While Chicago’s losing bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics was also seen as , located within the far more desirable Loop that sat vacant nonetheless for two decades.

Preservationists have tried to rally support, but the public remains indifferent to what is seen as undistinguished modernist buildings. “It’s hard to capture for the public because it’s not happening in front of them,” Peters said. “It’s an inward-facing campus you maybe see the backs of when you’re flying by in a car on Lakeshore Drive.”

Now that the Gropius buildings have finally begun to fall , the world has taken note. Balkany points out that the Sun-Times normally patrician real estate columnist David Roeder even called for the bulldozers to stop. Could this be the final stroke of luck to save those buildings that remain? Probably not.

“We just don’t know what it would take,” Balkany said. “Logic ought to prevail. There are 101 reasons they ought not to do this and no rational reasons they should. But I’m afraid that’s not the case.”