Visit to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign an eye-opener

I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1984 and hadn’t been back to campus in nearly 31 years until my visit on Saturday Dec. 11.
It was a chilly, yet mostly sunny day at U of I when two fellow graduates and I toured our old haunts. We were in town to watch the Fighting Illini men’s basketball team host the University of Arizona Wildcats at State Farm Center, formerly Assembly Hall. Unfortunately, the Illini lost 83 to 79.
The weather was a lot better than my last trip to campus on Dec 22, 1990. On that date, I met up with a friend to watch the Illini defeat the Louisiana State University Tigers, led by Shaquille O’Neal. I had to drive back to the Quad-Cities that night in a blinding snowstorm. That was one of the scariest driving experiences of my life.
The U of I campus has changed significantly since my last visit. For instance, north of the Illini Union is a greatly expanded computer science and engineering area.
The Illini Union has kept its stately entrance area but remodeled much of the interior with new facilities for studying, recreation, commerce and just hanging out. When I was there, the union had a Plato terminal in the front hall. Plato was a computer network before the internet.
The Main Quad looked the same and so did the surrounding historic buildings such as Altgeld Hall, Foellinger Auditorium and Gregory Hall.
But many familiar businesses from my days as a college student in the early 1980s are long gone.
Garcia’s Pizza in a Pan is no longer on Wright Street near Green Street, across from the Alma Mater statue. (Garcia’s is now in northwest Champaign. The once large regional pizza chain is now down to just two locations in central Illinois, according to the News-Gazette.)
Papa Del’s Pizza is no longer on Wright just north of Green. (It’s in a new, larger location west of campus on Neil Street.)
Even Kam’s bar, “The Home of the Drinking Illini,” on East Daniel Street is gone and the building demolished for new construction. Kam’s was a hangout mostly for members of fraternities and sororities, aka Greeks. It has moved to a new location at First and Green streets, further away from the university.
Another bar that’s kaput is Cochrane’s, which was known for its Little King’s beer nights, offering three small beers for $1. It was located on Wright just north of Green.
Also gone is Mabel’s, a nightclub where as students we had watched Jay Bennett from our dorm floor at Taft Hall play. Bennett later was a member of Wilco.
The Campustown area has seen the most changes with numerous high rises replacing one- and two-story buildings. Other places we used to hang out are gone as well including the Space Port video game arcade, Taco John’s, the Co-Ed movie theater, and a record store that sold new vinyl LPs and cassettes.
On Saturday, we had lunch at Murphy’s Pub, which has expanded its Green Street location since we were students.
The Daily Illini campus newspaper has moved a couple of blocks south from its location in the basement of a building on John Street near Wright. I spent many hours in the newsroom there as a student both working and writing school papers.
The U of I campus looks more metropolitan since we were students. Back then, it was a major university located between a couple of midsize towns amid the cornfields of central Illinois.

Photos: Foellinger Auditorium as seen from across the Quad at the Illini Union (top); exterior and interior of State Farm Arena (bottom) (Patrick Seitz)