Abandoned Plans: Hope Center
This picture is hanging in the men’s room on the main floor of the Union Gospel Mission. And that’s amazing all in itself, bathroom decorating decisions. But there’s more … clearly it’s an architectural conception or rendering of a long forgotten plan for a place called “Hope Center.” Many of you will recognize the proposed site and the buildings involved. I used to work in one of them so I find this especially compelling and mysterious for that reason … also amusing, the happy strollers depicted for scale or mood, people in architectural drawings always just seem like life is going perfectly, don’t they?
Now, I did a google search on this project and came up with a goose egg, nothing on this. Which made me even more curious about all of this. My questions are: 1) When was this to have happened? The fashions and cars in the image got me thinking mid 80s, also that would measure up with my memories, because anytime after that I bet I would have remembered this. 2) Why didn’t it happen? And (for extra credit) 3) Are there other abandoned or not yet realized plans out there similar to this one? I mean clear plans like this one, not some wild dream sketched on the back of a cocktail napkin — I’ve got a few of those around myself.
