Birthplace of Modern Astronomy Faces Uncertain Future
Wired magazine has written up a piece about the historic Yerkes observatory:
Albert Einstein once said that he’d rather visit the Yerkes Observatory than Niagara Falls. And visiting this historic place, you can understand why.
Back in its heyday, this 113-year-old palace of space science housed one of the best astronomical libraries in the country, the world’s largest refracting telescope, and all the astronomy faculty and grad students from the University of Chicago.
But these days, most astronomers would rather be in Chicago. In recent years, the university has reclaimed most of the books, the telescope’s research time has been replaced with school tours, and the scientists have trickled 100 miles south to the main campus. Only a handful of researchers remain, and many don’t stay year-round.
“When I first came here, new faculty had a choice of where to go, Chicago or up here,” said observatory director Kyle Cudworth, who has worked at Yerkes since 1974. “But by 10 years later, they were not given a choice. They were strongly encouraged to go to campus.”
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In the late 1990s, the Yerkes staff considered registering the building as an official historical site. But at that time the observatory was still an active research center, and gaining historic building status would make it difficult to continue the pace of research.
Ironically, research slowed down so much over the next 15 years that in March 2005, the University of Chicago announced plans to sell the observatory and its land to a developer who wanted to build a resort on the shores of Lake Geneva. A public outcry followed, and the village of Williams Bay refused to allow the necessary rezoning. A focus group of University of Chicago astronomers wrote up a proposal to shift Yerkes’ main purpose from a place of research to an education and outreach facility.
“It’s an interesting question, where will this place be in 10 years?” Berthoud said. In the pessimistic view, “the University of Chicago will just support the place enough to keep the lights running,” says Berthoud, and the building will fall apart.
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Several photos at the link, and the article gives details of the founding, history, and current work of the observatory.
It’s interesting to see the local community more interested in preserving their heritage than the university is of its own. From the Wikipedia entry on the observatory:
In March 2005, the University of Chicago announced plans to sell the observatory and its land on the shore of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Initial reports had two purchasers interested, Mirbeau, an east coast developer who wanted to build luxury homes, and Aurora University, which has a campus straddling the Williams Bay property. The Geneva Lake Conservancy, a regional conservation and land trust organization, took the position that it was critical to save the historic Yerkes Observatory structures and telescopes for education and research, as well as to conserve the rare undeveloped, wooded lakefront and deep forest sections of the 77-acre (310,000 m2) site.
On June 7, 2006, the University announced it would sell the facility to Mirbeau for US$8 million with stipulations to preserve the observatory, the surrounding 30 acres (120,000 m2), and the entire shoreline of the site.
Under the Mirbeau plan, a 100-room resort with a large spa operation and attendant parking and support facilities was to be located on the 9-acre (36,000 m2) virgin wooded Yerkes land on the lakeshore — the last such undeveloped, natural site on Geneva Lake’s 21-mile (34 km) shoreline. 72 homes are to be developed on the upper Yerkes property, surrounding the historic observatory. These grounds were designed more than 100 years ago by John Olmsted, the brother of famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York’s Central Park.
In view of the public controversy surrounding the development proposals, the university suspended these plans in January 2007. The university’s department of astronomy and astrophysics then formed a study group …
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The recommendations of the study group are here:
Let’s hope a means will be found to preserve the Yerkes Observatory (which really should be listed as a US Historic Site) and the surrounding area.