Jan Pate, executive director of the West Cook YMCA on Marion Street, was offering a tour Thursday and talking up the improvements gradually being made to the 1950s-era structure. She said she had been describing the Y to people recently as being "a vintage building." But it didn't feel like the right description to her.

So now, reflecting a new marketing technique aimed at making 1950s suburban split-level houses more appealing, Pate has taken to calling the YMCA "Mid-Century Modern."

She needs a good description because Pate made it clear that the West Cook YMCA is going to stay put in its long-time home for a long while to come. A failed effort several years back to raise a lot of donations for a new building in Forest Park is now in the rear view mirror.

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