Former "Heaven,"Present "Slum,"to Fall Soon
By Clayton Keller
Sunnyside—called "just this side of heaven" in 1946 and "slum housing" 12 years later-will soon be only a memory.
The last nine buildings are now being razed. J. J. Wilson, dormitory director, said the work will be completed by December—15 years to the month since the first residents moved in.
SUNNYSIDE WAS CONSTRUCTED WHEN World War II veterans flooded the campus between 1945 and 1947, raising the enrollment from 3,800 to 8,800. A severe housing shortage forced many married students and faculty members to live in attic apartments, unheated converted garages, and just about anything else with four walls and a roof.
Housing was needed quickly. The federal government provided it in the form of 31 converted barracks from Camp Barkley, Tex.
Early residents considered themselves lucky. One faculty member's wife told the Kansan:
"AFTER THE PLACE WHERE we've been living, it's only a little this side of heaven."
Originally, Sunnyside was to be used for only five years. However, in 1950 the Kansan reported:
"Sunnyside—home sweet home to many married faculty members—will be maintained by the University as long as needed or until the walls come tumbling down from old age."
As the first 120 Stouffer Place apartments neared completion in 1956, eight Sunnyside buildings were razed to make room for Summerfield Hall.
SUNNYSIDE TUMBLES—John Higgins, Lawrence workman, old harracks.
Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy defended the use of Sunnyside rentals to help pay for Stouffer Place, and said:
versy in 1958, when residents complained they were paying excessive rents for substandard housing. Similar housing at other state colleges rented for much less, they claimed.
A YEAR LATER, SUNNYSIDE RESIDENTS were up in arms again—this time because of an invasion by rats. Thirteen more buildings were being razed, and the rats were driven by the cold weather to the remaining buildings on Sunnyside. Angry residents told the Kansan:
"... They've been crawling all over the place for a week. I've heard them scratching in the bathroom ceiling.
"... One night I could hear them rattling pots and pans in my kitchen. I could hear them thumping their tails in the walls and clicking their nails on the linoleum."
"The University will continue in its efforts to replace the slum housing of Sunnyside with modern, modest, and fireproof housing."
Warmer weather, rat traps, and poison helped end the invasion.
SUNNYSIDE EXPLODED -INTO CONTRO- tears down old barracks.
A FEW LINES FROM A POEM printed in a 1947 Kansan probably sums up the sentiments of most Sunnyside residents:
"... We love thy floors' unvarnished light, we love thy doors that fit so tight, we love our neighbors' daily fight. . . We may scoff, complaints are free, without thy roofs where would we be? Eudora, Baldwin, or K.C."
Daily hansan
59th Year, No. 6
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
Nikita Warns Of Atomic War
BERLIN—(UPI)—Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev warned the West today any war over Berlin "would mean an atomic world catastrophe."
Friday, Sept. 22, 1961
He expressed determination to sign a German peace treaty.
He said in a message to a left wing labor conference meeting in East Berlin that a German peace treaty "is as necessary as it is unpostponable."
Khrushchev repeatedly stressed the threat of war in his message.
Russia Ready to Negotiate, K. Says
MOSCOW — (UPI) — Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev said today that Russia is ready to negotiate with the United States "at any time, at any place and at any level."
"The Soviet Government is ready to participate in talks which are really directed toward the speediest solution of urgent international questions," Khrushchev said, "particularly a peace conference on concluding a German peace treaty and the normalization of the situation in West Berlin.
THE THREAT of war has perhaps never been as great in the postwar period as it is now, Khrushchev said. Governments of Western powers are intensifying military preparations in every way, he said.
"We consider that negotiations between states, and particularly between the U.S.S.R. and the United States, as the most powerful and influential states, can and should play an important role in improving the international situation.
KHRUSHCHEV MADE the statement in a letter to Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. It was the Soviet Premier's answer to a message sent him by the non-aligned nations after the recent Belgrade conference.
"THE SOONER such serious talks, the better.
"We are ready in the name of securing peace to negotiate at any time, at any place and at any level."
THE SOLDIERS, IDENTIFIED as Pfc. Lawrence D. Edgar of San Bruno, Calif., and Pfc. Rocco F. Tomiano of Danbury, Conn., were released six hours later when a Soviet officer appeared, the spokesman said. They completed their journey.
Khrushchev's message to the left wing labor meeting was distributed by the East German ADN Agency. A United States spokesman in West Berlin said the East German Communists detained two American soldiers for six hours yesterday on the autobahn to Helmstedt.
The spokesman said the soldiers, wearing civilian clothes, were stopped near Potsdam, 25 miles from here, "forced out of their privately-owned vehicle bearing U.S. forces license plates" and taken to a people's police station.
Major Gen. Albert Watson II, U.S.
Commandant in Berlin, has protested
the incident to Col. Andrei I
Soloveyev, the Soviet Commandant
THE EAST GERMAN FOREIGN Ministry, in an article in the magazine Foreign Police Correspondence which it issues, reiterated assurances that until a new agreement is reached, the three Western airlines can continue operating under present conditions along the air corridors to West Berlin.
NORTHEASTERN — Partly cloudy and warm today with highs near 85. Considerable cloudiness and cooler tonight and Saturday. Scattered thunderstorms tonight and early Saturday. Lows tonight 55 to 60. Highs Saturday 65 to 70.
Weather
Ticket Mystery Cleared Up
Students may begin to pick up season football tickets Thursday following fee payment.
Students who have bought season tickets must bring their permanent identification card to the main (East) lobby of Allen Field House. The student does not need the IBM card issued him last spring but its presentation will speed processing his ticket.
Each student must pick up his own ticket regardless of whether he ordered tickets in a group last spring. He will be issued a five-ticket book and have his identification card validated.
New students and former students who have not applied for season tickets can obtain them at this time.
Permanent identification cards must be presented at the table in the main lobby of the field house to receive an IBM card. He must then take the IBM card and his identification card to the new student ticket window. A season ticket will be issued on payment of $1.50. This payment is used to administer the ticket service.
No single game tickets can be sold or applied for Sept. 26 through 30 other than for the Wyoming game.
ASC Not Overdrawn
The All Student Council has not overdrawn on its funds, despite worries a few days ago that it might have done so.
The University of Kansas Business Office statement mailed to the ASC yesterday showed a balance of $438.67 in the ASC treasury.
Michael Thomas, Kansas City,
Mo., senior, and treasurer of the
ASC said there were still about
$200 in outstanding bills to be levied
against the $438.67 balance.
The ASC also received its new allocation from the State Activity Fund in the statement. The ASC was granted $7,155.19 for this year.
Exchange Program Termed Successful
By Dennis Farney
The two-year-old KU-Costa Rican exchange program has been a highly successful experiment in international relations, said Francis Heller, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, yesterday.
"If we can take the word of other people who have looked at it," he said, "this program is the most successful of its kind. It has attracted a great amount of attention among people interested in international education.
"THE KEY FEATURE IN ANY PROGRAM of this kind is what we ourselves can learn — a clear understanding that we have no monopoly of points of view or insights."
The program, established with the University of Costa Rica in 1959, has two main points:
- The Junior Year Program, in which selected KU students study for a school year at the University of Costa Rica.
TWO GROUPS OF ELEVEN STUDENTS, selected on the basis of overall scholarship and competence in Spanish, have already attended the Costa Rican university. While there, they enrolled in a variety of courses ranging from Spanish American Literature to geology, algebra and zoology.
- A faculty exchange program between the two schools.
One student, Ruth Rogers, Kansas City senior, found the relaxing Latin American atmosphere a refreshing change from the pressures of KU life.
"The studying there was much easier than here," she said. "There just isn't the pressure we have here. The people have a refreshing 'let it go until tomorrow' attitude."
"I had no idea that Latin American people could be so friendly," she said. "San Jose (where the university is located) is really a small town and our group knew people from all over the city."
Another student returning from Costa Rica, JoAnn Brauchi, Marysville senior. shares Miss Roger's enthusiasm for the program.
"This is perhaps one of the most successful student exchange programs I have ever encountered," she said. "This is because we lived with Costa Rican families, had no special favors as students and because we were in the country for a long time."
THE OTHER PHASE OF THE PROGRAM—the faculty exchange has been greeted with equal enthusiasm by KU faculty members.
Charley Staley, assistant professor of economics, feels that the faculty has two main benefits.
"I think the program has helped create a much greater awareness of Latin American problems for those of us who participated," he said. "Another benefit of the program is to give the participants enough of a command of Spanish so that they can later take part in Latin American work."
GEORGE FORMAN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR of mechanical engineering, feels that the selection of faculty members is all-important, however.
"I think the faculty exchange program is desirable if the individual faculty member has something useful to contribute," he said. "But Costa Rica is twenty or more years behind us in fields such as engineering, so the faculty members should be selected with care."