Quick–name one physicist to whose calculations you would entrust Hyde Park. In honor of the 60th anniversary of the first controlled atomic chain reaction–on the University of Chicago campus on December 2, 1942–the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (November/December) recalls that the chain-reaction pile “was not supposed to be built in the city. No one wanted a meltdown in Hyde Park….The pile was to be built in a forest preserve 20 miles southwest of Chicago’s Loop and to be completed by October 20. But union workers at the site went on strike, and the building designed to house CP-1 would not take shape in time. [Physicist Enrico] Fermi told [his boss Arthur Holly] Compton: ‘I believe we can make the chain reaction work safely right here in Chicago.’ And Fermi’s calculations seemed to be in order.” Compton considered asking permission of university president Robert Hutchins–but didn’t.
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How many CHA residents have been placed in jobs through the Service Connectors Program? According to CHA CEO Terry Peterson in a letter to the Sun-Times August 19, “more than 2,500.” According to CHA officials questioned by Brian J. Rogal of the Chicago Reporter (October), the true figure is 1,228. “The city does not know how many of the 1,228 who got jobs are still working,” Rogal writes, adding that the CHA “does not set goals on job retention.”
