Dear Loyola University, our neighbors,
Roman Susan Art Foundation NFP is an artist-run 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We create cultural engagements that provide resources and paid opportunities for artists. We are here to experiment and learn. Roman Susan started in the storefront at 1224 W Loyola Avenue, and we have dedicated the last decade to celebrating and sharing art in this space.
We love it here. We value our neighbors, the residents of the 30 apartments in this building, Edge Art and Archie’s Cafe who entertain visitors of all ages with folk arts, crafts, music, and delicious food. Affordable residential and commercial rentals near public transit are vital for our diverse community.
We implore Loyola University, as purchaser of the building commonly known as 1226-1234 W Loyola Avenue, to recognize the importance of this place and its inhabitants. We understand there are plans to build residence halls across the street. It seems Loyola is growing and requires new amenities. The residents of this building also require a place to live and our neighborhood requires cultural spaces to thrive.
Remember the lives and livelihoods present in this building as decisions are made to expand the Loyola University Lake Shore Campus. This is an essential location for many people. Let us all live, work, and learn here together with improved conditions for everyone.
All the best,
Kristin + Nathan Abhalter Smith
P.S.
Add your name and comments to this message.
With neighbors, community members, and friends:
Joanna Furnans
Chloe Johnston
Julia Klein
Joelle Mercedes
Juan Molina Hernández
Tracy Marie Taylor
Maggie Roche, Edge Art: When we all first opened, it was fall, and the days were shortening. The first thing we did at Edge Art was to put lightbulbs in the window fixtures and leave them on overnight. Within the first week we got a note in the mail slot and 2 post it notes on the window thanking us for the lighting on Loyola Ave. We have kept the lights on 24/7 for twelve years. I'm a retired art teacher, a single mom with a neighborhood Outsider and Folk Art art business. I got my Bachelor's degree from Loyola. The Jesuits taught me about giving first thought to the poor in considering all decisions. If I can keep lighting the street for 12 years, imagine what Loyola University could do. . . .
Roberta Schmatz, Archie’s Cafe: Progress is inclusion, not privatization! Find solutions to include community and the arts, not evict it!
Maria Hadden
Natalia Vera: What they said!
Aina Cambridge
Siobhan Leonard
Angela Lopez: Roman Susan is exemplary in genuine community engagement. Since they began they have brought art to the neighborhood in a fun accessible way. They have developed a unique relationship with the neighborhood and local artists that can only be achieved by listening and responding to the needs and concerns of its community. To lose Roman Susan or its neighbors would be a devastating loss for the neighborhood – changing what makes the area beautiful, unique, and diverse. Remember moving into a neighborhood creates an impact. There is always a choice to support and strengthen what is already there, with thoughtful consideration and integration into the area. Roman Susan has been a model in listening and responding to its neighbors and that is at the heart of their success.
José Santiago Pérez
Madhuri Shukla: Roman Susan is a rare community space, giving local artists their first shot, giving back to neighbors. Displacing them would be a serious disservice.
B. Quinn
Kai Ihns
alejandro t. acierto
A.J. McClenon
Brett Swenson
Lia Kohl: Roman Susan is so important to the artist community in Chicago and the neighborhood!
Levi Shand
Aoife Mary McEneaney
Miriam Dolnick
Erika Råberg
Kavya Tiwari
John-Michael Korpal
Craig Neeson
Joseph Ravens
Michael James
Amanda Maraist: Love and support to you both for penning this powerful statement in defense of art and your neighbors!
Kevin Stuart: Kristin and Nathan have been neighbors to my studio a couple blocks away for the last ten years, they had a show with me around the time my mom passed away and I think a large part of me being able to get through that period of time is because that show happened. It’s very difficult to not be able to say goodbye when someone unexpectedly passes. I feel the show gave me a chance to do that. The whole bottom floor of that building is probably one of the most interesting cultural spots in the city, the music next door at the coffee house with jazz bands from the neighborhood, a few Loyola student bands sometimes, the sometimes baffling window displays 2 fronts down curated by a lovely person who sometimes brings back stuff from Mexico. The dozens of people who live there deserve to be able to afford their rent and stay in the building. I don’t live in rogers park, it’s where my studio is but I consider it a second home; it’s one of the most unique and diverse and interesting places in the city. There’s a general decency and kindness everyone gets. It’s a neighborhood where it is sort of everyone’s neighborhood; it’s hard to describe. I’ve seen the people there pull together and take care of one another under incredibly harsh circumstances. I used to periodically attend mass at St Ignatius which has closed recently, I often times miss seeing my neighbors there. I feel like something can be done to do justice for the St Ignatius building and it’s campus for the community and also make it helpful for the school and that there’s no reason to not allow the residents at 1224 Loyola to continue to live and work out of their building. Everyone there is really changing other peoples lives, whether it’s the arts spaces or the people who are mothers, fathers, workers, friends; people that people love.
Betsy Vandercook: I read with great concern the news that Loyola plans to expand to the corner on Loyola Avenue that includes the building that has long housed Roman Susan. I have known Kristin and Nathan Abhalter Smith and their work for over a decade, working with them on community-based efforts like our multi-year “Art Round Trip” that extended arts exhibitions across Rogers Park, to a collective storytelling show I was privileged to take part in. But more importantly, I have seen so many of their exhibitions that showcase local, national, and even international artists – while always embracing inclusivity and diversity – something that’s reflected when you attend gatherings there that LOOK like Rogers Park. I don’t know of another arts initiative that does this work better than Roman Susan, and it’s so important to our community that they are made a part of your plans AND are ensured a physical space in your new building. It would be such a benefit to your students and of course to the community as a whole. With the same concern, I ask you include the other tenants of 1224-1234 Loyola in your plans – including Archie’s Café, which not only serves inventive and delicious food but creates a meeting place for so many – including Loyola students(!); the always interesting and international Edge Art; and of course the apartment tenants, who are not numbers but PEOPLE who depend on their current housing and cannot be just sent off to find new, especially given the lack of affordable housing on the north lakefront. –Betsy Vandercook, storyteller, arts supporter & long-time resident, Rogers Park
Tricia Van Eck: What are the root causes of climate change, inequity and homelessness? Structural forces beyond our control? Nope. It’s just everyday living in Loyola University’s Francis Hall dorm. Loyola students who strive to live lives of justice, equity, and community? Yep. Same ones. St. Francis Hall was built in by demolishing mixed-income housing, displacing community members, and thrusting the previous building’s heavy exterior limestone and brick, porcelain bathrooms, and wooden kitchens to a landfill mound. Displacing tenants and materials without caring where either went, “helps to build community amongst student residents.” Students living in Francis Hall may not have known. Loyola may not know alternative approaches. Possible questions: How does “unknowing” happen? And what can be done? Possible answers: 1) Loyola can stop it happening again to a similar building at 1226-1234 W Loyola Ave. 2) Students can reject a huge climate dormprint that exacerbates devastation, dispossession and destruction of existing ecologies and communities and say, “Not in my name. I don’t need a big, new, fancy dorm that I and the climate and community will be paying for for decades.” 3) Students can interrogate privilege, expose misuse of power, and challenge decision-making and (in)action. 4) Loyola can be a state of the art lab for communal methods of students working with the existing building and community, creating a model for cost effective rehab and civic advocacy for existing tenants, and social and cultural networks, to “help prepare students to create meaningful change in the world.” If the Loyola Ave building is torn down, Loyola and its students are knowingly obliterating the building, its people, and community to privilege their interests and reproduce systemic misuse of power that perpetuates injustices at the root of climate change, inequity, and homelessness. This is a wake up call to us all. It's not just students, and Loyola. We are all “unknowingly” ignoring the cumulative consequences of our individual everyday actions. But we can change. We can demand more of ourselves and our institutions. Beginning with the 1226-1234 building on Loyola, we can seize this moment to relinquish the idea of being the center of the universe, and instead work to develop participatory experiments and experiences that can educate, create joy. It’s the perfect opportunity to transform our actions, our knowledge, our buildings, our community, our collective power, and our future together.
Adam Rogers: Loyola must not be permitted to add yet another vacant blighted lot to the east end of Loyola Avenue. Loyola's intentional displacement of 30 vulnerable households from naturally occurring affordable housing, many of which likely face the prospect of homelessness, along with the loss of three thriving local community institutions – Archie's Cafe, Roman Susan, and Edge Art – in order to create yet another vacant blighted lot at the end of Loyola Avenue while we wait years before anything happens at the site is despicable. In exchange for the millions of TIF subsidies loyola received, (despite itself paying no property taxes) any future redevelopment plans should include the following commitments: 1) Existing residents should be accommodated in the building until there is actually a viable redevelopment plan – and given the Red Purple Modernization timeline, this will be no time soon; 2) Loyola should be obligated to cover the relocation costs of existing residents to ensure they are not detrimentally impacted by their plans; 3) Loyola should be obligated to commit to actual community benefit plans that includes components supporting affordable housing, art and community organizations, and local independent retail.
Joanna Erenberg: Loyola – Do not take away thriving cultural spaces and affordable housing in our neighborhood! There must be a balance between spaces for students and spaces for YEAR ROUND, PERMANENT community members. These cultural spaces are also a resource for students!
Claudine Ise: Roman Susan is a vital and irreplaceable part of the Chicago art and artist community!
Maddie Brucker
Cassie Tompkins
Zachary Nicol
Jess Bass: Roman Susan is pivotal to the Chicago art scene.
Maya Lea: Your students chose to experience an urban campus within a heterogenous community, not a homogenous dorm zone. Replacing the organic real-world diversity of their surroundings with an engineered institutional monoculture diminishes students' opportunities to interact, learn, and grow here.
Jeffrey Littleton
Rachel Herman
Kayla Anderson
Holly Cahill
Glenwood Avenue Arts District: We are a Rogers Park 501(c)3 arts organization. Arts organizations in Rogers Park are in need of your support. Displacing this important organization will not only be disruptive to their organization and the artists that they support, but removing Roman Susan from their home will also deprive Loyola students of important opportunities for cultural enrichment.
Brandon Harrod: We won’t let Loyola take away our art!
Ruth Oppenheim-Rothschild: I am an artist and a life-long resident of Rogers Park, and I ask that Loyola allow Roman Susan and the other residents of 1224-1234 to remain in place, with affordable rents. Roman Susan and its neighbors are vital to the life and culture of the city. Their presence in the building you have purchased is irreplaceable. I hope you will choose to value affordable residence and cultural impact over profit and growth.
Dan Boyd: As a Catholic, a friend of Loyola's and Roman Susan I am happy to sign this document. I run a non profit organization myself and your students participate and volunteer at Story Luck events regularly. As a friend of Roman Susan I've spoken with a lot of your students about how much the art space means to them. Don't underestimate how these hidden spots of 3rd party culture add to the Loyola student experience. They walk by and see local artists creating and producing. They are inspired and I get to sit outside with them and listen as they put their own studies and analysis into practice. You're going to be a good steward and landlord. If you wish to speak further I'm happy to discuss. Prayers, Dan Boyd. Dan@storyluck.org
Matt Martin
Brytton Bjorngaard
Ronen Goldstein
Anna Wehrwein
Ginger Krebs
Anne Yoder: As said above: “Let us all live, work, and learn here together with improved conditions for everyone.” Roman Susan and Archie’s are a vital part of the community and should not be displaced!
Tom Rosenfeld: Loyola has been a wonderful source of support and spirit within Rogers Park. We have seen significant changes in the last round of real estate development where the local concerns seem to be less important to Loyola when making expansion decisions. We certainly hope that Loyola can see that displacement of vital businesses and organizations reduces cultural opportunities for its students and harms the fabric of the neighborhood that we all share.
Tulika Ladsariya: Roman Susan has been pivotal in changing the landscape of Rogers Park. As a cultural and educational institution, we hope you can find a way to expand without stomping out the integral members of the neighborhood and society. We love and support them wholeheartedly.
Savneet Talwar: Such a vital space for the Loyola neighborhood. We need art spaces to continue our neighborhood to thrive.
Chas Cassidy: This art space is so important to the people who live here. Please don't damage this incredible community and acknowledge that Roman Susan is an asset to incoming student populations, not an inconvenient tenant who stands in the way of progress. This type of decision is what differentiates growth from gentrification.
Elizabeth Marino: This building is a thriving part of our local community. It is more than a real estate investment. Please honor the primary stakeholders in development decisions, not only the profitability of the Loyola University (non-taxpaying status) investment portfolio.
Joe Cochran: Roman Susan is a cultural anchor point of the East Rogers Park neighborhood and thereby an important element of its livability and sense of community. Any action that might lead to its displacement would not only do a major disservice to the area and its residents (including Loyola students), but would offend many of the principles espoused by Loyola University. The University's motto "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam" and its Promise "Preparing people to lead extraordinary lives" obligate its stewards to co-succeed with and support grassroots organizations like Roman Susan which bring art, beauty and opportunity to the community in an authentic, organic way which cannot be replicated by a large institution. While Loyola University's acquisition of 1226-1234 Loyola Ave is likely a necessary measure to ensure adequate housing for its student body, in doing so it must take care not to compromise their intellectual, ethical and spiritual care. To that end it must choose to serve as an example to them of love of neighbor and faith in one's calling.
Maya Schenwar
Marcy Rae Henry
Corey Smith
Jacob Boglio: Loyola should feel a responsibility to preserve the arts and culture in Chicago - not doing so would diminish Chicago and their students of a beloved space.
Karyn Sandlos: I live in the neighborhood, a few blocks from Roman Susan. This scrappy and dedicated group of artists has managed to sustain a gallery space in spite of financial constraints, a pandemic, and so on. I hope Loyola will recognize the value to the community of this creative hub and work with Roman Susan to figure out what next steps look like. There is the potential for partnerships that would benefit Loyola students through creative educational experiences. Please don't callously evict Roman Susan.
Amy Partridge: Roman Susan is a gem of Rogers Park. We need Roman Susan!
Heather Pereira: I first moved to Chicago 10 years ago with my then 2 year old fleeing a DV situation and lived at 1264 Loyola. Having that art space on my block was essential to making the neighborhood feel like home to me. My child and I popped in several times over the years to check out the art, and felt nurtured by the presence of creatives in our community.
Hamsen Peeler: The history and culture of the neighborhood provides a more enriching experience for Loyola students than additional property will. There are additional spaces, including the large vacant lot across the street, that would be sufficient without taking from the community and neighborhood.
Ann Mariam Thomas
Molly Roth Scranton
Diana Parker-Kafka
Linda Jankowska
Michael Robert Pollard
Ryan Thompson: Roman Susan is an incredible asset to the immediate neighborhood and the larger Chicago art scene and it would be incredibly sad to see them be forced to move. I hope you'll consider keeping them on as a tenant.
Jeffrey Holman: The residential and commercial tenants of this building are an integral part of this neighborhood. I hope Loyola intends to act as a good neighbor and allow the current residents to stay, while improving the building. I certainly hope Loyola doesn't plan to raze the building to construct yet another drab cookie cutter residence.
Deirdre: Dear People of Loyola, Please don’t kill the magic that keeps all of our hearts going. The people of Roman Susan CARE and we their neighbors, artists and audience hope that you do too. Do you realize that Creative Expression, both making your own AND experiencing other people creative work is the cure for burnout!! This is an evidence-based knowledge now (see Emily Nagoski & Amelia Nagoski’s book: “Burnout.”) Surely the students, faculty and staff of Loyola will all benefit from having such a renowned art space so close to work and residence for Loyola humans. PLEASE help us cultivate and create a better City of Chicago by allowing the artists who run Roman Susan – an important cultural hub – to just do their thing!! It could and would benefit you too! Their work spreads far and wide. Please cultivate this work by demonstrating your interest and support – show that your institution still cares about humans and quality of life!! Don’t just listen to those who care about “the Bottom Line!” How about considering the space as a resource? View them correctly as the leaders they are! The opportunities for collaborative work could be initiated by the university, knowing that they could amplify any idea or project you envision. Instead of destruction, I URGE you to choose to explore new iterative possibilities based on existing long term reparative work being done here within university’s home community. This work could also be lucrative and commercially beneficial to Loyola! I hope you choose to be open to new ideas. Please follow their lead ❤️
Rebecca Beachy
John Baker
Jade Wesp
Chandler Nadeau
Sarah Luczko
Deanna Christianson
Rine Boyer: Artist run spaces like Roman Susan keep the Chicago art world strong!
Kandis Friesen: Loyola has the opportunity to build and support community relationships in this context, and I implore the university to not produce conditions of displacement and gentrification through its real estate purchases and student housing plans. Build a relationship with the tenants that have already made such a beautiful community together, as residents, business people, cultural workers, artists, and so many others.
Emily Wood
Veronica Arreola
Megan Sauter Liz Lux: The community and artistic endeavours of the building should be retained.
Dao Nguyen: It would reflect poorly on an institution of higher learning to displace local people and an organization dedicated to building local communities and culture.
Dan Miller
Udita Upadhyaya
Crystal Beiersdorfer
Jennifer Keats
Olive Stefanski
Jean Smith
Lucia Mier y Terán: As a fellow Rogers Park resident I believe Loyola University needs to understand the value of creative and cultural spaces in our neighborhood and respect their existence even if Loyola expands and acquires more buildings. It is in the benefit of the community and its students.
Ryan Dunn: The academy is existentially dependent on independent and adventurous culture. As free independent art spaces fall to capital, respect that relationship by making smart choices to support these imperiled endeavors as you develop.
Paul Escriva
Alia Norton
Heather McShane
Ali Abid
Ivy Abid: As a university in an urban neighborhood, Loyola has a responsibility to the community to preserve its vibrance for the people as much as for their students.
Allison Lacher
Julia Paloma: Roman Susan is a space that welcomes everyone, and works to extend the feeling of community within their walls to the spaces surrounding their gallery, and will no doubt welcome residents of the planned building when they arrive. But only if you value their ongoing presence so that it lasts well beyond any college student’s time at Loyola.
Marc Fischer
Aurora Tabar
Marie Shebeck
Gabriel Chalfin-Piney
Sara Holwerda: Roman Susan is a one of a kind cultural force in Chicago. please preserve it for the good of the neighborhood and city.
Ryan Griffis: Artists and organizers have built an important history of independent spaces for cultural experimentation and forms of cross-community solidarity in Chicago. Roman Susan is an important part of this history and its continuation.
Ines Sommer: Businesses like Roman Susan and Archie’s Cafe make this neighborhood so attractive and lively — it would be sad to see them displaced!
Neil Rest: Loyola; be responsible.
An Na Kim (Starworld AnNa Kim): I love Roman Susan. I always think of Roman Susan as a shining gem in the area near the Loyola red line station, and it makes the neighborhood shine and feel safe. I wish I had tons of money so I could buy the building instead of Loyola university buying the building, so we could ensure Roman Susan will continue staying at the same location. As an artist, I have great respect and admiration for Roman Susan and the forum and support it provides for artists like me.
Salome Chasnoff: I am a local artist who has shown work at Roman Susan and been audience to a wide range of strong, thought-provoking work by other artists here. The benefits of his space to the community, which includes Loyola students, staff and faculty, can’t be measured.
Tanuja Jagernauth
Megan Lewis
Conah Targett-Jones
Amy Kuttab
Stevie Ada Klaark
Noah Jenkins, PhD: Roman Susan is indispensable – the only space and organization of its kind on the north side of Chicago.
Jared Brown
Danny Floyd
Katelyn Patton
April Martin
Charlie Manion: Roman Susan is an essential part of Chicago’s artistic community! It’s also one of the best galleries in the city.
Xingyi Zhao
Tracie Kunzika
Joseph Kraft
Erik Gundersen: Places like these are vital to our neighborhood.
Jacob Futhey
Alden Burke
Anjal Chande
Laurel Hauge
Lisa Armstrong
Isa Ghanayem
Melissa Alexander
Kate Arlee
Colleen Plumb: Please don’t destroy this gem of a place in our community. Loyola development is overwhelming and cold and leaving no character or heart in our community. You have the power and money to make choices that affect many in our community and as a catholic I pray for: our community and the building and all the people and organizations inside to be protected and not forced out by greed and misguided decision making. The beautiful garden is gone already and that was such a deep loss and wound for us, and shows such destructiveness. Please stop.
Mia Newell
Jeff Robinson
Toni Kunst
Elena Ailes
Chris Moss
olya salimova
Tanya Milojkovic
Frances Lightbound
Anna Goetz: As a Loyola alumni having this space near by and getting involved with the local art community really helped advance my career I was able to do an artist residency in the space after graduating.
Aaron Walker
Liz Weinstein
Ro Lundberg
lauren schoepflin
Andrew Roche: I’m a home owner 2 blocks from campus and Roman Susan. This community asset, along with Archie’s, is valued and should be protected.
Phill Bugajski
Kera MacKenzie
Seph Mozes: I am a Rogers Park neighbor!! Let Roman Susan stay!!!
Monika Plioplyte
Allison Wade
Hal James
Michael James
Heather Phillips
Paige James
Katinka Kleijn
Jenna Pollack
Evan Murdoch
Crystal Myslajek
Steven Hou: Everyone has a home in art; thank you.
Simone Whiteley-Allen: This is one of the only and best galleries in the area! It is so important to keep it next to the red line and in this location.
Lisa Majer: Universities, like all institutions should integrate with the community in which it exists. This only enriches the experiences for students and provides character that is unique. Loyola’s cultural capital will only grow by supporting well its neighbors, and especially the places that provide vital art and culture to the neighborhood.
Leah Levine: 2019 Loyola alumni, I interned with Roman Susan for my senior year of my art history program. This building and this gallery are very important!
B. Hart
Jeff Robinson
Jessie Mott
Patti Brooks
Peter Ferry: This gallery is a treasure of Rogers Park and Chicago, and should absolutely be prioritized in any Loyola planning.
Davi Lakind: Roman Susan is a vital and vibrant part of the neighborhood and the Chicago arts community, and the other businesses and neighbors on this street are part of that interconnected vitality.
Jessica Jones-Lewis
Lily Maclachlan
Alysia kaplan
CC Hahn: Loyola University is large enough already. The amount of land and property they own within Rogers Park should diminish, not grow.
MaryAnn McGovern
Aubrey Ingmar
Megan Cline
Austin Gray Williams
Maggie Rothberg: As a young artist in the neighborhood, Roman Susan was the first institution to give me an opportunity. It is a literal cornerstone of creative community here and it must be protected at all costs!!
Abigail Taubman
Mia Uribe Kozlovsky
Diego Rodriguez
percy Van Ort: love y'alls work, fingers crossed
madigan burke
Nia Easley
Elizabeth Flood: Roman Susan is so important!
John Marks
Sabrina Boggs
Bimbola Akinbola
Cristen Leifheit
Sarah Holden
Danny Hein: Roman Susan is a cultural institution!
Kelly Hou
jill Bocskay
Shawn Rowe
Shea Leavis
Norman W. Long
Alice Woo
Morgan Mandalay: Art spaces like Roman Susan are rare so far north in the city, and provide such great value to the community of Rogers Park. As members of that community, I believe that the students at Loyola also derive value (community cohesion, a space to engage with the ideas of others, exploring theirs and others creativity, etc.) from spaces like Roman Susan remaining in proximity to their campus. I implore the administration at Loyola University to consider the value of creative, artistic engagement, as well as neighborhood stability, in the lives of their students and to the Rogers Park community as a whole.
Gail Ana Gomez: As a Chicagoan and an arts professional in the city, I just want to echo the message from Roman Susan and affirm how vital and important spaces like theirs are for our community and our city.
Sydney Osborne
Annie Gardner
Ingrid Ferdinand
Nancy VanKanegan: Roman Susan has provided a valuable cultural resource for Chicago and has become a locus of varied art activities for the far north side and beyond. Art belongs to the people and the ideas and activities presented at Roman Susan enhance the sense of community by bringing artists together in thoughtful understanding of our world.
Mikey Walden
Madeleine Aguilar
Kelly Neibert
Rhea Godot
Ro Curtis: This space is vital to the cultural character of the neighborhood and part of what makes Rogers Park wonderful. While Loyola is also a part of Rogers Park, it is ultimately the people and cultural institutions that create the neighborhood that so many people have loved for decades, do not push out the life blood of this neighborhood, for the sake of students who are only here for a short amount of time, and rarely if ever integrate themselves into sustaining and participating in Rogers Park.
Luiza Moraes
Tim Hogan
Eala O’Sé: The culture that this gallery and Archie’s Cafe bring to our neighborhood, not to mention the residents living in this building is extremely valuable. Please continue to support and invest rather than take from our community.
Christa Donner
Dixon Irene
Ali Lorenz
Courtney Mackedanz: Would love to share how embraced, supported, and connected to new community that I felt in having my first show at Roman Susan! This project is such an important part of the city of Chicago and deserves to be supported and preserved!
Michelle Castro: Please leave this building and its tenants in peace!! Archie’s Cafe is where students go for safe community and affordable, healthy food. Let it be!!’
Haley Dennis
Alex Basler
River Kerstetter
Carole McCurdy, artist and Rogers Park resident since 1963
Josh Bulman: Let roman susan keep doing what they do.
Valentina Escobar
benjamin godot
Jennifer Traina-Dorge
Andrew Reinke: The heart of Chicago arts is spaces like this and this one does an excellent job. If you don’t let them stay, you are killing a great example of what’s great about Chicago.
Molly Marków
Jack Langdon
Delaney
Angela Baldus
Kara Kirby: Please preserve these vital and thriving community and cultural spaces!
Taylor Gendel: Loyola needs to support its neighbors and ensure that it doesn’t push out residents!
Claudia L Pesenti: Loyola needs to share!
Linde Murugan
Larsen Husby
Carrie Kaufman
Karin Obaid: I live in the neighborhood and have felt blessed to have the vitality of this culture-creating spaces in the building. I implore you to understand the necessity of these spaces to our community, for your students and everyone alike.
Aidan Ciuperca
Melissa C
Jenna summa: This small strip is a vital and lively part of the neighborhood, a place for people of all ages and walks of life to meet and gather. Any new development needs to be conscious and respectful of that.
Betsy Zacsek
Latham Zearfoss
Elizabeth cote
Jesse Schaffer
Greg Ruffing: I am an artist who has been fortunate to show some of my work, and enjoy the work of countless other artists, at Roman Susan. This is a vital space for the neighborhood and for Chicago arts. Don’t gentrify away the people and spaces that contribute to a diverse, vibrant neighborhood!
Danny Turek
Sarita Heer
Charles Hwang, LUC '20 (B.S.), LUC '22 (M.S.)
Anne Sullivan: This university is the land baron of Rogers park and Edgewater. HOW does gobbling up thousands of units of low income housing to build student housing priced 4 times the housing they destroy for profit, fit into the mission of Jesuits…?! I would petition the pope to stop their greed now.
Jennifer Scappettone: Please keep community-oriented arts spaces alive and allow Roman Susan to stay! I say this as an area professor. Spaces like this are exceedingly rare, especially in this part of the city, and lead to better, safer and more interesting neighborhoods for students AND residents.
Eleanor Mulshine
Paul Brennan
Tamara Becerra Valdez
Molly McCormick
Elyse Schauer
Ame Kaplan: As a Rogers Park resident of over 20 years, I implore you Loyola, to keep this building AS IS (or maybe add some improvements!)
ted brady: The art space we pass walking to the CTA is an important part of what makes our neighborhood special. Art is celebrated in this neighborhood every year for artists of the wall, and should be celebrated in-kind for our local artist that make the effort to have a public-facing art space. Keep the studio around and have the opportunity for students to get involved with the neighborhoods' art community.
Einxel Reyes
Lauren Sudbrink
Chris Reeves: Roman Susan is crucial to Rogers Park and the Chicago arts community at large. In this small space has been over a decade’s worth of community building, interaction, and exhibition. Under the guidance of Kristen and Nathan it has remained an accessible and open space that is a boon for Chicago’s cultural production and it’s supporters and champions voices of all sorts. While campus expansion is good to consider to address growing educational needs, art spaces, particularly those that exist under the radar and with finite funding, serve an equally educational function, illustrating how cultural production can occur in a DIY context, an education in its own right. To summarize: the location of Roman Susan matters in that it’s a little x on the map where possibilities of all sorts can still emerge.
MoBella Russo
Vannesa Jasso
Forrest Brandt
Sarah and Joseph Belknap
Mel Leverich: Roman Susan is one of the beating hearts of Rogers Park </3
Nora Moore Lloyd: Roman Susan gallery has been a critical part of the Rogers Park art community, offering inspirational, thought-provoking, unique creativity. The community needs the cultural perspective of small artistic endeavors like Roman Susan; we DO NOT need Loyola taking over more classic buildings that are the fabric of our diverse neighborhood. Leave Roman Susan alone!!!!
Loraine Wible: I love Roman Susan!!!!!
Emma Varano
Wyatt Sutter
Brook Celeste
Brandon Howe: Roman Susan is an invaluable cultural space in the community!
Cristobal alday: Having gone to this space, words cannot state how important it is to have this team and space as a resource for the Chicago arts community!
Bob Remer: Loyola which professes to be so ecologically progressive should understand that the greenest buildings are the ones you don't tear down. You can't claim your environmental prestige and mantel and then continue to tear down buildings. Tearing this down is so duplicitous.
Kate Anderson
Eduardo Zambrana
Sharon Bautista
Benjamin Luebkemann: This is a university within a neighborhood. One piece of the neighborhood. The university and the neighborhood must thrive together.
Miller Tennant: As a Loyola Alum with a BA in Dance, I urge the university to consider this message as seriously as you consider your D1 basketball team. Artists are creating beautiful and valuable contributions here! Thank you for your consideration.
Liz Ensz
Jason Leach
Taylor Ervin
Hana Urban
Beth Iska
Cole Pierce
Chang-Ching Su
Sam Scranton: Roman Susan is a vital and important resource for the arts community in Chicago!
Sally Duros: yes. This is a great building that houses businesses and arts organizations people in the neighborhood love - like Archie’s Cafe - and provides a place to live for people who need a nice place to live. This building sits at the entrance to a wide beautiful street that could become a welcoming square of retail, commerce and the arts that could serve all the people who live in Rogers Park and beyond. Please allow this building to bloom and flourish as the entryway to a thriving cultural space and as home to its residents.
Kim Nucci: I saw my friend Courtney’s show at Roman Susan and it was so amazing to see a space support my friends’ transition from dance to sculpture and video. It’s amazing to see a space willing to let artists work out of their most noteworthy disciplines. Her work for that show was so inspiring. Small experimental art spaces build successful art careers. They are vital to not just the immediate community but the mesh of our world at large. There is no scene or prospects for new grads when all the small spaces are destroyed by greed. I come from the Bay Area, where the art scene was decimated by big tech. There are few small art spaces left, you can count them on your hands. No one new stays, the art community is aging, most are over 50. No one new can afford to stay. The land has been bought up by startup millionaires, real estate developers and tech workers with obscenely deep pockets. A lack of affordable housing doesn’t mean people will simply pay more, they can’t. A lack of affordable housing is directly correlated to people becoming homeless, often for the first time. People who do not have the means to leave wind up on the street. The UN declared the abjectly horrific conditions of the homeless people in San Francisco and Oakland to be human rights violation. lease don’t let Chicago become the Bay Area in the name of education. Don’t displace families. Don’t displace the arts.
Holly Warren
Christine Schröder
Ruby Que
Sonya Bogdanova: Roman Susan is beloved by all of Chicago's artists and it must be preserved.
Eliza Fernand
Jasmine Rush
Heather Smith
Carmen Fuentes
Hannah Hinerman: Archie’s and the Roman Susan Art Foundation exhibits are some of the joys of living in Rogers Park. It’s a favorite spot for students, especially for those majoring in the arts. They also regularly serve as a spot for student artists to showcase their work. Their presence would only be an exciting addition for those living in the dorms, and it would be a shame to take them away.
Dr. Eva Pensis
Ruth Burke
Nadia Spock
Connor hill
Lynneah McCarrell
Erica Stone
Jayde Al-Angary
Caroline Picard: Roman Susan is a vital part of Chicago's creative ecostructure and should be allowed to thrive, to continue supporting artists, and making their endeavors accessible to the public.
Maeve Burke
Ausberto Acevedo
Elliot Josephine Leila Reichert: Roman Susan is a pillar of the Chicago nonprofit arts community.
Nicole M Davis
Alicia Vrabec
Gervais Marsh
Ashley Barlow
Liam Gibbs
olivier
Alex Cassidy: Roman Susans space and programming, right near the Red Line, is an essential cultural space in Chicago that puts on incredible shows and is a vital part of Rogers Park – and it's location is tremendously special – the ability to look in and view exhibits day or night makes it unique in that anyone, without payment or even entrance, can view and appreciate the cultural power and diversity of our communities. This gallery makes the art within part of the daily commute and lives of so many people who live in Rogers Park.
Jordan Knecht: Roman Susan is an essential part of Chicago’s art’s ecosystem. Much love.
I Chien Chen
Cheri McGuire
Gabriella Boros: Art space is essential to a neighborhood. This art space is targeted well to your growing student culture.
Mar García: Roman Susan, Archie’s and all the other neighbors collective and private bring much-needed vibrancy and community to that corner of the neighborhood. Consider the wise words written here, Loyola, and act towards mutual growth and sustainability for the many. The new dorm across the street might even reflect such intentions, in the best of cases.
Chris Thomas: Art for everyone, everywhere! As an educator myself, one needs to understand the importance of art education. In which data has proven, students engaged with the arts generally score higher in all other subject matters. *mic drop
Macie Stewart
Nadine Dyskant-Miller
Carlos Salazar-Lermont
Everette Thorpe
Kevin Kaempf
Jeremy Leithold-Patt
Kaitlyn Dessoffy
Brandon Phouybanhdyt
Kyle Bellucci Johanson
Grace Rockenhauser
Nayeon Yang: As a former resident of Rogers Park, I value what the neighborhood has offered a lot. I truely hope Loyola Uni.'s development plan is considered and designed to co-exist with local people and cultures.
Anika Steppe
Jeanne Donegan
Ashley Clodfelter
Jasmine Lupe Mendoza
Jenn Smith
Adam Farcus: Roman Susan is important to me and to the art community in Chicago.
Abena motaboli
Magritte Nankin
Solveig Preus
Jessica Mueller
Johanna Brock: Roman Susan is worth keeping!
Henry Voellmecke
Lori Knill
Tom Burtonwood
Catie Rutledge
Jose Luis Benavides: Please keep the building and it’s residents in-tact.
Georges Mefleh
Jamie Price
Clark Woods: The Roman Susan is an important space in Chicago art and history, the space and funding they are able to provide to the citizens and artists of Chicago is of the top tier and they are a deeply important part of the community of art and artists here in the city. It is time that institutions stop and respect the spaces that help their communities thrive, and the RomanSusan is one of those amazing spaces.
Paige Naylor
Emily Swanson: As a Loyola Alumni who still lives in the community, I believe it best supports Loyola University's values and mission to respect this existing creative space and it's inhabitants.
Violet Jordan
Kayla Risko
Claire Lobenfeld
Galina Shevchenko: Please consider this space of cultural significance and its continued contribution to the community!
Yvette Mayorga
Emily Eddy
Sonia Cheng
Jesse Malmed: Roman Susan is such a vital space, integral to the cultural life of this city and, in particular, the neighborhood. It is imperative they be able to continue the work they do (maybe even with additional institutional support).
Yixiao Yao
Curtis Miller
Jackie Andres
Luca Klauba
Maureen Hickey
Nikki Telegan
Emma Chalit: <3
Marceline Small: Art spaces are crucial for the continuation of culture in Chicago!!!
Diego Campos
Bun Stout
Jeremy Kitchen
Annie Helgeson
Zachary Hudson: Community space for artists to work and spaces for neighbors to gather are critical to maintaining a wholesome and fulfilling experience of the city by its residents. All benefit from the presence of these spaces and all suffer when they are lost.
Cecilia Iwata
Emily Carroccio
Alix Schillaci
Ji Yang
Zander Raymond
Jared Kelley
Rosé Hernandez
Ellie Kust
Zee Howse: Expansion does not have to mean erasure of the existing neighborhood nor displacement of the current residents. Preserve the neighborhood that you promote to your students Loyola.
Anna Johnson: I was given the opportunity to create and present work at this space in the summer of last year. This was an incredible and unique experience for me as an artist and my fellow arts community, but through this time I also built relationships with many neighbors from the area and helped connect people to one another, including Loyola students, folks at Archie’s café next door, artists, passersby, and longtime visitors of the gallery. This opportunity to connect with and build neighborhood community was probably the most unique and meaningful part of the experience. Roman Susan offers something incredibly special for its community, always free, and I hope the college can recognize this and support the space to keep thriving as is.
Riley Yaxley
Charlie Thornton
Sam Forrey
Steven Carrelli
Kimmy Noonen
Vida Sacic: Roman Susan is an integral part of the Chicago artistic community. They have long supported local artists and culture workers. Cultural spaces for innovative work are precious to our city. I passionately support Roman Susan‘s mission and hope that Loyola University recognizes the tremendous value of this beloved cultural hub in their neighbourhood. Roman Susan needs to be supported for the benefit of the Rogers Park community!
Em Gallaugher: Roman Susan, Archie's, and Edge Art are important community assets.
Sarah Lewis
Jasmine Rush
Tom Powers
Courtney Wong
Sahar Steiner
Elena Solomon
Juliana Castro Duperly
Sam Dybeck
Nathan Florsheim
Jeff Prokash
Jiaming You
Dara Hoppe: Mixed use buildings, art spaces and affordable housing are vital to making rogers park a thriving neighborhood for all. 1224 Loyola ave is a very unique space that should be preserved.
Irina Fimov: Please, support the art = support Roman Susan! They do an amazing job promoting art and is important for the community.
Afiya Sajwani
Garrett Laroy Johnson, PhD
Anthony Hamilton
Andrew Bearnot
S.Y. Lim
Colleen Keihm
Yumi Erica Fukuda
Threewalls
6018North: Students' housing destroying affordable housing does not embody Loyola's mission to "expand knowledge in the service of humanity through learning, justice, and faith." Instead students can become sustainable "leaders of change" by leaving this building to the current tenants and choosing to decrease their footprint and buck the trend for bigger and better student housing.
Loren Rozewski: Loyola’s selfish decision to prioritize housing to increase their overpopulated student population is a disgrace to Rogers Park. They are taking away local businesses and limit artistic growth, for Rogers Park will have ZERO galleries. How can they be so naive?
Ben Ishibashi
Alexis Brocchi
Isra Rene
Yelena Kalinsky: Roman Susan is a gem that makes Rogers Park feel like a special place and like home. I hope the new building owners recognize its significance in the neighborhood, along with the other businesses and residents of the building, and preserves the real living-working-art making spaces.
Elyse Baylis
Alicia Craft
David Craft
Raine DeDominici
Alexander Revzin
Chloe Munkenbeck: Roman Susan gave me my first solo show and it was the best initiation into my art career I could have asked for. Nathan and Kristin are extraordinarily generous and supportive to artists. Roman Susan has managed to not only foster an active creative community for the Loyola area but their reach across Chicago attracts creative communities from every corner of the city. They must remain at all costs!
Karen Townsend
Kristina Blau
Elana Adler
Nathan Lamp: Roman Susan provides a vital space for artistic experimentation and creative exploration in the Rogers Park neighborhood. There's really little else like it! I hope Loyola recognizes & honors the important space that places like Roman Susan fulfill within a community ecosystem.
Jules Koreman: Roman Susan is a hub for artists and community and plays a key role in bringing art and creativity to Rogers Park. As a Rogers Park resident, I firmly believe that if Loyola University forces Roman Susan to leave, the university will inadvertently lose a key creative space that makes Rogers Park an enticing neighborhood for its students.
Sam Herschel Wein
Dan Manion
Lizi Breit
Ruben Whitaker
Gary LaPointe Jr
Eli Kosinski
Grace DeVies
Mie Kongo
Dr. Cole Robertson: Roman Susan is a wonderful, creative space, and it would be a shame for them to lose their physical venue.
Eric May: Roman Susan are an essential artist-run space in the fabric of the Chicago art world.
Yue Xu: I’ve living at Loyola neighborhood about three years since I moved to Chicago for my education. As an international artist and a person who loves this neighborhood, Roman Susan plays an important role for me and the reason why I chose this neighborhood. I hate to even think about not seeing Roman Susan have some fun events when I pass the street.
Kolter Campbell
Mary O’Connell
Helen Lee: We love Roman Susan! They have been providing a space for artists for many years. Their store front adds delight to the walk to and from the red line. We need more windows of joy and contemplation in our current lives. It is important to continue to maintain and support small arts organizations that add value to our lives.
Hannah Marcus
Meg Duguid
Selden Paterson
Lise Haller Baggesen
chloe buergenthal
Jill Bocskay: Roman Susan is a special place and a treasure to not just the immediate Rogers Park and Loyola communities, but also, a treasure to the Chicago arts community, overall.
Paola Cabal
Ali Georgescu
Christine Wallers
Kim, Jung soo
Nick Valvo: Looking at it from their perspective, I think it would be pretty shortsighted for Loyola to displace some of the handful remaining actual neighborhood amenities and culture near its campus. If they're not careful, their entire immediate surroundings will be the cookie store and the chicken tenders chain. Look, I like chain fast casual restaurants as much as the next guy, but it's important to also have an art gallery or a quirky, independent event space in a neighborhood.
Andy Nicholas Li
Kee Merriweather
Ben Bellwoar
Taylor Casey
Oona Taper: Roman Susan is one of the best art spaces in Chicago, it adds so much to the area it is in.
Laura Pearlman: As a long time resident of East Rogers Park, I have witness immense changes to our neighborhood with the expansion of Loyola for both better and worse. Because of Loyola, we have some beautiful spaces to walk through but we have also lost some of the businesses that create the culture and character of the community. It is my hope that Loyola can stay true to their original focus on community outreach and enrichment; not only beautifying the spaces of Rogers Park but also investing deeply in the culture and community that is already here. The building that houses Roman Susan is an opportunity for this kind of renewed commitment to community service. Loyola has the opportunity to invest in the rich culture of art, diversity, and equity that the Roman Susan Foundation embodies by considering the needs of the neighborhood not only its students. If they do this, then Loyola will be improving the conditions of the neighborhood for everyone; community members and students alike. It can be win/win.
Killian Walsh: Loyola has systematically torn down viable buildings to build student dorms which remain empty for months and as in the pandemic were empty for years. These are viable buildings that can be renovated, saving the landfills and trash produce from the demolition process. Loyola does not show true community spirit by kicking out viable business and tenants for a goal thats never realized. There is no giving back.
Thom Greene: Preserve architectural history! … Save the community history and the Arts!!
Neil Rest
Patrick Barry
Linda Doherty: These businesses are integral to keeping Rogers Park diverse in cultural and entertainment, and dining experiences. Be a good neighbor and make it a easy for these businesses to grow and thrive.
Teresa Elward
Sara Slawnik
Zara Yost: Please consider the amazing work that Roman Susan does for the community.
Marjorie Fritz-Birch: There is no reason whatsoever to tear down another affordable housing bldg and take it off the tax roles. Use the empty lot on Winthrop. This is disgusting. Where is your so called care for the environment?? What hypocrisy!! Preservation and reuse are necessary. Demolitions must stop.
Michael Blissett, LUC '20 (M.S.)
Cecilia Resende Santos
Alice Tippit: I live in the Rogers Park neighborhood, two blocks from 1224 Loyola Avenue. I value the businesses located there, and support affordable rentals for residents. As Loyola moves forward with plans for the lots around that location I hope the needs of the community will be in mind.
Lee Johnson
Claire Fleming Staples
Aubrey Ingmar: Protect the Art, Protect the Artists, Protect the Spaces!
Marsha Holland: Loyola's continuing removal of affordable housing units from the Edgewater/Rogers Park neighborhood has long term detrimental economic and social impacts on our community and Chicago overall. In addition, Loyola is removing this property from taxable property tax base of the Devon/Sheridan TIF, which itself largely benefits Loyola.
Libby Boyd: Please, leave these spaces and homes intact!
Kathy Gemperle: Loyola continues to ignore the needs of Rogers Park and Edgewater in the name of their own success. When will they have enough property? They are trying to make their campus like a new modern town instead of building on the rich history of this area?
Matthew Gilboy: As an Edgewater resident, there aren't many accessible cultural spaces. Roman Susan provides one that has a long history with this neighborhood. This building is a place for local culture to enrich our neighborhood.
Kim Richardson: Please don't tear down this building. We need to start thinking more about preservation and reuse more than just building for building sake. Losing the building at 6032 N Winthrop to Loyola was such an incredible loss, we need to fight for our history.
Dona Vitale: Roman Susan is a valuable asset to the neighborhood. Please accommodate them into your plans.
Seth Bearman: Through my many years in this wonderful, creative stretch of Rogers Park, I was always struck by Roman Susan's thought-provoking displays, its inviting visibility, its commitment to neighborhood presence. This is an art space with the spirit of real Chicago citizens—Loyola would benefit from upholding that spirit, fostering the art and care that have made RP the neighborhood home of so many thousands of LUC students.
Kerry Cardoza
Curtis Anthony Bozif
Kristin McWharter
J. Clay Gonzalez: Roman Susan enriches the neighborhood in so many ways. Allowing it to remain will lead to a much better experience for all Loyola students. Don’t take this amazing institution away from all the people who care about it.
Luke van Oene
Avery Kendrick
Gina Hunt
Morgan Bicknell: Art shouldn’t need a special permit of any kind, let local artists stay where they are!
Nathalie Quagliotto (runs the Pilot art list): Roman Susan is a very important and model art gallery in the USA because they pay WAGE artist honorariums to exhibiting artists. We should protect galleries that pay artists.
Blake Nemec: As a queer / trans resident of Rogers Park, the inclusivity of LGBTQAI artist work in the gallery's 1224 W Loyola Ave space is vital to me and honors the important queer history of Rogers Park.
Nichole Harrod: As a neighbor, my family and I would like to share that we find that the building at 1226-1234 Loyola Avenue houses foundational community mainstays. Of note, Roman Susan, Archie’s, and Edge Art are vital cultural centers in Rogers Park. These organizations provide engaging opportunities for not just Loyola students but folks who live in 60660 year round. For 20+ years the building in question even housed the honorary street namesake, Ramona Rouse, owner of Salon Pastiche. And let us not forget about the residential tenants of this building. Loyola, please be a better neighbor and allow these tenants, both business and residential, to stay in their homes.
Mary Eleanor Wallace
Renee Patten for the Edgewater Environmental Coalition
Pushkar Sharma, Tenzin Dolker
Mary Zerkel: Roman Susan is an important part of the community, as are the people and other businesses that reside in the 1224 W. Loyola Ave. I've lived in proximity to this building for the last 20 years, and have seen this small stretch of Loyola Ave change in many ways. Loyola University's penchant for buying up real estate and severing it from the broader community is destructive. The demise of the Sofia community garden (across the street from Roman Susan, and now an empty lot) is an example, and my fear for what might become of the vibrant community that currently occupy 1224 W Loyola Ave. Roman Susan models the role an institution can play to foster community, care and love to a neighborhood—Loyola University, please learn from their example and allow all residents of 1224 W Loyola to remain.
Maggie Bowman
Nora Gallagher
Gina Tarullo
Jodi Lacy, RP neighbor and LUC alum
Lila Wolfe
Melanie Wagner
Julie Erbe
Zoe Benditt: We live in Rogers Park for the arts, focus on community, and affordable housing. Please don’t take all of this away!
Mary Laskey: We find inspiration everytime we visit Roman gallery space, likewise Archie's Cafe gives us good food, music and camaraderie. Independent artists and small businesses need their community to thrive and their community needs them to keep their souls intact by having the opportunity to enjoy unique culture in their own neighborhood. It is indeed sad to see so many small businesses being swallowed up by big greedy corporations that contribute nothing to individual well being and have bo connections to community of any kind.
Ashley Laverty
Josh Bernaski
Ann Zerkel
Hannah Altshuler
Jacqui Zeng
Jenn Graville Bricker
Richard Fox
Natalie Kling
Aaron Davidson: Dear Loyola, I sincerely hope you will let all residents and businesses stay at this building. That includes keeping the rents at affordable rates. Not only, is this an important building for Rogers Park, keeping it how it is creates a direct benefit towards Loyola University. Students, faculty and visitors are able to go to a terrific local cafe such as Archie's, which is very frequently patroned by Loyola students. They get to see exhibits at Roman Susan. And having affordable rental units above create an opportunity for off campus housing. When making upcoming decisions, I implore you to realize that keeping this building how it is directly benefits Loyola University without having to change a thing.
Tigerlily Cross: This space is important to the location's growth, connection to the University, emerging ideas & inclusion.
Laura Joy
H Schenck
Zachary Sun
Kitty Rauth
Molly Kraus-Steinmetz: Your students benefit from living alongside a diverse community and having access to a beautiful cultural space. If you won't preserve this community for us, do it for them.
Thomas Love: I got to know the work of Kristin and Nathan when I was living in Rogers Park while pursuing a PhD in art history at Northwestern University between 2014-2023. The concerns of academia can be quite removed and abstract, and I was so grateful for Roman Susan, which served as a constant reminder of how vital and important art is to our society. Each event at Roman Susan was a delightful surprise, not only because of the ever-curious programming, but because of the great diversity of people it attracted. Love of art and appreciation for the space brought together Chicagoans from all walks of life, sparking meaningful conversations, hilarious anecdotes, local lore, and future plans. Roman Susan is part of the lifeblood of Rogers Park, and it provides a huge service to the community that must be defended. In an art world corrupted by racketeering and careerism, Kristin and Nathan represent a beacon of hope. I have only ever seen them devote the purest energy and deepest selflessness to the project. They truly do what they do for the rest of us, and it is our turn now to show our gratitude. Protect Roman Susan!
Andrew Yang: Roman Susan continues to play a crucial role in exhibiting contemporary art and building community not only in Rogers Park, but throughout Chicago. They have been singular in their ability to curate and support art exhibitions that catalyze the work of many emerging and established artists while also drawing diverse audiences and attention to the neighborhood. Please support the integral role they play for the arts and the Rogers Park community.
Charles Carey Ward: We need a tax base.
Erica Chu: As a Loyola alumnus (for two degrees) and a Rogers Park resident for 10+ years, I recognize the need for Loyola to grow and sometimes expand, but I urge you to recognize the significance of the community in which you are. You have built a reputation for social justice work, so please live out that commitment in this community.
Ross Jordan: Part of the reason any students might come to Loyola is the neighborhood arts and cultural scene. Any update to the neighborhood to meet Loyola’s needs should also support the arts and cultural scene and not disrupt it.
Elaine Luther
L Vinebaum
Sarah ross
Benjamin Waite
Jane Jerardi: Arts, culture, food, affordable housing are all things that make our diverse city what it is – livable, pluralistic, and vital. I hope that Loyola considers keeping the current tenants of 1226-1234 as part of their plans.
JeeYeun Lee: Roman Susan is an essential neighborhood institution. I believe that true collaboration and partnership must be possible with Loyola University to make it possible for everyone involved to have good outcomes, and no one has to suffer.
Annette LePique
Mark Bedard
Maggie Wong
Emma Vescio
Taylor Kearin: The University purchasing residential/commercial space and displacing folks and businesses is terrible for the neighborhood. Please keep us posted for ways we can get involved.
Harlow Higgins
Virginia Zirkle: I love the creativity expressed in this space.
Lilly Allan: In times like these where it seems we are becoming increasingly isolated from one another due to advances in technology and automation, it has become commonplace to put profits and growth before human lives. We need spaces where we can prioritize community, art, love, and respect and that’s exactly what has been created here on W Loyola. Taking away these spaces is a step in the wrong direction, Loyola and the impact that it will have goes far far beyond the displacement of the individuals residing here.
Mark Salvati
Sophia Lupo
aidan mcdougal: roman susan & archies are such key community spaces that welcome anyone & taking these creative and social outlets away is detrimental to the community, INCLUDING the student body!!
Kait Ripcho
Jessica Dominguez
Quinn Peters
Christian Y
Ellyana Wills
James G.
Megan G
Ally Bido
Laura Wilcox
Alanna Clark
Patrick Sheehan
Ixchel Barraza
Sinéad Bane
Elayna Pasqua
Lucie Pitt
Charlotte Baekey: As a third year Loyola student who is also a Chicago transplant, I’ve become well versed in the cultural diversity of Rogers Park and been cognizant of Rogers Park as not only home to Loyola, but also many other residents who have been here far longer than any of us at Loyola have been students. This building is home to many long time residents - several of whom are living on social security - and it is a disgusting act of gentrification to remove them from their homes. Especially considering the fact that there are no plans in place to renovate the space, this is a completely unnecessary and cruel decision on Loyola’s part, and as someone who helps fund their endowment, I deplore it.
Willa Poland-McClain
Emma
Douglas Hansford: Roger’s Park/Edgewater cannot lose more of its 3rd spaces!
Joseph Cunningham: I am a Loyola Student, and 1224-1234 has been vital to my experience of the Rogers Park community. I don’t want to see it go away for an empty lot.
Heather Born: I am hopeful that Loyola University will follow the spirit and tenants of their mission statement and choose to not displace local businesses and residents. Mission statement: “Loyola University a is a diverse community seeking God in all things and working to expand knowledge in the service of humanity through justice, learning and faith.” I implore those involved in making this decision to remember the roots, integrity, and heart of Loyola.
Clara Copps
Nicole Ficklin: This building is a home for many, a community for many, and is valuable beyond measure. It is not there to be a money-making opportunity for the university.
Max Henson
Michael Hughey: As a Loyola student and Chicago resident, I chose this school for the incredible community and diversity of the surrounding neighborhood. By displacing local artists and residents, Loyola not only takes away the wonderful value of the community, but gentrifies our neighborhood. Please, Loyola, your students want the artists and residents to stay in this building!!!
Emily Cauley
Megan Wenner
Spencer Bellissemo
Sydney Ware
Reygan Weiss: As a student, I don’t support my tuition dollars being used to destroy the neighborhood that so kindly houses us!
Sam Simone
Paul Cathey: Rogers Park has lost a lot of cultural community spaces during the pandemic. In destroying 3 more, Loyola is removing the threads that hold a community together and ignoring the Jesuit values they espouse. Listen to your mileau. With loneliness levels at their highest in human history, youth mental health rapidly declining and a decrease in 3rd spaces, why destroy what little Rogers Park has left?
Ashley De La Rosa: We’re losing so many small businesses in this neighborhood which is very upsetting. Loyola should work to keep them and make the neighborhood better not try to make it more like the suburbs.
Li Jaran
Seraph Peck
Sarai Dominguez
Riley Lentz
Allison Quist
Emma McBride
Dharma Halvadia: These institutions have added a cultural value to the streets around Loyola that the university itself is unable to create on its own. As a student of the school, I am disgusted and angered at the fact that they continue to purchase and demolish, leaving empty lots in place of loved and valued businesses without batting an eye. Please understand that the University has enough, and is only losing loyalty and allies in these decisions rather than aiding in the school’s image. Good luck to the current inhabitants, I hope your messages is heard and your history and influence is respected!
Jace Casey
Erion Malone
Mira R.
Amber Stephenson
Hannah Moore
Melissa Kinsella
Kayla Johnson
Evangelos Stavrou: Archie's and the art studio next door are corner stones of Rogers Park. Loyola needs to keep its disgusting hands away from it.
Tim Ventrella
K. Aki Takebayashi
Katherine DiRe
Sekani Reed: This building is valued and necessary in the community! Please conserve.
ebere agwuncha: Roman Susan is critical to art community. The ongoing site-specific projects and work must continue to be uplifted and protected!
Aelijah Lynch
James Cardis
Bria Dolnick: It will be an enormous loss to this neighborhood if the residents and businesses in this building are displaced.
Michael H. Hall
Yhelena Hall: I think, Roman Susan is the one of the most professional and honest contemporary art galleries in Chicago and its existence was a great support for me during my art making years. I would not want to see it go.
Catie Burrill
Heather Lindahl: Be a good neighbor. Good neighbors don’t kick people out of their homes.
Alex Younger: Roman Susan and the other businesses on W Loyola Avenue are core pieces of the community.
rob kimmel: Loyola University should be a positive, respectful, forward-looking presence in the Rogers Park community. Tearing down a beautiful building with (besides its residents) commercial tenants that contribute to the neighborhood is not the correct move. Please reconsider your plans and celebrate the community instead of demolishing it.
Mariela Acuña
Maddie May
Lee Romero
Shira Raider
Sara Zalek: Roman Susan and Archie's Cafe are both hubs of creativity and meeting point for many, a real asset to their neighborhood. If Loyola considers their neighborhood valuable they would help these businesses and residents relocate or consider their displacement as more than just an inconvenience.
Michelle Wang
Liz McCarthy: This is a very special and important space to the ecology of the Chicago art world! Roman Susan provides a unique place for performances and exhibitions in the city. There is no replacement for their unique programming.
Andreas Noel
Carrie Casady
Megan Diddie: I love Roman Susan and Archie’s Cafe- seems obvious that these spaces would serve the students and university by offering some texture/diversity of resources and spaces for the community to access. Also- that building is beautiful and I was shocked to see it the intention to knock it down.
Elisabeth Heying
Asya Dubrovina: I love the art and community I've seen at Roman Susan. There aren't many spaces like this in the city.
Sarah Dwider
Kimberly Kim
Fengzee Yang: as an artist I had many friends shown and performed their art works in the lovely space of roman susan. i live in glenwood ave which is a block away from roman susan. im grateful of roman susan’s contribution to chicago art scene and how supportive they are to my fellow artists.
Lauren McKee
Oli Watt: I run free range, an artist-run space in Albany Park, Chicago. Spaces such as ROMAN SUSAN define the character of a community and are vital to the retention of neighborhood diversity. An institution such as Loyola should not and must not ignore this. The importance and value of spaces such as ROMAN SUSAN to the city of Chicago cannot be ignored. Loyola needs to rethink this destructive decision.
Amanda Acevedo: Loyola, don’t displace these residents and important local institutions!
Malcolm Riordan
Kira Powell
Audrey Hollis
Elise Parisian
olivia cerza: as a loyola alumni and current staff member, i hope loyola can understand the importance of maintaining this historic community building.
Helena Joho: This building has been around since I started going to the Chicago Waldorf school in 2000, my friends family built a cafe and kept the community alive in the neighborhood even after the school moved locations. Tearing down this building would be a selfish and disrespectful decision on the University’s part for the community both in the neighborhood and college.
Vic Barquin
Beth Betolzheimer
Myles Fucci: Roman Susan & Archie’s are places of community & love! Loyola is trying to destroy a part of Rogers Park that makes it the beautiful neighborhood that it is.
Sam Carlson
Jack Vavrinchik
Lucy York
Austin Connolly
Summer Worthington
Halle Helfrich
Maeve Jackson
Mateo Badilla
Youssef Boucetta
Audrey Maxey
Matthew Kellen
Laurel S
Margaret Torrisi
Quinn Dean: I love Archies...
Juliet russo
Olivia Vincent
Paola del Rincón Martínez: As a Loyola alum, I am extremely disappointed in LUC’s decision to take away these neighborhoods spaces that are essential to Rogers Park and the community.
Katharine Cikanek
Missy Aguilar
Madison Brown
Frederic Moffet
Jesica Davis
Mitch Monroy
Florence Woolley
Cameron Worden
Morgan Ciocca: As a Loyola alum, Archie's Cafe provided me with irreplaceable community — both with my peers at the university and my neighbors in Rogers Park and Edgewater. My college experience and my life would not be the same had I not found such a warm embrace within Archie's, and I know many, many others would agree. Losing this space would not just be a loss for Roman Susan and Archie's, but a loss that would be felt by the Rogers Park, Edgewater and Loyola communities as a whole. Invest in the arts, invest in community!
Erin Hayden: Roman Susan is a vital space for Chicago’s creative community and engages in inspiring community programming across Rogers Park as well.
Catherine Schwalbe: Roman Susan has made the Loyola community a much more interesting one. It’s my hope you consider this wildly anti community building demolition and reconsider your plans for the lot that is alive and life giving.
Kioto Aoki
Nicole Rea, MA, LCSW
C. C. Ann Chen
emeline brady: I have lived in this neighborhood and admired the businesses and beauty within this area my whole life. It’s abhorrent of you to consider demolishing one of the few community engaging constructions with character left in the city just to put up another cookie cutter monstrosity. Think of your roots. Think about why this neighborhood is so wonderful to be a part of. Heck think about the unnecessary detrimental environmental impact complete demolition leads too. Please, I’m begging you to reconsider.
Seamus Carey
Elizabeth Stallter
Ryn Osbourne
Ellen Phillips
Tony Madia
Jenna Z
Jamil Fuller
Maggie Bridger
Solveig preus: This building and its inhabitants are Rogers park staples. It’s community spaces like these that keep the neighborhood connected.
Elise Butterfield
Tyler Ommen
Lucy Shapiro
George Taylor
Bun Stout
Chris Collins: Roman Susan is an extremely important institution. <3
Tim Parzyck
Emma Greifenkamp
Hannah Kaplan: I was born and raised in Roger's Park, and went to Waldorf at its prior location nearby this building. I used to go to the gardens across the street from this building that are now a vacant lot, and to see the same be done to this building would be terrible. The last thing this neighborhood needs is more development projects. Stop displacing our neighbors for the sake of more student housing or another parking lot.
Jenn Smith
Jeff Blanchard
Louisa Zheng
Millicent Kennedy
Thilini Fernando
Michelle Murphy, Chicago resident, Artist, parent, teacher: Roman Susan and its neighbors have continually offered work, art, and culture that creates the kind of experiences that provide meaningful conversations and through those turn into meaningful relationships. It provides community. It provides a safe and respectful gathering place where everyone is welcome and kind. This destruction of a community cornerstone will not be replaced by their displacement. This would equate to a loss in the culture and in the community of Rogers Park. This is a bad idea. Loyola development should stop 🛑 this plan.
Qian Yu
Alex de Gala
Dylan Cale Jones
Marie Walz
Nora Wynn
Molly Smith: Longtime Rogers Park resident who loves this neighborhood because of the small businesses here!
Thomas F Banks: As an alumni this saddens me deeply. Outside of the classroom, the most formative aspect of my undergrad experience at Lakeshore was interacting with the vibrant polyglot cultures that cradle the campus. The relationship between LUC and RPEW is healthiest when there is symbiotic balance between the two. Terraforming the community in order to make more of itself is extractive, capitalist, and colonial. Honor praxis of the ethics you preach, LUC.
Mort Wormwood
jessica lyn grimmly
Tong Pan
Sarah Bastress
Jillian Armstrong-Baker: Im a 26 year old and i grew up on this block truly and still live up the street. Ive seen what the university has done to the neighborhood. Tearing up a community garden that was across the street from this building and leaving multiple empty lots for decade on loyola st alone. They done nothing for the community or for the betterment of their students by kicking families out of their homes again and taking away community gathering spots such as the gallery and coffee shop.
Olivia Willke
Ashley
Bradley Carr
Courtney Sass: I’m an alum of Loyola and my time in college was made so much better by the neighborhood Loyola is located in. I loved the diversity and that Loyola felt like another component of the neighborhood, not like Loyola had a monopoly on the real estate in the area. To say I’m disappointed by Loyola and their actions against their neighbors is an understatement. This goes against many core values of the university.
Kenna Zeigler: As a student at Loyola, I feel complete disappointment and disrespect from the university in their decision to demolish this building. While there are so many reasons to not demolish it, I will just share that having this building in place has always made me feel much safer living on W Loyola. Walking home at night without Archie's bright lights and music or the art exhibits being shown, will make the street much darker. The street will be darker physically as Archie's is often the main source of light at night and the street will be darker in the fact that a huge source of community and a welcoming space will be taken away from Rogers Park and Loyola students.
Tuli Bera
Aya Nakamura
Amelia Bell
Leanna Taylor
Maya Donnelly: DISPLACEMENT KILLS!!
allie: loyola grad from 2018, constantly reminded that loyola is a private for profit school and does not adhere to jesuit values as thoroughly as they advertise. all they care about is taking as much tuition money as possible even at the cost of the surrounding community! they did this when i was a student and im sure they’ve done it for years. horrible
Isabel Reidy
Madison Young
Catherine Stewart
Marcelyn Cole
Kayla Brown
Oliver Levy
Cherrie Yu
Vincent hickman
Carolyn Fogleman: There are not many small businesses in Roger’s park this close to campus and they are invaluable to enhancing the student experience. It would be a tragedy if Loyola tore them down.
Amanda Mulcahy
Sydney Kamuda
Mindy Rose Schwartz
Isabel Caruso: Rogers Park is great because it is the most diverse neighborhood in the city. STOP GENTRIFYING NOW.
Kate Roth
Jack Bouman
Rachel Blume
Amie Sell
Devin Hanley
Peter Kuli
Montana Bruns
Caeleb Heinen: Archie’s is wonderful. Leave it be!
ally boly
Jane Georges
Jessica Pritz
Ezra Densley: I live on Loyola Ave and have met some of my closest friends at Archie’s/Edge Art. My community is stronger and more beautiful because of this place and it breaks my heart to think of it being demolished. Everyone I know who lives around here or has lived here, including Loyola students, was devastated when they heard of the plan to destroy this essential place of community and art. This decision is also in direct opposition to Loyola University’s value of community-centered engagement. The priorities listed under this section in Loyola’s strategic plan for upholding their values include “Enhance partnerships with schools, faith communities, government, non-profits, local businesses, and other private partners to support the shared goals of our communities.” How is demolishing a building that has housed a local artist-run nonprofit and provided a valuable third place to our community for the past decade in alignment with that “priority”? Another priority listed in this section of Loyola’s strategic plan is “Leverage the University’s position, resources, and strengths towards decreasing community inequities in areas such as economic growth, health, and housing.” This “priority” is clearly not being truly prioritized in this decision because the building at 1224 W Loyola Ave doesn’t just house art and events for the community, it also houses people. As stated above, affordable housing near public transportation is vital to building and maintaining strong communities. If Loyola University intends to keep its promises to our community and enact the values and priorities listed in its strategic plan, it will allow the current tenants and Roman Susan to renew their leases at the same rate, lease open units to community members and Loyola students alike at the same rate, and halt all plans to demolish the building.
Soleil Smith
Jana Richter
Alexandra Ditoro: Community cannot be bought! Please don’t ruin a neighborhood for profit.
Madie Groat, LUC Alum, 2020
Sawyer Reid
Sally Duros
Barbara Wahler: i'm just tired of Loyola's "engulf and devour" method of dealing with Rogers Park and Edgewater. As both a Loyola alum and a 40-year resident of Rogers Park I am invested in both. I would REALLY like to see Loyola be a better neighbor to / in Rogers Park, rather than just going along and bulldozing its way through the neighborhood.
Liz Bosarge: help preserve the character of our community and residents who are a part of this neighborhood. Please don't push them out.
SM Kerastas
Jackson Zimmerman
Emily Knapp
Audrey Todd
Lauren Flaaen
Rachel Bosnyak
Jesse Kane: I will support efforts to require the university to maintain this building until such time as there is a development plan in place as well as any effort to motivate the university to develop or improve the street level appearance of the existing empty lots.
Jeffrey Holman
Robin Feltman
Riley McGuire
Benjamin Fenton
Theresa Isaacson
Sandra Hazel
Loren Maria Guay
Nora Shuman-Moore
Lynne Perillo
Kathy Austin
Kayla Kennedy
Rachel Jacobs
Kendra Long
Mary Jo O' Toole
Eleanor S Bailey
Imogene Ellis
Julianne Hill
Pam Babler
Tamara Besser
Mark Kaplan
David White
Katherine Norquist
Reni Blue Spruce
Ned Márta
Charlie Mann: Loyola, this sucks. You can do better.
Emily Lyon
Heather Ervin
Paul Mikos
Deirdre Harrison: As a Rogers Park resident, artist and educator I value this organization and the others who make this neighborhood such a lovely and healthy place to live, work and learn.
Linda Smith
Alan Oviedo
Nancy Syburg
Jinni Pike
Amy Zimmerman: Loyola must be held accountable. We are more than a chit in their growing tax-free real estate portfolio. This building and the businesses it holds are a treasure. There must be a resolution short of demolition. Before displacement, Loyola needs a plan that involves community input. We need a community townhall ASAP!
Lucki M. Wilder: When consulting with grandchildren reaching college age, I stress for them the importance of taking issues such as this into important account.
Tom Schneider
Olivia Myers
Deborah Fenner
Elizabeth Tillar
Margaret Aguilar
Judith Cooper: It behooves Loyola to listen to the voices of the community that are anything but impressed by its so-called community engagement. Where are the neighborhood meetings on such a monumental decision? Where is the outreach by Loyola to help find new housing for the 30 households and the vibrant businesses that will be replaced by this callous and abrupt decision? And frankly, we all know that this spot will probably be another fenced-off parking lot for another 10 years...
Nancy Fineberg
Shelbi Parker
Andrew Mine: Loyola should do its utmost to be a good neighbor, in keeping with its putative pedagogic and religious ideals, instead of strip-mining our community like a hedge fund. I grew up in Hyde Park in the 1960s, in the aftermath of urban renewal which had destroyed much of the creative character of the neighborhood up to that time (particularly art studios/galleries and jazz clubs). In recent years, the University of Chicago has been, to an extent, sinking millions of dollars into social, legal, creative arts, and other programs benefiting the surrounding communities of Hyde Park and Woodlawn, in partial penance for its prior destructive manipulations. It appears that Loyola is three quarters of a century behind U of C, so perhaps we can expect to see some substantial and meaningful community initiatives in Rogers Park in what - the year 2100?
Kristen petzinger
Betty Giorgi
Susan S. Pastin: What a priceless addition to a neighborhood full of young people!
amanda seibert
Kate Alpert
Esther Espino
Shir Ende
jessica harvey
Carisa Mitchell
Melissa Oresky
Amy Mall
Scott Cook
Andrew Mausert-Mooney
Theo Katsaounis
Patrick Brennan
Marina Balko: The opportunity Roman Susan provided to me as an artist and curator came a pivotal moment for me. The support and trust in the vision of me and my collaborator changed the way I think about gallery spaces. Roman Susan serves as a true and genuine example of what art and community can be!
Justine Serino
Patricia Lord
Rankin Renwick: Do the right thing. Unconscionable what you are proposing!
Clara Alcott
Selina Trepp
Marlene Brito-Millan
Ash Huse
zsa zsa olivia-linda helmin
Becca Smith
Sarah LaVanway
Michael Ruebensam
Elyse Smith
Lele Buonerba
Sheila Hall: Live up to your beliefs, help the community by improving the building instead of tearing it down. Enrich your community. The Art Foundation and Archies enhance the community. Please listen to your neighbors and your faith.
Laurie Van Wieren: Keep these artists in this building and in the neighborhood. We all need artists in our neighborhoods. They bring hope and vision. They live your mission. We need artistic vision more than ever. They are expanding knowledge in the community. They are working in the service of humanity. They are good neighbors. Keep them.
Rosalynn Gingerich, artist
Sarah Bennett: Jesuit education is about educating the whole person, it’s about bringing folks and institutions that are marginalized to the mainstream. Be better Loyola. You encourage your community to live the gospel teachings, well now you have the opportunity to model this in your actions. Keep these integral community organizations that bring culture to LU students and the Rogers Park community. What would Jesus do??!!
Patricia Caswell-Evans
Jasmine Lupe Mendoza: Roman Susan is a home for so many artists in Chicago. Kristin & Nathan have so genuinely created this space for artists to thoughtfully explore, research, and create - in a neighborhood where experimental performance, sound, and visual art are not at the forefront. There is nowhere else like Roman Susan in this city. As artists and activists, we must preserve these precious spaces and communities and allow them to grow and flourish without the threat of money and gentrification. Roman Susan is an important part of this diverse community! Let Roman Susan live!
Shannon Cotter
Hui-min Tsen
JI YANG: Roman Susan is such a irreplaceable treasure in Rogers Park. It holds such a high standard of curating and supporting artists in the Chicago art community. It is constantly exploring progressive ways to approach art in a community sense and has left so many wonderful moments during its stay in that location. It will be a great resource for Loyola students and faculty members to take advantage of. Most importantly, it has proven through all these years, Roman Susan has figured a way to fulfill their mission effectively and efficiently, which can be a major challenge for majority of the community-based art spaces not only in Chicago, but all around the US. It is the duty for us all, especially for institutions who claim to care about art, culture and community like Loyola to continuing support Roman Susan.
James Horns
Neil Mikota: Preserve Chicago's architecture!
Leah Gallant
Lydia Jekot: The Coffee Shop that Loyola bought and bulldozed in 2017 was my home and a vital part of my college experience. I didn’t have anything that felt like home at Loyola until Roberta created Archie’s when I was a senior. It breaks my heart to keep seeing spaces that are close to the hearts of Loyola students and Rogers Park community members be destroyed for my alma mater’s profits. I’ve gotten to see such great artists at Roman Susan and Archie’s, and having it around the corner made Loyola actually feel like a part of Chicago. Please be a good neighbor. It is in the best interest of the students and the whole neighborhood as well as the tenants for these businesses to continue to thrive; these businesses are truly serving the community and are highly appreciated.
Alyssa Torres
Forsyth Sr: I’m a neighborhood resident and this breaks my heart.
Bonnie Richardson
Lisa Haen
Edward Philip Winston
Stephanie Young
Meghan Folinazzo
Conah Targett-Jones
A.Leigh Cousino
Kelly Marth
victor ponce: let’s work together, not against each other!
Nick Turner
Dalton Day
Courtney Stegenga
Tim Lacy
Les Butler
Erik Archambeault
Gaye N Durst
William Malleris: Horrible news! L.U.C., please reconsider your real estate acquisitions in our neighborhood and the effect of these actions on R.P. residents and businesses.
Renae Johannes
Mol Parker-Kafka
Tanya Milojkovic
Arlie Sims
Sade Roush
Wallace Andersen
Chloe White
Kellyn Jackson
Jess Smoot
valerie willuweit
Eliza Marley
Nicolas Garcia: We need businesses like Archie's in our community. They have just as much right to be here as Loyola University. I'm sick of small businesses being replaced by corporate fast food chains.
Erika Baroman: You bought and demolished my old apartment building back in 2012. There's an empty lot right next to this building, why buy this one as well? This is getting insane.
S Aubry
Erin McCann: As a Loyola alumni, It disappoints me to see the campus' disregard for the preservation and well-being of the neighborhood around it. When I was a student, we were frequently reminded that we were expected to uphold Loyola's Jesuit values, with an emphasis on creating a just society through service to others. Loyola's actions don't serve the Rogers Park community, of which it is a part. The university is prioritizing self-interest over its own core values, to the detriment of its community and to the detriment of the example it sets for it's students.
Brendan Wernisch
Catherine C. VanPatten: I agree with the message above, 100%.
Patricia O'Neal
Norman Wald
Miles Robin
Donna Berlin
Thomas Harris
Janet Takehara: I am a Loyola alum who has lived within 2 blocks of 1224 W. Loyola since 1999. I am proud of the education I received at Loyola but ashamed of the unversity as a neighbor.
Criage Lynnette Althage: Loyola University has had a deleterious effect of the look of the properties they have taken hold of in Rogers Park. They do not deserve this opportunity to further destroy the beauty of Rogers Park
Maxine Kwiatkowski: I gave loyola $160,000 in tuition. Now I move back to rogers park and I watch as small businesses close and more and more vacant lots pop up, leading to crime and vagrancy. Buy up space on morse or up on howard, plenty of space up there!
Dana Frankel
Shaun Emerson
Andrew A Johnston
Luke Turley: Come on Loyola, don’t be that guy.
Donna Bruno
Daniel Carnahan
Clayton Schuh: This neighborhood is more than a university campus. This is not Lincoln Park.
Dana McDemott
Haydn Bush: I have lived in Rogers Park for most of my life. I do not understand why Loyola consistently tears down perfectly viable structures and leaves them as vacant lots for years on end (a practice that stretches back several decades) with no thought to its neighbors. There was an apartment building across the street from the new teardown that has now been a vacant lot for a good 15 years. Who did that vacant lot benefit? Certainly not the people who live and own businesses here while Loyola develops land at a glacial pace.
Jocelyn Cano
Sara Hawes
Sean Chumley
Erica Holman
Larry Shure: I've admired this building for many years and have participated in some of the Roman Susan events and displays. Please consider restoring the building for Loyola use while maintaining the first-floor commercial spaces.
Tamara Buss
Milvia Rodriguez
Victor Lombardi: Stay true to your Jesuit mission, Loyola!
Sarah Katherine Lamb
Laurie Little: Please protect your beautiful community and historic buildings from bad development choices.
Maureen Hickey
Allison Wood
Lisa Barcy
Cynthia Xerogianes
CJ Marshall
Dave Purdie: Loyola - cease destruction of local culture!
Kathleen Hogan: Small businesses-especially unique ones like the gallery and Archie’s are so much more than brick & mortar institutions. They are the neighborhood earmarks of individuality and precious because of that.
Amy Shuffelton: As a Loyola professor who has chosen to live in Rogers Park, I'm deeply concerned by the direction this university is taking. My students have brought it up in every single class since the news broke, and it's impossible to explain to them why a Jesuit institution that claims to be dedicated to social justice is replacing its neighbors' businesses with parking lots, as well as displacing residents at a time when housing insecurity has become a national issue. Do better.
Jessica Correa: Roman Susan is a unique gallery and one of VERY few community art spaces in Rogers Park.
Laura Haber: Please preserve the unique character of our neighborhood.
Williamettia R. Scott: Your university at one time touted the wonders of the neighborhood that embraced it. Don’t forget what feeds its soul.
Ed Gilliland
Chuck Minzenberger: The businesses being displaced are unique and add great value to the neighborhood, they also provide sales taxes, the building provides real estate taxes, by razing the building all this is destroyed - there must be better options.
Lin Ungerer
Sophia Mihic
Jennifer blagg
Jared Wouters: I don’t understand why you want to tear down this building instead of buying and reusing the former St. Ignatius school building.
Angus Dawson
Suzanne Harris
Katherine Kullen
Mugsie Pike: PLEASE don't override the character of the neighborhood. Loyola has been coexisting as part of it for so long without killing what makes RP unique. Please don't keep going in the other direction
Jilana Ordman: The school should be part of and support the neighborhood, not buy it out from residents.
Sam Sandmel
Emma Rosengarten
Maddy Scaletta
Scarlett Strickland
Sue Cook, Loyola MSW class of 2020: Contain your greed, Loyola!
Torrence Gardner
Gabriel Dulecki: As a Loyola Alum and long time Rogers Park resident I am once again disappointed in the way LUC is choosing to engage with the neighborhood. You tout your supposed care for community, your supposed emphasis on social justice — but as soon as you see an opportunity for profit these values go out the window. The way Loyola engages with the neighborhood is disgraceful.
Carlos Barragan
Torrence Gardner: I am big believer in nothing for us without us. This is an example of something taking place without involvement from key stakeholders. Rogers Park is community of artists, organizers as well as those who wish to just live and go about their lives in a community that has very local and togetherness ethos. This building and the entities and people in it represent the hallmark of what makes Rogers Park well Rogers Park. I implore Loyola to truly do better as we all care about this community and being a caring entity means truly engaging with those impacted. I hope things turnaround and better relations can form as Loyola has been a symbol in this community with Sister Jean representing the best parts of the institution and what it should stand for. However Loyola must remember its the people that make up of the fabric of the community that truly keeps the neighborhood healthy. Again nothing for us without us.
Audrey Ney: Heartbreaking, Rogers Park has thrived for decades, and to blatantly gentrify that community without respect or care for the people of that community is infuriating.
Daphne walsh
Bob Nelson: Please save Archie’s. A real local business, and culturally important.
Kristin Jackson: The neighborhood loves Roman Susan, Edge and Archie's, as well as the fun architecture of this quirky building. Loyola's pattern of tearing down buildings on this block and then leaving the lots empty for decades blights the neighborhood. Stop it.
Katie Schenkel
Leonard DeWilde
Eddie Vizcaino
Adriana Rosales
Maureen Sullivan: Loyola is a Catholic institution who should be encouraging a good quality of life for their neighbors. Pushing community connected businesses out for Loyola’s profit is a sin. Shame on them!
MaryAnne Lyons: Please honor your so-called “commitment to community.” Rogers Park is not just Loyola. It is a vibrant and eclectic community that is enriched by our small, independently owned businesses.
Peyton Gasta
Tracy Fleshman
Cara Thaxton
Dara Brown
hana urban
Julia K. Murphy: I live adjacent to Loyola University. Archie's Cafe, Edge Art and Roman Susan Art Foundation are unique small businesses and nonprofits that enrich the community. It appears that Loyola U is greedily snapping up properties left and right in the neighborhood and leaving large buildings such as the Waldorf school and St. Ignatius church vacant, creating dead zones in the neighborhood. This is so sad. In addition, Archies and Nova Cafe are the only restaurants near Loyola that appear to be independent, healthy and delicious. Most of the restaurants are large chains that serve junk food. Why is Loyola doing this? Please stop.
Jeanne Cameron
Annie Kaufman
Susan Finlon
Raine DeDominici
Diane Libman: Our neighborhood has lost so many gathering places where we used to socialize and enjoy supporting the local businesses. Please do not decimate what little is left for us to enjoy.
Nico Cavalucci
Thomas Jansson
Nico Cavalucci
Gary Ward
Aitor Mendoza Diaz
Eli Malone
Alissa Chanin Kolaj: Students thrive in diverse neighborhoods with independent creative ventures. What makes Loyola so special is that the city lives, breathes, and thrives around it. Let this beautiful entity remain.
Christa Lohman: I agree that we cannot just tear down and apart our neighborhood! Loyola needs to abide by its mission and work WITH the neighbors and not against them.
Macy Arthur
JJ Padovani: Keep Rogers Park vibrant and alive!!
Pavel Kleyner
Carol Rizzardi: You have no plans for the building other than to tear it down. To throw people out just because you can is not a very Christian thing to do. WWJD?
Jillian McKeown
Carol Rizzardi
Kendall Wack
Tessa Constantine
Michael Bancroft
Mark Hallett: This property is a valuable historic building, part of the beautiful fabric of the Rogers Park neighborhood. It is also home to numerous tenants and businesses. I'd like to thank Loyola for doing the right thing by dropping the plan at hand and considering development in ways that are beneficial to the community. There are numerous empty lots nearby, for example. Thank you for your serious consideration.
Julia Boone: Our community needs spaces like this, and so do students!
Colleen Lewis
Cassandra Lively: Signing as a Loyola alum.
Slava Osowska
Andrew Willis: These joyous small community shops and gathering places bring so much to the people. You have it within your power and should adjust your plans to sustain and preserve these places. Thank you.
Maureen Peifer: You can live your mission, supporting both your community and your students.
Rae Madrid: The space Roman Susan is in is important to the value that it brings. Let crucial cultural spaces like Roman Susan continue in their chosen homes and be stalwarts in the community.
Stephanie Leal: The value these places have brought our community is something to be absolutely treasured.
Mark Vician
Fatima Jawaid Marty
Dani Abboud
Evan Tyler
Edgar Jorge Baralt
Lise Dirks
James Eidson: This gallery is the most vibrant arts hub in the neighborhood and the student community. How much is that worth?
Aaron Smith
Cara Allen
Pri Srinivasan
Elijah Cox: Loyola alum, class of 2018
Siobhan Favero
David Zoltan
Alia Federow
Rebecca Jones: A vibrant neighborhood needs cafes and galleries. If you knock this building down, you are getting rid of what makes the area around Loyola what it is. If you create empty lots and sanitize the area of character, the community will be made poorer for it. Do not try to recreate some suburban bubble world around Loyola. The students don't want that. And long time residents like me really do not want that. Be better.
Jenny ODonohue
Kate Knowles
Christine DiThomas
Katy Clusen
Holly Abney
Peggy Salazar
Gayle Mitchell: Please do not destroy the neighborhood by removing residential housing and small businesses.
Jane Nolan
Michelle Minor: Please co-exist!
Renee Labrana: Loyola, you add nothing to our community. You pay no taxes.
Marianne Flanagan: It is fundamentally wrong for the university to displace community residents and businesses.
Maria
Janise Curry
Ursula Gruber: The hypocrisy of a Catholic institution displacing those who need housing and comfortable 3rd spaces is disturbing to say the least. Please do not drain our neighborhood of culture and affordable housing.
Rui Han
Lucia Mier y Teran
Anna Hanuszewicz
Clare Levijoki: Our society will be in a sad state if we keep allocating our physical spaces solely according to what is profitable.
Arlene Susan Straus
Katie Drypolcher: Chicagoans need more housing and more community spaces. The interests of the university cannot supercede the needs of the wider community.
Ann Steed Carver: Avarice is considered a sin by the Roman Catholic Church to whom the Jesuits must answer. Shame.
Shannon Carter
Karen M. Werner
Linas Mitchell
Anna Wagner
Tessa Simonds
Tracy Mogan
Sneha Adusumilli
Meagan Jackson
Stephanie Koll
Jessica Renner
Julie Marie Myatt
Josh Honn
Harriet Russell
Tim Politano
Victoria Fuller: Stop destroying the community. Keep vital businesses in place.
Bethany Hart: Loyola feels more like a corporation than ever. I believe they can do better and hold themselves to a higher standard.
Laurie Lee Moses: At the very least Loyola should demonstrate that they care about the community and address these social justice concerns, which are the direct effects of their decisions.
Laura Gluckman: Roman Susan is a vital part of Rogers Park's artistic and creative community!
Kim Guare: Roman Susan is a lovely place that brings culture and art to the Rogers Park community. Please stop ruining the homes and livelihoods of others just to make a profit!
Jan Calvert: We need our cultural diversity. Do NOT overrun our neighborhood without a plan....
Radhika Raman
Dr. Amy Partridge: Roman Susan is a vital & beloved neighborhood arts incubator, one that is enjoyed by the Loyola community as well. You brought us the depressing and shitty global businesses on Sheridan (e.g. Pot Belly's), using our tax dollars via TIFF funds, to make your suburban students (or their parents) feel comfortable. And now you are going after small businesses and non-profits that actually make the neighborhood the beloved community that it is! STOP OPERATING LIKE A CANCER IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
Carl Sannito
Chris
Bessie Tsitsopoulos
Matthew Tapey
Caleb Geiser
Nat Duean: I just imagine given the values Loyola espouses and the resources available to them, that they have different options to consider.
Megan Frasik: I am a Loyola Alum and I am disappointed in Loyola's actions and embarrassed to be affiliated with Loyola. DO BETTER LOYOLA. Uphold your jesuit values.
Martin Rathgeber
Timothy Boecker
Melissa Blount: Remember you are a corporate community member on stolen land. You have a duty and responsibility to be mindful, compassionate and considerate in your dealings with your neighbors.
Rose Camastro-Pritchett
Trish Bosch: As an alum, one thing I appreciate about Rogers Park is its unique and vibrant community. By displacing those persons who have only added to the community, Loyola has added more to sterilizing and homogenizing the neighborhood, taking away much of its appeal and local offerings. Loyola had a history of work with community but this does not seem to reflect that.
Kevin Behr
Madeline Ryan: Archie’s is crucial to the neighborhood and truly one-of-a-kind for the creative functions it supplies the neighborhood and community.
Keith Redmond
Lois McCullen Parr
Erin Pleake
Brekke A Kroutil-Mueller
Adrian Cerda
Mary Patten: PLEASE keep Roman Susan Galeery and Archie's cafe in our neighborhood - they are beloved by neighbors, students, faculty, and our friends.
Frances Bartolutti
Kendra Stevens
Tammi Longsjo: Loyola University Chicago should be working to support and maintain the community’s existing businesses and spaces where people gather to collaborate and interact with one another. These spaces are part of the fabric of a thriving community.
Randall N. Volz
Eva Niewiadomski
Hannah Marcus
Nicholas Padiak
Ken Cox: These to spaces are vital to the community. The outdoor music that Archie’s supports during the warm months provide an excellent meeting space for all neighbors. I hope Loyola University recognizes the importance of this and continues to support their place in the neighborhood. After all, Loyola University is suppose to support Christian values or am I mistaken? I certainly hope not.
Nadia Oehlsen: Please be a better neighbor, Loyola.
Karin Hansen
Wade Greer
Jonathan Pistorino: My family is relatively new to the neighbhorhood and part of the reason we moved here is because we fell in love with the community. Archies is the most community oriented business in this area of Rogers Park and we are devestated to hear that it will be forced to close and the building bulldozed. Please reconsider as there are many open lots and other options in the area for student housing.
Bryan Saner
Kandy Christensen
Christopher Barsotti: Loyola must cooperate with communities or face their opposition.
Jackie Elder
Megan Donahue
Leta A Dally
Sean Callihan
Trudi Langendorf
Esther Grimm
Sheila Brady
Brenda barnum: Please save this small part of Rogers park's history!
Sheila Brady
Katje Sabin
Leeza Gold
Mary Kay Devine: Loyola's actions are completely counter to the Jesuit values they proclaim and teach, "the pursuit of a more just society through service to others." I'm a class of '98 alum & current Rogers Park resident. Loyola treats our community with disrespect - buying buildings, knocking them down, displacing residents and businesses, and for what? . . . for Loyola to sit on empty land until you expand the campus W. of Sheridan? My teenager walks on Loyola Ave. every single day to & from the train to get to school. The current empty lots are bad enough. Besides being ugly & dark at night, Loyola doesn't take care for the properties - no shoveling or putting down salt.
Kathleen Kilbane: I support the arts organization message above.
Chris White: We need this from all the colleges and universities
Mary Parker
Joseph Klein
Carol Reichel
Sarah Kobs: Loyola keep the community connected—not just student housing!
Aana Marie Vigen
Susan Shigley
Adam R. Sorkin: Please save our neighborhood businesses.
Leanne Kelly
Joshua Goebel
Chelsea Dvorchak
Jennifer Smith
Jacqueline Restrepo
Maggie Leininger
Zachariah Jarrett
Michael Smith
Sara Overton: This is the sort of opportunity for student participation in the neighborhood and in the arts should be treasured, not threatened by this Loyola acquisition.
Jacque Harper: Please, Loyola, uphold your commitment to your anchor mission and neither homogenize our neighborhood with chain stores nor abandon it to lots which you have left vacant for more than a decade.
Regina Rodríguez-Martin
Earl Rectanus
Nicole braun
John Blommaert
Conor J McShane
Mike Anderson
Deb Frels
Renee DeFour
James P Cahill
Debra Russcol
Helen Thompson
Rachel Kuehnle
Mary Dixon
Kelly Sheridan
Thom Clark
Suzanne M. Kraus
Ryan Rivard
Jennifer Linane
Amy Lindner
Sarah Latimer: Support local businesses!
Nina Gregor
Emérita Colon
Jennifer Gammage
Paisley Steadman
Brian Blankstein
Suzanne Kaufman
Penelope Thrasher
Thomas Grove: I've known and loved this building since moving to Chicago a decade ago.
Mark A Kennel
Imre Trevino
Alan Leo Van Landschoot: As a lover of architecture in our city, I especially find these corner buildings that meet the street some of the best. Please Loyola U, allow this building and its inhabitants and businesses to continue to be part of Rogers Park. Pls find another location for your housing. Thank you.
Christian Ruzich
Stephen Eichhorn
Jen Walzer
Zoe Fox
Anita Sundrani
Elaine Winters
Taykhoom Biviji
Anna McCue
Carolyn Minor
Stephanie Barnes
Laura Christensen Garcia
Mike Hickey
RENUKA SHARMA: leave the cafes alone unless it's a STARBUCKS!
Ben Tweet
Kathleen Larkin
Kevin Simonds
Zachary Parker
Katie Ostrowsky
Sam Prus: This building adds history and life to the neighborhood and can never be replaced.
Isabel Fitzsimons: Don't be a gentrifier Loyola!
Kya Shaw
Maureen Boychuck
Sarah Clausen
kate bowen: roman susan is an institution in this city please help preserve a unique art space for future generations.
Jacob Wilson
Natasha Russi
Martha Kahn
Connor Buhagiar
Sarah Thompson Johansen
Jonah Cabrera: You have an obligation to preserve Chicago.
Robert C. Cotter
Darshita Jain
Kara Brody
Mark Maxwell
Sean O’Connell
Jessica McCarthy
Tom Simonds
Edmund S.: Don’t be a butt, Loyola!
Rebecca Brodziski: These spaces are vital to the health and vibrancy of a community, and for supporting young and aspiring artists!
John Wambach
Sam Cosgrove
Nicole Gregory
Anaïs Turiello
Cullen Parr
Cameron Rosenthal
Sarah Chiappe
Megan Chaney
Susan Frame: Our artistic institutions that are established, such as Roman Susan should be considered in the light of community, quality of life, and diversity. Academia and arts are often judged differently. Many times people make the assumption that academia leads to a profession and arts leads to a hobby. Yet art is education outside of the classroom. Often they are two sides of the same coin. So we should seek to preserve the hard work of established arts platforms.
Kathleen Boyle
James Moran
Jarrell Stultz: I moved to Rogers Park in July 2023. While I was in Chicago looking for apartments, I struck out on quite a few apartment options that just didn’t feel quite right. I explored quite a few Chicago neighborhoods during my search for a new home, but none of them felt like “home” in the way that Rogers Park did the second I exited the Red Line station at Loyola. As I walked toward the apartment that is now my home, something really stuck out to me about the 1226-1234 W Loyola Avenue building. Prior to living in Rogers Park, I lived in Atlanta, GA — a city that requires the use of a car to get anywhere that anyone wants to go — and the Loyola Avenue building immediately struck me as a great convenience to the neighborhood and the people and businesses that call that building home. The presence of a building that serves the worthy purposes of providing housing, a place for people to gather, and a location for local art & culture — without the need of a car — is something that many more Americans deserve easier access to. The second I saw the building, I said out loud, “oh wow that’s so cute!” It was the most perfect introduction I could have had to the beauty that surrounds Rogers Park and its inhabitants. I would be a disservice to the people of Rogers Park to demolish this building. With the epidemic of loneliness on the rise, people — more importantly, Loyola students — need more places to get together and have a good time within the community that sits away from the pressures of school, work or otherwise. Please consider continuing to use this building for what it is, rather than displacing its residences, businesses, and the character of Rogers Park.
Victor COhen
Nicole Colson
Margaret Nelson
Nell McKeown: Please retain our beloved local businesses and support our neighborhood.
mairenn mulvihill: such staple in the community !! u cannot take it away !!
Zach Barner: Keep art-spaces alive in Chicago, they are important!
Elise “Sophia” Gates: I’m a longtime resident of Rogers Park, and I’m upset about the displacement of artists, businesses and obviously, residents. I’ve been fortunate to exhibit my art in this space, now Archie’s, teach and choreograph dance, and participate in drawing classes going back to the early 1980’s. I was close with the owners of No Exit too and these cool, creative spaces are precious. So are the relationships they foster and protect. The vitality and creativity of local creators and businesses like the ones in this building on Loyola are unique and have contributed to the beauty and energy of the city. We are being crushed by powerful forces who are doing nothing to help, just redeveloping for profit. You can’t replace this kind of energy and talent with cookie cutter boxes. There must be a way to help people who aren’t rich but who have so much to offer. There must be a way to encourage the Targets if the world but also the workers, the residents, the restauranteurs, the artists. I have plenty to say on this subject. Fixing buildings is one thing but what’s happened the past few years to this neighborhood is not helping matters. We see empty storefronts everywhere and people struggle to keep roofs over our heads, spending outrageous percentages of income just on rent. It’s unbelievably stressful. Little has been done to mitigate this problem and longtime residents including older people and families too dread the growing possibility of losing our homes/workspaces, community and neighborhood. Many of us invest lifetimes in creating beautiful work for little money, and young and old alike shouldn’t have to dread losing everything we have worked so hard to create. This includes garden and other green spaces too. These things all help the environment and maintain the friendliness and vitality of the city. Needless to say it’s a lot harder to build a business like Archie’s for example than it is to wave a pen and destroy it. And unless powerful institutions like Loyola are going to create affordable living and working spaces for the people of the city they become part of the problem that’s seen increasing economic polarization and tremendous stress on old and young alike and which is destabilizing the city too. Surely this, and the crushing of creative spirits, isn’t in line with the values either of this neighborhood nor the university. Let’s figure this out, please! We need homes we can afford and we need workspaces for artists and teachers and entrepreneurs not just big businesses and wealthy people. The lifeblood of the city depends on the hard work, creativity and neighborliness of its citizens - all of us. Thank you.
Craig Wiggins
Marcee Williams
Ryan Williams
Laurie Merrell
John Parker: Archies and Roman Susan are some of the greatest contributors to the arts in Chicago and their closure would be a terrible loss to everyone.
Jack Vavrinchik
Layton Guyton
peggy figiel
Yasmeen Khayr
Molly Long: Rogers Park is a great neighborhood because of the unique and original businesses and people who live here--like the ones at 1226-1234. I am lucky to live right around the corner and seeing shows and chatting with my neighbors at Archie's is always the highlight of my day. My neighbors and I don't want to see this neighborhood become homogenized--we want to continue to coexist with Loyola rather than being bought out and displaced by the school. At Archie's, I love to chat with Loyola students and hear comedians and bands from the school share their gifts with the community. These community gathering spaces are rare and important places to bridge divides, and this plan risks strengthening existing silos in the neighborhood.
Mary Jo Banks
Em Beckert
Jake Rosner
Jill Kempson
Amy Michel: Stop buying property you don’t develop or improve. We want residents who vote, not students who abuse our neighborhood or a school that takes our land.
Benjamin Stehley
Kelsey Putnam
Connor Bishop: Loyola should be uplifting local businesses and residents, not displacing them.
Bonnie Taylor
Madalyn Grabow
Sofia Carney
Maddy Smith
e marciniak: The neighborhood Rogers Park is far more important than the greed of Loyola University Chicago.
Quinn Williams: Archie’s is one of the most wonderful community spaces I’ve ever had the pleasure of being affiliated with! Don’t take that away from the people who have worked hard to grow it into the beautiful and enriching environment it is today!!! This is more than just a building.
Morgan
Connor Karwowski
Avery Simmons
Rose
Emma O’Driscoll
Evelyn pacifici
joe bedortha
Alexandra Kvidt
Isabella Gartner
Scout Weisheit
Diana Keane
Libby Prosch
Rene Belleville: As a Loyola alum I would love to see this building remain as it is so residents and businesses can stay!!
Olivia Best
Amy Bretz
Julian Leyva
Greta Dondit
Emilee Butler
Marissa Sepulveda: Loyola is once again proving that they don’t care about anyone but themselves and their money. Truly shameful university.
Gemini Garner-Jones
Alexandra Osowski: As an Loyola Alumni, it was extremely disheartening to learn the University plans to demolish the building, without even thinking about the displacement of long-term residents and shops that help make Rogers Park what it is. The University needs to do a better job of caring for the neighborhood it resides in, give back to the community, not take away resources and homes.
Mary Osowski
Megan Sterling
Evangelos Stavrou: This is not Loyola's neighborhood. Rogers Park belongs to its tenants and business owners. Loyola's control over local buildings and plots is destroying the place. Matt McDermott, and the president Mark Reed, are not true Jesuits; they're crooks.
Kate Cesario
Katrina Hainline
jean fishbeck
MaClayn Jazo
Grey Creek: As a Loyola University Chicago alumni, it is so disheartening to see the university directly commit acts of gentrification within the Rogers Park community. Loyola was where I was exposed to ideas about social justice and community harm through gentrification, and its disgusting that the university does not learn from the lessons it teaches. If Loyola goes forward with the demolition, I will never donate ever again to the school nor will I support them.
EMELY RODRIGUEZ
Kiara Garofalo
Maddie
Marta Lee
Allison Gatz
Rachel Odenthal
Christina Glinn
Tien VoNguyen: This is such a special place to me & my friends. We’ve made such special memories here that I’ve always thought about in my day-to-day, mundane life. It’s a place of community, that I hoped would be true for future generations to come. It adds so much to the community & it would be so very difficult to find a place like it. Please cherish it, as we have.
Rob Morrison
Belinda Rubio: As a Loyola Alum the only thing that made my time in Chicago worth it was being surrounded by diverse cultures and communities off campus. I became a more well-rounded person because of the Rogers Park Community & everything the locals had to offer. Local markets, family businesses, local art hubs, safe queer places, & so much more. For Loyola to eliminate these vital pieces of Rogers Park to better suit students who do not permanently reside in Rogers Park, would be a disservice to the well-rounded students Loyola claims to create; and absolutely detrimental to the historical area of Rogers Park & its people.
Natalia zielinski: Please set a good example for the student body by embodying principles of social justice.
Maanasa Kanimilli
Hannah Denaer
Eric Karney
Erin Foy: As one of Loyola’s alumni, it’s heartbreaking, frustrating, and deeply hypocritical that a university that teaches its students the importance of community, culture, and social justice would displace dozens of residents and important community spaces from Rogers Park. I’m deeply disappointed in my alma mater and hope the administration reconsiders this illogical corporate decision.
Mira Koster
Nico Rypstra: The neighborhoods and communities surrounding LUC are an integral part of what draws students to LUC- LUC Board members would do well to remember this and show students how to express love and give support to the community students find themselves in. Be the good.
Rosie McMahon
Barbara Ryan and Pedro Ortiz: Loyola tore down one artist workspace accross the street YEARS ago, and it's still a vacant lot. It is the empty lot where the Lurie Garden used to be (as well) Enough!
Reka Slater: Loyola university alum who lived very close to this building. I loved how every business here contributed to the neighborhood, and it is absolutely heartbreaking to think of any of them leaving. This would be a huge mistake on the part of the university.
Tria Smith: This is a special and irreplaceable place with a generous mission. Roman Susan is important to this neighborhood + Chicago.
Sidney Thompson
Henry Fellerhoff: I loved these places while I was a student - they should absolutely be kept.
Natalie West
James Taylor
Karen Farmer
Mariana Cubillos
Maria Cristina Bodini
Daniel Murphy
Martí Madaula Esquirol
Amina Ross: Roman Susan is a vital part of our arts ecosystem both locally and nationally. It is crucial that this space is preserved and that the families and individuals within this building remain housed.
Mac Blakeslee
Travis Roozée: Come on Loyola-don't be a bad neighbor!
Mariel
Jennifer Santo
Olivia O'Brien
Allegra Giulietti-Schmitt
Hillari Hunter
Clarissa Steinbrecher
Shannah W
Ryan Charles
Kathryn Norris
Margaret Aguilar
Cortney Philip
Robert Kokott
Elizabeth Izzo: As a local artist and someone who once lived and created in a low income arts community, this is really important to me. The arts don’t have the kinds of patrons that were available to us in centuries ago. We all know how important the arts are to developing creative skills for innovation and problem solving. Arts shape culture and lead society forward. Value the arts above all else. Thank-you.
Susan S. Pastin
Anne Reiley
Timothy S. Mitchell
Morgan Paulus
Julia Pentasuglio
delaney gould
Joseph Padilla: Please stop developing over established businesses and residential buildings. Don't turn Rogers Park into a campus.
Stephen Gliva
Chemely Pomales
Nicole Braun
Aelijah Lynch
Seth Harper
Camryn Martin
Camryn Martin
William Phillips
liv majetich
Carly brammeier
Paola Velasquez
Brandi parish
Grace boehlke
Ally stratis
Bosch Matthews
Zolt Brown-Dunn: Walking by the space always emanates a special warmth on those coldest of nights, the kind of warmth that burrows in deep in your bones.
Aydan Quinn
Beth Harrison
Robert krueger
Christy Stewart
Flor Flores
Dani Mendez
Kaitlyn Komarchuk: One of my favorite parts of Rogers Park is being able to support local businesses.
Barbara Ciurej: There are so many ways to engage the existing businesses into Loyola's learning sphere that have not been explored. The lots across the street have remained empty and will remain so as Loyola anticipates the expansion of the Red Line. Why take another property now when those lots ave not been utilized? Please consider the texture necessary to honor the urban experience.
Erin O’Bryen
Harriet Russell
Matt Decelle
Margaret Grumeretz
Ron Johnson
Connie Kiosse: Yes! Agree with all that's been said. There's a way to work together for the best outcome for everyone as long as all parties are willing & open. Loyola listen to your neighbors.
Zach Parsons
ophelia hix: artists dont need anyone to save them!
Natia Ser
Lauren Yurman
Mimi Sandeen: Expressing myself to the decision makers at Loyola, I hope Loyola University respects the neighborhood and acts as a good community member, not just for their own self-interests. Please don't displace residents and undo community venues that bring value to the neighborhood.
Nancy Bigelow
Megan Cusick
Deb Frels
Renee Rakowitz
Sophia Croll (Loyola MA, 2022): Having a neighborhood art gallery that supports local and up-and-coming artists is a huge asset to our community, including all the Loyola students making and studying art.
Riley Kelly
Michael Kohn
Russell Game
Paul krause
Ed Mullens: Archie's cafe is in extreme debt and cannot exist without artificially low rent. 1224 W Loyola is falling apart and needs hundreds of thousands of dollars to be rehabbed. You people have zero business sense and want everything for free.
Emma Klingler
Tricia Turley
Patsy Walsh
Joe Spevacek
Gregory Wangerin: Respect your neighbors, Loyola U!!
Ellen Credille: Please help Roman Susan remain or relocate nearby.
Anne Puotinen
Carla Salvadori-Black
Jeremy Sorkin
Van DeLisle
Holly King
Kathleen Scanlan: Your core mission is to live your Christian values first and foremost.
Molly Jones: Some of my most formative experiences as a college student took place in small, community-run art spaces like Roman Susan. Finding a way the gallery can thrive in close proximity to students will supplement the experiences of students who live in the nearby residence halls.
Ann Weiler: I urge LUC to preserve the 1226-1234 W Loyola Avenue building. Forcing out residents and small businesses to create another empty lot on Loyola Avenue once again counters Loyola's stated "responsibility to give back by using our resources and partnerships for the greater good of our neighborhoods." As St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote, “Love is shown more in deeds than in words.”
Paul Marcus
Carol Reichel: I know some long time residents of this building. It is unfair to displace them to create another empty lot on that block.
Chelsea Moore: My partner and I love Archies and the many other small businesses that are easily getting wiped out in our neighborhood. We moved back to Rogers Park because of the neighborhood's unique creativity and community. If Loyola continues to buy off the small businesses in our community, there will be nothing left. I would be devastated to see my neighborhood destroyed by an institution that has the power and resources to do so much better.
Liz Bosarge: Loyola, you are going about this all wrong and if it were the right thing to do, you wouldn't see all this resistance from the community you are supposed to be a part of. You know it's not right to kick out your neighbors, displace these businesses, and demolish this building. You of all universities understand your moral imperative and mission to the community we share. You can preserve this property and its inhabitants plus finally use your vacant lots to develop an interstitial space to bring students and community together.
Christine Bell
Andrew Shipper
Mary O'Connell
Gabriel Fuentes
Alex Cope
Eve Miller
Leah Schiffman & Iman Music: With love and support, Residents of Rogers Park
Pyur Cooper
Erik Nelson: Universities do not contribute to the local culture, they should be funding public spaces with all the untaxed profits they make.
robert mackenzie
Tess Lacy
Katz Tepper: I'm an artist who decided to move to this neighborhood in large part because of Roman Susan's role as a community-centered art space in Rogers Park. Please don't destroy this vital cultural space!
Jake Brower
Liz Chilsen
Richard Rasmussen: Another empty lot in the neighborhood benefits no one. Loyola, please be a good neighbor and allow these residents to stay until you absolutely need the property to build something new.
Lee Shaffer: Do not demolish this amazing building. I live very near and cherish this building both for affordable rent for artists and locals as well as the small businesses. We do not need more parking lots or nationwide store tenants. Enough is enough.
Meg Biddle: Rogers Park doesn't need more of this.
Aly Raden
Everette Thorpe: Please prioritize the community, the very tenant Loyola claim they value. This includes building 1226-1234 w Loyola Ave.
Betany Porter: As a student myself in Chicago in 2009 as a well as 2013-2015 I was drawn to the building at 1226-1234 W Loyola for its cultural component in the neighborhood. Our professors and other students at the Art Institute of Chicago referred us often to art shows happening at Roman Susan. We would hop on the subway and travel around the city to experience the different sections of Chicago as a foundation of our education and curriculum. Seeing artist run spaces as the fit into neighborhoods and communities side by side. It also offered social engagement and networking opportunities and career advancement for emerging artists. Making connections with galleries, collectors, and the public is crucial to an artists work and livelihood it can also take years to cultivate those relationships. Roman Susan is one of few galleries that accepts artists proposals to create exhibitions in their space. The conversations had in their space and on the sidewalk out front are part of our experience and memories. There was something special about this neighborhood, building, and space that has stuck with me more than many of the others that I visited during my time in Chicago and that means something. Being able to come back to a space time and again and see and experience these new exhibitions is a life long relationship. I have often thought of applying to an exhibition in their space from my new home in Anchorage, AK. and even received an artist grant to help me make those steps. I have continued to follow their shows and work for the past decade and will always want to be able to return to that corner of the street with colleagues and friends to continue that work and relationships. By demolishing this building and erasing the tenants of this space from this location you are removing those cultural components, deleting career opportunities and fracturing histories from this place. While I can appreciate the need to expand your students opportunities in the area it needs to be done in a way that doesn’t replace the communities already there and thriving. This is not vacant space it is treasured space. You are not prioritizing community you are prioritizing your community over others. I would think you would want your students to also be able to experience this cultural component as an enrichment to their education. Surely there are equitable ways to cohabitate.
Stephanie Brendle: Old buildings are beautiful and have good bones. Chicago, a city known for its gorgeous architecture and distinct neighborhoods, requires that buildings like this must be preserved, not demolished. Capitalist gentrification only serves the elites, not the neighborhood, and means that this lovely building would be replaced by a cheap, bland, cookie-cutter structure.
Charlie Thornton: Please please do not destroy the community and important art space in this building your projects and objectives are not a justification for displacement and gentrification if you stand for what you say you do - don't destroy or demolish.
Jennifer Colby: Progress does not require displacement and the upheaval of history and grassroots spaces.
Jillian Dowdy
Amy Wilkinson
Stephen Hutton
Experimental art space faces uncertain future after building bought by Loyola University | WBEZ – January 25, 2024
Loyola Buys Local Property, Displacing Residents and Local Businesses | Loyola Phoenix – January 31, 2024
Dear Loyola: Foster Community, Don’t Demolish It | Loyola Phoenix – February 7, 2024
‘We’re happy to be neighbors’: The Storefronts of 1226-1234 W. Loyola Ave. | Loyola Phoenix – February 7, 2024
Archie’s Cafe Will Close In August After Loyola Buys Rogers Park Building | Block Club Chicago – February 8, 2024
Kristin + Nathan Abhalter Smith with Michael James | Live from the Heartland – February 9, 2024
Community Engagement | 49th Ward Update – February 10, 2024
Rogers Park Neighbors To Loyola: Don’t Demolish Building With Local Shops, Longtime Residents | Block Club Chicago – February 19, 2024
Alderwoman Maria Hadden Shows Support for West Loyola Avenue Tenants | Loyola Phoenix – February 28, 2024
State Senator Mike Simmons Shares Support for West Loyola Avenue Businesses and Residents | Loyola Phoenix – March 13, 2024
THREATENED: Loyola University Plans Demolition of 1234 W. Loyola Ave. for Vacant Lot | Preservation Chicago – March 31, 2024
We would like to thank Eric Newman Law Office for pro-bono representation and advocacy related to this effort.