Last Ditch Bid to Save Reagan Childhood Home

A campaign to save Ronald Reagan’s childhood home is on the verge of failing — as university officials want the building to be replaced by a strip of grass.

University of Chicago officials claim the cold water flat is not architecturally significant and  the nation’s 40th president did nothing notable while living there.

The same officials are lobbying hard to have President Barack Obama’s presidential library located at the university, Reagan associate Peter Hannaford writes in the American Spectator.

Reagan was four when his father moved his family to 832 East 57th Street in the Hyde Park District of the Windy City and his first memory was while living there, says Hannaford. “In a letter years later, he writes about the thrill of seeing horses pulling the fire wagon down the street at a gallop.”

The building is due to be demolished this month after the Commission on Chicago Landmarks turned down an application to have it preserved. “Time is of the essence,” said Mary Claire Kendall, a writer who is trying to raise funds to save the four-story building.