As recently as 1960 Englewood was Chicago’s most active retail center outside the Loop, but its fortunes since have sagged, not caused by but coincident with the urban-renewal-era establishment of a suburban mall in the heart of Englewood at 63rd and Halsted. William Gay’s proposal re-establishes Englewood’s neighborhood grid, and locates a new public square and library at the northwest corner of 63rd and Halsted, both streets re-established spatially by new infill buildings located at and between Englewood’s major public transportation stops.