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1946, just home from serving in the Navy Seabees, this Lane Tech grad was ready to be a tool and die maker. A persistent girlfriend and subsequently my wife for over 57 years kept goading me to get on the Grand Avenue street car and take advantage of my four years of college provided by the GI Bill. Whoops, no solid geometry, algebra or trig on my resume, so I went to summer school at Lane, took all three classes and was able to enter U of I as a pre-engineering student. For a mechanical eEngineer, Navy Pier offered the best possible campus (Chicago). I loved the Pier and made many good friends during my studies there.

Then down to Champaign/Urbana to finish and graduate in 1951. After a long and successful career in the automotive industry, retired in 1989 and now reside in the high desert and continue to have fond memories of tracking up and down the halls of U of I at Navy Pier.

Paul O. Nelson '51 UIUC
Navy Pier Attendee

In 1957, I was a lifeguard at a park on Chicago's South Side. There was a cute 15-year-old girl who every day flashed her smile when I was on duty. Summer ended. In the spring of 1964, while attending "The Pier," I again saw that flashing smile! There she was, in the front snack room called the "Pier Room?" Life went on from there. Her name was Ramona.

Professor Sam Fox taught accounting and/or business law. Many of us students found him a most interesting personality - both academically and personally. A few students found his impressive biography in a copy of "Who's Who" and asked, "If he was so accomplished, why did he wear white socks with a dark suit?" His answer was, "When you get older, you'll know." Twenty years later, I met Mr. Fox on Michigan Avenue. We discussed those times. He remembered!

Joe Zolinas '69 UIC
Navy Pier Attendee

Not many universities could boast of being within hitchhiking distance of a boat.

Don Szymanski '62 UIUC
Navy Pier Attendee

My mother, who is 94, took Art History classes with Radis and still talks about them.

It was a shock to go Downstate and find that psychology was about rats and chickens vs. people at the Pier.

Also, a shock to find out that women were not involved in competitive sports. I competed through the club system in AAU in Chicago and had to be part of T. K. Curetore's exercise physiology lab to be able to train. I still compete with Virginia Maters and hold some records.

Barbara M. Zaremski '59 UIUC
Navy Pier Attendee

So, I started at the Pier as a pre-journalism major on March 17, 1947. Took Rhetoric 1, European History, Physiology and French. My dad couldn't understand why I would be "wasting" my time taking Physiology. Eight years later, when I started working for Social Security, what I learned in that class came in very handy in handling disability claims!

There were no lockers at the Pier for the first several weeks, so we had to carry everything around with us as we hiked up and down the Pier. We sure did a lot of walking! After about four weeks, some lockers appeared which we informally used. But, one day I passed the bay where they were located and found they were being carried away! I just barely caught up with the workers to rescue my coat and some textbooks.

I spent four semesters at the Pier. The first semester didn't end until July 3rd. I remember riding home on the "L" from Grand Avenue, out on the open area at the end of the rear car, with a great feeling of relief, confident that I had done well on my final exams. The remaining semesters started and ended on dates more usual for college classes. I rode the "L" down from Howard Street every morning, and then took the old Grand Avenue streetcar over to the Pier. There were some mornings when the car was so crowded that I was still standing on the outer step when it pulled away.

Outstanding memories of Navy Pier: The long walks through the halls from one end of the Pier to the other. The presence of so many World War II veterans, who had interesting stories to tell about their experiences. Running around outside the gym in Physical Ed classes held in what we called "The World's largest Quonset hut."

I completed my Navy Pier education in January 1949. Before I could graduate, there was an interruption. I served in the Army for 33 months during the Korean War. I finally graduated from the U of I in Urbana in January 1955, with a degree, with "High Honors" in Political Science, from the College of LAS. I am a Life Member of the Alumni Assn.

Fred C. Davis, Jr. '55 UIUC
Navy Pier Attendee

1. The long walk from the front door to classes back by the cafeteria.

2. We had 10 minutes between classes but it would take 12 minutes to walk from one class to the next.

3. Back the, the U of I would accept everyone, but would fail (flunk-out) approximately 50 percent of every incoming class.

   George Nelms '62 UIUC
   Navy Pier Attendee

There was one fish smell that was pleasant! The cooking of fried shrimp. There was a small vendor right on the Pier whose shrimp were great! Where else in the regular routine on a college campus could you have your shrimp and eat them!

David L. Friedman '51 UIUC
Navy Pier Attendee

On March 1st, my birthday, a bunch of my classmates put on their swimming trunks and we jumped into the lake at the end of the Pier. The water was 32 degrees and very cold.

My wife was pregnant with our first child. Every day when I went to class (Psych 101) Professor Lipman would not start the class until I gave them an update. When my son was born, the professor and the entire class celebrated with coffee and donuts.

A lot of happy memories. Many of my friends are gone. Many I lost track of. Sixty years is a long time.

I did become a psychologist achieving many honors by writing, lecturing and research.

Phillip Mankoff
Navy Pier Attendee

• Long hallways used mostly for storage (mostly lumber)

• Few, if any, private offices for faculty (my brother taught economics)

• Long hurried walks between classes.

• Dances in large building at end of Pier.

I was able to live at home after returning from the service, so the opening of Pier in '46 was a great help to me and start of preparation of my career as a hospital administrator and professor at Indiana University Medical Center for 35 years.

Elton T. Ridley '50 UIUC
Navy Pier Attendee

I graduated high school in 1946 and after a short stay at one of Chicago's teacher colleges I learned that the U of I was opening a campus at Navy Pier. I applied, was accepted and spent the next two years at the Pier until I transferred Downstate. I graduated in 1950. Three things that are indelibly etched in memory about the years spent at the Pier:

1. The vast majority of male students were returning veterans and at age 17 was somewhat overwhelmed by these "old guys." They were much more mature and their experience made for touch academic competition. Sixty years later one has to wonder how big a response you will get to this celebration. I'm sure the initial group is pushing 80, some from the top others from the bottom.

2. Why did the classes for the engineering types - and I'm one of them - get relegated to the far end of the Pier? It was a long walk through the noise and debris of construction.

3. Why did the card players get preferred seating a short walk from the entrance to the card tables?

Edward A. Petko '50 ENG
Navy Pier Attendee

My January-February 2005 issue of the Alumni Journal is just a gas. My highlight memory of Circle is that awful snowstorm in January '67. Despite radio admonitions against it, I made the trip to campus from my apartment in Rogers Park. Happily, the CTA train ride from Jarvis Avenue to downtown was mostly elevated above snow level. When I got off at the campus stop, I was astonished to see the usually busy Eisenhower Expressway still as death. Abandoned cars were marked only by lumps of the white stuff. The phrase "Frozen in the snowflakes of time" came to mind. To my surprise, many other students and my dear teachers also made it to campus. For me it was "another day at the office" with the joy of being around dedicated people. It would have been a perfect day to miss class with an excuse, but as you all surely know, if you didn't have a little "fire in your belly" you didn't earn that excellent education. Nor do you stay warm on a winter day in the Windy City. Thanks for your good work. I share all the wonderful memories that are evoked. Go Flames!

Stephen A. Hathaway '68 UIC; AM '70, MS '74 UIUC
Navy Pier Attendee

My architectural classes at the east end, above the structure to the west and just west of the auditorium space.

A wonderful class of talented architecture students, some of the older veterans taught us a great deal.

Norman A. Koglin '51 UIUC
'48 Navy Pier Attendee

Kedzie Avenue to Archer, Archer to Wacker and Wabash and then Grand Avenue and onto Navy Pier - what a commute, but an enjoyable one from September 1949 to June of '52! Classes all up and down the long north side of the Pier. Great teachers all and it was most enjoyable hearing the many GIs share their experiences. It was bittersweet to leave for the big Urbana campus with no Lake Michigan and Chicago skyline. Those were the years!!

Daniel J. Petromilli '53 UIUC
1949-52 Navy Pier Attendee

Classes on the north side of the Pier during storms that blew water against the windows while the wind whistled through the east-west axis. Natural drama that helped provide energy to otherwise dry lectures.

Ted Truske '56 UIUC
Navy Pier Attendee

Working for a full four-year school was my first experience with activism of a political nature and opened my eyes to the importance of working toward a goal.

Our instructors were, for the most part, top-notch teachers.

Barry A. Goldberg '62, MS '64 UIUC
Navy Pier Attendee

I remember the single corridor - mile long campus and the gym where I took archery and boxing (received the one and only bloody nose of my life).

I would have happily gone all four years to Navy Pier but transferred after squeezing out an "extra" semester. It helped the financing of my education.

Because we were all commuters there was little opportunity to bond as we did later Downstate. I really don't recall individual friends from those first 2 1 /2 years. I recall that there were "socials" and the like but I usually got on the Grand Avenue streetcar to get home for homework and jobs I held while in school.

Bud Brinkman '53 UIUC
Navy Pier Attendee

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