Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center: The Little Observatory That Wouldn’t
“It is the call of space that has insistently motivated all astronomers throughout all ages to observe and to attempt to explain the great unknowns of the universe about and beyond us.”
On May 4th, 1967, Northwestern answered space’s call – with the official dedication of the brand new research facility, Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center.
Whipple, who spoke at the dedication ceremony, echoed many hearty ambitions that were characteristic of the burgeoning Space Age.
Though rooted firmly in the bedrock of our Earth, Lindheimer represented the collective hope that it would take Northwestern’s place in astronomy well into the cosmos above.
The First on the Lakefill
Lindheimer’s domes spotted on the new lakefill.
Credit: Drew Milsom
A state-of-the-art research facility meant to take over for Dearborn Observatory, Lindheimer stood tall in the northeastern corner of campus. For some time, it was the first and only building occupying the vast plain of the brand new lakefill – what was then fresh terrain but is now familiar territory.
Among rustling prairie grass stood two 70 foot tall towers, topped with round domes housing two Boller and Chivens reflector telescopes: one a hefty 40 inch and another a 16 inch. The larger instrument was used for faculty and graduate student research, while undergraduates had access to the smaller one. Northwestern now had three telescopes in its arsenal on campus, with an additional two in satellite facilities in New Mexico.
Cement columns went all the way down to bedrock, in order to keep the telescopes stable on the lake. Meanwhile, Lindheimer’s pearly towers were surrounded by spindly struts resembling starbursts – a peculiar structural design by the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (which also designed the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs). The design for Lindheimer was admired and even won awards in the Chicago branch of the American Institute of Architects.
Curious About Lindheimer's Award-winning Architecture?
Read more about it in the March 1969 issue of Progressive Architecture.
The structural supports of the Lindheimer building.
Credit: NU Archives
Many had hoped that Lindheimer would become a pub of sorts for astronomers around the nation who were interested in research.
“To me, it was a symbol of scientific advancement for Northwestern. Tall and white in the corner of the lakefill, it was visible for miles.
It was inspirational to me and to many others.”
The original plan for Lindheimer was to include labs, offices, classrooms, and lecture auditoriums big enough to hold 200 students. Upon entering the building, it resembled a lab at first. Its ground level included offices, a machine shop, and a dark room. Sometimes, you’d spot a nightwatchman keeping an eye on the floor in case anything went haywire. An elevator lift would take students up to the domes and telescopes. Up top, as with any observatory, students could peer out into the atmosphere or Chicago skyline. The top observing floor could also rise or fall to adjust for the movement of the telescopes.
Lindheimer was often visible from hundreds of miles in the sky, as airplanes flew into Chicago.
Credit: NU Archives
Named after prominent Chicago philanthropist Benjamin F. Lindheimer, the building was financed by the Lindheimer family, the National Science Foundation, as well as the A. Montgomery Ward and Hans D. Isenberg Foundations. In the end, the cost of the project totaled to about $3 million.
The building was also a large draw for prospective students, like Northwestern physics and astronomy professor Deborah Brown – who cited it as the reason she applied to Northwestern in the first place. As a freshman in the 1970s, she would spend her time studying physics at Main, settling at a spot overlooking the white twin towers by the lake.
As time passed, though, Brown said the frontier of space exploration was quickly moving into literal space – above Earth.
While that didn’t mean that ground-based astronomy was no longer applicable or significant, in some ways, the movement and race to bring humanity into space went too fast for LARC to keep up.
Still, even if cutting-edge research was not taking place there, students could find plenty of use out of Lindheimer.
The observatory was open on Saturdays for public open houses, and it was a welcome training ground for young astronomers. Though seeing conditions deteriorated from light pollution, students could still map out the brightest stars pricking the sky above the city.
The dark room on the base floor was where students went to process the photographic plates of the cosmic objects they were studying – treading carefully, lest they drop the glass.
Students peering through Lindheimer’s 40 inch telescope.
Credit: CIERA
Curious About What Went On in the LARC?
Students and faculty alike carried out many types of research projects through Lindheimer. This included analyzing starlight via spectrography, the development of a computer system that could photograph very faint stars and other distant space phenomena, and taking images and data with the telescopes for astronomy courses.
Read one of Lindheimer’s early observatory reports here.
Student Spaceshots
Spaceshots taken by Robert Lentz via the Lindheimer 40 inch telescope. From left to right: the moon’s surface, Jupiter with its Galilean moons, and Jupiter’s Red Spot.
Credit: Robert Lentz
Even when nearing the end of Lindheimer’s life, its domes and telescopes were places students could always go to have a good time. Lentz recalls how, when the building was reopened prior to its planned demolition, he and a fellow graduate student would spend days up in the domes aiming the telescope at the sky. Without relying on coordinate readouts, they could find whichever objects they were seeking by only hand and eye.
By the end of it all, they had grown quite adept at it.
One of the last graduate students to use the Lindheimer facility for a PhD project, before it was taken down, was Ed Weiler, who went on to head the Science Mission Directorate at NASA as well as the Hubble Space Telescope project.
From left to right, Drew Milsom, Diane Dutkevitch, and Robert Lentz in front of the 40 inch telescope.
Credit: Drew Milsom
Losing Lindheimer
Ultimately, Lindheimer stood on campus for almost 30 years, from 1967 to 1995. To those on campus who were outside the orbit of the astronomy department, it was a bit of a mystery. Questions came up of the towers’ true purposes, and rumors often circulated of the structure’s origins, current state, and even whether or not it was sinking into the lakefill (later proven untrue).
But as the years went by, seeing conditions continued to deteriorate, like the building itself. Lindheimer degraded in part due to problems piling up from deferred maintenance policies, brought on by budget troubles. The white, lead-based paint covering the building began to chip and flake off, resembling feathers on the ground.
It grew harder and harder to use the offices and tools inside, including the telescopes. Certain equipment grew dysfunctional and required manual handling. Other times, even the dome doors wouldn’t work.
However, the cost of repairs kept building up: asbestos removal, paint removal, other renovations such as new air systems. Ultimately, the expenses of fixing Lindheimer outweighed the costs of taking it down. By 1993, the observatory was closed from use.
The story officially ended in 1995, the year that Northwestern University officially announced that the building was coming down.
Two Northwestern professors co-wrote an NSF grant that was to provide $300,000 for students to continue using Lindheimer, transforming it into a sort of computer instruction lab. (Another grant from Northwestern’s provost was also aimed at funding more computer-aided classrooms.)
Initially, the demolition company attempted to take the building down with dynamite. By the time the explosives went off and the dust cloud settled, though, the towers had only tipped over a little – a credit to its structural strength.
Subsequent attempts over the next few days involved using pulleys to drag down the building and even torches to cut through the structural beams. For a while, Northwestern had its own Leaning Tower of Pisa!
Northwestern’s Leaning Tower.
Credit: NU Archives
When none of these valiant efforts worked, Robinette Demolition, the company hired to bring down the research center, ultimately took the Lindheimer down, piece by piece.
Certainly, it was all a memorable end for what one writer in the Daily Northwestern affectionately called, “the little observatory that wouldn’t.”
Its structure, digging all the way down to bedrock, meant to protect the telescopes from all the various bobs and vibrations of the lake, was the very thing that kept it up for so painstakingly long.
A Campus Symbol
In the place where Lindheimer once stood is now a hill with trees, tucked along the lakefront path winding up north, right behind Chap and Ethel Hutcheson Field.
But while Lindheimer didn’t last quite as long as its partner observatory Dearborn did, for a long time while it was there, it was a symbol for the community and campus.
Before the Arch became the steady silhouette found on cups and stickers advertising Northwestern, it was the stylized outlines of Lindheimer’s twin towers instead.
And when students could ride the lift up into the domes, they’d see the flickering skyline of downtown Chicago from nearly a hundred feet up in the chilly air. During nights spent observing, one might’ve even heard a music student practicing the bagpipes on the ground, sharp notes cutting above the noise of rustling grass.
A view of the Lindheimer Astronomical Research Center, just beyond the hill.
Credit: James Roberts
On one particularly clear night, Brown remembers being up in the domes and enraptured by the night sky – an endless stretch of the atmosphere freckled with bright, twinkling stars.
“It’s really gorgeous out here, you’ve got to come out and see this,” she called her advisor over the phone. “This is wonderful!”
Though he ended up just laughing at her, and neither was it the Milky Way, Brown said, “There was something just really amazingly beautiful about it.”
Lindheimer could be either an eyesore or a familiar friend, visible to airplanes flying into Chicago. It could be a place to capture snapshots of the moon or to wish for the weather to clear up. Or, if you were especially lucky, it could be the perfect spot to watch the Northern Lights ripple over Lake Michigan.
It all depended on the beholder.
1. View of LARC from North Beach / Credit: WikiPendant at Wikimedia Commons
2. LARC at dusk / Credit: WikiPendant at Wikimedia Commons
3. Close-up of LARC / Credit: James Roberts
