Why Lincoln Hall Should Be Torn Down
This column was published in the Daily Illini today.
It is a well-known, long-standing, oft-complained of fact that Lincoln Hall is in a state of disrepair. Its status as a historic landmark has not kept its degradation from continuing. Recently, after several lobbying attempts, the General Assembly voted to provide funds to renovate the building. The state has provided a total of $5 million and University President B. Joseph White has announced plans to renovate the building.
But we shouldn’t renovate Lincoln Hall. We should destroy it. And we should do it because it would truly honor Lincoln’s noble legacy.
Were the building demolished, it would of course lose its historic landmark status and there would be an outcry from historic preservationists in the state. In 2005, the building was placed on a list of the ten most endangered historic landmarks in the state by the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, which campaigns for its preservation.
The main priority for the University has been to restore the learning conditions within Lincoln Hall while still retaining everything that makes it a historic landmark. In other words, the cost of the improvement and the quality of the end result both stand as a lower priority than maintaining the building’s history.
But if we set Lincoln Hall’s history aside, what would the University’s options be? The building could be demolished and rebuilt as a state-of-the-art structure, not merely renovated and returned to what it looked like when it was built in 1911. A new building could take into account the changing needs of a modern student body, taking advantage of advances in technology and putting itself on par with the more incredible buildings the University enjoys on the engineering Quad.
Most importantly, the building could be built to take into account the growing energy crisis in this country. A green, energy-efficient structure would better protect the environment and save money in energy costs. An energy efficient Lincoln Hall would celebrate the legacy of our sixteenth president better than the retention of a historic landmark.
According to a University publication on Lincoln Hall’s renovation, the project is estimated to cost a total of $55.8 million. For the astronomical costs that both taxpayers and students must incur, the improvements to the building ought to reflect that cost.
But the cost of demolishing and rebuilding Lincoln Hall would likely come at a much greater value. Because demolition has not been seriously considered, nobody knows how much it would cost, but the recently built Siebel Center on the engineering campus cost roughly $25 million more to construct than it would cost to renovate Lincoln Hall. Also, the Siebel Center is filled with technological wonders used for an engineering education, most of which would be unnecessary for a new Lincoln Hall, and therefore would drive down costs dramatically. And in exchange for whatever the extra costs would be, the University would be able to enjoy a completely new building on the main Quad. The added costs would eventually pay for themselves anyway, thanks to lower energy costs.
Let’s examine Lincoln Hall’s history for a moment. The building was erected in 1911. This was not the site of a Lincoln-Douglas debate. It wasn’t built in the wake of the Civil War. It has historic qualities, to be sure, but none that can’t be retained in a brand new structure. The sandstone murals along the outside of the building, the bust of Lincoln in the entrance; all of that can be incorporated into a new Lincoln Hall.
An Illinois Student Senate resolution written by Jason Webber, the Vice President of External Affairs, will be put to a vote this Wednesday about this very issue. If the student voice grows loud enough, the University might begin to consider demolition a viable option.
The degradation of Lincoln Hall is a disgrace to Lincoln’s name and to this University. But renovation falls short of a solution the University can be proud of. A new building designed for a new generation of students and a new era in American history would be the most fitting tribute of all.
Comment by J Webber VP-External of the Student Body on 3 October 2006 at 5:27 pm:
The actual cost of renovation has been estimated to be $71 million as per the latest info from Facilities and Services.
Comment by Kofi Anonymous on 3 October 2006 at 5:46 pm:
Do you guys ever fact check anything? Building Siebel cost over $80M. You’re not even in the same ballpark with $25M. Dumbass - look things up before you print them as fact.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 3 October 2006 at 5:54 pm:
Kofi,
Oh my anon friend. First, “you guys” didn’t write this article, Brian did. At the top of each post you will see our name in faint gray font.
Second, his quote was “but the recently built Siebel Center on the engineering campus cost roughly $25 million more to construct than it would cost to renovate Lincoln Hall.”
With emphasis on the more, which means over and above Lincoln’s costs, meaning Lincoln would cost ~$65M.
Now who feels like a dumbass? I politely suggest you look things up before you print them as fact.
Comment by Kofi Anonymous on 3 October 2006 at 6:04 pm:
“You guys” was meant to refer to Brian and the Daily Illini in general. Were it not for the wire stories the paper would be a complete waste.
I’ll admit that I missed the word “more”.
But that’s about as far as I’ll go. I stand by the assertion that nearly all of what comes out of Brian and the DI in general is drivel. You really ought to post more often, Billy Joe Mills.
Comment by Brian on 3 October 2006 at 6:49 pm:
Kofi,
Please don’t make us turn on comment moderation so we can weed out comments like this. I welcome any meaningful criticism of me you have to offer, and would wholeheartedly join in your criticism of the Daily Illini, but snide comments like these are pointless and rude and detract from the intelligent discourse this blog tries to promote. If they keep coming, from you or anybody else, Billy and I will start deleting them. Debate tends to be more fruitful when the parties to it do their best to stay respectful. I find it hard to always keep that in mind, and clearly you do too, but please try a little harder to remember that in the future.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 3 October 2006 at 7:29 pm:
I personally welcome comments that are rude and emotionally debilitating. I also oppose censoring anyone, unless the comments genuinely lack any political or artistic merit. If any merit at all can be reasonably drained from a statement, then I favor that speech. In this case, Kofi’s comments, while crass and merely the product of one who enjoys the comforts of anonymity, definitely contained elements of merit.
For the record, I agree that DI columnists need to do more research and cite more data for their articles.
And this gives me another chance to plug a Founders’ Quote:
“[L]et them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”
– Thomas Jefferson (First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1801)
Comment by amanda on 3 October 2006 at 7:50 pm:
“I welcome any meaningful criticism of me you have to offer, and would wholeheartedly join in your criticism of the Daily Illini, but snide comments like these are pointless and rude and detract from the intelligent discourse this blog tries to promote.”
When you said the comment above, Brian, did you consider it meaningful criticism to call Billy a sexist to attract readers?
In the interest of full disclosure, I should also make it clear that you have are a self-admitted sexist, and chose not to add that to the title of your article about Hillary Clinton. I guess a gay man having issues with women isn’t a juicy piece of gossip.
Comment by illinikc33 on 3 October 2006 at 10:16 pm:
It’s a blog, calm down. You’re all overracting. I’d rather get stupid ass comments on my posts than none at all; at least you’re sure someone is paying attention. It gives you the chance to destroy the weak arguments and show intellectual superiority, as Billy did. That’s what we’re all aiming for right? :)
As an aside, my man Kofi had an article in the DI today…booyeah!
Comment by JayBandit on 4 October 2006 at 5:09 am:
Tearing down Lincoln Hall is idiotic. It has some of the most ornate woodwork on campus hidden under layers of peeling paint. If we’d just spent the money and remodel it instead of postponing more and more, it wouldn’t cost so much. It is turning into Boston’s Big Dig.
Part of the reason that Illinois is such a great campus is because it preserves all that history alongside all of the new technology. Perhaps we should spend money on fixing up Altgeld and Lincoln before we build a new basketball stadium that we don’t need.
Keep in mind this is coming from a HUGE Illini basketball fan.
Comment by Kofi Anonymous on 4 October 2006 at 7:15 am:
The real obstacle here is that Lincoln Hall is used as a general education requirement building. Nobody cares about the classes that go on in that building. You’re not going to find a Siebel (or an Intel or a Ernst & Young) who will happily waste a few million bucks to support PoliSci 120 classes. Want to see Lincoln fixed up (or rebuilt)? Turn it into the Abraham Lincoln Center for Business Technology and Engineering Management.
Comment by Brian on 4 October 2006 at 9:16 am:
Kofi,
You’re right to say you’re not going to find a Siebel to spend millions of dollars on a new/renovated Lincoln Hall, but I think that has more to do with the fact that this university would never in a million years change the name of Lincoln Hall to Pierce Hall, no matter how many millions I offered up for it. The building does house more than just general education requirements if, for example, your major is political science (as mine is). The classes I care most, not least, about occur inside Lincoln Hall.
Comment by illinikc33 on 4 October 2006 at 10:17 am:
Brian,
Sorry, but I have to agree with Jason on this one. The reason Lincoln hall is so special and a landmark is because of the great history behind it and found inside of it. If you tear it down to build a new building, what would keep the university from naming it Pierce Hall if you somehow came up with 120 million in funding? A brand new building, unless specifically designed to be a replica, would be nothing at all like the Lincoln Hall we all know. In fact, if they did tear it down I wouldn’t want them to keep the name. It wouldn’t be Lincoln Hall…it would be the building where Lincoln Hall used to be. There would be nothing left of the building besides its memory. The architecture both outside and inside is what makes Lincoln Hall a great building, and destroying that would be a travesty when renovating is an option. Look at the revamped lecture halls at Loomis Labs and you’ll see what I mean.
Comment by Billy Joe Mills on 4 October 2006 at 10:23 am:
I’d simply like to point out the irony that the engineers seem to appreciate Lincoln Hall more than the political scientists who actually use it. Perhaps that is only testament to its poor condition.
My solution to this problem has always been that the University should find the richest alumni who has the last name of “Lincoln” and get him to donate a lot of money, thus maintaining the name of “Lincoln Hall,” while still having the allure to donors of having a building named after you…hahahahhaha.
Comment by JayBandit on 4 October 2006 at 3:03 pm:
If I was Bill Gates rich, I would donate money to have lincoln and altgeld remodeled…then a 3rd building with my name on it, and a bronze statue, and a bunch of fake crap like in the movie “The Royal Tenenbaums”.
“He died valiantly saving his family from a sinking ship”
HAHA
Comment by Kofi Anonymous on 5 October 2006 at 7:35 pm:
I think that has more to do with the fact that this university would never in a million years change the name of Lincoln Hall to Pierce Hall, no matter how many millions I offered up for it.
I’d wager there are companies that would be willing to invest despite the name ‘problem’. Intel’s Lincoln Hall. Lincoln Hall - Edward Jones’s Center for Financial Studies. Come up with countless similar plays. In my original link about Siebel’s cost, you could find the following:
Stata Center: the William H. Gates Building and the Alexander Dreyfoos Building
Major Donors: $25M Ray Stata, $15M Alexander Dreyfoos, $20M William Gates
Bill Gates and Alexnader Dreyfoos gave $20M for second billing. Another example:
Maxwell Dworkin
Major Donors: $15M Bill Gates, $10M Steve Ballmer ($5M of Gates’ donation when to a chair)
They didn’t even get their names on the building. People donate millions every year without demanding the building bear their name alone. The real problem is finding a donor that wants to promote political science. A donor that thinks it will pay dividends for their company, their country, the world economy.
Comment by Anonymous on 11 October 2006 at 1:33 pm:
The solution to our energy problems isn’t to demolish existing building, throw their remains into landfills, and build new ones in their place.
Performing energy audits on old buildings and implementing energy efficiency measures is a more appropriate strategy.
Besides, the Siebel Center would look silly between Gregory Hall and the English Building. But I guess we can raze them too.