5) ee ; ff E HERE |/ ee Lf 2 NEIGHBORHOO: DS DISSOLVED ~- jy | DUSTRY ON PARADE, ge eee LOOP... | THE TOWN DRE 1930 ses vol 1 no 1 LAWRENCE, KANSAS OCTOBER 19:75 HASKELL LOO ry e At the July 29 meeting of the Lawrence City Comm- miatur e LS Pp E 3 D WA Yet there were a group of individuals who disagreed issionit was decided by a 4-1 vote that the governing gol that the Loop was either valuable or necessary. These eee ei} a body would continue plans for the building of a road- = ja s 5) gel st ple -ll persons decided to go door-to-door in the neighbor - way called the Haskell Loop. \ | e \ i fat u hoods that would be most directly affected by the : Done \ Ve Vase |_| Loop. It is important to note that they did not go 2 or, eaten Hart Lawrence, be- \ ee ‘| RN, URWN to shopping centers blocks away from East Lawrence gins at the corner of 7th and Connecticut and meanders se * i 5 SS St SCH | to get signers. In the survey area polled, 234 citi- south and east until it turns directly east a ie = |X : > \ = st | zens signed their petition stating they opposed the ee ee Delware (eee fey) ean) be ie | Ne Grr ee | "I building of the Haskell Loop (See map). anywhere from 2-4 lanes wide, and is designed to & 6th |} \ “jd Se fe ee Pac Ae at ee : Ne een aa It was hard to figure. The city fathers wanted it. acs Se | 3 ie ft | | po eee | I The planning commission wanted it. The East : : : Sree z Hee + al “= a..8 Lawrence Improvement Association itself had voted ee ase AARP ui ere ye tione Groupe angi 2 | | Teed: j in favor of the Loop. Yet there they were, those | Bone setvigunlea yown. eee | enes Sant ——_’ | 234 signatures--of those living in the area. fea] | NER te ae a 2 in &) E y A —— The mayor, Barkley Clark, has said: ''There are Bigg] 3] 5 “| ee z e! ol Ml 2 Nas And then the hearing happened. The petitions were two primary purposes behind the road: (1) to pro- aes Fl silest dap * ere] me | resented, The city fathers spoke Argument raged vide a thoroughfare which will remove high volume ‘ = | = 83 A wy ee = ao a yeni: poke. traffic from residential streets in East Lawrence be foie Qe fe BOING Gb aa o a soo a. . Bese at ee oe a ae | | | a | | i ee. \\ ~~ ff To understand the shock that was felt by the petition- fo thé ih ant oe aclidias tie ee Cees Ha ae ee Selita Peg ee oem OPS when the comiissan voted Soot ee: 8 A eee ep de iieak you must understand the reputation of the current es es (tay id EAS Hae noted eae be se | 14 commission for being people-oriented. Frequently or as atid: oe the aaa Parke - fore eal | nl Sie 3 _}(_§ in the last few months the present commission had Pe ree ee ee pace e| Vastra bo rar pes ff responded positively to neighborhood opposition on will be an ever-increasing flow of traffic coming ce ;, | Soest we Sd Ul kev i Suddéniv. thig pase wake cmenielns = sad. into town from Kansas City on K-10, and that the t ie { 13m} sr] sl = me tee ee at ah De eee 8 meer oe route that ae cae «| ‘Survey Area | sist ee FORO O SOROS EBOOK HK Kk ee ee ee toy pol J gt Lt fd PUBLIC NOTICE supports the n 0 oop. = e- ef eh eee Eads ft eabEh) .] S| eee ap petition of opposition to the Has- ee arin Clty Bianer nas civeased ihe. |. © eo eee art Cha aoe og historic quality of the idea in his argument for the E a inal itatdeslonated it Loop. At the July 29 meeting he noted that since HEAVY BLACK LINE IS THE LOOP. THINNER Bit Sey Cb enavec COMBUDILY, 1930 all community development plans have included DOTTED LINE SURROUNDS SURVEY AREA. leaders, but, in this case, to refere to-th ed f P in P d y those whose lives will be most profoundly and direct- nces e need for such a road. ly affected by the building of this road. With such substantial endorsement from the most Al Hack, Chamber of Commerce Representative, diverse sources of civic and governmental authority, focused on the necessity of the Loop to the continued is it possible to doubt the value of the Loop to East health and well-being on the downtown business Lawrence? It would not seem so. district. It's a complicated situation and so we're devoting this issue of our paper to it. We're going to isolate parts of it and try to clarify it to you, to ourselves. Please hear us out. "The road will pass right near my front door, leaving my home and fam- ily on the industrial side of the road, with lots of traffic and noise. I'll soon be on fixed income. I won't be able to afford a move." Ramon E. Romero 916 Penn. ‘Why squander good, sound housing when the town is so short of living space? We have a lot of older people here that will never adjust to this road. I won't, because it will be in my back yard!" Hanna Leibengood 946 N.J. "I've lived in East Lawrence for over 50 years, andi know that we need a lot of other things besides a road. The children really need the base- @ball park. We need good houses for our poorer people. "We can also '@-improve our roads we have. We just don't have that much traffic here." A.R. Bailey 1120 Oregon "If this road comes in, I'll have to look over it from my front porch." Mr. Pringle 1005 Penn. Although their homes will be taken by condemnation proceedings (a bud- geted legal expenditure), those in the path of the Loop will be relocated. Those left on either side of the roadway will not be so lucky. The homes below, SW corner of 10th and Delaware, will face the road (foreground). Her House ii; Bisected in Street Dispute In Des Moines, in 1945, Mrs. Clara Cas- fn Lawrence, Kansas, in 1975, a mild ver- przyk, 44, crippled widow, refused offers | sion (they don't saw youin half anymore) of to move her dwelling to make way for a this is in process. 27 houses will be de- street widening project; the village coun- stroyed. Poor people will be relocated to cil ordered the house sawed in two. Mrs. places where property taxes are higher, Casprzyk, shown emerging from what is neighborhood spirit destroyed in an area left, is living in the one room untouched where people value it, value their friends by carpenters’ saws. (AP) and long-term relations. oa —— WHAT YOU CAN DO A. birth, a newspaper will spring forth in suffocating silence. Huddled in a room with one or two others, gluing pages down, challenging the construction of a roadway authorized by every source of power and know-how in town, you know that you are outrageous. You feel the muteness beyond the little imaginary castle of your mind. Into that silence, everything is projected. You hear laughter, scorn, revilment--or respectful acceptance. Success winks at you. Failure stares you down like an ogre from a horror comic. The greatest fear is that no one will care at all. — — a eee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee eee Imagine it like this. You sit on the floor in a big vac- | ant house at night. As you lay out the pages, you are turning on the lights. Some of the fright disappears because you know what the place looks like--but still, you are illuminating only emptiness. And suddenly you can picture mobs pelting the shutters | with foul eggs and soft tomatoes, trampling the lawn, tapping on the windows and thumbing their noses at you--or, ina better moment, applauding very politely. \ \ Come around and see our house. Visit. Write for us. \ Our motto is 'Every reader a writer." Every reader. \ If its not obscene, or pure propaganda, we'll publish it. | We're not asking for letters to the editor. Wewant | essays and writings about local events, whats on your | mind, planning and zoning, the meal you ate at the Red Lion last Wednesday, what your neighborhood group is doing, or not doing, bad movies that hacked you, and so on. The Chamber of Commerce can promote the air- port expansion here--and Joe Blow can offer rebuttal. See it, please, as the re-invention of the small-town newspaper in Lawrence. We know lots of drawbacks to that form--the lists of residents and visitors in and out of town, the corney jokes, the self-congratulating attitudes--we're stepping around these journalistic pits. We also want to avoid, though, the syn- dication bit. This is a community i effort. To hell with the market, Dear Abby and Bill Buckley. If you want to see them, then look to the Journal- World. We don't need them in the Public & Notice. We need you. Come onaround. | It's a big empty house. Wy You Are Most Cordially Invited a a a a a a a cr ey ll _MutuuncaanenceceacesacecncecosnccceccectreceecocacsavennuuensseenngvuecousstgUteesAnseOUUSEOLUEUT UEONUUEEATEOUUCOCAUELOOOU EE LERDOOOSRERED Www THE LAWRENCE PUBLIC NOTICE KK The PUBLIC NOTICE is published on or about the twenty -eighth of each month, in Lawrence, Kansas by the Permanent Press, Box114, Lawrence, Kan- sas 66044. Richard Kershenbaum, Larry Huffman, Jake Flake, Mark Kaplan, Barbara Willits, Ray Dryz; Steve Trone got heartburn. Pt UUUSENEUFANOGEGUEOUOOEATONEGEOEOOUOAOATOEOEEOEOCER Est \ \ \ \ \ People who contributed to this issue: Susie Hanna, \ \ le Se You Can’t Stop Going Forward Zoom thinking. » tion made it official when it decided to spend -50 billion bucks in the 50s to develop a classy system of federal roads. Zoom. And that was good, because it always seemed like 1000 miles across 425 mile long Kansas then. And you wanted to zoom. And you had gas, cheap gas, to zoom you along. You felt like the country was zooming with you, that driving a car was like flexing your muscle. Now we're running out of gas resources. The country wants to zoom anyway, from N.Y. to L.A., from Des Moines to Salt Lake City. From K-10 to downtown. We can't afford to zoom. to build roads, which will encourage zooming, and will take gas wasting machinery to build. Wevall can’t ride bicycles, -Apd we all can zoom, (ys ci Barbera Wie ee elawese \ Why is an old idea good ? “more valid? important ? | So that a Binns might say, in his Loop argument, \ Trafffe jam relief in East Lawrence is one of the - reasons for the building of the Haskell Loop. Some folks don't see the problem. Ray Dryz said, "In reference tothe traffic problems. ..The best alter- native is to do nothing beyond routine maintenance and resurfacing work. None of the streets (with the exception of Connecticut) is heavily traveled. Even Connecticut is used far below its capacity. | live never seen a traffic jam in East Lawrence." _ (There are happy times at New York School this | year. For the first time in several years, we have 3 | one session of separate kindergarden. We are | sharing our teacher, Mrs. Gaffney, with India | School in the morning. Mrs. Gaffney and her stu- dent teacher, Miss Wright, are at New York School afternoons. With an enrollment of 18-20, we are on the way to single classrooms for each grade level. One of our City Commissioners, Marnie rhe Eisennuwer Administra - \ Argersinger has amplified her approval of the Loop | by saying, 'I hope this highway invigorates New | York School growth, '' In my opinion, you don't \ invite the type of growth that helps a school by } encouraging industry and traffic to enter a resi- dential neighborhood. Good housing will be de- | stroyed and isolated by the Loop. Traffic will \ be channeled onto the north and south sides of New | York School by the accesses on 9th and llth Streets. | I think any chance we have for growth at New York | School depends on providing houses for families in | the area at moderate prices. The Loop will elim- inate many such structures, The Loop is ridicu- lous when studied carefully, for it exactly contra- \ dicts the reasons given for constructing it. I keep | hoping that the powers that be will realize that the | Loop does not have to be built just because it has | been planned. I only hope they realize it before \ good houses and our East Lawrence ballpark are \ destroyed. This is written as a private citizen. And we can't afford THE "CITY MANAGER WATSON AND PLANNING DI- RECTOR McCLANATHAN EXPLAINED PLANS FOR ARTERIALS,..WHICH HAVE BEEN PRE- PARED AND RECOMMENDED SINCE 1930." (From the minutes of the July 29th hearing). In 1930 there were certain things about population growth that planners didn't understand. The pro- jected population for Lawrence in 1970 was 20 thousand, What is it that planners in 1930. didn't understand about the tuture? What is it that aay planners don"t understand about the year 2 a One argument for the Loop is that the idea is old. They've been wanting to build the Loop for 30 years. Is there loss of face in not now building it? Will they lose credibility ? when you. try to establish "plans’'--and this makes a lot of planning seem silly when looked at in the fu- ture. Quaint, this "Proposed Civic Center" below You can stuff a book with maps and charts, call it the Comprehensive Plan, and say "there's the future, roughly, how we'd like to see it go."' Of course that can‘t guarantee anything. meee By what magic can an idea take on a life of its own? "It's going to be built, that's all there is to it." It makes a person nervous to think of this and leads him to throw up his arms and say, "Well, what can I do ifI can't plan? You guys are silly," "It should be noted that the Haskell Loop ... has teen in planning for over a decade, "' said Al Hack, Lawrence Chamber of Commerce President, at the July 29 Commissi eetin dL debate. y eee Be sadae We say O.K., plan then, But don't plan tearing down, houses when what is put up at the other end of town isn't so hot-looking. Please listen to what people say when they come to you--and most of all to those © folks whose lives are most immediately affected by the plan. Lots of things were planned in 1930. Not all of them materialized. (See below) The Plan said, "Lawrence is particularly lacking in interesting routes for pleasure driving for prac- tically all the present streets are units ina nore or less monotonous gridiron system, In order to give relief from this condition a bou- levard and parkway treatment, practically cir- cling the city, is proposed. This loop is shown on both the major thoroughfare plan and the park and boulevard plan." And remember that in planning you are trying to satisfy diverse needs and conflicting interests, which may call for constant shifts in position--but how much flex is allowable before a plan stops being a plan? The 1975 Plan calls for the preservation of the bluffs at 6th and Iowa (because of aesthetic qualities). If you drive East on 6th across Iowa and look to your right, you see a large green Gill real estate sign. What ere their plans ? In both 1930 and 1948 plans a 55 acre park, Wood- land Park, was visualized. ..at 12th and Haskell, the site of Ray's Garage,and future city mainten- ance facility location. Allen News Casa De Taco LAWRENCE KANSAS __ this proposed civic center (library on the left, city build GFTY PLANNING COMMISSION on right), part of the 1930 Plan, located at llth and Mass., HARE & HARE CITY PLANNERS KANSAS CITY¢MO has not materialized as envisioned. Who knows? A million variables dance around loose PRULEDEEUE