Latin School of Chicago

Background: Latin's building at 1531 N. Dearborn. Latin students expressed themselves in the Forum. Carole Towne, also from the Class of 1969, concurred: "It was only when I went to the University of Michigan the next year that I really understood what was happening in the world outside of Latin." By most accounts, it was after the move to North and Clark that upper school students really began to challenge the old ways. They were part of a new, much larger school with new, often very different classmates, and many of the old traditions and rules were disappearing. Meanwhile, students were becoming increasingly exposed to what was happening outside the walls of Latin. The City of Chicago was facing its own turmoil, including the violence of the 1968 Democratic Convention, anti-Vietnam war protests in Lincoln Park and race riots on the West and South sides. In the fall of 1969, just after the new upper school opened, 42 armed policemen surrounded the school at night and private security patrolled the halls during the day because police intelligence at the time believed that activists camped out in Lincoln Park considered the school a prime target. ¸ From the beginning, the move and the changes it would bring to the school caused a ripple of anxiety among students, faculty and parents who were attached to Scott Street. "Our school is going to be destroyed. For 53 years it has stood on the corner of Scott and Stone Streets and quietly watched the world go by. …The old building has the major characteristic of not being the slightest bit functional. This is also its charm, for lacking long hallways full of lockers and a 35,000-volume library, the school gains a certain congenial atmosphere. … Perhaps it is time for a change and an efficient plan is needed, but when you think of all the generations that will miss being crammed into Mrs. Lambrakis' biology lab, running around in the snow on the courtyard, studying in 48 because the study hall is full, trying to stage something on the tiny platform in the gym and leaning out the second floor windows, you think of all the generations that will somehow miss a part of their full educations…," a student wrote in the Forum in 1967. The new upper school would be 5,000 square feet larger than the Scott Street building had been. Harry Weese's design was innovative, featuring a library that would be "When I attended Latin, the neighboring apartment to ours was the residence of Harry Weese. I sat for hours as a child as he drafted the plans for the North Avenue building, and then I actually was able to attend classes in what I had seen on paper." – Jim Stern '78 Latin's new upper school at the corner of North and Clark. LATI N SCHOOL OF CHI CA GO 73

• Cover