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A service of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, its Preservation/Development and Zoning task force and its website, www.hydepark.org. Contact Gary Ossewaarde. Help support HPKCC's work: Join the Conference!
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Preservation, Hyde Park-Kenwood History, and Architecture home page A service of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, its Preservation/Development and Zoning task force and its website, www.hydepark.org. Contact Gary Ossewaarde. Help support HPKCC's work: Join the Conference! |
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index of history, preservation pages.
History and Preservation subject pages in this website. Links to other history and preservation websites and organizations.
by Gary Ossewaarde
In
Memoriam- Leon Despres, former Alderman and city official (particular Landmarks
and Planning), fosterer of Hyde Park and Chicago preservation and history and
several community organizations including Hyde Park Historical Society.
In this page
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At Hyde Park Historical Society: Historic Drexel Boulevard. Over 100 stunning photos by Kathy Huff and brochure by Carol Bradford.
February 7, Sunday, 1-3 pm. Join Dr. Kimberly Clark, University of Illinois, at Pullman State Historic Site-Florence Hotel for a Conversation on the history and effects of Black History and The Great Migration. 11111 S. Forrestville. 773 660-2341.
February 8, Monday, 11 am. Commission on Chicago Landmarks considers landmarking the Hansberry House (whose advocates will receive the Despres Award from the Hyde ParkHistorical Society at its Annual Dinner (see below). City Hall room 201A.
February 11, Thursday, 6:30 pm. Univ. of Chicago and Ald. Hairston (5th) invite all to an introduction to plans for Lab School expansion at its present campus and possibly Doctors Hospital site. These may include demolition of historically designated buildings. Judd 126, use double doors near 59th on Kimbark Ave.
February 27, Saturday, 2-6 pm. Faithful Few presents African American History Bazaar-- Art, baked goods, live auction, barbecue dinner. At First Presbyterian Knot's Hall/Woodlawn Collaborative, 6400 S. Kimbark. $10 for dinner gets you free admission. Info 773-426-3472.
February 27, Saturday, 6 pm reception, 6:30 pm dinner. Hyde Park Historical Society annual awards dinner. Honoring 50 years of Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, Robert Ashenhurst (talk by Roland Bailey), Cornell Awards, Despres Preservation Awards. $50 (must be in by Feb. 22 or $60). Quadrangle Club, 1155 E. 57th St. See the HPHS website for details- can order there.
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 though dashed, Antheus Capital as a dynamic new player, possible Obama Effect, and the backlash side of a bubble unable to stop a huge U C Harper Court/53rd-Lake Park development .
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.And did you know that the preservation movement in Chicago got a major spur from Hyde Park's work to save Wright's Robie House, led by Ald. Leon and Marian Despres. Marian was a founder of the Chicago Architecture Foundation. Much of Hyde Park and Kenwood is on the National Register and we have a number of city historic districts.
Barack Obama's house, 5046 S. Greenwood in the Kenwood mansion Historic District and across from Chicago Landmark K.A.M. Isaiah Israel Congregation. The street is closed to through traffic and even pedestrian traffic and picture taking is restricted and regulated.
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.
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.
Instagreeter tours continue year round even though the special summer tours from teh Hyde Park Art Center Outpost end Sept. 26 for 2009.
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 $3University of Chicago architectural tours on request, free 773 834-8006
Paul Durica's "Pocket Guide to Hell" tours are often in Hyde Park and Kenwood-- to find out, visit http://southsidesn.wordpress.com/events/
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
Promontory Point....The Promontory Apartments, 5530-32 South Shore Drive were designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for developer Herbert Greenwald in 1947 and was groundbreaking (although not so much so as the first, glass curtain wall design, which was instead used at 860-880 N. Lake Shore Drive). Promontory plans were in 2009 given to the Hyde Park Historical Society archive. The Promontory is developing a website, http://www.miespromontoryapartments.com, to go up in October 2009. Mies also influenced design of the Algonquin Apartments in the 5000 block of Cornell and East End, and designed the School of Social Service Administration on the University of Chicago campus.
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.
__________________________________________
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.
Landmarks Commission landmarked the Hyde Park Bank at 1525 E. 53rd St.
How much of the Harper Theater facade and Herald building will be saved in a new development is uncertain and awaits further advancement of Harper Court. A structural by a firm is under evaluation.
Murals and the dome were wonderfully restored at Blackstone Library. See Blackstone page index of our subpages below, the project in Friends of Blackstone.
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
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)
Near-Mid South Side (19th-Ryan-63rd). North:
West:
South:
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.
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."
Watch for its reissue with much more and brought up to date, coming out in the next year or two.
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.
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
Building the South
Side, by Robin Bachin
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. And she has another, new one.
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 University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center of the Harris School of Public Policy, with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Architecture Foundation and the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, hosted an all-day Arts and Humanities in Public Life symposium: Building the Past: Landmarks Policy and Urban Development, April 19.
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:
__________________________________
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
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.