the spirit of the place as well. Its unique ambiance should be adapted to the building's new functions as a hotel, perhaps anchored by an Amputation Lounge for the white tablecloth crowd; a Pathology Bistro for more of a quick fix; and, for Starwood Preferred guests, room selection from among the Polio, Smallpox, or Consumption Suites, with possible upgrades to penthouse lake views from the Blunt Head Trauma Deck.
Turning now to our leading theme, the classic Hyde Park phobia to which J-Spice gives such eloquent expression in this week's letter: "urban claustrophobia."
Establishment Individual ExperiencesUrban Claustrophobia
What is urban claustrophobia? That penned-in feeling people get when they try to pretend that they are living in a bucolic, suburban parkland, when actually living near the heart of a metropolis of 8 million people. It's something the Marriott would cause, but the Doctor's Hospital doesn't.
In simple terms, it is a distaste for too many buildings, too many people, and too much congestion. Indeed, too much of anything. This urbano-phobic condition should not be surprising in a letter contributed on behalf of the Hyde Park Antiquarian Society which, being antiquarian, necessarily celebrates the semi-suburban heritage of Hyde Park.
The problem that can arise, however, is that celebrating the semi-suburban heritage of Hyde Park can lead one to try to preserve Hyde Park as a real suburb. As we have pointed out before, Hyde Park is not, and has not been a suburb for over a century. Preserving intrinsically suburban aspects of our neighborhood may actually do a disservice to the community, leading to pernicious effects when pursued in an area that has become fully integrated into a vast metropolitan region.
For J-Spice, the advantage of the existing Hospital building over its proposed replacement derives from the fact that its "set-back softens its impact on the street and ensures that any new, larger building added to the site would be even further west and away from the street, causing less urban claustrophobia and blocking fewer views."
*(The views in question are presumably those from the Vista Homes. We would prefer it if there was something blocking views of Vista Homes.)
The first question we would put to anyone suffering from "urban claustrophobia" is, quite simply, Why do you live in a city?
But more fundamentally, the preservationist drive in this case is tied to anachronistic design principles. Is there a need to "soften [the Marriott's] impact on the street"? Why? What does this mean concretely? How is this "impact" a problem, and according to whom? If a building built to the sidewalk generates claustrophobia in J-Spice or anyone else, that's rather unfortunate. But this particular hang-up requires therapy, or perhaps a stint in some sprawling suburb. It shouldn't determine how we site city buildings.
On the contrary, a building that comes directly to the public space of the sidewalk, and thereby encourages pedestrians to inhabit the space rather than merely travel through it or use it as a buffer, has multiple benefits to the sidewalk culture that is the most basic strand in the social fabric of cities. The most popular neighborhoods in Chicago have this quality, and newer projects are reverting to it. For Jane Jacobs, the sidewalk was the atomic unit of urban planning.
The stretch of Stony Island in question is barren and uninviting. There is very little pedestrian traffic. You want to get in a car and leave. The call for major buildings to be kept off or pushed away from the street is classic Urban Renewal, and like it demonstrates how this preservation effort is driven by fundamentally anti-urban sensibilities. It seeks to insulate, push back, cut off, turn in. Ultimately, this attitude represents a profound distrust of one's neighbors.
It may be possible to preserve and adapt an old building that only antiquarians could love. But let's not import bad suburban ideas into the city at the same time.
