25 years in C-U
Twenty five years ago today, August 19, 1979, I arrived in Champaign-Urbana. I was a scared, shy, sheltered and skinny 18-year-old who was about to enter the University of Illinois. My parents helped me move my belongings in to the dorm, helped me get them organized a bit, and then we bid a tearful farewell.
I had no inkling on that hot sunny August Sunday that I would make Champaigh-Urbana my home; at the time, I figured on four years of school and then assumed that, like almost every Chicago-area kid that lands at the U of I, I'd wind up going back after four years here to enter the working world in suburbia. I never imagined being here in 10 years, much less 25.
I didn't plan this but, over time, the community began to grow on me. I think the appeal of Chambana started to come to me as I first started to expand beyond the UIUC student's traditional campustown bounds; the more I saw of the community, the more I liked. While the UI campus is but a small part of C-U, the presence of the University has a significant influence on the community, aside from providing me with a generally-enjoyable place to work.
I remember the transition taking place several years after my arrival. On trips to visit family in Chicagoland, I begin to observe that, on some counts, the Chicago area compared poorly to C-U. The particular thing I noticed was that as I reached I-80 on the northbound journey, the area began to take on a discernable smell of internal combustion exhaust fumes. Other unfavorable observations about my former home came to mind - Chicago's numbing traffic, the high cost of taxes and housing and - for those spawned in suburbia - the lack of much to do. I noticed one day that I'd started to refer to my return trip to Champaign as "going home", rather than the other way around.
While I do love Chicago (the sights, the food, the diverse activities, the feeling of being a vibrant city), I think I am most happy right where I am. I've often commented that Champaign-Urbana is in many ways the best of both worlds - we're a "bite-sized" city of 100,000+, yet "getting away from it all" was a matter of a ten-minute drive out of town into the open country. Due to population growth and C-U's expansiion, the drive's a bit more than ten minutes today, but the general principle still holds.
While I occasionally think of living elsewhere, I don't yearn to be elsewhere - other than as a visitor. I know that if I were to have to uproot from my home of the latest quarter century, I'd have to find another community much like Champaign-Urbana. Living in a university community is an imperative; living in a community absent the youth, and intelligence, and love of the arts and technology associated with an esteemed university would simply be too alien to me.
Champaign-Urbana has changed a great deal since I arrived on this date twenty five years ago. In 1979, I-74, Mattis Ave., and St. Mary's Road were the outer limits of civilization. Savoy, now home to a super Wal*Mart and numerous new developments, was in 1979 a sleepy little town. The centerpiece of "downtown" Savoy was an old World War II-era frame railroad depot (since relocated elsewhere) and the grain elevator (still standing, but who knows for how long). Prospect Avenue turned into a two-lane country road beyond the I-74 interchange; today, the cornfields have given way to every sort of consumer emporium imaginable. The University's own footprint has expanded considerably beyond its 1979 boundaries; countless empty lots, bean fields and residential areas have given way to large research and classroom facilities. Campustown was once the center of students' universe - in the days before nearly every undergrad had an auto, and before behemoth stores like Meijer were built, students did their eating, grocery shopping, banking, movie-going, and drinking in the vicinity of Green Street, between the railroad tracks and the Quad. We made occasional trips to the only two shopping areas in town - Market Place and Lincoln Square, but for the most part never went west of First or north of Springfield.
In 1979, downtown Champaign was moribund; the downtown area's businesses weren't attractions to U of I students; they were the sort that closed down at the end of the business day: banks, insurance companies, real estate firms, and the occasional drug store. After dark, the ill-conceived Neil Street pedestrian mall was a hangout for winos. Who would have ever imagined that in 2004, downtown Champaign would be so alive and that there'd be numerous bars, coffee shops, clubs, and restaurants to attract customers from campus as well as those of us who, over time, have become "townies"? Who in 1979 would have imagined that on a weeknight in August, it would be darn near impossible to find parking in downtown Champaign because of the crowds?
To mark this occasion, I've listed a few noteworthy things about Champaign-Urbana, past and present.
Some C-U fixtures enjoyed over the years (still present)
The Esquire (best bar food in town)
Farm & Fleet (good low-cost jeans, sheep dip, pig launcher,horse syringes, power tools, whips, and chains)
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
the big old mansions on Church St. west of downtown
Busey Bank (friendlier and easier to deal with than any of the heartless megaliths)
Po' Boy's (great BBQ hangout only open Friday and Saturday nights north of downtown Champaign) The UIUC Library (the stacks) - more books than imaginable
the helpful, friendly, competent clerks at the Station A post office
Dom's Patio Villa (good, friendly Italian food)
Foellinger Auditorium
The Morrow Plots
The Illini Inn (friendly albeit smoky campus "neighborhood bar")
Film Processing Ltd. (best custom photoprocessing in the area)
Old Main Books (used books and maps)
Jarling's Custard Cup
Some worthy additions to C-U since I arrived
World Harvest
Jupiter's Pizza
Radio Maria
Rubens Chocolatier
Some C-U fixtures that have passed into history
Coslows (a good bar and grill where Panera is on John Street west of Sixth)
The Co-Ed Theater
The T-Bird (a sticky-floor undergraduate bar back when Urbana had a home rule ordinance drinking age lower than Champaign)
Mister Roberts (Channel 3's elderly but lovable weatherman)
Nature's Table (a good venue for blues and jazz where the Chemical Sciences Building now stands)
Trito's (good grinders and pizza)
Elite Diner (good breakfast or late-night snack)
Blind Pig (venue for some of the best live music ever)
Mabel's (once virtually the only C-U live music spot, before downtown's resurgence)
F. K. Robeson (department store in downtown Champaign)
Campus 5 and 10 Store (on south side of Green just east of Sixth)
Schrumpf's Groceries (only grocery store on campus - where That's Rentertainment is today)
Garcia's Pizza on Wright St.
Champaign Tower (controlled the railroad crossings north of downtown Champaign with Twenties hardware; was one of my regular Sunday hangouts)
Vriner's (soda fountain in downtown Champaign)
The old Murphy's Pub
registration at the Armory (crowded and hectic, but more sociable than online registration)
The City of New Orleans (restaurant/beer garden that overlooked the railroad tracks from the old IC passenger station)
Record Service
Cochrane's (campus bar that nowadays goes through the theme du jour; it was once a nice undergraduate drinking spot)
The Deluxe (pool dive on Green Street with the most awesome fried cod sandwiches on Fridays - but woe to he who asked for tartar sauce)
Burnham Hospital
old mainframe computers at the Digital Computer Lab
"The Busey Bitch" (the old time and temperature number sponsored by Busey Bank and given this monicker by locals)
Steak & Shake on Green (where the Station A post office is today)
Some fixtures of C-U in 1979 that I'm glad are gone today
the downtown Champaign pedestrian mall (i.e., before the Blind Pig's arrival signalled the beginning of downtown's turnaround)
Some present-day fixtures of C-U that I could live without
the North Prospect Ave. shopping mall hell