Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Enjoy North Kenmore Ave While You Can




Not sure when Kenmore from Rosemont to Sheridan opened back up again but its sure to be temporary. Figured that photos of this soon to be defunct road should be posted for posterity. It is a nice shortcut through the Edgewater neighborhood. A great way to avoid the traffic of Sheridan.

Loyola plans on paying out something over three hundred thousand to the city in order to close Kenmore. Alderman Osterman of the 48th Ward supports the plan. The pedestrian plaza is supposed to cost three million bucks. This last stretch of Kenmore never saw it coming                                                                  

Please continue reading for more pictures AND
(Update 11/14/13 2:40 pm)  words from Bill Savage







Bill Savage said.....

Kenmore will be followed by Winthrop

Nice shots of Kenmore.  People have no idea how much this is going to make everyone’s life miserable: Before, some drivers would come north on Kenmore and be able to access campus with the light.  Once Kenmore closes, the only entrance onto Loyola’s campus will now require a turn off of Sheridan (a right turn if you’re westbound, a left if you’re eastbound) and the road is just two lanes there, with no left turn lane.  Expect savvy commuters to start taking Broadway further south before turning east to the Drive. 

Also, when Osterman handed this over (LU is getting the part of the street that they own both sides of for NOTHING or some small token payment, and is only paying the $300K for the part of the street in front of the only remaining privately owned building, the one at the NW corner of Rosemont and Kenmore) they were quite upfront that they plan to do the same thing on Winthrop, where I think they migh own both sides of the street to Rosemont, and much of either side all the way to Granville.

It’s like they want to recreate Hyde Park’s insular University of Chicago on the north side, with the campus purposefully hard to access. 

They claim, of course, that there will be public access, bike paths, etc.  But they’ve always lied about that in the past.







2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not the first time Loyola closed part of Kenmore. The road that ran through the campus was Kenmore. Loyola was supposed to keep the road available to let trucks that couldn't clear the viaduct on Sheridan a way to keep going North. After they built the Gentile Center the road mysteriously disappeared South of Loyola Avenue.

Philip McGregor Rogers said...

Didnt know that Kenmore used to run north of Sheridan. Thanks for the info anon. That is important to have a path for trucks to go north of Sheridan.