WBEZ | University of Chicago

List: Best items from the University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:08:00 -0500

Those cool kids at University of Chicago take part in an epic scavenger hunt each year, so legendary that Patricia Marx immortalized it in the New Yorker last year. This year's hunt ended Sunday. Here were my favorite items from the full list:

2. Jump the shark. Literally. Points based on length and vivacity of shark. [Up to 40 points]

11. Official swag from Arthur Andersen LLP, Lehman Brothers Inc., or Enron Corporation. [9 points]

14. Reanimate a dead invertebrate using nothing more than edible, common kitchen ingredients. [6 points]

20. Get an animal at the zoo to wave at you. [14 points]

24. Every girl needs a cocktail dress! Yours should hold at least a liter of Mai Tais. Keep it classy, though—we expect neither VPL nor VLP (visible liquid placement). [33.814 points]

27. It’s not about the money; we just find zeroes deeply and inexplicably appealing. Bring us the highest denomination banknote you can find in whatever currency you want. [4 points per zero in excess of three]

29. A team member who was born in a country that no longer exists, with documentation. [10 points]

33. The Library of Congress classification system has been criticized time and time again for not being sufficiently onomatopoeic. Prove the haters wrong: find a book from one of the University of Chicago libraries whose call number, including at least one digit, abstractly reflects its content. [9 points]

100. Accompany a campus tour group! Every time the tour guide talks, play the saddest backing song you
can on a single violin. [7 points]

104. Has this ever happened to you? No. But it could. Create a one-minute montage of ten plausible informercial-calibre disasters. [6 points]

206. During the Hunt, get a member of your team into one of the costumed, on-field competitions held between innings at a professional baseball game. [20 points for minor league. 20 more points for MLB]

243. An official sign that still proclaims Richard Daley Mayor of Chicago. [3 points for M. Daley; 10 points for J. Daley]

246. A bodybag. [25 R.I.Points]

261. Very few people know that May 10th is Bring Your Mariachi Band to Work Day. We have a feeling that this year, a lot of people are going to find out. [10 points]

262. A tiny fiddler crab. Must possess tiny fiddle.[6 points]

267. The TacoCopterTM: The remote-controlled helicopter that can deliver a taco wherever you want it, whenever you want it. Which, incidentally, would be to one of your professors during a class on Friday. [15 points]

297. Any government form inquiring about the facial hair style of the person (male and female) filling it out. [4 points]

298. An edible cookbook. Must contain at least three recipes, each printed on a page that tastes like the recipe’s product. Cookbooks should include mouthwatering illustrations. [24 points]

304. An anti-gravity cat. [2 points]

309. Keep spirits high at Scav Olympics by transforming one of your team members into Cleatus the FOX Sports Robot. Like Cleatus, your Sports Robot should know a variety of football-esque dances, play a mean air guitar, and always follow the First Law of Sports Robotics: A Sports Robot may not bum out a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being not to be pumped. [11 points]

311. Bring to campus: Peter Francis Geraci, Celozzi and Ettleson, Carm Scarpace, or Bob Rohrmann in full regalia. We’d also love to see the spokesmeats for Moo & Oink, or Eagle Man, his wife, or child. [9 points and 11 points respectively]

Follow Claire Zulkey @Zulkey

Report links Chicagoans' distance from trauma centers to higher mortality rates

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:31:00 -0500

Chicago-area gunshot victims who are shot more than five miles from a trauma center have a higher mortality rate, according to a new public health study released on Thursday.

Dr. Marie Crandall, a professor in surgery/trauma care at Northwestern University, analyzed 11,744 gunshot patients from 1999-2009. The data found 4,782 people were shot more than five miles from a trauma center. Those patients were disproportionately black and less likely to be insured.

“We have demonstrated that incident proximity to a trauma center has a positive effect on survival outcomes for gunshot wound victims,” says Crandall’s report, which the American Journal of Public Health published. Trauma centers take care of more severe injuries such as stabbings, car crashes and gunshot wounds (GSW). The Chicago area has seven Level 1 adult trauma centers.

Among the study’s findings: The crude mortality rate for blacks shot within five miles is 6.42 percent; whereas outside of five miles, it is 8.73 percent. This would translate into 6.3 excess deaths per year. Crude mortality is not adjusted for variables such as severity of injury. Crandall said previous research had shown difference in transport times but didn’t really affect survival. This new research drills down to Chicago and focuses solely on gunshot wounds.

“Our study is different. The heterogeneity of trauma patients are such that if you’re not specific about your research question, you might find different results,” Crandall said. “The vast majority of penetrating trauma in the city of Chicago is gunshot wounds and very relevant to our current crises, we decided to limit the data set and analysis to that population.”

According to the study, “We have identified the southeast side of the city as a relative trauma desert in Chicago’s regional trauma system that is associated with increased GSW mortality. We hope that the data presented will inform discussions aimed at optimizing regional trauma care in Chicago and will also aid in planning regional trauma systems in other urban settings.”

In 2011, a WBEZ analysis suggested that when it came to ambulance run times from the scene to trauma centers, there were disparities. Put simply, patients living on the Southeast Side face longer ambulance run times than other residents in the city. Specifically, they have to travel an average of 50 percent longer to get from the scene of an emergency to a trauma center. More than half of the trauma-related ambulance runs that originate in that part of town exceed 20 minutes, which is considered a professional standard within the city. Those neighborhoods include Hyde Park, Woodlawn, Pullman, South Shore and the Southeast Side.

Trauma center access has long been a contentious issue for some activists. And there have been questions about whether an additional trauma center would save lives on the South Side.

In 2010, a stray bullet killed youth activist Damian Turner. He was shot on the South Side, near the University of Chicago hospital. But he was transported approximately eight miles downtown to an adult trauma center at Northwestern University. Ninety minutes later he died.

A group called Fearless Leading by the Youth believes if the university had its own trauma center, Turner would have gotten treatment sooner and lived. For years, members have protested the University of Chicago, which had a trauma center for adults from 1986-1988. It closed after hemorrhaging $2 million a year, though they still serve children. At the time doctors said a majority of patients had no health insurance. Recently the issue flared up again when the University of Chicago opened a new $700 million facility with no additional trauma care.

Victoria Crider, a member of FLY, says the new study will help activists’ cause.

“We plan on using this data to show that this is exactly what it says: a relationship between whether or not you live or die and the time it takes you to get to the nearest trauma center,” Crider said.

The study acknowledges the costliness of trauma centers. Crandall writes that trauma centers could be rebalanced on the basis of volume and proximity as opposed to capacity. In addition, she writes that existing local hospitals could take in trauma patients in a possible Level 2 capacity.

Natalie Moore is WBEZ's South Side Bureau reporter. Follow her @natalieymoore.

After Boston marathon bombing, victims have more options for prosthetic limbs

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 09:39:00 -0500

Monday’s Boston marathon bombing wounded more than 170 people and several have had limbs amputated in emergency surgery; at least four at Massachusetts General Hospital alone. While losing a limb can be a traumatic experience, some Chicago-area doctors say the consequences of amputation have greatly improved in recent decades with advances in prosthetic technology.

“There are so many people that are amputees that live a normal life, and ... you really don’t even know [they’re amputees] unless they tell you,” said David King, a prosthetist at Chicago’s Acme Orthotic and Prosthetic Laboratory. “The technology has come a long way.”

Chicago is home to cutting-edge research on prosthetics that is changing the outlook for some amputees. The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago is involved with the development of mind-controlled limbs, which are already on the market. (The institute’s bionic leg made news last year when a man climbed Chicago’s Willis Tower with one.)

And Sliman Bensmaia, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago and part of a national research project called Revolutionizing Prosthetics, is helping to develop prosthetics that can simulate feeling by transmitting messages back to the brain. That’s called sensory feedback, and upper limb functions are particularly dependent on that feedback.

“Without it everything that we would do would be extremely effortful, clumsy and slow,” said Bensmaia. For example, limbs with sensation would allow amputees to closely control grip; without that control, it can be more practical to use a high-tech hook than a prosthetic hand. But there’s another benefit to the new technology Bensmaia is working on.

“We feel our own limb as part of ourselves,” said Bensmaia. Which is why some have compared the sensation of losing a limb to losing a loved one. By developing sensory limbs patients could feel more connected to the prosthesis itself. The project plans to test-run its sensory prosthetics on real people within a year.

But there’s more to amputation than just getting the right technology on the market. For victims like those injured in the Boston marathon blast, getting used to a prosthesis may require months of physical therapy and emotional adjustment. Then there’s the ;potential cost: top-of-the-line artificial limbs are not included in a lot of insurance plans.

“Private insurance is the best insurance to have,” said King. Veterans get the best technology through VA insurance, but when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid patients, he said, “the government won’t always pay for the good stuff.” He’s had patients pay for upgrades in installments, and he said some volunteer for product testing workshops with manufacturers in exchange for free parts.

Still, even the most basic prosthetics are lighter and easier to use than a few decades ago, and King says his patients are often surprised by the results after a few months of physical therapy and training.

The total number of amputees in the U.S. is estimated at 1.7 million, the majority as a result of diseases like diabetes.

Lewis Wallace is a Pritzker Journalism Fellow at WBEZ. Follow him @lewispants.

Did a WWII nuclear experiment make the U of C radioactive?

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 19:12:00 -0500

In 1942 Enrico Fermi and a team of physicists at the University of Chicago built a nuclear reactor in a squash court under the South Side university’s football field. Their successful experiment was a key step toward the creation of the first atomic bomb and, eventually, nuclear power. Impressive, but numerous accounts say the primitive test reactor was constructed with little shielding to protect the outside world from radiation. The story led Mark Eifert, a Chicago native now living in Germany, to wonder:

The first ever self-sustained nuclear reaction was conducted under the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field. Is that site still radioactive?

Mark suggested we find someone with a Geiger counter to take a measurement, so we took him up on it.

But who has a Geiger counter? Meet James Marsicek, the radiation safety officer at the University of Chicago. And yes, Marsicek explained, every major university has a radiation safety officer, because “in a clinical setting, many faculty use radioactive material for either diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.”

I joined Marsicek in the Administration Building, about a block away from where Stagg Field used to sit, and we took a control reading there. As Marsicek fired up his Geiger counter, he explained that “there’s radiation all around us, naturally occurring.” This “background radiation,” he said, will usually measure anywhere from about .02 to .03 millirems per hour on a Geiger counter, and indeed, when we looked at the Geiger counter’s needle, that’s where it landed.

From the Administration Building we walked about a block north, stopping near a bronze sculpture designed by Henry Moore that commemorates the first self-sustained nuclear reaction. This spot is close to what used to be Stagg Field, so Marsicek took another reading. The needle again registered .02, the equivalent of normal background radiation. We walked about fifty yards away in the direction of a library building and took another measurement. Same thing.

As we left the memorial and the site of the former reactor, we passed a student giving a tour. “Over here was where the first sustained nuclear reaction took place,” he explained. Before long, he added, “Don’t’ worry, it isn’t dangerous.” Apparently, Mark’s question is on others’ minds, too — seven decades after the experiment ran.

With the help of technology we can breathe a sigh of relief; there’s no undue danger in this corner of the campus, at least not from radiation. But, like I said, the nuclear reactor in question was primitive. So ... were the safety precautions from that time primitive, too? And, why would Fermi risk the chance of any nuclear mishap at a Chicago university in the first place?

The inner workings of Chicago Pile 1

For several weeks in the winter of 1942 Fermi’s scientists and laborers toiled in the unheated squash court underneath the University of Chicago’s abandoned football field, building what was named “Chicago Pile 1.” They called it a “pile” because that’s what it was: a pile of uranium pellets and graphite bricks, stacked ever-so-precisely. It was so cold most days that technicians and scientists could see their breath. They tried building fires in trash cans, but the room filled with smoke. The pile, which would eventually grow into a spherical shape, was built in meticulous layers, and the men (and one woman) worked in twelve-hour shifts, day and night. Directing the whole operation – his lab coat black with graphite dust – was a physicist named Enrico Fermi.

Just three years earlier, some of Fermi’s contemporaries, including Albert Einstein, had urged President Franklin Roosevelt to commit the United States to building an atomic bomb before Germany could. Physicists believed that by splitting uranium atoms they could create a chain reaction and release immense amounts of energy, the likes of which had never been seen.

Top-secret research projects were started around the country, including the one at the University of Chicago led by physicist Arthur Compton. Fermi directed the experiment.

When Fermi began his work at the university, physicists had never witnessed a self-sustained chain reaction. They had crunched the numbers, of course, but no successful experiment had proved what the math had only suggested. Fermi, who had escaped from his native Italy with his Jewish wife, was known as a hands-on physicist — just the person for testing this theory in a real-world experiment.

Fermi’s pile was remarkable for its crude simplicity; it had neither mechanical parts nor wires. Instead, the pile consisted of alternating layers of uranium and graphite. Basically, it was just a stage to let the uranium do its thing: emit neutrons that would occasionally strike the nuclei of other uranium atoms, thus splitting off even more neutrons. The graphite served as a moderator, which would slow down the neutrons and make them more likely to strike additional uranium nuclei.

The pile was to become a giant beehive of neutrons buzzing with atomic life, but scientists could quash this activity by manipulating the pile’s only moving parts: cadmium rods. The element cadmium naturally absorbs neutrons, so when the rods were in place, the nuclear reaction would almost stop. To get the reaction going, scientists could pull the rods out of the pile and let stray neutrons buzz freely, striking more and more uranium nuclei. The team was aiming for criticality, the point at which, if you removed the cadmium rods and let the pile go, the chain reaction would continue exponentially on its own.

The team built the pile slowly; with each new layer Fermi would withdraw the cadmium rods and take a count of neutrons before placing the control rods back in the pile. As the workers and scientists milled more and more graphite, their faces grew black as coal miners’. Neighbors complained about the noise, not just from tools, but from the men singing to distract themselves from the monotonous work. The pile grew into a black igloo, 25 feet across at its equator and 20 feet tall from pole to pole. After 17 days of adding layers, Fermi knew the pile was big enough to reach criticality.

Couldn’t they do this in the woods?

Chicago Pile 1 was never meant to be under the University of Chicago’s former football field. Project managers originally wanted the full experiment to run in the Red Gate Woods, southwest of the city. But builders at Red Gate went on strike, so Compton and Fermi faced a decision: abandon the experiment, or move it. Fermi told Compton he felt confident that the pile could be built safely and effectively in the squash court under Stagg field.

“We did not see how a true nuclear explosion, such as that of an atomic bomb, could possibly occur,” Compton writes in his memoir. “But the amount of potentially radioactive material present in the pile would be enormous.”

The physicists I consulted about the 1942 experiment assured me that this was, in fact, a very low-risk experiment and that university physicists today routinely work with higher levels of radiation. This crude reactor could never have exploded like a bomb, which would require highly-enriched uranium. The worst-case scenario for the Chicago experiment? A primitive meltdown, with the pile catching fire and the uranium spewing more radiation.

Compton trusted Fermi, enough so that he chose to move forward with the experiment at Stagg Field without telling the University’s president. “The only answer he could have given would have been no, and this answer would have been wrong, so I assumed the responsibility myself,” said Compton in his memoirs.

On Dec. 2, 1942, Fermi ordered the last cadmium control rod removed from the pile, took a measurement, and declared the pile to be self-sustaining. And then, for a nerve-wracking 15 minutes, he let the reaction run its course while the neutron counters beeped out of control.

There are several accounts of this, one of the best being in Richard Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which includes this eyewitness account from Herbert Anderson: “First you could hear the sound of the neutron counter, the clickety clack, clickety clack. Then the clicks came more and more rapidly and after a while they began to merge into a roar.”

Fermi and his team celebrated the achievement with muted enthusiasm. One of the scientists had brought a bottle of Chianti and they passed it around, drinking out of paper cups. According to Rhodes’ account, no one made a toast. No one said much of anything at all.

Eugene Wigner, another physicist on the project, recalls his realization of the far-reaching consequences of the event.

“Even though we had anticipated the success of the experiment, its accomplishment had a deep impact on us,” he wrote in an account detailed by Rhodes. “For some time we had known that we were about to unlock a giant; still, we could not escape an eerie feeling when we knew we had actually done it.”

The giant is buried

The following year Chicago Pile 1 was moved out to Red Gate woods, where it was intended to be in the first place. There, scientists reshaped it as a cube and renamed it Chicago Pile 2. When its physicist guardians felt they had learned all they could from the pile, they buried it in the woods. This burial site is on public land and even has a gravestone to befuddle unsuspecting hikers and other passersby. It reads:

The world's first nuclear reactor was rebuilt at this site in 1943 after initial operation at the University of Chicago. This reactor (CP-2) and the first heavy-water moderated reactor (CP-3) were major facilities around which developed the Argonne national laboratory. This site was released by the laboratory in 1956 and the US atomic energy commission then buried the reactors here.

The grave isn’t easy to find – Google Maps will lead you only to an unmarked trail-head and, after you arrive, you’ll find no sign saying “Nuclear reactor this way.” (This map below will help you on your adventure.) But if you're a little weak-kneed about visiting or you feel uncomfortable hitting up the stray jogger or hiker about the pile’s ultimate demise, you can find details and a museum-like tour at the nearby Argonne National Laboratory.

The burial site for Chicago Pile 1

MPC Roundtable - Two Anchor Institutions, One Story of Revitalization through Housing Investment

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:13:00 -0600

One is an academic institution in the heart of the city of Chicago; the other is a manufacturing company located 40 miles northwest in suburban Carpentersville, Ill., population 38,062. Though it may seem unlikely, University of Chicago and OTTO Engineering have some things in common: Both of these large employers are anchoring community redevelopment by investing in their local housing markets.

At this MPC Roundtable, University of Chicago's Derek Douglas, Vice President for Civic Engagement; and OTTO Engineering President Tom Roeser will compare and contrast how their unique housing reinvestment strategies support the local economy. UofC has offered an employer-assisted housing program for nearly 10 years, providing housing counseling and downpayment assistance to employees who chose to move near campus. Through OTTO Homes, OTTO Engineering buys, rehabs and sells homes in Carpentersville, giving preference and incentives to local employees who want to become homeowners.

Recorded live Wednesday, February 27, 2013 at the MPC Conference Center.

Chicago students push for divestment from fossil fuels

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 05:00:00 -0600

Local students concerned about climate change are taking a cue from social action campaigns against South African Apartheid, urging Chicago universities to swap their investments in fossil fuel companies for stock in clean energy.

They are pushing for divestment, a movement active on 256 campuses to date and backed by national environmental organizations like Bill McKibben’s 350.org.

While common initiatives like energy efficiency challenges and green business competitions promote sustainability on campus, divestment has a broader scope.

“An issue like our endowment affects every single Northwestern stakeholder. That includes our alumni, people living on and off campus, all of our administration,” said Mark Silberg, vice president for sustainability in Northwestern University's student government, which recently passed a resolution supporting divestment. “This is a way for Northwestern to take the first step towards what we envision the future to be.”

Silberg heads the Northwestern University Responsible Endowment Coalition, which has gathered 1,300 signatures so far in support of divestment. Faculty response has been encouraging, he said, and there is precedent.

In 2005 Northwestern sold its holdings in four international oil companies active in the Darfur region of Sudan, becoming the third university in the nation to do so.

The students have tailored their message, focusing first on one particularly dirty resource: coal. In addition to coal’s well-known environmental hazards, its economic performance is flagging and likely to decline further as pressure mounts from environmental regulations and cheap natural gas. If Northwestern agrees to divest from coal, Silberg hopes, that opens the door to reinvesting in renewable energy and eventually pulling out from all fossil fuel companies.

Still, tinkering with Northwestern's $7.4 billion endowment is no small task. And at the University of Chicago, it’s an even taller order. The University never divested from businesses connected to Sudan throughout its human rights violations, or from South Africa during Apartheid.

In December Paul Kim was among 30 University of Chicago students who delivered a petition to the administration calling for divestment. The administration has not responded.

“We will have to deal with the irrevocable consequences of these decisions,” said Kim, a third-year math major. “And right now we have no input.”

Divestment campaigns are also active at Loyola University, Roosevelt University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Illinois at Chicago. This weekend students from dozens of colleges across the country will converge on Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania to discuss the future of the movement.

The idea isn't limited to college campuses. The mayor of Seattle, Mike McGinn, recently called on his city's pension system governing board to divest from ExxonMobil and Chevron. Although Mayor Rahm Emanuel encouraged mayors nationwide to follow Chicago's lead in pulling from the city’s portfolio investments in gun manufacturers, he has not endorsed the tactic for action on climate change.

The Washington Post’s George Will called such campaigns "moral grandstanding," noting that even a wildly successful divestment campaign would not have a major impact on those companies’ bottom line since other investors will buy up the dumped stock. But Bill McKibben argues it would cut their “social license” to profit from pollution.

For Silberg and Kim, the economic argument is inseparable from the moral issues that give the campaign its urgency.

“Climate change action is an enormous challenge, but it's also an opportunity," Silberg said. "We have a choice as to where we allocate our money, and we make those decisions not just on short-term financial self-interest."

Follow Chris Bentley on Twitter at @Cementley.

CP-1: The Past, Present, & Future of Nuclear Energy and the 70th Anniversary of the First Nuclear Chain Reaction

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 11:35:00 -0600

On December 2, 1942, 49 scientists, led by Enrico Fermi, made history when Chicago Pile 1 (CP-1), under the west stands of the original Alonzo Stagg Field stadium at the University of Chicago, went critical and produced the world’s first self-sustaining, controlled nuclear chain reaction.

This talk commemorates the 70th anniversary of the world’s first self-sustaining, controlled nuclear chain reaction with Dr. Mark Peters, Deputy Laboratory Director for Programs Argonne National Laboratory, and Dr. Robert Rosner, Director, Energy Policy Institute Chicago at the University of Chicago. The two speakers will discuss nuclear energy from the history of CP-1 to what the future holds.

Recorded Friday, January 25 at Hughes Auditorium, Northwestern University Chicago Campus.

Local economists: Debt ceiling itself is bad idea

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 16:32:00 -0600

Washington is yet again fighting over the debt ceiling, trying to pay the bills they’ve racked up through deficit spending. Meanwhile some local economists say the debt ceiling itself is a bad idea.

The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business has a panel of economists they poll about big policy issues. This time around, they posed this statement to some 40 academics about the debt ceiling: "Because all federal spending and taxes must be approved by both houses of Congress and the executive branch, a separate debt ceiling that has to be increased periodically creates uneeded uncertainty and can potentially lead to worse fiscal outcomes."

Eighty four percent of the group said they "agreed" or "strongly agreed".

"It’s crazy to raise doubts about whether or not we’re gonna honor promises that we’ve already made," said Anil Kashyap, an Economics and Finance professor from the University of Chicago.

Kashyap says congressmen on both sides of the aisle need to focus more on finding actual solutions.

"Have an honest debate about the inconsistency between the level of taxation and the level of spending promises," he said.

The Treasury department says it will run out of borrowing power sometime between mid-February and early March.

List: Most salient information acquired during my first day at my new job

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 07:41:00 -0600

Hyde Park is far away.

A lot of people throughout the history of time have attended the University of Chicago.

Many of those people are impressively and intimidatingly smart.

I can go several hours without checking Facebook.

No matter where you work, somebody will be microwaving popcorn.

A cubicle near a window might be better than a windowless office.

My building’s cafeteria has a bar in it.

Tear down that wall? Not so fast: Permit to raze Reagan's Hyde Park boyhood home under review

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 05:00:00 -0600

A permit to demolish a boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan has been placed on hold as city officials decide whether the vacant Hyde Park six-flat is worthy of preservation, WBEZ has learned.

Heneghan Wrecking and Excavating Co., on behalf the University of Chicago, last Thursday applied for a permit to raze the three-story brick building, 832-834 E. 57th St. The move triggered an automatic maxium 90-day review by landmark officials because the structure is among a class of buildings with "potentially significant architectural or historical features," as listed in the city's Historic Resources Survey.

(The above news story from Voice of America last month shows the building's exterior and efforts to preserve the structure.)

The demolition permit is one of three currently under such review by the city. The list, which includes St. Boniface Church, 1352 W. Chestnut — the subject of a preservation battle for more than a decade — can be viewed here.

Reagan, a former California governor who served in the White House from 1981 to 1989, lived in the Hyde Park building with his family for about 10 months when he was four years old. It is one of several Illinois places Reagan lived as a youth. The best-known is the Dixon, IL home where Reagan moved when he was nine years old that has been restored and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Located on the northeastern edge of the expanding University of Chicago Medical Center, the building has been eyed for demolition since the university purchased it in 2004, angering some preservationists and Reaganphiles.

"[W]hile the university is more-or-less ignoring the Reagan home preservation effort, it is actively lobbying for an Obama Presidential Library," Former Reagan aide Peter Hannaford wrote in American Spectator last month: "Chicago politics being what they are, the betting is on that project and not saving the cold-water flat apartment building in which the only U.S. president born and bred in Illinois lived during his boyhood."

According to ordinance, the city's Department of Housing and Economic Development can look at a range of preservation options — or none at all — during the review period, including a landmark designation.