PROGRAM

Madison was a very different place in the 60’s & 70’s. Even this small ideal city was buffeted by national trends of flight to the edges and deteriorating older neighborhoods. Urban renewal, a rapidly growing UW campus, turned neighborhoods into student slums and large vacant lots. Banks financed new projects on the fringe and not the core of the City, and an expanding freeway system made it easier to get to that fringe. Viet Nam turned the UW campus into a war zone. Madison residents realized they were losing their community that had been featured as an ideal city on the cover of Life Magazine in the late ‘40’s. Action was needed. Action was taken with failures and successes. Into this melee, Arlan Kay, newly graduated from the Architecture program at Iowa State University, (1966) came to Madison with his very pregnant wife Lori, to find work and raise a family. From his point of view we will explore what happened and the early years of the Madison Trust and many other organizations and individuals that discovered historic preservation, and more.

SPEAKER: Arlan Kay

Click here to learn more about this program and other programs in the series.

Tickets go on sale December 1.