Months after the building closed, the class bells still ring in Lincoln Hall and students still wander in looking for instructors—workers turn back three or four of them a day—but the renovation is officially underway after a ceremony to honor the iconic structure’s past and describe its future.
A crowd heard speeches by University officials and learned how Lincoln Hall will look after the project is complete in 2012. Officials estimate work will begin in early 2010 after the state releases the roughly $60 million that the legislature approved for the renovation in July. Asbestos removal has already begun.
After speeches on the Quad-side steps, the crowd went inside to see parts of the building for the last time. Before they entered, however, attendees rubbed a small bust of Lincoln on the nose—in the same fashion as many have rubbed the bust of Lincoln in the foyer over the years—and dropped Lincoln pennies in a dish as a sign of support for the project. The pennies will be incorporated into the building’s renovation.
“It is a long-awaited renovation,” said Ruth Watkins, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, in her speech. “I don’t think any of us were around to see this building in its glory.”
Lincoln Hall was last renovated in 1929, when it was doubled in size and workers added the theater. It grew in importance over the years even as it fell into disrepair. Virtually every undergraduate at the University took at least one class in the building before it closed. Former Chancellor Richard Herman, who spoke at the ceremony, said that 17,642 students took classes in the building one recent fall.
“One memory everyone shares is taking a class in Lincoln Hall,” he said, adding, “I’ve always thought of this building as the heartbeat of this great University.”
Lead architect and U of I alum Ron Harrison, of Chicago-based design firm OWP/P, said they planned to preserve the building’s historical features while making it safer, more comfortable, more practical, and more environmentally friendly. They also plan to add technology to every classroom to create a cutting-edge learning environment.
The building is in “dire need of love and respect and renovation,” Harrison said at the ceremony.
“We really need to turn it over as a state-of-the-art facility when we’re done,” he said. Plans include restoring the features on the exterior, renovating the marble lobby and the theater, and gutting the upper floors to create more “collegial” office and study space. The basement will be deepened, and the fourth floor, used for storage ever since the museum left in 2002, will be turned into offices, labs, and space for graduate teaching assistants.
Deborah Stewart, ’74, of Champaign, took a tour of the theater afterward. She laughed at the parallels between her experience there and those of her daughter, Rachel Anderson, ’01.
“Her memories are trying to get in here fast enough so you got a seat where the springs didn’t poke you and the table worked,” Stewart said.
Some visitors came from out of town. Eatan Weltman, ’76, and his wife, Gina, ’76, drove over from Bloomington, Ill. They have a daughter who attended U of I and another who is currently a student. Part of the allure of sending your kids to your alma mater, said Eatan, a history major, is that they can see the same places you saw. In Lincoln Hall that’s particularly true. The Weltmans shrugged at each other and agreed the building hasn’t changed a bit.
“When I first came to the University I thought these old buildings were really cool, and I still think they’re really cool,” Eatan said. “But they need to renovate it.”
