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Neil Steinberg Chicago Sun-Times feature on Leon Despres.

May 6, 2009
BY NEIL STEINBERG Sun-Times Columnist Few things are sadder or more haunting than to imagine what Chicago might have been like had anyone listened to Leon Despres.
For two decades, he stood virtually alone in the Chicago City Council and called upon humanity's better nature, only to be ignored or ridiculed.

Remembering Leon Despres

Mr. Despres, 101, who died at his Hyde Park home this morning, was the alderman representing the South Side neighborhood's 5th Ward from 1955 to 1975, and "the absolute conscience of the city," as former congressman and judge Abner Mikva once dubbed him.

In retirement, he remained active and was involved in fighting a high-rise condo in his neighborhood.

Mr. Despres battled, unceasingly and eloquently, against Mayor Richard J. Daley and the Democratic Machine. He tried to make Chicago a more decent and fair city than it became, and, though he seldom won, he never gave up.

He fought racial repression at a time when bold action might have prevented incalculable suffering and loss. "The Board of Education is shortchanging the children of Chicago,'' he told the City Council on Jan. 17, 1963, asking that it "electrify the world'' and "vote for the greatness of our city'' by withholding tax funds until the board ended segregation. "It is educating nearly all children in damaging racial isolation. Separate education is never equal education, and, in addition, the board is providing inferior facilities and teaching staffs for most Negro children.'' The measure was resoundingly defeated.

Often, the only vote cast for his resolutions was his own. Mr. Despres, alone, voted against the council's ban on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s open-occupancy marches in August 1966, while Daley's black aldermanic supporters denounced him for dictating to blacks where their best interests lay.
When Mr. Despres opposed the construction of new Chicago Housing Authority high-rise buildings, just one alderman sided with him. The buildings would become a monumental failure, sinkholes of crime and despair that plagued the city for decades.

The City Council of Mr. Despres' day was a tempestuous body of colorful figures, most of them slavishly loyal to Daley, whom Mr. Despres called a dictator and wasn't shy about castigating to his face. One of the prime attractions at any council meeting is watching Despres lecture the mayor, his finger wagging practically under Daley's nose, pouring out a dazzling array of statistics and studies and sociology and sheer guts,'' longtime Chicago reporter Lois Wille wrote in 1970. Such antics bewildered and angered aldermen who unwaveringly toed the Daley line. The late Ald. Vito Marzullo once called Mr. Despres "wholly irresponsible, a nitwit, a vicious person and a menace to the City Council and the public at large.'' "Sit down before I knock you down,'' said Ald. Thomas Keane, one of several aldermen to physically threaten Mr. Despres.

"Despres has been told to shut up -- in one form or another -- more than any grown man in Chicago,'' Mike Royko wrote in the old Chicago Daily News in 1972.

Even Mr. Despres' attempts to foster the barest civic decency were quashed. When he introduced a resolution decrying the bombing of a black family's house and reaffirming "the fundamental right of all law-abiding citizens to purchase and occupy homes anywhere in Chicago, regardless of ancestry or race,'' the council voted 38-4 against the measure.

Mr. Despres fought against discrimination in hospital staff appointments, cemeteries and housing. Sometimes, he even won. The day in August 1967 that Mr. Despres and two others called a special session on fair housing ‹ which Mr. Despres had been fighting for since 1956 ‹ Daley suspended the licenses of three real estate brokers for refusing to show homes to blacks. It was the first time the federal Fair Housing Law of 1963 was ever enforced in Chicago.
Mr. Despres was the first to raise an alarm about the dangers of lead paint.

He drafted the city's first ordinance establishing a landmarks preservation commission and led the fight to save Frank Lloyd Wright's extraordinary Robie House after the Chicago Theological Seminary announced plans to demolish the peerless architectural treasure to build a new dorm.

Along with Ald. Charles Chew (17th), Mr. Despres chartered two airplanes to take 184 people to Alabama to participate in King's famous voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965.

He fought official artistic censorship, once a notorious Chicago hallmark. When the City Council voted its "unqualified condemnation'' of Wright Junior College for putting James Baldwin's Another Country on the required reading list of a contemporary literature class, Mr. Despres called the resolution the "most degrading kind of censorship.'' "This body will make Chicago the laughingstock of the country by lynching a book,'' he said. Only two other aldermen voted with him. The same year, he tried to end funding to the city panel in charge of determining which movies could be shown in Chicago.
"Chicago should not let itself be the last bastion of medievalism,'' he said. Two aldermen supported him.

He also fought to abolish the police department's secret spying unit.

On a variety of issues, Mr. Despres expressed a vision approaching prescience. In 1965, he urged the CHA to consider low-rise, scattered-site housing. When fire destroyed McCormick Place in January 1967 ‹ a building Mr. Despres once called "a damaging monstrosity'' -- he declared, "This is a marvelous opportunity to rebuild it somewhere else.'' It was rebuilt on the same lakefront-hogging site.

Mr. Despres' vision was not clear on every issue, though. His sensitivity to the problems affecting the urban poor, for instance, initially blinded him to the threat posed by street gangs, which he called "very important manifestations of urban life'' in 1970. "It's very important to realize that along with the pathology and the criminality of extortion, killing, beating and violence, there are also positive elements of association that ought to be developed,'' he said.

He was born Leon Mathis Despres on Feb. 2, 1908, the son of Samuel and Henrietta Rubovitz Despres. Most friends called him "Len.'' The family moved from the South Side to Hyde Park when Mr. Despres was 3. He started at Hyde Park High School, but his mother decided he wasn't working hard enough, so she sent him to boarding school in Rome and then Paris, where he saw, he would later say, James Joyce's Ulysses, newly published in the window of Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare & Co. bookstore on rue de l'Odéon.

Mr. Despres returned to Hyde Park to attend the local college, the University of Chicago, where he was Phi Beta Kappa. He received his undergraduate degree in 1927 and his law degree in 1929. On Sept. 10, 1931, he married Marian Alschuler. She died in Jan 2007 at age 97.

all, slender and scholarly, Mr. Despres set out on a career of improving society through law. From 1935 to 1937, he was a trial examiner for the National Labor Relations Board. He also became a socialist, and visited exiled Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky in Mexico, a trip that saw him escorting legendary artist Frida Kahlo to the movies while her husband, Diego Rivera, painted a portrait of Despres' wife. "She was very attractive, very pretty," he said years later of Kahlo. "We had a good time. I had no idea she was an icon."

Mr. Despres acted as general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, Illinois division, from 1948 to 1955.

He was elected to the City Council in 1955, replacing Robert E. Merriam. Mr. Despres would tour his ward on his bicycle, meeting constituents. One of those constituents shot him, twice in the leg, the day after Christmas 1967, Mr. Despres stayed in the hospital 11 days, and later two teenagers confessed it had been a holdup attempt. He used the opportunity to speak out for stricter gun laws and against "poverty, bad housing, bad schools, bad jobs.'' He fought bitter election battles in 1955 and 1959. Then the Machine swung around and gave him a kind of tacit approval. In 1966, he was the only aldermanic candidate endorsed by both Democrats and Republicans.

Though he easily could have been re-elected, Mr. Despres decided not to run in 1975. A citizens committee in his ward collected 5,000 signatures as a show of support. The Daily News, in an editorial urging him to reverse his decision, said that "through the years, Despres' has always been the freshest, most youthful voice in the chamber.''

Mr. Despres served as council parliamentarian from 1979 to 1987, quitting after the all-night session naming Eugene Sawyer as mayor. He also served on the Chicago Plan Commission during the same period. Over the last decade, he returned to private practice.

His memoirs, Challenging the Daley Machine: A Chicago Alderman's Memoir, written with Kenan Heise, were published in 2005 by Northwestern University Press.

"I expect defeat,'' he once said, referring to a certain city budget battle but also, in a way, to his entire career. "Nevertheless, I have to make an effort.'' Paddy Bauler, the famously-corrupt Chicago pol, put it to Mr. Despres this way: "Len, the trouble is you think the whole thing's on the square.'' His wife passed away early in 2007, after 75 years of marriage. Survivors include his two children, Linda and Robert.

Chicago Tribune, May 7, 2009. Chicago's liberal conscience- Alderman took on first Mayor Daley, sought civil rights and altered city. By Ron Grossman and Trevor Jensen

Over his 101 years, Leon Despres took artist Frida Kahlo to the movies, drove the first Mayor Daley to distraction, and fought a long and often lonely crusade for civil right and political reform that saw African-Americans gain entry to the mayor's office and the White House.

Despres, a former Chicago Alderman, died of heart failure Wednesday in his Hyde Park apartment, said Kenan Heise, who collaborated with Despres on his 2005 memoir.

Despres and his South Side neighborhood, which he represented in the City Council from 1955 to 1975, were long the city's liberal conscience, and both were part of President Barack Obama's original political base. "Michelle and I were saddened by the passing of our dear friend and a towering giant in Chicago history Leon M. Despres," Obama said in a statement. "With an incisive mind, rapier wit and unstinting courage, he waged legendary battles against the corruption and discrimination that blighted our city."

During his 20 years on the City Council, he lost many more battles than he won against Richard J. daley and the Democratic machine. when the mayor lost patience with the 5th Ward alderman, he simply turned off Despres' microphone, said william Singer, a North Side independent alderman in the 1970s.

Yet the city has moved closer to much of what Despres fought for--fair elections and an end to patronage and segregation. Singer said younger Chicagoans may not realize how much the best of the city today reflects Despres' legacy. "For those of us who followed him to the City Council, he taught us that it was important for us to raise the issues even if we were sure to lose," said Singer, who also ran for mayor against Richard J. daley.

Mayor Richard M. Daley on Wednesday had only praise for his father's longtime antagonist. "He was a major participant in the debate on every major issue Chicago has faced in the last half century, and his strong voice made a great contribution to the way our city has evolved in that time," daley said in a statement.

Ald. Joe Moore (49th),one of he few aldermen to frequently oppose the present Mayor Daley, called Despres "a role model and mentor to me" "There was a period of time when he was the only voice of independence in the Chicago city Council," Moore said. "He was courageous."

Despres was born on Chicago's South Side on Feb. 2, 1908, and moved as a toddler to Hyde Park. His predecessors as 5th Ward aldermen include Paul Douglas, later a U.S. senator. Despres' father, who was in the clothing business, died when he was a boy, and his mother took him to Italy and France for high school. He was a product of the University of Chicago, with which he had a love-hate relationship. He credited it with his intellectual grounding but fought it on open housing issues.

In 1931, he married Marian Alschuler, daughter of a prominent architect. She was every bit her husband's intellectual equal, and they were fixtures of the city's cultual life for more than 70years.

A socialist in his youth, Despres was dispatched by fellow leftists to bring a suitcase of clothing to Leon Trotsky, the depose Bolshevik leader who had taken refuge in Mexico. While there, Despres' wife had her portrait painted by famed muralist Diego Rivera, Kahlo's husband. During sittings, Despres escorted Kahlo to the movies. "That's my claim to fame," Despres once said. "I took Frida Kahlo to the movies." Rivera's portrait hung among a vibrant collection of modernist works that made the Despres' Hyde Park apartment a virtual museum.

Despres and his wife were "committed to the arts, not only in the old fogey sense but to the avant garde," said his law partner since 1970, Thomas Geoghegan.

Despres went into law practice in 1929 and started representing labor unions during the Depression. In 1937, after police killed 10 demonstrators at a Memorial Day march against Republic Steel, Despres organized a protest rally that helped turn the affair into a seminal event of American labor history.

He used his legal acumen for a wide range of causes. In 1948, Despres represented the ACLU in arranging for a local showing of "The Respectful Prostitute," a ply by Jean-Paul Sartre that had been banned by Chicago police as "immoral."

He learned early how tough it was to be a reformer in Chicago. In one of his earliest political forays, he backed a candidate against long-time 25th Ward Ald. Vito Marzullo, Despres' candidate carried just one precinct. "Vito never forgave me for that," Despres later said.

But in 1955, he was elected alderman of the 5th Ward, and he won re-election despite the machine's best efforts until voluntarily stepping down 20 years later. As an alderman, he fought restrictive covenants, a legal device to keep blacks out of traditionally white areas -- like Hyde Park. Because black aldermen were often loyal to Daley and silent on civil rights, some publications dubbed Despres "the only Negro on the City Council," said Dick Simpson, a former independent alderman. "He typically spoke out for those without a voice,"Simpson said. "the fact that his microphone was turned off only amplified his voice."

Legislation by Despres was often defeated, only to be passed later with Daley's imprimatur, its origins ignored. For example, Despres' campaign against lead-based paint went nowhere until Daley loyalists put their names on it, Singer said.

He was liberal to the core. in 1967, he was attacked by two men and shot twice in the leg while walking home from his office, but he refused to condemn his assailants, saying that crime was a product of social conditions. Endorsing Singer's mayoral run against Daley in 1975, he declared: "The machine does not love Chicago. It loves to feed on Chicago. It is Chicago's tapeworm."

Despres remained involved in civic affairs, serving on the city's Plan Commission and as City Council parliamentarian under Harold Washington, whose upstart candidacy in 1983 he supported vigorously.

For years he swam for a half-mile before work in the winter and in summer was a fixture around town on his bicycle. His long life touched many chapters of Chicago's history. Heise once walked with Despres through Oak Woods Cemetary and said Enrico Fermi's tombstone. "I did his will for him," Despres said. Olympian Jesse Owens is also buried there. "He worked on my first campaign," Despres recalled.

"Despres was an icon in the best sense of the word," said Dr. Quentin Young, a Hyde Park activist and Despres' physician for years. Marian Despres died in January 2007. Her loss was a deep blow, but Despres kept busy. He practiced law until a couple of years ago, and at 100 wrote an online diary for Slate.

"Chicago is a richer and stronger city for having known Leon Despres -- and a lesser place now that he is gone," Obama said. Survivors include a son, Robert; a daughter, Linda Baskin; and a grandson.

U of C press release.
Leon Despres, a former Chicago alderman and activist, died Wednesday in his Hyde Park home. He was 101.

Despres, who represented Hyde Park in the city council, was considered the liberal conscience of Chicago politics for decades. He was born in Chicago in 1908, attended the University Laboratory Schools and graduated from the College in 1927 and the Law School in 1929.

Despres continued his association with the University of Chicago and received the University's Benton Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 2005.

"I have seen, heard, talked to or worked with every president of the University since Harry Pratt Judson, and on," Despres said at the time he received the award.

Judson was the second president of the University, serving from 1906 to 1923. ?In addition to attending the University, Despres taught at Chicago, his children attended there, while his late wife, Marian Alschuler Despres, earned her doctoral degree there. "We fell in love at the University of Chicago," he said at the Benton Medal ceremony.

"My life has been entwined with the University of Chicago since 1911 when I moved to Hyde Park. So this is like a confirmation of a long and valuable relationship."

Despres was elected to the Chicago city council to represent Hyde Park as 5th Ward Alderman in 1955, the same year that Alderman Paddy Bauler famously uttered: "Chicago ain't ready for reform."

But that is exactly what Despres delivered. ?One of the few independents on the council and the most liberal alderman in the city, Despres ushered in 20 years of reform efforts. His demand to cut out the corrupt sale of city driveway permits made him enemies from the very beginning, particularly among the administration of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley.

Over the years, Despres crusaded to ban discrimination, gain equality for African-Americans and preserve Chicago landmark buildings.

The Hyde Park Historical Society awarded the 2008 Marian and Leon Despres Preservation Award to the University of Chicago Medical Center for the "excellent restoration" of the facade and the first-floor main lobby of the American School of Correspondence Building, 850 E. 58th St.

After serving for 20 years with great distinction as alderman, Despres worked as a parliamentarian for the Jane Byrne and Harold Washington administrations, as well as an attorney, teacher and lecturer.

He was also the author of Challenging the Daley Machine: A Chicago Alderman's Memoir. In his political memoir, Despres offers a first-person account of the corruption and cronyism that defined Chicago politics, and his efforts to stand up to the machine, while frequently facing 49-to-1 defeats on Chicago's city council.

Survivors include a son, Robert; a daughter, Linda Baskin; and a grandson.

Services will be held 1 p.m. May 31 at KAM Isaiah Israel, 1100 E. Hyde Park Blvd.

MULTIMEDIA
Leon Despres reminisces about his life in Hyde Park and his public service
(Source: Chicago Media Initiatives Group)
MEDIA CONTACTWilliam Harms
773.702.8356
w-harms@uchicago.edu

In Memoriam- John Hope Franklin, former Professor and department head in History at the University of Chicago. His career spanned work with Thurgood Marshall on Brown v. Board of Education through seminal and quality studies and surveys that put African American history in the mainstream while ensuring it is a specialty of its own and has serious archiving and preservation of materials.

A new group to provide financial support quickly to preservation support needs is being set up, with a grant from the Driehaus Foundation and HPKCC is now its fiscal agent. See the Southside Preservation Action Fund page.

Original owner A. R. Clarke, Contractor who also owned and was the owner/architect for 5040 S. Greenwood, Architect - Bishop & Company Built in 1910 Source - Construction News - May 28, 1910. A Historical Georgian revival home built in 1910 with four fireplaces, glass-door bookcases fashioned from Honduran mahogany, and a 1,000-bottle wine cellar…

More: http://blog.lucidrealty.com/2008/11/02barack-obamas-house/ however, site found but article has error message and requires subscription. A more detailed history is in
http://chicagojewishnews.com/story.htm?sid=1&id=252515 as follows:

THE JEWISH HISTORY OF BARACK OBAMA'S HOUSE
By Charles B. Bernstein and Stuart L. Cohen (11/28/2008)
Its future is to be the Chicago White House. But a look at its past shows the construction of the Obama home was financed by a prominent Chicago Jew, that it was once lived in by a Jewish family and that it was home to both a Jewish day school and a yeshiva...

After Pauline Yearwood's recent startling scoop in the Chicago Jewish News, which revealed that First Lady-elect Michelle Obama is a first cousin, once removed, of Rabbi Capers Funnye, it appeared unlikely that another significant Jewish connection to the Obamas would be found.

A minor connection involved the fact that the Obamas' house, located on the South Side of Chicago at 5046 S. Greenwood Avenue, is located across the street from KAM-Isaiah Israel Congregation, Chicago's oldest Jewish congregation. The Secret Service agents guarding the house use the facilities at the temple. Greenwood is barricaded at both 51st Street and 50th Street and only residents and temple members are allowed to pass through. Temple members have to identify themselves to the Secret Service agents who then call the temple to verify that the visitors are legitimately there and have temple business.

But research shows a far more significant connection between the Obama house and the Jewish community.

Indeed, the title history of the Obama house shows it has a rich Jewish history, one that encompasses both of Chicago's rival communities, the Reform Hyde Park German Jews and the Orthodox West Side Russian Jews.

The earliest document in the county records pertaining to 5046 Greenwood is a construction loan, dated Oct. 4, 1905, obtained by real estate developer Wallace Grant Clark from Moses E. Greenebaum. A prominent mortgage banker and real estate developer, Greenebaum was a member of a pioneer Chicago family which became a leader in both the general and Jewish communities. Moses's father, Elias Greenebaum, came to Chicago in 1848 and eventually entered the mortgage and banking business. Elias's father, Jacob, followed Elias to Chicago, so Moses was already a third generation Chicagoan. Elias was a founder of Sinai Temple, Chicago's first Reform congregation. Elias, Moses and Moses's son Edgar were all presidents of Sinai.

The house was constructed about 1908. In 1919, 5046 Greenwood got its first Jewish owner. Max Goldstine purchased the house along with the vacant lot on the northwest corner of 51st (aka East Hyde Park Boulevard) and Greenwood. The deed from the sellers, Mae Press Hodgkins and William L. Hodgkins, was dated October 21, 1919.

Max Goldstine was a successful Chicago real estate entrepreneur. By today's standards, he made a pretty good investment, buying the property for approximately $13,750, based upon the $15 worth of revenue stamps on the deed. In those days, real estate transfers were taxed by the federal government at $1.10 per thousand.

Both Max Goldstine and his wife, the former Ethel Kline, were born in Hungary and immigrated as children to the United States, where they were married in September, 1901. The Goldstines had three daughters: Lucille, born in 1902, who married Harold Rosenheim; Viola, born in 1905, who married Robert L. Leopold; and Maxine, born in 1908, who married Harold L. Newmann.

Grandson Fred M. Newmann, age 71, a retired professor of education who now lives in Madison, WI, was a very active campaigner on behalf of Obama. While he knew that his mother had grown up on Greenwood Avenue, he never put two and two together until the authors contacted him. He was very excited to learn that the current occupant of his mother's childhood home is the new President-elect.

Granddaughter Nancy Rosenheim, age 83, is married to Robert J. Greenebaum, age 91, son of Edgar N. Greenebaum, Sr., who was the son of mortgage banker Moses Greenebaum mentioned above. Nancy and Bob Greenebaum, who live in Highland Park, have grandchildren who are seventh generation Jewish Chicagoans. Bob was a halfback on the University of Chicago's next-to-last Big Ten football team, an aviator in World War II and treasurer of Inland Steel Co., and is a trustee of the Michael Reese Health Trust.

Nancy recalled that her mother, Lucille Goldstine Rosenheim, told her the family home sported a ballroom on the third floor. Later, Lucille was a dancing teacher on Chicago's South Side. Lucille also published some career stories for teenage girls that Nancy hopes to share with the First Daughters; she thinks they will especially enjoy the dreams of another girl who grew up in the same home.

Dorothy Eckstein Herman Lamson of Highland Park, age 95, grew up at 5125 S. Greenwood and was a childhood friend of Maxine Goldstine. She vividly remembers that Max had constructed a wooden toboggan slide on the adjacent vacant lot and that neighborhood children enjoyed winter sledding there for many years in the early 1920s.

Max and Ethel Goldstine sold the property by deed dated April 1, 1926, to Virginia H. Kendall and Elizabeth K. Wild, as joint tenants. No revenue stamps were affixed to the deed, so the sale price cannot be ascertained.

During the Depression years of the 1930s, the property went through mortgage foreclosure proceedings. The Foreman State Trust & Savings Bank was involved in the mid-1930s. The Foremans were also a prominent Chicago German-Jewish banking family. Family and bank founder Gerhard Foreman (1823-1897) was married to a sister of the aforementioned Elias Greenebaum.

The Hebrew Theological College (HTC), which is now located in Skokie, is an Orthodox rabbinical seminary. It evolved out of several small seminaries and established itself in its present form about 1920. Located on the West Side, its students and supporters were primarily Russian Jewish immigrants and their children.

By the 1940s, a small but dedicated and active group of Orthodox Jews had established itself in Hyde Park. Between 1945 and 1955, several Orthodox and Traditional shuls dotted the Hyde Park landscape, although dwarfed in influence, membership and renown by three large Reform temples, Sinai, KAM and Isaiah-Israel (KAM and Isaiah Israel merged in 1972; KAM's former building, located three blocks away from 5046 Greenwood on Drexel Boulevard, now serves as headquarters of Rainbow/PUSH).

HTC, known colloquially as "the Yeshiva," wanted to establish a South Side base to service this Orthodox community. A Milwaukee philanthropist, Anna Sarah Katz, donated $50,000 to HTC, which enabled it to purchase the 5046 Greenwood property. It obtained title from the First National Bank of Chicago, which had acquired the property by taking over the Foreman bank when it went bankrupt during the Depression.

The Special Warranty Deed to the Hebrew Theological College was dated March 26, 1947. Affixed to the deed were Federal revenue stamps totaling $37.40, which calculates out to a purchase price of about $34,000. Simultaneously with the purchase, HTC conveyed a mortgage to Dovenmuele, Inc., a mortgage company, for $20,000, payable $500 every three months until May 9, 1957. The mortgage was signed by Rabbi Oscar Z. Fasman, long time president of the Yeshiva, and Samuel S. Siegel, secretary. A report in the Chicago Tribune on Monday, Sept. 22, 1947, said: "Mrs. Anna Sarah Katz of Milwaukee has purchased a $50,000 plot of land with a building to be contributed to the Hebrew Theological College expansion drive, she announced at a luncheon held yesterday in the college, 3448 Douglas Blvd."

Elise DeBofsky Ginsparg is a member of a leading Hyde Park Orthodox family and now a book reviewer and lecturer on Jewish life. At a meeting of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society on Oct. 28, 2007, as reported in Chicago Jewish History, she recalled: "After my high school classes, I attended the Hebrew Theological College, the Yeshiva High School Branch, located in a mansion on 51st and Greenwood on the northwest corner, directly across the street from Isaiah Israel. The mansion was donated to the Yeshiva by the Anna Sarah Katz family from Wisconsin...I went all through Hebrew grammar school and attended Hebrew high school for four years...We were blessed with marvelous teachers who taught at the Chicago Jewish Academy, now the Ida Crown Jewish Academy, and came to the South Side to teach us." She also recalled that in the late 1940s, the building on Greenwood was the first home of the South Side Jewish Day School. The school later moved to South Shore and became the Akiba Jewish Day School, which later merged with the Solomon Schechter Day School in Hyde Park to become the Akiba-Schechter Jewish Day School, which still exists in Hyde Park.

The Tribune reported on Oct. 8, 1950, that the Anna Rubin auxiliary, an affiliate of HTC, would celebrate its 20th anniversary at a dinner at the Anna Sarah Katz building. Proceeds were pledged to the college's scholarship fund which provides free meals and tuition to students.

Hyde Park's Orthodox population began to dwindle in the early 1950s, and in 1954, the Yeshiva sold the property to the Hyde Park Lutheran Church by a deed signed May 21, 1954. The purchase price was $35,000, based on the revenue stamps of $38.50 affixed to the deed. The deed was signed by Rabbi Fasman, who was still president, and Samuel T. Cohen, secretary.

The sale price was a far cry from $1.6 million, the price the Barack and Michelle Obama paid to purchase the house.

It is fitting indeed that the Chicago home of President-elect Obama, who has worked hard to bridge the differences among us, has served as a residence to Christians and Jews, native-born and immigrants, as well as a base for both Jewish and Christian organizations. We Jews might even say it was beshert.

Charles B. Bernstein is a Chicago attorney, genealogist of the Chicago Jewish community, and a founder of the Chicago Jewish Historical Society. Stuart L. Cohen is a Chicago mortgage banker whose avocation is Jewish genealogy and Chicago Jewish history. The authors may be reached at ChicagoJewsPast@aol.com. Page 3 of 1. Top

© Chicago Jewish News 2005 Contact Chicago Jewish News Design by jesterjames Code by Remington Associates, Ltd.

The Chicago Area Friends of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) seeks archival and other material and participant testimony documenting the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago 1960-65 for the (up running in 2010) Chicago SNCC archive in the Vivian Harsh Archive at the Woodson Regional Library 9525 S. Halsted. Running these projects are Hyde Parkers Fannie Rushing, history professor at Benedictine University, and Sylvia Fischer (local SNCC was largely run out of her house). They are using material to connect with current students in such high schools as Hyde Park, Phillips, and DuSable.

HPKCC Preservation Committee. The Board of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference has formed a Task Force to explore and work with other organizations on issues of preservation, redevelopment, and zoning affecting the community. Gary Ossewaarde, Irene Freelain, Trish Morse, M.L. Rantala, and James Withrow are among those so engaged. We are particularly following exploration of a Hyde Park landmark district and survey of historic resources by the Hyde Park Historical Society Preservation Committee and also considering public information and input into application of the new zoning ordinance in Hyde Park and the movement to have an historic district in central-south Hyde Park. Visit Development and Public Policy or Zoning Reform pages.
Is the Kenwood Historic District in danger? Some new residents resist restrictions on what they can do with their property, and even with city permitting requirements.--Committee suggests preparing informational brochure so new buyers know what to expect.

The Archives are a major part of the work of the Hyde Park Historical Society. The large records of the Society are in Regenstein Special Collections, University of Chicago Libraries and are open. Most ned funds for full cataloguing and future digitalizing. Recent very large additions are: Nancy Hays Collection, Documentation Projects- Hyde Park Urban Renewal Townhouses, Lost buildings of Hyde Park, and Central Hyde Park, and Records of the Hyde Park Cooperative Society. Information on using the Special Collections Research Center is available at http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/. For more information on the Co-op collection contact Michal Safar, HPHS Archivist, msafar@ameritech.net. The Society is entering into an agreement with Special Collections to sort, index, digitalize and put online the Society's collection (less Hays) and will begin fundraising for this.

Here is letter by HPHS Archivist Michel Safar to the Hyde Park Herald, March 26, 2008

Prior to its closing on January 20, 2008, the Hyde Park Cooperative Society donated a substantial number of records to the Hyde Park Historical Society. The materials that have been preserved include the contents of the Co-op Library dedicated to Leon Despres, over 50 years of Board meeting minutes, Evergreens from 1951, photographs, and annual reports, among other things. The materials donated by the Co-op to HPHS are located at the Special Collections Research Center of the Joseph Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, and are available to the public. Information on using the Special Collections Research Center is available at http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/. For more information on the Co-op collection contact Michal Safar, HPHS Archivist, msafar@ameritech.net.

History and Preservation web index

While mainly concerned with subjects indicated in the page title (although not a survey of either HP history or built resources), this webpage will occasionally call attention to allied issues or informational opportunities such as civic design, neighborhood and block quality, and planning impacts. Visit Development and Public Policy or Zoning Reform.

History and Preservation web index

General sub pages on preservation and historical recovery:

History and Preservation Stories around the Area ("in Depth")
At the Hyde Park Historical Society See also for information on preservation movement background re: the Preservation Award at the HPHS 2005 Annual Dinner.
Chicago Metro History Fair
Development/Pres. Committee of HPKCC and what's in play in devel. that could affect preservation.
Landmark Criteria, Procedures, Incentives
Landmark District Frequently Asked Questions (printable) The Commission's standards and guidance- see also previous (Criteria)
Landmark District(s) for Hyde Park? activity underway
Preservation Beat (watch lists here, and "state of the preservation game" articles) Read about award for an extraordinary restoration in Kenwood.
Preservation Hot Topics
Religious spaces and Preservation/Landmarking
SPAF- Southside Preservation Action Fund
Sprinkler/Life-Safety Evaluation and potential impact on preservation/viability
Tax incentives for/effects on preservation

Sub pages on places of historic or preservation interest

Blackstone Branch Library (architect: S. Beman)
Columbian Exposition, World's, of 1893
Deco Arts building and terra cotta in Hyde Park
Doctors (Illinois Central) Hospital
Fountain of Time Basin Committee (L. Taft, H. VD. Shaw)
Geologic and some architectural geology history of Hyde Park
(Greenwood Row Houses- see Preservation Beat and Preservation Hot)
Harper Court Story
Harper Theater/Herald Bldg. future (H. Wilson), Harper Theater RFP 2006
Kenwood 40th St. Rail Embankment- diverse ideas on saving/converting /redev'g old infrastructure
Lake Park Corridor and Metra viaducts/murals
Landmarks Designation process and criteria (includes Q and A and Economic Incentives)
Museum of Science and Industry
Olympics and Washington Park
Promontory Point landmarking status and endangered listing (A. Caldwell)
The Quadrangle Club Story (H. vd. Shaw)
The Piccadilly Remembered
The Robie House Story (F.L. Wright), views of Robie and of Heller (with story) houses
St. Gelasius Church
Shaw (Howard Van Doren) in Hyde Park and Kenwood
The Shoreland
South Campus. See also University and Community
Urban Renewal and Hyde Park redevelopment stories, views, timeline home (HP historic timeline 1940s-2000s)
Urban Renewal and Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference
1968 radio transcript- Urban Universities- their Responsibility to Communities
Wright, Frank Lloyd in Hyde Park and Kenwood- see Robie House.

Elsewhere on this site and a couple out:
Doctors Hospital
Midway Plaisance Virtual Tour by HPKCC Board member Trish Morse
About Allison Davis, Sr's contribution and the garden named for him: Davis Garden, Washington Park page.
Hyde Park Bank restoration/renovation: Development page
The Powhatan and other classic apartment buildings as described by Prof. Neil Harris: www.hpherald.com Nov. 3 issue, and past HPHS Hyde Park History issue in www.hydeparkhistory.org.
Reviews of Tim Black's Bridges of Memory and its context
To Carol Herzenberg's site on the Women in the Manhattan Project

Visit also the Parks pages, especially including sub pages in Burnham and Burnham Timeline,Harold Washington; Midway; Jackson; Nichols; Promontory Point Park; Promontory Point revetment controversy index page; Promontory Park page; Washington, South Shore.


63rd St. Bathing Pavilion
Animal Bridge
Burnham Timeline
Columbian Exposition
Granite beach
'Iowa' building
Jackson History
Jackson Timeline
Jackson Park Lagoon story
Korean Exhibit at Columbian Expo
Murals, Metra Viaducts and Lake Park Ave.
Nike base
Old Oak of Wooded Island
Osaka Japanese Garden
South Shore Cultural Center (several sub pages on landmark designation, history, historic views)
U-505 Sub Move
Statue of the Republic
Wooded Island and links there.
Wooded Island tour 2003

About the Hyde Park Historical Society and its work and programs
Hyde Park Historical Society website is an invaluable resource with much we could never cover here including 1893 World's Fair.
HPHS History Fair (look also for HPHSNeighborhoodHistoryContests.pdf or e-mail administrator for it: information@hydeparkhistory.org. )
our History Fair page.
'Your House Has a History' online.
HPHS Hyde Park Herald monthly series.
Hyde Park History articles. Many of the articles in the society's quarterly publication, as well as from its Herald series are on line, some pdf, others direct.

Other links (historic and preservation organizations and agencies) at bottom of this page

In this page History in a nutshell Obama's home Robie House news HPHS Preservation and Archives Committees Contest: winning landmark gets big Nt'l Trust/AmExpr grant In Memoriam including Leon Despres In Memoriam Marian Despres Poll question Kenwood Historic Landmark District honored at HPHS dinner Feb. 23 07 More congrats. Historic tours; look-and-see these treasures Alvarez' Time...Butterflies poses, What is 'history?' Meetings- Awards, News bits, Bulletins, current issues, requests for information; opportunities for you/ events/exhibits/essay contests, new books. Events by date. UC History Dept receives rare Wayne Miller collection of Bronzeville postwar people and sites photos Restoration of Kenwood 'Queen Anne' honored by city Blackstone Library murals to be conserved HP Historical society wins another grant to study a subset of area houses. Marian and Leon Despres honored at HPHS Dinner 2/5, summary of their achievements. Earl B. Dickerson bio out. About Dickerson Not looking as good for Viking Ship's return to Jackson, MSI U of C collaborative inventory, website of resources underway on South Side history, jazz, poetry, more in several archives. Class on Washington Park History held 2005; 55th St. Project Despres's book released. Northwestern publishing others-Truman Gibson's is out and that on Earl Dickerson. Obit. notice Truman K. Gibson James Farrell honored and Dickerson book published Julius Rosenwald honored: the man, Sears, philanthropy, and Museum of Science and Industry From HPKCC or preservation organizations incl. LPCI, Pres. Chicago About Hyde Park and Kenwood historic and landmarked places, built environment, and research resources. Some books on South Side history Designated landmarks A consideration of the state of preservation Links to historical, and preservationist, and architectural organizations

In Preservation and heritage in depth: Details, more, and photos.
Reviews of Timuel Black's Bridges of Memory

History in a Nutshell

By Gary Ossewaarde

Hyde Park has had several defining moments, is this another?: Lakeshore suburban resort after Paul Cornell won one of the first commuter stops in the country. Growth after the Chicago Fire to become a larger resort with mansions and hotels. Annexation to Chicago, then World's Columbian Exposition and founding of the 2nd University of Chicago and huge parks fill in an upper middle and upper class solid neighborhood while growing its cottage homes, commercial districts to serve much of the South Side and keeping the resort aspect too. In the 1920s the Illinois Central is electrified leading to a dense belt in the east and three-flat infill west. Decline of housing and commercial and changing demographics lead to a crisis in which the University, neighbors and city undertake massive urban renewal while keeping a varied historic housing stock. A sense of unease by some that the neighborhood is being left behind while the rest of the South Side starts to revive, infill and become a new Mid South, University growth and desire that the neighborhoods around it match its ambitions, and unease by others at prospects of change and especially threat to affordability for present residents, all put Hyde Park at a crossroads in the new millennium--destination community or not? -- and at that moment comes prospects of Olympics, Antheus Capital as a dynamic new player, possible Obama Effect, and the backlash side of a bubble.
An interesting look at the early period is in Hyde Park Politics 1861-1919. Another intro is Max Grinnell, Hyde Park Chicago (Arcadia). Visit James Withrow's Last 60 Years in the Anniversary Kickoff page.

A Contest was held by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express. (Some think the contest good publicity for the needs of at least certain historic sites, others called it a commercialized disgrace.) Object was to pick among 25 finalists nationally to determine which monument gets the lion's share of up to a million in preservation funding. Two of the finalists are in the area- Fountain of Time and Robie House. Also nearby South Side Community Art Center. Never mind what should have been in the final 25. One could vote up to once a day through October 10. And the winners on the South Side:

On Leong Merchants' Association- Pui-Lok Center, Chinatown. $88,000
Quinn Chapel
Robie House
South Side Community Art Center
The Viking Ship from the Columbian Exposition
All other local contestants, including the Fountain of Time, - $5,000 each

A big 90th birthday bash was held December 7 at the Checkerboard for Tim Black, educator, historian and activist, with all the local officials and notables present.

In Memoriam Marian Despres.

In the May 9, 2007 Herald, Hyde Park Historical Society newsletter editor asked for reminiscences of Marian for a special issue of the Society's New letter.

"Hyde Park History," the newsletter of the Hyde Park Historical Society, is planning a special issue to commemorate long-time Hyde Park resident, Marian Despres, who died in January.

Please contribute memories, photographs, comments and stories of any kind about Mrs. Despres to the Editor, "Hyde Park History," 5529 S. Lake Park Ave., Chicago, IL 60637, to Frances Vandervoort at vandersand@sbcglobal.net; or to the society's Website, hydeparkhistory.org. The society's telephone number 493-1893.

Chicago Tribune

Activist was Chicago insider

Wife of former alderman helped found architecture foundation and served on landmarks commission

By Trevor Jensen
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 6, 2007
Chicago Tribune

Photo Source: University of Chicago Magazine
Marian Despres was an architectural preservationist, civic activist, author and art collector who held a doctorate in psychology and an insider's knowledge of Chicago politics courtesy of her husband, former Ald. Leon Despres.

The daughter of a prominent architect, Mrs. Despres was a founding member of the Chicago Architecture Foundation and started what has become a popular program to train volunteers to lead architectural tours of the city.

Mrs. Despres, 97, died on Thursday, Jan. 4, at Jackson Park Hospital, several weeks after choking on a piece of food at her Hyde Park home, her husband said. She had suffered a stroke about four years ago but had been in relatively good health until recently, he said.

In 1966, Mrs. Despres was among a group of Chicago architects and citizens who raised $35,000 to buy and thus save the Glessner House at 1800 S. Prairie Ave. The group originally was known as the Chicago School of Architecture Foundation.

"It was the civic community that took it to the next step and she was the key," said Lynn Osmond, the foundation's executive director. "She was brought up with architecture and she loved not only the buildings but also what architecture means to people's lives. She was passionate about the whole subject."

Mrs. Despres' involvement brought immediate respect to the fledgling preservationist group, said architect Benjamin Weese.

"It was a bunch of ragamuffin kids and she had stature and dignity and clout," Weese said. "She and [former Chicago Sun-Times architecture writer] Ruth Moore Garbe could go in to Mayor [Richard J.] Daley and say, `This is what we want.'"

In 1970, Mrs. Despres handed out diplomas to the foundation's first group of volunteer docents. The foundation now has 450 volunteers who lead about 9,000 tours annually, Osmond said.

From 1985 until 2000, Mrs. Despres was on the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, which works to preserve the city's architectural heritage.

"I think it was in her blood," Weese said. "She fell right into the preservation system."

Mrs. Despres was born in Chicago and grew up in Winnetka, the daughter of architect Alfred S. Alschuler. Her two brothers, Alfred and John, followed their father into architecture.

After graduating from North Shore Country Day School she went to Vassar College. At a party in Glencoe over Christmas break her sophomore year, she met Leon Despres, a young man from Hyde Park who soon would become a Chicago lawyer.

She returned to Vassar. He sent her a book, "Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times and Teaching," by Joseph Klausner. A correspondence ensued, and she decided to transfer to the University of Chicago.

"We really did fall in love, you could set the date, 1928," Leon Despres said.

The couple married in 1931, a year after she earned a philosophy degree from the U of C. In 1936, she received a doctorate in psychology from the school.

In 1937, a fellow lawyer asked Leon Despres to deliver a suitcase of clothing to Leon Trotsky, the exiled Bolshevik living in Mexico. The Despres traveled south and met not only Trotsky but his ally, artist Diego Rivera. Mrs. Despres sat for a portrait with Rivera while her husband escorted Rivera's wife, the artist FridaKahlo, to a movie.

After receiving her PhD, Mrs. Despres worked as a group therapist at the Jewish Children's Bureau for four years and then was an assistant psychology professor at Roosevelt University from 1946 to 1951.

At Roosevelt, she urged a student who had impressed her in class to run for student council. Harold Washington won the race for council president, and later, as mayor of Chicago, liked to say that Mrs. Despres launched his political career.

Active in Hyde Park community affairs and a founder of the Hyde Park Co-op Society, Mrs. Despres in 1943 circulated petitions and organized supporters in a successful campaign to allow African-American students into the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.

Leon Despres won his City Council seat in 1955 and for the next 20 years and as an independent was a thorn in the side of Daley and the Democratic machine. Mrs. Despres gave up her own career in teaching and psychology to back her husband, he said.

Regal in bearing yet highly approachable, Mrs. Despres moved easily between the hurly-burly of Chicago ward politics and the politesse of the city's cultural institutions and art galleries, said veteran political consultant Don Rose. In Chicago and on annual trips through Western Europe, her discerning eye built a modern art collection her husband said has appreciated nicely in value.

"In her way she was as much of a doer as [Leon] was," Rose said. "She was equally involved in the politics of the city, but very much of her own mind."

Survivors also include a son, Robert; a daughter, Linda Baskin; and a grandson.

Services will be held at 2:30 p.m. Jan. 14, in KAM Isaiah Israel, 1100 E. Hyde Park Blvd., a synagogue designed by Mrs. Despres' father.

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ttjensen@tribune.com

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

Hyde Park Herald, January 10, 2007. By Daniel J. Yovich

"A Woman for all seasons" She was Hyde Park's cultural leader

Marian Despres, the slightly-built wife of the last of Hyde Park's legendary liberal giants who cast her own imposing shadow in intellectual and architectural preservation circles, died Jan. 4 at Jackson Park Hospital and Medical Center.

Despres was 97 and was hospitalized on Dec. 19 after having breathing difficulty. No cause of death was available at press time.

Born in 1909 to prominent Chicago architect Alfred Alschuler and his wife Rose, Despres was schooled at Vassar College and the University of Chicago, where she married Leon Despres, who would later become an alderman and the dean of Hyde Park's liberal establishment.

An author, educator, professor, therapist and fearless political activist, her accomplishments in the city and community are legion. At age 34, she helped lead the campaign to open the University of Chicago Laboratory School to black students.

Along with her husband--a fierce opponent of Chicago's machine politics whom former federal judge Abner Mikva once declared the "conscience of the city"--Marian helped coordinate the efforts to preserve historic Glessner House, the only H.H. Richardson-designed building open to the public.

"She was my rock, my partner, my everything," Leon Despres said, who aid Marian's preservation efforts to save Glessner House, which now anchors the Prairie Avenue Historic District, rank among her greatest achievements.

The Despres married in 1931. In addition to her husband, Marian Despres is survived by son Robert Despres, of Westport, Conn., daughter Linda Baskin of Hyde Park and one grandson. Services are scheduled for 2:30 p.m., Jan. 14 at K.A.M. Isaiah Israel, 1100 E. Hyde Park Blvd.

In lieu of flowers, the Despres family asks that donations be made to Glessner House.

A full life

In 1965, she helped lead protests against then Mayor Richard J. Daley's plan to extend Lake Shore Drive south through Jackson Park, a move that still resonates among long time residents.

"Marian was truly a woman for all seasons," said George Rumsey, the president of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference. "She had a very rich and quite colorful life and never ceased to stop making a difference in people's lives."

Rumsey said his "favorite Marian Despres story" involved her help in organizing a protest in 1965 by a group of Hyde Park women who fought the city's plans to extend Lake Shore Drive. When the city began clearing foliage in Jackson Park for the construction project, Despres and her allies festooned branches with ribbons and tied bed sheets to boughs as a way of drawing attention to the city's clear cutting.

Several of the women--including Despres--were arrested after they chained themselves to tree trunks to disrupt the city's construction efforts. "Of course the charges were dismissed, but they made their point and the project was abandoned," Rumsey said.

In 1970, Despres helped found what would later become the Chicago Architecture Foundation, where she organized training for docents and recruited faculty and students. She served on the Illinois Arts Council and in 1985 she was appointed [to the] city's landmarks commission by then Mayor Harold Washington.

She served on the commission until 2000. In 1999, the city's Department of Planning and Development nominated Despres for the Illinois Association of Historic Preservation Commissions for the organization's individual preservation award. In 2005, Marian and Leon Despres were awarded the Hyde Park Historical Society inaugural architectural preservation award, an honor that is now named for them.

Long-time Hyde Park resident and preservationist Jack Spicer credited Marian Despres with founding the city's preservation movement. "Her death is a real loss for our community and for the larger preservation community in Chicago," Spicer said. "If it were not for Marian, there would not have been a preservation movement in Chicago. She really started it."

In the early 1960s, when Hyde Park and Kenwood were undergoing federally financed urban renewal, Despres helped inventory and document hundreds of significant buildings that were about to be demolished. A published record of this event, "Segments of the Past," which was edited by Despres ranks as one of the early examples of preservation planning in Chicago, said Deputy Planning Commissioner Constance Buscemi.

Despres was equally at ease in City Hall's corridors of power and on the picket line. She marched with protest signs in 1960 to fight the demolition of the Louis Sullivan-designed Garrick Theater and again walked the picket line in 1972 to fight the demolition efforts of the old Chicago Stock Exchange.

"She has helped raise an extended family of preservationists that will survive and grow for many generations to come," said Spicer.

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Alderman Preckwinkle on What Marian taught us. Hyde Park Herald, January 17, 2007.

Marian Alschuler Despres had vision. She looked around her child’s classroom and asked where were the African-American children. The United States was fighting a war, she wrote, against racial hatred, couldn’t we do better here at home?

She helped guide a group of white parents not towards accepting integration but requesting integration. This was during World War II before Truman integrated the U.S. Armed Forces, as the Tuskegee Airmen trained in disdained isolation.

Today as we walk around Hyde Park, we remember Marian Despres because of the beauty that remains. An alert clerk in the City of Chicago’s Building Department tipped off her husband, Ald. Leon Despres, to the entry of an application for the demolition permit for the Robie House. He did so because of Mrs. Despres’s well-known interest in what we now celebrate s our architectural heritage. Today as tourist cameras click, it is hard to remember that the Robie House was once seriously at risk.

Marian Despres’s effort on behalf of great architecture went beyond opposing the wrecking ball. With the purchase of Glessner House, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, of which she was a founder, broke new ground. Glessner House anchored Prairie Avenue and became a major teaching tool. Preserving great architecture was understood to be in everyone’s interest and became everyone’s responsibility.

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In 2008, Kenan Heise published a memoir of Leon Despres and his life. Heise worked with Despres on his "Challenging the Daley Machine."

HPKCC Poll Question: Creation of a historic district for parts of Hyde Park, likely centered east/northeast of the University of Chicago 55th 59th and to the Metra, is under serious consideration by several parties including Ald. Hairston, who has convened section meetings between residents and Commission on Chicago Landmarks staff to gauge interest and share information. There is already a small district newly established at 52nd and Greenwood and large districts in south and North Kenwood respectively.. The matter is set forth in the Landmark District for Hyde Park? page. Expect a series of small invite meetings with Landmarks Comm. staff being scheduled for July, 2005.

Do you think there should be a special historic district in Hyde Park? If so, where and with what conditions? Submit your view Attention: Gary Ossewaarde to hpkcc@aol.com. Top

Pioneers of the Kenwood Landmark District were honored at the February 23rd 2007 Hyde Park Historical Society dinner.

These were South East Chicago Commission, Kenwood Open House Committee, and Commission on Chicago Landmarks. Receiving the Marian and Leon Despres Award were Bob Mason, Diane Gray and Jean Laves, and David Mosena for their respective organizations. Top

More congratulations:

UC School of Social Services Administration- 100

First Baptist Church of Chicago, 935 E. 50th, 100. First was probably the first Chicago church set up outside Ft. Dearborn, along the River- where its minister performed the first baptism in the city. The church took part in some of the major movements in the early city, including establishment of the first University of Chicago. By 1919 is was in Kenwood. At a time of crisis in the area, Japanese Jitsuo Morikawa became pastor and had the first black join in 1950. The church is very socially active.

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A few historic buildings and tours- see also in events by date.

Robie House (Wright Plus) not only offers at least two daily and multiple weekend tours of the house and grounds (fee $7 or $9) but a vicinity tour (of the densely-packed block south and half-block north). Note the latter costs $9, lasts c. 45 minutes and just goes half a block up Kimbark, through Ida Noyes, Rockefeller, and to Oriental Institute, but it serves as a good starter with lots of fascinating bits.

Bronzeville Information Center gives tours of Historic Bronzeville every Thursday 12-2 pm. $35. From Supreme Life, 3501 S. King.

Paul Bruce has begun leading a bus and walking tour of HPK. Hyde Park Historical Society received a call from Paul Bruce, former principal of Murray School, requesting additional people to lead tours offered by the Chicago Office of Tourism in Hyde Park. He has been doing them for some time and would like to include additional people as he feels unable to handle all the dates. Guides receive pay, about $75. The tours are usually on weekday afternoons, but some may be on Saturdays. Mr. Bruce has a set route and a very good outline to familiarize guides with the sites along the way. He finds that participants enjoy it more when local people show them around. If you are interested contact Paul Bruce at 773-288-4215.

Robie House 5757 S. Woodlawn. 773 834-1361
Interior Guided tours 11, 1, 3 weekdays, every 20 minutes 11-3:30 weekends $7-9
Vicinity tour of the densely-packed block to the south and half-block north, 2 pm Fridays and Saturdays $7-9
Junior Architecture tour select weekdays and 10 am 2nd Saturday $3

University of Chicago architectural tours on request, free 773 834-8006

Student-led U of C campus tours weekdays from the Office of College Admissions, 773 834-3929

Citywide neighborhood tours, many of or stopping in Hyde Park, Kenwood and nearby neighborhoods are given by the Chicago Architecture Foundation and by the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. CAF's start at destination if of a particular neighborhood; those of the Dept. Cult. Affairs are by bus from the Cultural Center, 77 E. Randolph.

GREAT BUILDINGS/PLACES...
that are nearby but that you may not have noticed

The Cornell Store and Flats - 1232 E 75th St (1908). Commissioned by the estate of Hyde Park founder Paul Cornell and designed by Prairie School architect Walter Burley Griffin, this building sat in the middle of the once-thriving Grand Crossing commercial district. A lot of us think it's a masterpiece and a local "cultural historian" thinks it's one of Chicago's 25 Best Buildings.

The Berkeley Cottages - 4119-69 S Berkeley and 4130-62 S Lake Park (1886). These are what's left of a larger "workers' cottage" development designed by Cicero Hine -- with the kind of wood "simple work," beautiful masonry and sense of respect for ordinary people we may not often see again.

5515 S Woodlawn (1894) - By offsetting the two halves of this 6-flat, brothers Irving and Allen Pond solved some of the perennial problems of 6-flat design and created one of the loveliest apartment buildings in Hyde Park. The Pond brothers also did the American School of Correspondence (850 E. 58th) and Midway Studios (6016 S Ingleside) -- both Chicago Landmarks.

The Roloson Houses - 3213-19 S Calumet Av. 1894. Frank Lloyd Wright's only rowhouses. One block west of King Dr. A Chicago Landmark.

The Keck-Gottschalk-Keck Apartments - 5551 S University Av. Another Chicago Landmark. This one's by Hyde Park brothers William and George Fred Keck. If you don't already know, try to guess the date it was built before you look at the plaque.

76th & Greenwood (Grand Crossing) - The empty circle in the middle of this intersection was the site of Paul Cornell's watch factory built in 1870. Hyde Park's founder also built workers' housing nearby. The duplex cottages at 7642-50 Greenwood and the Italianate brick rowhouses at 7745-51 Greenwood are lovely examples.

Yale Apartments, 6565 S. Yale just west of Dan Ryan. 1892. John T. Long. 7 story early residential high-rise has a glass-topped interior atrium and apartment entrances from open balconies.

Houghton House, 5410 S. Harper. 1890, Minard Beers. Queen Anne frame with carved "green men" on either side of the front door frame-one oak and acorn and other magnolia. Rated "Orange" in the Chicago Survey. 5411, across the street, was home of Chicago novelist Henry Blake Fuller.

Washington Park Court, 4900-50 S. Washington Park Court (400 E) behind Provident Hospital. 1895-1905, Henry Newhouse and others.

5451 S Hyde Park Blvd, 1907, Frommann and Jebsen, one of the first of the "luxury apartment buildings" that during the next twenty years replaced most of the earlier frame buildings in central Hyde Park. This is a six-flat (three storeys, no elevator) with some of the most beautiful, elaborate limestone carving in the city, including no less than four "green men" near the entrance.

The Kenna Apartments, 1916, Barry Byrne, at 2214 E 69th St. This early modern three-flat was designed from the inside out -- rather than, "what style would look nice?" the question was, "if the interior plan is functional and well designed, then what will the building look like on the outside?" Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli collaborated, just as he did on Byrne's St Thomas Apostle Church, 1924, at 55th and Kimbark.

In 1889 Prairie School architect George Washington Maher designed seven "modern houses" in a cluster -- 5518 & 22 Hyde Park Blvd and across the alley 5517, 19, 33, 35 & 37 Cornell, all with simplified but highly original ornamentation.

The Garfield Boulevard "L" Station (the old 55th St Green Line Station on the south side of the street), 319 E 55th St, 1892, Myron Church. This was built to serve the huge crowds coming to the Columbian Exposition. A Chicago Landmark.

Story Flat Buildings - SE Corner of 55th and Cornell (the Snail Restaurant bldg), 1928, Newhouse and Bernham, with a gorgeous terra cotta facade made to look like granite (fooled me for 20 years) and the SE Corner of 55th and Hyde Park Blvd, 1909, Henry Tomlinson (Frank L Wright's only partner, ever), the yellow brick building with the flared cornice and basement storefronts.
2 The Garfield Boulevard "L" Station (the old 55th St Green Line Station on the south side of the street), 319 E 55th St, 1892, Myron Church. This was built to serve the huge crowds coming to the Columbian Exposition. A Chicago Landmark.

First Presbyterian Church, 6400 S Kimbark, 1927, Tallmadge and Watson. This is the "new" home of the congregation founded by four women and twelve men in Fort Dearborn in 1833. In the exterior cloister (facing east on Kimbark) of this English Gothic style building, embedded in the walls, is a collection of building material from the congregation's earlier homes -- the better Tribune Tower. And to the south is a solar greenhouse and community garden. As always, please respect private property and do not enter the church grounds (that is, leave the public sidewalk) without asking permission.

4914 S. Greenwood, 1898, Waterman and (Dwight) Perkins. A steel-structure house (4 years after the first). For iron and steel manufacturer Robert Vierling. Important architecturally and structurally, this is one of several in the vicinity undergoing what Jack Spicer calls "loving" restoration.

Groveland Park, 33rd Place and S. Cottage Grove, 1870s. This was part of a large post Civil War, post Fire development on the 60 acre Stephen Douglas lakefront estate. Near it is the Stephen Douglas Monument State Park (the smallest state park in Illinois) with a tall plinth with a statue of Douglas on top. The park has been lovingly maintained over the years.

Ida B. Wells Homes, 37th to 39th on Cottage Grove, 1937. CHA "project" in last stages of demolition.

Bertrand Goldberg in Hyde Park-Kenwood:

48th and Drexel, 1954. A low-cost integrated development ahead of its time.
4820 Greenwood, 1955.
5801 S. Blackstone. Helstein House, of glass, once floated on concrete pillars--it's been moved back on the site, placed on the ground.

Thanks, Jack Spicer, for these tips! See more in Hyde Park-Kenwood built environment, below.

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Preservation Chicago and Landmarks Illinois frequently include neighborhood homes in their "Most Endangered" lists.

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Mtgs/Opportunities, News, Requests and Bulletins--See also History and Preservation in depth for details on these and other issues.
By Date

Civic Knowledge remembers 1942-43 in online video

Dear Friends of the Civic Knowledge Project--I am very pleased to announce that the final cut of "The Civic Knowledge Project Remembers 1942-43"--the first documentary in our series "The Civic Knowledge Project Remembers"--is now up on our website's Media Page at http://mahimahi.uchicago.edu/media/ckp/1942-3_768k.mov.qt Please do check it out! Note that it may take about thirty seconds or more to download, so please be patient. Best, Bart

UC History Dept receives, to display rare set of Wayne E. Miller's record of Bronzeville life after the War.

Chicago-raised Miller, whose oeuvre extends from WWII, Franklin Roosevelt's funeral and Hiroshima through The Family of Man at MOMA in the '50s and well beyond, photographed Bronzeville life of Second Migration people 1946-48. He was unusual in concentrating on the people in humane and mundane settings. They let him into their lives. These are the rural-born folks who came up as machinery displaced labor in the Southern fields. But included are a few important musicians and literary figures and the life of blacks who were well off although confined to the cramped ghetto. The work was sone and published under fellowships from the Guggenheim. Recently, a typical Hyde Park dog-walkers encounter of UC history professor Amy Dru Stanley and gallery owner Stephen Daiter led to Miller's gift of a large set for permanent display in the Department of History at the U of C. A well attended symposium in November 2008 explored the study and its meanings.

September 6, 2007: Long restoration of Queen Anne home nets award.

By Georgia Geis, Hyde Park Herald

Real estate developer Danny Acunas struck architectural gold when the 1898 Queen Anne home at 4914 S. Greenwood Ave. he purchased came with all the original, detailed blueprints. Acunas' 14-month restoration of the 6,000-square-foot home designed by Waterman and Perkins will be honored at the City of Chicago Landmarks Commission's annual Preservation awards on Sept. 6.

"I was able to restore the entire house according to the original blueprints," said Kenwood resident Acunas.

Acunas, who has won the preservation award in the past, said he started rehabbing to take advantage of the tax freeze available for working on landmarks, but soon it became a passion. He opened the company Vintage Homes five years ago. "There are such horror stories of what people have done to these homes," said Acunas. "It is such a pleasure to bring them back to their original prominence."

Acunas is one of 25 recipients of the award, which, according to Chicago Landmarks Commissioner Ernest Wong is a way to highlight exceptional restoration. "It's a celebration of projects that have been outstanding in renovation and rehabilitation of landmark buildings," Wong said. "We hope this encourages that kind of care and integrity in the future."

According to Acunas, Robert Vierling, a pioneer in the iron and steel industry, built this limestone home as a showcase of how steel could be used in houses. The steel frame is supported by poured concrete, one of the few examples of his technology, which is normally associated with skyscraper construction, being used for single-family residential construction. "This house was built like a high rise," said Acunas. One of the most unique features of this home is the eight faces carved into the front columns. Acunas said the faces are called "green men" who ward off different evil spirits.

Another Queen Anne-styled home in the Kenwood area, at 4580 S. Oakenwald Ave., will also be honored.

Hyde Park Art Center's new (or rather adaptively reconstructed) building on Cornell in early 2007 won 2nd place Neighborhood Development Award in the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation's Architectural Excellence Awards. Garofalo Architects. Speaking of this group of awards, 14th Annual juried Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards (CNDA) are up again. Up to $20,000 grants. Local Initiative Support Corp (LISC) sponsors. Categories: Chicago Community Trust Outstanding Community Initiative of the Year, Richard H. Driehaus Foundation award for Architectural Excellence, Outstanding For-Profit Neighborhood Real Estate Project, and Special Recognition Award.

Orientation August 3 Harris Bank, 115 S. La Salle St. RSVP LISC/Chicago 312 697-6150 or cnda@lisc.org.

Two Kenwood families won awards from the Commission on Chicago Landmarks for restoration of mansions in the landmark district. Among the more recent recipients of awards are Hyde Park Bank, receiving the American Institute of Architects highly prized award, for renovation of the 53rd St. bank's interior. See article of Blair Kamin Feb. 24, 2005 in Development page. Meanwhile, the Landmarks Commission honored, inter alia, Jamie and Anita Orlikoff and Daniel and Stephanie Acunas for restoration of home in the Kenwood Historic Landmark District-- see in Preservation Beat.

Honored by Hyde Park Historical Society were the founders of the Kenwood Landmark District ( Kenwood Open House Committee, South East Chicago Commission, and Commission on Chicago Landmarks), Mary Ryan Schlesinger for her documentation of lost Hyde Park structures, Chicago Children's Choir for helping create and live the dream for unique Hyde Park, and Northwestern University Press for publication of 4 books on Hyde Park and South Side history.

In September 2006 a heartbreaking occurrence: destruction by total white-out of the 47th Street viaduct murals, done by artists from around the city and under management of public art groups, especially Higher Gliphs, and in excellent shape and high quality. Details of why and how this happened have not emerged publicly, but Ald. Preckwinkle directly apologized to parties, including out of state, and said she was committed to a restoration or new murals. See details and the bigger picture in Viaducts-Murals-Lake Park homepage. This includes description of a major streetscape mural plan that could leave us with no murals except on 47th and 56th.

Culture News page. Note the book on Earl B. Dickerson: A Voice for Freedom and Equality by Robert Blakely. Watch for a program at the Historical Society with Tim Black, Kale Williams and co-author Marcus Shepherd October 22 and one at the Woodson Library November 5. Thanks to Jay Mulberry.

Robie House likely got some more state help. News from Nov. 22 2005 press conference at Robie House with the governor and mayor.

Join the Wright Team, the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. Lead tours, help visitors in Oak Park of at Hyde Park's Robie House. Fall training class forming. wrightplus.org, volunteer@wrightplus.org, 708 848-1976.

Landmarks Commission has initiated a new project to landmark several historic bank buildings including the Hyde Park Bank at 1525 E. 53rd St.

Restoration continues on Rockefeller Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave. Work includes exterior, tower, interior, organ and carillon. See in University and Community.

How much of the Harper Theater facade and Herald building will be saved in a new development is uncertain.

Sad losses: Pilgrim Baptist, cradle of Gospel Music, at Wabash and 33rd and Indiana, of fire.
Truman K. Gibson, pioneer fighter for racial justice and among the first black fight promoters, whose book Knocking Down Barriers was released in 2005. Top

Paul A. Cornell, grandson of Hyde Park founder Paul Cornell, died at age 89 in Naples Fla. on May 24, 2007. He was born in Chicago and held property in Hyde Park. He was an inventor, economist and businessman in oil shale, gold, manufacturing and technology, holding many patents. A WWII veteran, he and his wife restored a historic Irish great house in County Waterford. He was a Knight of St. John of Jerusalem and a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants. A service was held at the family burial site including the original Paul Cornell, in Oak Woods Cemetary.

Students and faculty of the U of C have been inventorying, creating website for researchers, on archives of South Side and African American history and on arts, poetry, jazz in various archives. The archives include U of C Libraries and Special Collections, DuSable Museum, The Chicago Defender, and Vivian G. Harsh Collection of Afro-American History at the Woodson Regional Library. The grants are from Mellon Foundation and others and expands a Mapping the Stacks project into Uncovering New Chic gao Archives Project (UNCAP). The project will for the first time make what's available on what accessible and usable. Work at most of the sites is wrapping up, next are the Jazz Archives and poetry manuscripts. The effort is highly collaborative. Top

Meetings and Learning opportunities

Preservation Snapshots series monthly at Chicago Cultural Center- contact http://www.landmarks.org.

Contact Jack Spicer to be put on the Preservation Calendar Listserve of the Hyde Park Historical Society Preservation Committee- lists a rich harvest of lectures, tours and exhibits on history all over the city and beyond! Also for Southside Preservation Action Fund.

See in by date below re: lectures and tours on the Gropius buildings at Michael Reese.

Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust is restarting its docent program for the summer both in Oak Park and for Robie House even as it continues crucial interior renovation there. Volunteer training begins June 2 and is conducted during the next two weeks. Volunteers enjoy numerous membership benefits, invitations to special events and educational opportunities. The Trust seeks to work with volunteer schedules and interests and skills. Visit GoWright.org or call 773 708-848-1976.

Bronzeville Information Center gives tours of Historic Bronzeville every Thursday 12-2 pm. $35. From Supreme Life, 3501 S. King.

The Preservation Committee with Alderman Hairston continue to host well attended neighbors informational meetings on the possibilities and interest in a historical district east of the University. Neighbors have overwhelmingly supported the idea. The last sectional meeting was held in January 2006. Further steps are dependent, we believe, on the approval of UC President Zimmer. Visit the Hyde Park Landmark District page.

The Commission on Chicago Landmarks meets in open session 1st Thursdays (sometimes Wednesdays) at 12:45 pm, 33 N. LaSalle room 1600. All are welcome.

The Landmark Commission's Program Committee Meets 1st Thursdays. The Program Committee meets twice a year to accept nominations for Chicago Landmark designation from the general public June, December). All are welcome. Contact the Commission at 312-744-3200 for more information.

The Chicago Historical Society now has on line the digital version of the encyclopedia of Chicago. The electronic encyclopedia (available at www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org) includes photographs, essays, art, music, maps and documents on all things Chicago.

IIRPA. Illinois Initiative on Recent Past Architecture. IIRPA is a new partnership of organizations and is dedicated to identification of Illinois' recent-past architecture (1930-present.) Spearheaded by Preservation Illinois (was Landmark Preservation Council of Illinois), IIRPA is initiating a test survey of Chicagoland's recent architectural resources.. so the public may learn more about these often overlooked but important buildings. Visit the IIRPA page at www.landmarks.org. And, if you are aware of a threatened recent-past building, call 312 922-1742 or email Lisa DiChiera.

The Civic Knowledge Project of the UC Div of Humanities has a South Side Oral History Project- to be involved contact Elizabeth Babcock. Also has a listserve. see below for their Washington Park/James Farrell programs in May-June 2006.

Among the more recent recipients of awards are Hyde Park Bank, receiving the American Institute of Architects highly prized award, for renovation of the 53rd St. bank's interior. See article of Blair Kamin Feb. 24, 2005 in Development page. Meanwhile, the Landmarks Commission honored, inter alia, Jamie and Anita Orlikoff and Daniel and Stephanie Acunas for restoration of home in the Kenwood Historic Landmark District-- see in Preservation Beat.

HP Historical Society wins another grant to study a subset of Hyde Park houses. More funds sought.

Hyde Park Herald, January 14, 2007. By Daniel J. Yovich

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is helping to fund research by the Hyde Park Historical Society, which is studying the neighborhood's earliest working-class homes. The project encompasses the inventory and documentation of wooden homes built in the late 19th century between 55th and 53rd streets along and near Woodlawn and [to] Harper avenues. These are some of the neighborhood's first working class homes, and include what might have been Hyde Park's last working farm, said Jack Spicer, the historical society's preservation committee [chairman].

"This is basically the oldest built-up section of Hyde Park," Spicer said. "Many houses of these types were lost during Urban Renewal, and our goal is to document those that remain, interview the residents that live in these homes, photograph the buildings and seek out any artifacts from the time they were built."

The National Trust provided $2,200 in start-up money for the project and the historical society is in the process of trying to raise the same amount in matching funds. So far the historical society has received $1,200 in donations and [is] seeking another $1,000.

Hyde Park real estate tycoon Paul Cornell founded Hyde Park in the the 1850s and the area underwent a dramatic transformation from a semi-rural and industrial area into an urbane village in the 1890s when John D. Rockefeller founded the University of Chicago and the World's Columbian Exposition was staged.

Carol Bradford, the president of the historical society, said those events drew what would become a burgeoning middle-class to the neighborhood. "The community was very much up an coming at t hat time," Bradford said. "And it underwent a housing boom."

It also meant the end of Hyde Park's working farms, though at least three farm houses from that period remain in the neighborhood, including one owned by Leaman and Pamela Ames at 5411 S. Ridgewood Ct. The couple bought their two-story wooden home in 1972 from a University of Chicago professor, who still heated the house with a coal furnace. It has a brick foundation, something the couple's home inspector said is a Chicago rarity. "These old farm houses have great deal of old charm," Pamela Ames said. "We like to joke to our friends that when we bought it, we had to bring the plumbing inside."

Spicer said the historical society hopes to have the study completed by September, when it plans to host a public presentation of it findings. The exhibit will include original building permits, Sanborn fire maps, early street photos and current photographs and written and videotaped stories from current homeowners.

Spicer said the historical society hopes to begin guided walking tours of the area in October and to host an exhibit of the project at the Hyde Park Historical Society building in November. In early 2007 [2008?], Spicer said all the material from from the project will be collected and presented to the University of Chicago's Regenstein Library as a study collection for researchers.

Ongoing events and by Date

At Hyde Park Historical Society: Hyde Park Center-- photos of houses in the oldest part of the neighborhood, part of research project. Also exhibits on HP from the 2009 Metro History Fair.
Note July 18 program there on 50 years of the Garden Fair.

Ongoing through August 16: "A Force for Change: African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund." At Spertus Museum, 610 S. Michigan, 312 322-1700.

White City Tours centered on Jackson Park and the World's Columbian Exhibition/White City. Office of Chicago Tourism. Watch in 2009. With famed tour leader Bill Hincliff. Tours leave Chic. Cult. Ctr. 77 E. Randolph at 10 am. $50, with red. Lunch incl. 312 742-1190 to reserve. Book on line at City site, Office of Tourism-Chicago Neighborhood Tours.

Also occasional tours of Bronzeville and Hyde Park by Office of Tourism from Cultural Center.

Chicago Architecture Foundation gives tours of the Columbian Exposition footprint in Jackson Park (no transportation provided)- $10 nonmembers. Doug Anderson is the usual tour guide, with several other.

July 2, 9, 16, 30, Thursdays, 3:30 pm. Blackstone Library, 4904 S. Lake Park. Event: Rail Splitting Games and Activities
Date and Time: Thursdays, July 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, 2009 @ 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.
About this event: Join us as we celebrate Abraham Lincoln and times with games and activities. Open to children ages 5 and up.

July 7, Tuesday, 3:30 pm. At Blackstone Library, 4904 S. Lake Park. 312 747-0511. Event: Story Break with Alderman Toni Preckwinkle.
Date and Time: Tuesday, July 7, 2009 @ 3:30 p.m.
About this event: Alderman Toni Preckwinkle will read stories and talk about her career in public service.

July 8, Wednesday, 6-8 pm. Blackstone Library Summer Kids Land of Lincoln Readers. 4904 S. Lake Park. 312 747-0511. Event: Histories for Kids, Inc. Presents Historical Illinois - The Lincoln Years
Date and time: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 @ 6:00 pm
About this event: The history of Illinois would not be complete without a look at the life of America’s 16th President, Abraham Lincoln. Kids are just in time for Lincoln’s 200th birthday as we hear stories of his days as a young man in New Salem, Illinois through the tragic end to his presidency. These stories are told by host Stephen Douglas as portrayed by award-winning actor, Terry Lynch. A family program for children ages 5 years and up.

July 9, Thursday, 11 am. Blackstone Library, 4904 S. Lake Park, 312 747-0511. Event: Nature In the Prairie State: Sketching from Illinois Prairie Images
Date and time: Thursday, July 09, 2009 @ 11:00 am.
About this event: Meet locally renowned artist and creator of the Summer Reading Program art, Steve Musgrave as he leads children on a trek through the prairie in this nature sketching workshop. Participants will learn shapes and colors that influence our home: the Illinois prairie. This program is a made possible by the generous funding of NatureConnections. Registration is required for this family program for children ages 5 and up.

July 18, Saturday, 2-4 pm. "50 Years of Garden Fairs," Golden Anniversary of the Hyde Park Garden Fair. At Hyde Park Historical Society, 5529 S. Lake Park Avenue.
A conversation with Bam Postell and others (introduced by Bert Benade, active in both), who will recount the history of the Hyde Park Garden Fair. Organized by Christine Miller. Accompanied by an exhibit of the many facets of the fair over the past 50 years, mounted photographic and rotating-slide exhibits will be on display. The photos will be up for a short time after the day of the program. The Historical Society is open 2-4 pm Saturdays and Sundays at 5529 S. Lake Park Ave. http://www.hydeparkgardenfair.org, http://www.hydeparkhistory.org.
Historical Society's flyer in pdf.

July 21, Tuesday, 3:30 pm. Blackstone Library, 4904 S. Lake Park. 312 747-0511. Event: Story Break with George Rumsey
Date and Time: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 @ 3:30 p.m.
About this event: George Rumsey will read stories and talk about his role as a community leader.

July 29, Wednesday, 11 am. Blackstone Library, 4904 S. Lake Park. 312 747-0511. Event: The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary: An Author Visit with Candace Fleming
Date and time: Wednesday, July 29, 2009, 11:00 a.m.
About this event: Meet the Lincolns -- author Candace Fleming will regale audiences with little-known stories and unusual facts about Abraham Lincoln and his family. Learn about the Lincoln sons' White House antics; unlock the secrets of Mrs. Lincoln's séances; even meet the family dog. This interactive, multi-media presentation is chock-full of storytelling and humor. Registration Required.

August 1, Saturday. Hyde Park Historical Society and Blackstone Library present Hyde Park-Kenwood Stories: Share Your Memories. Details tba. This is an oral history group discussion and taping modeled on those very successful in other neighborhoods.4904 S. Lake Park.

August 29, Saturday, 2-4 pm. Tour the Ryerson and Swift mansions in the 4900 block of Drexel with the Croatian Brothers Institute. $20, space limited. Check back for registration or other details.

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Re: announced arrangements between a Norwegian American society, the Park District, and Museum of Science and Industry to turnover to MSI for restoration and display the Viking ship replica that was sailed across the ocean for the Columbian Exposition. It is unlikely to go to the Museum even if money were found. The Museum says its mission is new and future technology and they don't have room. There are people working hard to make something happen. The Viking Ship will share in the American Express/National Trust grants at some level above $5,000

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Conservator presents mural preservation at Blackstone Library

Hyde Park Herald, July 18, 2007. By Eric Kasang

Blackstone Branch Library staff and supporters are revving up for restorations of the historic murals adorning the interior of its domed entrance. People walking into the Hyde Park library at 4904 S. lake Park Ave. and tilting their heads upward will notice four faded murals depicting angels and artisans gracing the ceiling's dome.

And on July 18 an 20 at 7 p.m., Peter M. Schoenmann, head conservator of paintings and murals for Parma Conservation, Ltd., wil give a free presentation on the restoration. Schoenmann has been tapped by the Blackstone to undertake the project.

Branch manager Ann Keough said this conservation is urgent. "The murals needed attention rather quickly," Keough said. "[Schoenmann] will go over some actual conservations that he's done and he'll provide a critical analysis of the murals."

The murals, with themes relating to labor, literature, the arts and agriculture, were painted by Oliver Dennet Grover, an artist who created many important murals in Chicago buildings and who was a major presence during the Word's Columbian Exhibition in 1893.

Keough said she tried to get funding for the mural conservation through the Chicago Public Library Foundation, but did not receive any money. However, she received funding for the murals from Hyde Park State Rep. Barbara Flynn Curie (D25). "We were very happy that she secured this money because the murals need restoration quickly," Keough said.

Currie said she was ferry happy to help Blackstone. "I know that they have been trying to secure funding for some time," Currie said. "And I was happy to make sure libraries in my district get the help they need."

The Blackstone murals have problems like discoloration from a previous coating on the paintings and a loose canvass, according to Schoenmann. He hoped that the presentation would rekindle interest in the project. He also explained that conservation is preserving the original murals and not repainting them. "Conservation has less to do being an artist than it has to do with being a chemist and technician," Schoenmann said. "What we focus on is getting to the truth, which means never adding anything, but in fact removing all unoriginal materials."

Schoenmann said these "unoriginal materials" included various old varnishes and grime. He said the goal is to return to the artisan's original creation. "We want to get to what the artist had intended for the viewer to see," Schoenmann said. "And that never involves interpreting or painting."

Started in 1902, the Blackstone Library was originally a gift to the City of Chicago from Isabel Norton Blackstone in memory of her husband and railroad magnate Timothy Beach Blackstone. The building was designed by noted architect Solon S. Beman and is a shining example of the Classical Revival style of architecture. For more information, please cal the Blackstone Branch Library at 312 747-0511.

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Northwestern University Press publishes "Chicago Lives" Series, Leon Despres' book released, Dickerson May 16 2006

EVANSTON, Ill. --- With a $165,000 grant from The Chicago Community Trust, Northwestern University Press is set to publish the first three books in its new “Chicago Lives” series. The series begins with the spring publication of a memoir by long-time liberal Chicago Alderman Leon M. Despres. Despres crusaded for decades to ban discrimination, preserve landmark buildings and gain equality for African Americans.

Despres, now 97, will be honored May 5 at the Chicago Historical Society with an event marking the launch of the new book series. The event will feature a discussion on social activism, ethics and justice with Abner Mikva, former federal judge and U.S. congressman. Open to the public, the 7 p.m. event is free for historical society members, $10 for others. Call (312) 642-4600 or visit www.chicagohs.org for information. The celebration will continue with a reading and reception May 19 at the DuSable Museum of African American History. Call (847) 491-5315 for details.

The other “Chicago Lives” books supported by The Chicago Community Trust grant and set for publication are a memoir of Truman K. Gibson Jr., the last surviving member of President Harry Truman’s “Black Cabinet,” and a biography of Earl B. Dickerson, the late civil rights activist and attorney known as the “Dean of Chicago’s Black Lawyers.”

“These books honor inspiring Chicago role models that everyone should know about,” said Northwestern University Press editor-in-chief Susan Betz. They are:

• “Challenging the Daley Machine: A Chicago Alderman’s Memoir” by Leon M. Despres and written with former Chicago Tribune reporter Kenan Heise and with a foreword by Mike Royko

• “Knocking Down Barriers: My Fight for Black America,” by Truman K. Gibson Jr. and written with Chicago Sun-Times journalist Steve Huntley, which will be published this summer [Now out.]

• “Earl B. Dickerson: A Voice for Freedom and Equality,” by Robert J. Blakely with Marcus Shepard, to be published in late 2005. [Now out.]

Future books in the series will feature Chicagoans who have had an impact on the city, nation and world and also non-Chicagoans who have left their mark on the city.

Celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, The Chicago Community Trust provides more than $62 million annually in grants to not-for-profit organizations. Northwestern University Press has produced important scholarly works in a wide variety of disciplines and quality regional and Chicago books, fiction, poetry, literature in translation, literary criticism and books on drama and the performing arts. For a complete list of titles, visit www.nupress.northwestern.edu. Top

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Leon Despres' book released

At a major lecture by Ab Mikva at the Chicago Historical Society May 5, Northwestern launched its Chicago Lives series with Leon Despres' book, and the Society inaugurated the Despres lecture series. Much of the legwork for the book, Challenging the Daley Machine: A Chicago Alderman's Memoir, was done by Tribune writer Kenan Heise, who also prodded the now-97 Despres to write the book. Despres shows how Daley held both his patronage army and the aldermen together over 20 years. He describes his many battles with the Mayor, the intricacies of Urban Renewal, preservation battles and the turnaround of Jackson Park, the U of C and nearly a century of Hyde Park living and change. There were several reading and signing sessions. Despres also received the Benton medal from the University of Chicago and UC Press. Top

Next in the Northwestern Series: books on Dickerson, Truman Gibson-released, then Tim Black's 2nd volume (2nd migration) in January 2007

HPHS board member Alta Blakely with help from many others has shepherded publication of the book by her late husband, Robert J. Blakely, written with Marcus Shepherd: Earl B. Dickerson, A Voice for Freedom and Equality. Northwestern U. Press will release the book in the fall.

At age 15, Dickerson stowed on a train bound from Mississippi to Chicago and worked his way through school, college, officers' training, and the University of Chicago Law School. He served as general counsel then CEO to African-American owned Supreme Liberty Life Mutual Insurance and first Democrat elected to Chicago City Council. He shepherded Hansberry v. Lee through the Supreme Court decision that started the voiding of restrictive covenants in housing and, in its wake, was a pioneering integrator of Hyde Park.

Jay Mulberry wrote the following:

Background on Earl B. Dickerson:

Dickerson has been called "the last of the great civil rights leaders to have a book length biography written about him."

Born in Canton, Mississippi in 1891, Dickerson's extraordinary brilliance was recognized at a very early age and he was encouraged to go North for greater opportunity when he was only 14 years old. He completed his high school education in Evanston and earned a college degree from the University of Illinois where he was also a founder of the school's first black fraternity (Kappa Alpha Psi) and became Grand Polemarch of its national organization. He was an officer in France during World War I and upon his return was accepted to the University of Chicago Law School and in 1920 became its first black graduate. Each of these things “college graduation, officer in the American Army, acceptance by and graduation from the University of Chicago law school“ would be signs of some distinction now but in the early 20th century they were almost incredible achievements.

Dickerson's later life proved that early distinction was no fluke. He was a founder of the American Legion and the NAACP legal defense fund, the first black Democratic alderman in Chicago and a stunningly aggressive member of Franklin Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practices Commission. He was a fervent and principled fighter for civil rights at every level, from insistence that he be given a chair in a segregated Chicago restaurant to the administration of justice to workers in American defense plants whether in the North or the South. In 1938 he made a crack in the massive structure of segregated housing when he successfully challenged South Side restrictive covenants before the United States Supreme Court. And, he led the Chicago Chapter of the Urban League through its most productive years and was on the national Board of the NAACP for thirty years. In Chicago he first joined and then battled the Dawson machine for a more far sighted and responsible use of its political power.

Dickerson carried on his epoch making civil rights and political activities while managing a massively successful professional career. He maintained a private law practice in which he took nearly every kind of case, and, at the same time, he was for many years the chief counsel for the Supreme Liberty Life Insurance Company. His activities in and out of court made him known as the "Dean of Chicago's Black lawyers"; his work at Supreme Liberty Life brought him its presidency in 1951.

Dickerson knew and was respected by all of the great civil rights figures of his lifetime. He was a close colleague of W.E.B. DuBois and friend of Paul Robeson; he stood behind Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial as he delivered the "I have a Dream" speech.

In later life he developed a fast friendship with the Robert Blakely, a writer of national stature who then lived in Hyde Park. The outcome of their friendship was the book "Earl B. Dickerson: A Voice for Freedom and Equality."

Also released in the Chicago Lives series is Truman K. Gibson, Jr. book Knocking Down Barriers: My Fight for Black America.

South Side novelist James T. Farrell honored with naming of 5700 Indiana block.

For over a year, poet Ron Offen, social historian Ellen Skerett and others, according to the Sun-Times, have sought naming for Farrell, who wrote about the mid South Side and beyond, especially Irish-Americans, of the early 20th century. June 1, 2005, Aldermen Arenda Troutman and Edward Burke will dedicate the 5700 block of South Indiana and hope later to place a plaque at 5704, the only home still standing that Ferrell lived in (1915-17). Of 50 works of fiction, criticism, and memoir, some noted ones that feature the neighborhoods west of Hyde Park and also Hyde Park and to the South as well as the Southeast Side are the Studs Lonigan trilogy, The Dunne Family, and Nora Ryan. Like Nelson Algren and Saul Bellow who followed, Farrell showed in marvelous if sometimes extremely minute detail how people lived their daily lives and what they thought about. The Lonigan series shows class and racial turnover and how it was resisted, including (in passing) by Hyde Parkers and the University of Chicago in the 1910s through 20s, and by the new St. Anselm parish at 67th and Michigan from 1925 until it turned over in 1932. Actually, Ferrell's alter ego was not Lonigan (based on a Studs who lived a block to the west) but Danny O'Neil, who like Ferrell turned into a writer in the apartment on Indiana and made the journey across the park to study at the University of Chicago.

The May 4, 2005 Hyde Park Herald carried a story and reminiscences by Dorothy Latiak about Ferrell's novels and accomplishment.

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Julius Rosenwald honored. The man, Sears, the philanthropy, the Museum of Science and Industry

A recent biography of Julius Rosenwald's grandson Peter Ascoli was recently published by Indiana University Press and has garnered praise reviews. The book is Julius Rosenwald: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South. Mr. Ascoli on June 17, 2006 discussed Rosenwald's life and philanthropic projects and the book at the Hyde Park Historical Society. Rosenwald from the turn of the 20th century lived in Kenwood, at the famous, largest-in-this-side-of-town mansion at 4901 S. Ellis. The biography was reviewed in the Tribune and Sun-Times. This is from the Hyde Park Herald of June 14, 2006, by Nykeya Woods, with interpolations and a transposition by Gary Ossewaarde]

Despite never having the chance to meet his grandfather, Julius Rosenwald, one Hyde Park resident recently wrote a 400-page book about how Rosenwald spearheaded construction of the Museum Museum of Science and Industry and helped build Sears, Roebuck and Co. ....

"I wrote the book because once I started doing research on him I realized that his story was one the really needed to be told," Ascoli said. A trained historian, Ascoli said he previous biography of Rosenwald was published in 1939. Ascoli said he wanted to set the record straight about his grandfather's life and provide the first scholarly examination.

The son of first generation German Jewish immigrants, Rosenwald was born in Springfield, IL in 1862. Rosenwald never graduated from high school and a 17 moved to New York [to work himself up in the firm of wealthy relatives in the garment/clothing business and try his hand at his own business.]

He then moved to Chicago six years later and teamed with his cousin, Julius Weil to create at men's [low-cost] clothing line. [Weil had earlier located a "lost" boxcar of goods for Marshall Field; Weil's reward was the soft drink concession at the World's Columbian Exposition.] One of their clients was Richard Sears, who began to sell the line in his popular catalogues. Sea srs [had] partnered with Alvah P. Roebuck to create Sears, Roebuck and Company in 1887. [Roebuck eventually bailed out, with good reason--the business was a physical and financial mess that could not meet orders. Sears needed new partners--and a turnaround artist--and turned to Rosenwald and Weil.]

By 1900, Sears, Roebuck and Co. was the largest merchandise establishment in the world. Rosenwald was picked to be vice president of the growing company and and took over as president after Sears resigned. To keep Sears from going bankrupt, Rosenwald became a key investor in the company and even gave $5 million of his own money. "Rosenwald was largely responsible for making sure that orders got out in a timely fashion.

[Sears stock grew in value from just a few dollars at the start of the century to about $197 just before the 1929 crash. The money came in faster than Rosenwald could use it; Rosenwald's philanthropy started in the early years of the century and amounted to $63 million (unadjusted) over thirty some years. By Rosenwald's death in 1932, the value of a share was $10, and the estate and foundation payouts were not settled until the stock recovered later in the 1930s.]

According to Ascoli, Rosenwald showed compassion for his employees [providing innovative facilities] and promoted a culture of teamwork throughout the company [based at the innovative, forward-looking campus at Homan Avenue, designed by the architect of Rosenwald's house. Rosenwald was not a saint, and often hard to get along with and sometimes naive about how structures and their cultures work. The famous employees stock purchase program for employees was introduced because there was bad publicity about low wages for females and Rosenwald wanted to stave off unionization. Rosenwald retired from Sears in 1924 at age 62.]

Rosenwald, a former Kenwood resident, was also a philanthropist, donating $63 million throughout his life to a variety of organizations and causes [much to the University of Chicago, from bringing future School of Social Service to U of C to housing and expanding the department of geology and geography to 40% of Burton-Judson dorm and establishment of the Medical School. Rosenwald preferred timed and sunset spend downs or challenge grants to locking funds up in endowments, and his approach was unusually hands-on. Where did the inspiration come from? Rabbi Hershel of Sinai Congregation, friends, and the many experts he was never afraid to call upon, including Booker T. Washington. He did not like things named after himself, and would not take an honorary degree since he had not gone to college.]

"He became aware of the plight of American blacks. And he realized that they should be treated equal to whites," Ascoli said. Rosenwald was asked to donate money toward building a YMCA for African Americans around the turn of the 20th century. He pledged $25,000 to any YMCA in the country that could raise $75,000 to build a black YMCA. Funds were raised for the Wabash Avenue YMCA in Bronzeville, which is now designated a Chicago landmark [and beautifully refurbished]. Twenty-six more were built around the country.

"Through this (effort), he met Booker T. Washington and he was invited to join the board of Tuskegee University [which he did after a visit that greatly impressed him]. Washington suggested that Rosenwald help schools for African Americans in rural areas of the south [private and public]. More than 5,300 "Rosenwald Schools" [the public ones] were built in [the] 15 [southern] states. [Rosenwald's cost was $4.6 million, matched by $4.8 from the black communities.] "There were whole generations of African-American kids who got their only chance at an education in these schools," Ascoli said. [And a highly superior education it was. Rosenwald was also highly interested in affordable clinics and built what was to be an affordable middle-income but profit-making mixed-use housing complex for African Americans at 47th and Michigan--whose fate is uncertain.]

Rosenwald never lived to see the transformation of the old Fine Arts Museum of the 1893 World's Fair into the Museum of Science and Industry.

The idea for the museum came after visiting the Deutsches Museum in Munich with his son William in 1911. William was enchanted by the museum, and when Rosenwald returned to Chicago he wanted to create a museum just like it. [Serious attention began after Rosenwald's retirement from Sears in 1924 and as the South Parks Commission warmed to the idea--although they first wanted a more eclectic facility, including history of art through the ages.] "There were many roadblocks that ended up being put in is path," Ascoli said. "The name of the building originally was to be called the Rosenwald Museum [which was sneaked through], and he took his name off of it" [when he found out. The compromise is reflected in the tag on its letterhead et al, "Founded by Julius Rosenwald"].

Other issues surrounded use of the land and use of the old Fine Arts Museum for anything other than art [and there was a lawsuit on the issue that dragged on for years].

Rosenwald died in 1932. The Museum of Science and Industry opened in 1933.

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Also out in late 2004- Montgomery Place resident's book about the MP experience, Putting It Together. And in 2005 Ronne Hartfield's Another Road Home, story of her family in the South and in Chicago. Also Neil Harris's Chicago's Luxury Apartments. See a list of recent general-public books by Hyde Parkers in Arts and Culture News. About half are basically about history.

To Preservation Bulletins and Hot Topics

Requests and messages; meetings and lectures, books

See At the Historical Society for their programs.

We have received the following request from Michael Austin, who is a writer working on a story for Chicago magazine about famous people who went to Chicago area high schools. If you have any information regarding Seymour Hersh who attended Hyde Park High School from 1951 to 1955, please contact Michael Austin at his contact information listed below.

Thanks for your help.



EMAIL MESSAGE from Michael Austin

I am currently looking for people who knew Seymour Hersh at Hyde Park HS from 1951 to 1955.

To refresh your memory, I am a writer working on a story for Chicago magazine about famous people who went to Chicago area high schools. The story is focusing on what these people were like when they were teenagers back in high school.

Therefore, I need to track down former faculty, staff and classmates who knew them back then, and can offer some sense of what these people were like. Some anecdotes would be especially helpful.

Any help you can offer is most appreciated. And anyone who receives this email is welcome to contact me directly at any time.

Thank you sincerely,

-Michael Austin
austory@yahoo.com
312-337-2835.

Bill Barnhart has asked the Hyde Park Historical Society to announce that a Justice John Paul Stevens biography is underway, in case anyone has material or anecdotes to offer.

Update - Mr. Barnhart is especially interested in talking to persons who are familiar with Justice Stevens' mother, Elizabeth Street Stevens (died 1979). Mrs. Stevens, a writer, was active in a wide range of Hyde Park political and cultural activities.

Mr. Barnhart's contact information is listed below for anyone who could provide some new light on these subjects.

Mr. Barnhart has been working a great deal at the Special Collections facility of the Regenstein Library and will continue to do so when the collection becomes available again next spring. He has asked us to thank our membership for their consideration and encouragement. He will keep us informed of his progress.

If you have any materials, anecdotes, or need additional information, please contact:

Bill Barnhart
2115 West 107th Place, Chicago, IL 60643
773-233-9806
bbarnhart1@comcast.net

________________________

The owner of the restored Grand Ballroom, 6351 S. Cottage Grove, is looking for old photos that will help in accurate facade restoration. A. Schcolnik, 773 324-6000, fax 773 784-3141, www.thegrandballroom.net.

Any information on the old Coast Guard Station in Jackson Park is welcomed by the local head of the Coast Guard, Hyde Park Historical Society, and Jackson Park Advisory Council.

The Grand Ballroom at 64th and Cottage Grove. Noberto Zas an Dominic Fervbasio, former proprietors of Piccolo Mondo restaurant, have remodeled the Grand Ballroom at 64th and Cottage. They want to hear from any who have past reminiscences or knowledge of the ballroom, such as a proms, listening to jazz. Call 630 864-8105 or nzas@sbcglobal.net. More information- see in Preservation and History in Depth.

Now on line at the U Chicago Internet Digital Library:

Pacyga's book of walking and riding tours of Chicago: Chicago, City of Neighborhoods: www.lib.uchicago.edu/ecuip?digital/social/cityofneighborhoods/index.html

also there: Jean Block's Hyde Park Houses and the original pic book of World's Fair...

An essay on Paul Douglas by former Hyde Parker John Koehane with information from HPHS members is on line from U of C: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/phdouglas.html

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_____________________________________

Visit At the Hyde Park Historical Society. HPHS website

_______________________

As given by Hyde Park Historical Society to Hyde Park Herald, March 16, 2005. See in HPHS page a different writeup used in the program of the HPHS Feb. 2005 Annual Meeting.

By Jack Spicer

For more than fifty years Marian and Leon Despres have nurtured the movement to save Chicago's architectural treasures. Truly they are the parents of preservation in Chicago. It is often said that the Chicago preservation movement started in 1960 with the public, and unsuccessful, battle to save Adler and Sullivan's Schiller Building. Built in 1892 to serve as a cultural center for the city's German community, the Schiller was tall and narrow with retail stores and an acoustically perfect opera theater below and a soaring tower of offices above -- a dramatic example of Chicago's new breed of skyscrapers. It sat on Randolph Street across from where the Daley Center is now. In 1960 the new owners,the Balaban and Katz theater chain, announced they would tear the building down to make way for a parking garage. Citizens reacted to the news with organized outrage led by a group called the "Chicago Heritage Committee."

This group had its beginnings in 1957 when Marian Despres, her husband Len (newly elected alderman from the 5th Ward), and their friend Tom Stauffer adopted the cause of rescuing Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House as it sat unwanted and threatened by its legal guardian, The Chicago The logical Seminary. The group organized the community using the "3p's" formula -- petitions, picketing and publicity, with the Hyde Park Herald providing a huge dose of the latter. This successful effort to save "American's first modern house" gave birth to the Chicago Commission on Architectural Landmarks, established in February 1960 by a city ordinance introduced by Alderman Despres. The Commission then chose 39 building as "honorary" Chicago landmarks -- one of them was the Schiller building. And a few short months later it was demolished.

Clearly something stronger was needed. Alderman Despres introduced a new city ordinance, finally passed in 1968, to create the Commission on Chicago Landmarks with the power to select and protect 12 important buildings as our first official Chicago Landmarks. Three of these original designations were in Hyde Park -- Robie House, Heller House (5132 Woodlawn), and the site of the first controlled nuclear reaction, marked by the Henry Moore sculpture on Ellis Ave south of 56th Street.

During the late '50's and early '60's Marian and Len Despres were active in the Hyde Park Kenwood Community Conference where they worked to make sure the massive Hyde Park Urban Renewal project would be racially and socially responsible. At the conference Marian created the "Segments of the Past" program that documented the 886 historic buildings that were demolished during Urban Renewal. From a family of architects -- her father designed the KAM Isaiah Israel Temple and her brother did the later addition.

Marian took an interest in many other important buildings that needed preservation attention. In 1965 she and a small group of friends bought and began to nurse back to health the long neglected Glessner House. During the decades after the Great Fire of 1871 Prairie Avenue had become the address for Chicago's industrial and commercial elite. Marshall Field and George Pullman were already there when in 1887 John Glessner moved into a new house designed by H. H. Richardson, then the most famous architect in the United States. By 1965 all of Richardson's other Chicago work, including the Marshall Field Warehouse Building that so strongly influenced Louis Sullivan, was already lost. Under Marian's care the house became a remarkable museum, the only Richardson house in the country open to the public, and the anchor of the Prairie Avenue Historic District. From her efforts at the Glessner House grew the Chicago Architecture Foundation where she served as chairman of the CAF Board from 1970 to 1975 and as its President in 1976 and 1977. In 1971 Marian invented the CAF's world famous docent program. Over the years 1500 volunteers have been expertly trained as guides and last year 165,000 people enjoyed the CAF tours of Chicago's renowned architecture. Each of the present 400 docents is a descendent of Marian's first class of 33, and thirty four years later Hyde Parker Dev Bowly, one of those original recruits, still leads the CAF's Hyde Park tour.

In 1983 Mayor Harold Washington appointed Marian to the Landmarks Commission where she served until 2003. While there she inspired the Chicago Historic Resources Survey, the comprehensive inventory of Chicago's historical and architecturally significant resources, the most complete listing ever compiled by a major city in this country, and an invaluable tool in identifying potential landmarks and landmark districts.

Beyond saving buildings, passing laws and forming organizations, the Despres have fostered a strong,vigorous preservation movement in Chicago. They've helped raise an extended family of preservationists that will survive and grow for many generations to come.

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From other preservation organizations or from HPKCC

Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois

e-mail mail@LPCI.org, www.landmarks.org

LPCI has spearheaded dissemination of information and provides on site help in getting tax rebates and preparing strategies enabling property owners to keep and restore their historic structures. Contact Andrew Fisher at LPCI.

LPCI holds Preservation Snapshots Thursdays, 12:15 pm, lectures at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Randolph, 2nd floor Cassidy Theater.

Farnsworth House in Plano, by Mies van der Rohe has been saved, in good measure due to LPCI. Check with the Chicago Architecture Foundation-they are now (?) running bus tours out to Farnsworth House ($20), which now has a visitors center.

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Two other important citywide preservation organizations are Preservation Chicago and (new to Chicago) Preservation Action. See Links at end of this page.

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Some of our built resources

Robie House: reconstruction of the east part of the compound (including new roof) and view from the southwest , spring, 2003.

Area City of Chicago designated landmarks as of January 1, 2005 Recent entries include 20 firehouses (one at 46th and Cottage Grove), Rockefeller Chapel, Greenwood Row House District and the Statute of the Republic at Hayes and Richards and the 63rd Street Bathing Pavilion in Jackson Park and South Shore Cultural Center have been designated nearby since.)

In HPK proper (47-61st, Cottage Grove-Lake Michigan, including Jackson Park)

• 63rd Street Bathing Pavilion. Jackson Park, 63rd (Hayes Dr.) east of Lake Shore Drive. Mix of Med. Resort Revival and Burnham's park bldgs. with Prairie. 1919
• American School of Correspondence. 850 E. 58th. Pond & Pond. 1906-07. Distinctive Stylistic Chicago Industrial-Commercial with Arts and Crafts touches
• Heller House. 5132 S. Woodlawn. F L Wright. 1897. Formative Prairie. 1896
• Hyde Park Bank, 1525 E. 53rd St. Art Moderne. 1926
• K.A.M. Isaiah-Israel Temple. 1100 E. Hyde Park Blvd. Alfred S. Alschuler. 1924, addition 1926
• Keck-Gotschalk-Keck Apts. 5551 S. University. George and William Keck. 1937. Formative Modern
• Museum of Science and Industry. 57th St. at Lake Shore Drive. Charles B. Atwood, 1891-93, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, 1929-30. Shaw, Naess & Murphy, 1930-41. Beaux-Arts Classical, Industrial Moderne
• Powhatan Apts. 4950 S. Chicago Beach Drive. Robert DeGolyer and Charles Morgan. 1927-29. Art Moderne
• Robie House. 5757 S. Woodlawn. FL Wright. 1909. Prairie epitome with low overhang roof, long wall around, horizontal roof sweep.
• Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. 5850 S. Woodlawn. Compl. 1928. Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue.
• Site of the First Self-Sustaining Controlled Nuclear Chain Reaction in 1942. 5625 S. Ellis. Commemorative Sculpture Nuclear Energy. Henry Moore. 1967
• Statue of the Republic replica. Hayes and Richard Drives. Reminder of the Columbian Exposition, this 24 foot 1/3 replica, like the original, was produced also by Daniel Chester French and Henry Bacon. 1918.
• Lorado Taft Midway Studios. 6016 S. Ingleside. Otis Floyd Johnson, 1929. Addition Edward D. Dart, 1964. Distinctive
  
• Greenwood Row Houses Historic District. 1903. Henry Gross.
• Kenwood (Historic) District. 23-square-blocks, 47th to 51st, Drexel to Blackstone/Lake Park. 1870-1930.

  Near-Mid South Side (19th-Ryan-63rd). North:

• Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology. 3360 S. State. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. 1950-56. Modernist
• Stephen A. Douglas Tomb. 35th and Cottage Grove. Leonard W. Volk. 1881
• Eighth Church of Christ Scientist. 4359 S. Michigan. Leon E. Stanhope. 1910-11
• Eliel House. 4122 S. Ellis. Adler and Sullivan. 1886
• Firehouse # , 43rd? and Cottage Grove
• First Church of Deliverance. 4315 S. Wabash. Walter T. Bailey, 1939. Tower additions Kocher, Bus and DeKlerk, 1948
• Kent House. 2944. S. Michigan. Burnham and Root. 1883.
• Pilgrim Baptist Church. 3301 S. Indiana. Adler and Sullivan. 1889-91
• Roloson Houses. 3213-3219 S. Calumet. Frank Lloyd Wright. 1894
• Soldiers' Home. 739 E. St. 1866 sections William W. Boyington. 1864-1923
• South Side Community Art Center. 3831 S. Michigan. L. Gustav Hallberg 1892-93, Remodeling 1940, Hin Bredendieck and Nathan Lerner
• Ida B. Wells-Barnett House. 3624 S. King Drive. Joseph A. Thain. 1889
  
• Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District. Several sites: Chicago Bee-3647 S. State, Chicago Defender-3435 S. Indiana, Eighth Regiment Armory-3533 S. Giles, Overton Hygienic Bldg.,-3619 S. State, Grand Terrace Cafe-315 E. 35th, Supreme Life Insurance-3501 S. King, Unity Hall-3140 S. Indiana, Victory Monument-35th at King, Wabash Av. YMCA-3763 S. Wabash. 1889-1936
• Calumet-Giles-Prairie District.31st-35th. 1870-1910
• North Kenwood District. 5 square blocks surrounding Berkely/45th and dozens of other buildings 43rd to 47th, Cottage to Metra. 1870-1920.
• Oakland District. 2 square block core centering on Berkely and Ellis 41st to 42nd places and 55 other buildings gen. bounded by 35th and 43rd, Cottage Grove and Metra. 1872-1905.

West:

• Elam House. 4726 S. King. Henry L. Newhouse. 1903
• Garfield Blvd. "L" Station. 319 E. Garfield Blvd. Myron Church. 1892
• Raber House. 5760 S. Lafayette. Thomas Wing. 1894
  
• Washington Park Court District. 4900-59 S. Washington Park Ct. and 417-39 E. 50th St. 1895-1905

South:

• Kenna Apartments. 2214 E. 69th. A Barry Byrne-Alfonso Iannelli collaboration (cf. St. Thomas Church in Hyde Park.) Chicago three flat transformed with sleek asymmetric design. 1916.
• Miller House. 7121 S. Paxton. Only surviving Chicago work by Wright-associated John Van Bergen. 1915.
• South Shore Cultural Center (formerly. Country Club). 7059 South Shore Drive. Marshall and Fox. Med. Resort Revival. 1906, 1916.
  
• Jackson Park Highlands District. 67---7100 blocks of Bennett, Constance, Cregier, Euclid and 1800-2000 of E 68th, 69th, 70th. Early planned community introduced large front yard setbacks, underground utilities, no alleys.

They're Wright here in Hyde Park, with much, much more. Robie House, (5757 S. Woodlawn), although considered by many architects one of the 10 most significant buildings of the 20th century, is not the only Hyde Park Wright home. There are Heller House (5132 S. Woodlawn), Blossom House, "bootleg" homes--(and some maybes and wannabes too). Contact the Wright Plus association for background, activities, and schedule of tours of the Robie House, open during an eight-million dollar restoration. Robie House is in 6th year of its 10 year restoration, nearing completion of the phase that included the roof, repointing, and reinstallation of the courtyard wall. $4 million is needed. The Docent training occurs periodically. Contact Angela at Volunteer@WrightPlus.org or 708 848-1976. Robie House will be featured, among 12 other significant historic places needing financial help, in an public service ad campaign by Home and Garden Television. Visit our The Robie House Story. Views of Robie and Heller houses (exterior, with Heller House story).

Robie House tour schedule: 11 am, 1 pm, 3 pm weekdays; 11 am through 3:30 pm weekends. $9 adults, $7 seniors and 7-18 years old. 834-1847.

The Preservation Trust of the Frank Lloyd Wright Robie House announces a new tour of Robie House and nearby houses & buildings in the neighborhood, "Robie House and Its Historic Neighbors Walking Tour." Fridays and Saturdays 2 pm. $9 adults, $7 youth and seniors 65+. Parties of 10+ need to reserve, 708 848-1978. More info 708 848-1976 or www.wrightplus.org.

There are many other Hyde Park and Kenwood structures on the National Register of Historic Places and Chicago's Survey Orange List, including Lorado Taft's Midway Studios (Chicago Landmark, Otis Floyd Johnson) and International House, and works by such noted architects as Mies Van der Rohe (Promontory Apartments 5530-32 S. Shore Dr., Social Service Admin. bldg. 60th and Ellis), Aero Saarinen (U of C Law School), Solon S. Beman, Henry Ives Cobb, I.M. Pei, Howard Van Doren Shaw (such as the famed Quadrangle Club at U of C, 1155 E. 57th, being restored) ..., as well as recent notable architects. Many of the structures and sites are on the University of Chicago campus (navigate their website at http://uchicago.edu). A key architectural asset of Hyde Park-Kenwood is that almost every period and style from pre-Civil War on is represented, most with interesting or unique variants.

Especially important is St. Thomas Apostle Church, 5472 S. Kimbark. The first "modern" Catholic church in the country, it was designed by Wright disciple Barry Byrne and decorated by Iannelli and Alfeo Faggi (pieta and stations of the cross renowned for their simplicity).

One of the most pleasing structures, Beman's Blackstone Branch Public Library, is at the neighborhood's the northeast edge, 4904 S. Lake Park Ave. More still-standing treasures stretch far north, south, and west, especially along Chicago's boulevards. Grand hotels (and Hyde Park was rich in resort and residential hotels) include the Windermere at 1642 E. 56th, Shoreland in the 5400 block of South Shore, and the Hampton House ( f. Sisson) at 5300 South Shore, all rich in terra cotta. In fact, Hyde Park is especially rich in wondrous terra cotta. Don't miss the wonderful mansions of Kenwood. Of significance to evolution into and through the Prairie School are Potter House (Frost), 4800 Ellis and Magerstadt House (Maher) in the 5000 block of Greenwood. Benjamin Marshall designed in Kenwood also, including 4900 and 4906 Ellis. The magnificently restored Julius Rosenwald house, at 49th and Ellis? is reputed to be the largest south of Prairie Avenue.

Much, not only interesting historically and architecturally but examples of vernacular variety and detail, was lost during Urban Renewal and continues to be lost to institutional expansion, residential tear-downs and buildouts, and-- in surrounding neighborhoods--fast-track anti-gang demolition, continued disinvestment, or inconsiderate new development. Much of the former look and variety in Hyde Park and Kenwood is brought out in Max Grinnell's Hyde Park Illinois. and Leslie Hudson's Postcard History, as well as Jean Block's monumental Hyde Park Houses. But you'll be amazed at what a stroll will reveal still--each block and row of blocks seems to have its character, sometimes highly eclectic in style, type, and scale, sometimes deriving character from showpiece variety, mixture, and surprises--mini-histories of the neighborhood, and sometimes carrying its meaning through unity and variety within repetition or row effect. The cottages (such as those around Blackstone 54th Pl.), small mansions (such as Greenwood at 51st, Greenwood/University at 54th), row houses (such as the sets of professor houses on 56th and Woodlawn), and one-story commercial structures are just as revealing as the imperial buildings ranging from Hyde Park Bank to the Powhatan (city landmark DeGolyan and Morgan 1927-29) and its neighbor Narraganset (achieving National Registry). One can certainly "cultivate locality" and immerse oneself in "visible memory" here. The kids should be shown these places--and invited in, for the interiors are at least as revealing as the envelopes, streetscape interfaces, and presentations. And some of the newer large structures and smaller houses are just as intriguing.

A classic exploration of the built/social environment of our community is Jean Block's Hyde Park Houses. Also, Hyde Park Historical Society can help you get a handle on our rich built environment as well as its memorials and traces on paper, tape, and in brick and mortar, starting in the days when Hyde Park was an early suburban village with one of first commuter rail stations, then a famous tourist resort, host to a world's fair, a university town, home to the mansions of several captains of industry as well as workers and middle class, and center to world class historic parks— all in Hyde Park-Kenwood's first 60 years! A record of the buildings scheduled for urban renewal is Marian Despres, ed., "Segments of the Past."

Much of the former look and variety in Hyde Park and Kenwood is brought out in Max Grinnell's Hyde Park Illinois. and Leslie Hudson's Postcard History, as well as Jean Block's monumental Hyde Park Houses.

Walk Hyde Park and Kenwood with Ira Bach and Pacyga's Chicago, City of Neighborhoods. Do it digitally.

For the University, start with their web site, Charles Goodspeed's The University of Chicago--the first 25 years and its next-25-years follow up and Jean Block's The Uses of Gothic. The University and the Chicago Architectural Foundation give tours.

Doing research? ...about Hyde Park, urban renewal, HPKCC, other organizational history? Much of it (especially pre-1980, for example of the Hyde Park Historical Society and HPKCC and material on urban renewal) is archived in the University of Chicago's Regenstein Library Special Collections. (This includes a mass of pictures including of urban renewal, unfortunately a good many having never had or lost their identification.). Also in Special Collections is the vast Chicago Jazz Archive and allied music archives. A run of the Hyde Park Herald (as complete as exists) is housed at Chicago Historical Society.

U of C Regenstein Library Maps Collection has recently digitalized a group of Chicago maps printed between 1900 and 1914 and are available at www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/maps/chi1900.

For an excellent article on urban renewal, by HPKCC member and former leader Oswalda Badal, ask the Hyde Park Historical Society if you can view a copy of its Summer/Fall 1995 Newsletter. See in HPKCC Urban Renewal page.

Visit the Columbian Exposition page.

If you are looking for material on line about the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the best is probably the following, but note that it is read-only (copyrighted), may take a couple tries to come up, and loads very slowly, especially the map (which is well worth it). http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/ecuip//diglib/social/worldsfair_1893/index.html. There is also some basic and topical information in the Jackson Park History page in the Jackson Park section of this hydepark.org website. Burnham Park history is summarized in the city's Lake Shore Drive history page.

The University of Chicago's Digital Internet Library Project (CUIP) is an increasingly important source and has archived material including Hyde Park Houses and pictures and other material on the World's Fair.

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A sampler of books dealing with history of the South Side

Hyde Park Politics 1861-1919
"All the World Is Here," The Black Presence at the White City (and) Black Chicago's First Century. Christopher Reed
Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago. Jones and Lloyd Newman (Ida Wells Homes)
Garbage Wars: Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago. David N. Pellow
Slim's Table: Race, Respectability, and Masculinity. Mitchell________. (Valois Cafeteria)
The Promised Land. (From the sharecropping South to Chicago's black belt and projects)
Constructing Chicago. Daniel Bluestone
Talking to Strangers. Danielle Allen
Making of the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago. I. Arnold Hirsch (1998 ed.)
When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor. William Wilson.
Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity. _________ Stewart
Bridges of Memory. Timuel Black
Earl B. Dickerson, A Voice for Freedom and Equality. Robert Blakely and Marcus Shepherd
Truman K. Gibson
Black Metropolis. St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton.
Wayne E. Miller, published collection of postwar South Side photographs
Fighting the Daley Machine. Leon Despres
Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril Among the Black Middle Class by Mary Patillo-McCoy
Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. Eric ___________. (about 1995 heat wave)

Nancy Albert's A Cubed and His Algebra is much about Hyde Park history.

Christopher Reed's "All the World is Here," The Black Presence at the White City. (See also his Black Chicago's First Century.)

Encyclopedia of Chicago History- it's online at http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org.
Women Building Chicago 1790-1990. Visit http://www.cawhc.org.

The panelists discussed why we preserve, whether there is a "right of memory", preservation policy and tools, the politics of preservation, and preservation and development. The rationales for preservation have grown much broader and sophisticated and must be convincing. There was a call for prioritization, and on a broader basis than this or that structure. Successes and failures, and what caused each, were analyzed. Work of the city departments was praised, but there was reluctance to put too much control in downtown city government. The alternatives, aldermanic decision and submission to popular decision, were considered problematic. Dividing the city into sections with review boards with expert staff available seems to work in New York and Washington, but these have unusually strong and empowered preservation communities. Encouraging stories ran from solutions reached through behind the scenes negotiations in which creative alternatives or modifications, incentives, easements, and sometimes threatened regulatory sanctions (the LPCI approach) to successful community organization and charrette (the Preservation Chicago approach) --both have worked in parts of Bronzeville. Both groups are working on old Cook County Hospital and showed a complete plan for adaptive reuse.

Among the problems with "process" we face, panelists and audience members said, are:

• Lack of transparency and public debate, secrecy rather than the information to negotiate or organize before the deal is solidified or funding obtained,
• Control by often unaccountable aldermen in some matters, by a virtually unaccountable mayor in others,
• Co-optation and shutdown of review boards and the judiciary,
• Zoning process, including granting of hundreds of exceptions yearly,
• Failure of the Lakefront Protection Ordinance,
• Judiciary use of the 'rational basis' standard (if just one part is reasonable, the whole process is presumed to be in good faith) rather than the fiduciary 'equal exchange' standard,
• Lack of neighborhood plans, narrowly based or shortchanging neighborhood inventories of the built environment, including "everyday" landmarks and markers of place and memory, in context of community characters and assets.

__________________________________

Blair Kamin and other Chicago Tribune writers have written an in-depth series on historic preservation, surveys of historic structures, and landmarking process and practice in Chicago. Much, including the politics and economic favoritism, is highly disturbing, but not surprising to those up on the issues. Distressing especially is evidence a pattern of understudying and under-taging the South Side in general and especially the African-American community's historic and built environment resources in particular. Also, the Chicago survey dividing line between "orange" resources, proposed to be fast-tracked to protection, and "yellow/green" (less important?) resources is a fine and often arbitrary cutoff. GMO

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Links to Historic and Preservation organizations

To Calendars and Directories

• Arquitectos- brings together soutn side architects to promote economic development and guide young architects and students. contact isanchez93@yahoo.com
• Black Metropolis Research Consortium. Its work includes grants and fellowships including Timuel Black Fellowships. 5720 S. Woodlawn, room 202, 60637. 773 702-0653. http://www.blackmetropolisresearch.org.
• Chicago Architecture Foundation (Offerings include periodic tours of Hyde Park and Kenwood, incl. stained glass, UC Campus, Jackson Park/Columbian Exposition)
• Chicago Area Women's History Council
• Chicago Bauhaus and Beyond
• Chicago Historical Society
• Chicago (Metro) History Fair (school age competitions)
• Chicago Rehab Network
• City of Chicago-Landmarks
• Congress for the New Urbanism
• DuSable Museum
• Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago. Estrella R. Alamar, 5472 S. Dorchester. 60615. 773 947-8696, ealamar@aol.com.
• Forum on Cultural Sites (FOCUS) minority sites and architecture
• Chicago Area Friends of SNCC
• Graham Foundation of Architecture
• Historic Pullman Foundation & Pullman Civic Org
• The History Makers African-American oral history archive
• Hyde Park Herald
• Hyde Park Historical Society (www.hydeparkhistory.org.)
• Illinois Association of Historic Preservation Commissions
• Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. Pullman: Mike Wagenbach palacecars@sbcglobal.net.
• Landmarks Illinois (was Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois)
  • LI's on-line peer-reviewed Restoration Resources Guide: http://www.landmarks.org/restoration_resources.
• Mies van de Rohe Society, IIT
• National Jazz Museum (Chicago Blues Museum-no site?; for contacts to this and various jazz and other music archives and preservation organizations see Cultural Resources. See also and for much else University of Chicago Regenstein Special Collections and other library resources linked also from Cultural Resources.)
• National Trust for Historic Preservation (enormously helpful in Hyde Park)
  Preservation Magazine | National Trust for Historic Preservation | 1785 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington DC 20036 | Phone: 202.588.6062 | Fax: 202.588.6266 | www.preservationonline.org. Partners in Preservation
• Pleasant House Foundation, Oak Park (e-mail)
• Oakland Preservation
• Our Black Ancestry. Sharon Morgan at smorgan@ourblackancestry.com
• Partners in Preservation (National Trust with commercial partners providing funding)
• Preservation Chicago
• Preservation Action
• Preserve and Play
• Pullman State Historic Site
• Save Michael Reese Hospital-Gropius
• University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center of the Harris School for Public Policy
• Wright Plus (runs, offers the tours at Frederick C. Robie House, 5757 S. Woodlawn)

Encyclopedia of Chicago

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