Opinion: Let’s Finish the Goddamned Lakefill
In 1964, Northwestern University laid out a magnanimous plan for the future: a vast project to turn the bottom of Lake Michigan into the grandest part of our campus. Fifty years later, however, this vision remains unfinished. Only 84 acres of the 14,000,000 in the lake has been raised above sea level. Students of Northwestern, I am writing today to urge decisive action: let’s finish this goddamned Lakefill!
When I got into Northwestern, I was excited about joining a community of like minds. I wanted place where I could become the academically overloaded zombie typing papers at 4 AM that I had always aspired to be, secure in the knowledge that everybody else was doing the same. But more than that, I wanted a place where people had the gumption to go grab the future by the testicles and hold on for all they are worth.
I’ve been disappointed in the lack of alarm that the Lakefill remains unfinished. I came to this school expecting to witness crews dumping billions of metric tons of dirt into Lake Michigan in an attempt to erase it from the map. Instead, I’ve found that we’ve stopped the project due to “regulatory concerns” and “not destroying the habitat of the lake.”
It’s a shame that everybody is content with the Lakefill we currently have. Sure we have a soccer field, a fitness center, some classrooms, the library and the Norris Center, but that’s nothing compared to what we could have. If the Lakefill is completed, however, we can build a new football stadium, an international airport, and amusement park, a nuclear reactor, and have enough room left over to give each Northwestern student several thousand acres of arable land to raise crops on.
It isn’t like the lake isn’t doing anything for use right now. Cold, slimy, and filled with industrial waste, we’ve already made life for the poor thing miserable. I say we do the right thing and put it out of its misery. It’s the only ethical thing to do.
Do the right thing, sign the petition. Together, we can #FinishTheFill.
