Lecture 1960's Urban Renewal

The Geneva Historical Society's 2015 Fall Lecture Series will focus on the 1960s. The series leads off Wednesday, September 23 at 7:30 p.m. with the program "Building a Better Geneva: Urban Renewal in the 1960s" by Historical Society curator John Marks. John will discuss the issues facing downtown Geneva in the 1950s and 1960s that led the city to apply for the Federal Urban Renewal program. Intended to clear dilapidated buildings to make way for new development, the program became known throughout the country for funding the wholesale destruction of historic neighborhoods and buildings in favor of highways and housing projects. John will examine the reasons that development plans in Geneva were never carried out. He will also look at demolition and building projects in the late 1960s that were not part of the federal program and talk about the lasting impacts of this period of redevelopment on Geneva.