I also hail from Oak Park. My father was delivered by Ernest Hemingway's father. I was working at the Badger Ammunition plant in the early 70s (representing a Chicago construction firm), and traveled the area. I went searching for Taliesen, not publicized at the time because it was not open to the public. On that winter day when I arrived there, it was boarded up, abandoned. I removed a board, and spent the afternoon roaming the rooms. It was most amazing to see them strewn with architectural drawings, as if the students (among them Stalin's daughter, as mentioned in the article) ran from the place because of a return of the axe fellow. I still don't know whay it was in the state it was in.
That must have been incredible! I'm sure you'll never forget it. Did you happen to have a camera with you?