Northwestern University held its annual end-of-year community meeting Thursday evening over Zoom, assembling numerous officials from both the school and city to fill in the community on the usual large events capping off the academic year, as well as on the ongoing demolition (and soon, construction) at the Ryan Field stadium site.
The hour-long meeting opened with Dave Davis, NU’s executive director of neighborhood and community relations, sharing highlights from what he called a “tough but remarkable year,” including the Ryan Field rebuild beginning and the associated public benefits agreement negotiated between the city and university.
“We understand that we’re more than a university, and we’re an integral part of the Evanston community,” Davis said. “While we are dedicated to making a global impact, it’s important that we all remain a model citizen right here at home, and we’re committed to doing that.”
Dillo Day details
The most immediately pressing subject was the annual Dillo Day music festival, claimed to be “the nation’s largest student-run music festival,” which will be held all day Saturday, May 18, on the university’s lakefill. Graduate student Darya Daneshmand, co-chair of student organization and Dillo producer Mayfest Productions, said that while the lakefill will be closed to public access, residents are welcome to buy tickets and attend the festival.
“This is a really exciting event, open to not just students, grad students [and] alumni, but also to Evanston residents and extended members of the Northwestern community,” Daneshmand said.
Tickets can be bought online, and Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. is the last day to pick up admission wristbands at Seabury Hall, 2122 Sheridan Road.
Safety and security
While Mayfest is putting on the festival, safety and security on and around campus will be managed by a unified command center overseen jointly by Evanston and Northwestern police departments, according to Northwestern University Police Cmdr. Matt Weitbrock. He said the center will act as a “one-stop shop” to coordinate information between police, the Evanston Fire Department private security, Superior Ambulance Service, NU’s Student Affairs team and Mayfest’s Student Intervention Services, the last of which is staffed by students trained in de-escalation.
Northwestern is also taking measures to address quality-of-life issues in the Fireman’s Park neighborhood immediately west of campus, including:
- Placing sound monitors around the lakefill and in the neighborhood to watch for excessive volume from the festival.
- Meeting with students from 30 different off-campus houses to share reminders and answer questions about Dillo Day parties.
- Doubling the number of temporary trash cans placed in the off-campus neighborhood, and similarly increasing the number of portable toilets.
- Organizing a team of student volunteers to sweep through and clean up the neighborhood on Sunday morning.
Residents are asked to report quality-of-life issues to a police non-emergency line: 847-866-5000 for Evanston police, and 847-491-3456 for Northwestern police. Both numbers will send issues to the unified command center to be triaged for an appropriate response, Weitbrock said.
Shuttles to commencement
With the demolition of Ryan Field nearing completion (more on that below), Northwestern will hold its 2024 commencement ceremony in Chicago’s United Center on Sunday, June 9. Matt Lengen, NU’s executive director of student transition experiences, said the university will use a fleet of 120 shuttle buses to transport upward of 7,000 commencement attendees from Evanston to the United Center that morning, and then bring them back to Evanston in the afternoon after the ceremony is finished.
“We expect a handful of folks, or a good number of folks, to actually stay downtown, maybe grab a bite to eat before coming back [to Evanston]” after commencement, Lengen said. “But a large portion of folks will come back to campus that evening.”
Lengen said the buses will be staged in the west lot of Ryan Field before picking people up at an NU parking lot on Sheridan Road across from the Technological Institute building.
Besides commencement, the graduate weekend will follow much of the same schedule as years past: convocations and other ceremonies will be held between Friday, June 7, and Monday, June 10, and Lengen said the university will work closely with the city on traffic control throughout the weekend. One notable addition, though, is a Sunday night fireworks show over Lake Michigan beginning at 8:45 p.m. June 9.
“This is an event that is open to the public, so if folks would like to see a firework show we would welcome you on the lakefront,” Lengen said. “You’ll be able to see them from around the area, they’ll be set off from a barge over Lake Michigan.”
Around the same time, students will begin moving out from their dorms and apartments; Davis said move-out activity is expected to peak around June 5, ahead of residence halls closing for the year at noon on Saturday, June 8. He said special bulk trash pick-up will be available on June 4, 6, 11 and 13 in the main off-campus neighborhood bounded by Noyes Street, Orrington Avenue, Emerson Street and Ridge Avenue.
Ryan Field updates
Finally, officials from joint construction venture Turner-Walsh (also called the Central Street Consortium) updated residents on the project timeline for the Ryan Field rebuild. Senior Project Superintendent Mike Musial said the last structures of the old stadium are coming down this week, as work shifts to excavation and deep foundation laying using earth retention systems (ERS) over the coming months.
On the issues of noise and vibrations, Musial said jackhammering will end with demolition by the end of May, while ground vibrations will continue for around two more weeks as the ERS systems are installed. With so much earth being excavated, however, he said the current high volume of trucks driving to and from the project site will continue for “the majority of summer” through June and July, before tapering off when construction properly begins around August or September.
“For instance, we may have two [or] three trucks worth of rebar showing up, and then when we’re pouring concrete, we’ll have concrete trucks coming,” Musial said, “but it won’t be at the same mass volume that you see right now, it will be more intermittent, not as continuous and constant as you see [now].”
For as long as that many trucks are running, Turner-Walsh is taking ever-greater efforts to reduce the dust escaping the demolition site. Musial said this includes more frequent use of water trucks, street sweepers and pressure washers, laying stone pads for trucks to drive on instead of dirt, directing trucks to leave the site from an alternate gate instead of directly onto Central Street and installing a large truck washing system that will be operational on Monday.
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NU shares details on Dillo Day prep, graduation fireworks, Ryan Field trucks is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.