kim.qxd
Regarding the article “Hitting a Movie Target” [Neighborhood News, October 31], I have just a few things to say to people like Liz Reeves and Kathy Burgess. In case you haven’t noticed, there is this university located in Evanston called Northwestern University. Again, Northwestern University. Much of the motivation behind building the 18-screen complex in the Northwestern University/ Evanston Research Park has been complaints by students at Northwestern, like myself, who find Evanston to be a boring suburb that dislikes very much to accommodate the substantial portion of the Evanston population made up of Northwestern students.
While it may be true that such a proposed plan “doesn’t have the Main Street feel that makes Evanston so attractive,” whose point of view are you speaking from, Liz Reeves? When you make such a statement, clearly you speak for a demographic that excludes individuals like myself. And Kathy Burgess, you say that “most of the surrounding area is residential.” You fail to recognize the existence of a large university with many students who are also part of Evanston now.
I am beginning to think the original trustees of Northwestern are at fault for locating the university in Evanston, a town that wants so desperately to be an upscale suburb that it would try to brush a local university under the rug. In addition, Evanston’s downtown only appears to thrive. In reality most of the businesses are geared toward the older, nonstudent residents of Evanston. Like it or not, Evanston, there is a top-ranked institution in your town with many students, and you will have to begin seriously accommodating their needs soon. If you don’t like it, why don’t you move somewhere where there isn’t a university? Then you can be free to live out your suburban dreams in peace.
Edward H. Kim
Evanston