Demolition reportedly began Tuesday on the Chicago apartment building President Ronald Reagan lived briefly as a child.
Chicago’s DNAInfo.com website said crews from Heneghan Wrecking Co. began tearing down the Hyde Park building at 832 E. 57th St., where the 40th U.S. president lived from ages 2 to 3 with his parents in 1914 and 1915.
The University of Chicago purchased the building in 2004 as part of an effort to buy all residential property immediately north of the hospital. It plans to install a plaque at the site to commemorate Washington’s connection.
Preservationists had tried to save the building, the website reports, but those efforts were unsuccessful. The university said it had no immediate plans to build on the property.
“In the short term, the site will be part of a construction staging area, to be used for the new Center for Care and Discovery Hospital and for construction of a new parking garage for the medical center,” university officials said in a statement.
Despite persistent rumors, university officials have repeatedly said the site will not be used for a Barack Obama presidential library.
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