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Early history of HPKCC and its role in Urban Renewal: Records and timelineA service of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference and its website www.hydepark.org and Preservation and Development/Zoning task force. Join the Conference: your dues support our work. |
Most extant and available material from this period is now archived in the Special Collections, Joseph and Helen Regenstein Library, The University of Chicago.
HPKCC was officially founded September 21, 1949 but some documents use the November public meeting or even later. The following pieces are best understood in contexts and detail provided by Urban Renewal homepage and the two Urban Renewal Timeline pages. Granted, many of the claims given below are "organ" if not propaganda, but they supply details to gauge the scope of activity at various stages--including the general curve of the organization's viability, and many hints at what worked/works with community organizations and what didn't/doesn't under varying circumstances.
Remember again that HPKCC was but one of several organizations and institutions active in community conversion and many labored as independent agents or provided their considerable expertise on a volunteer basis. And without the help of the City and higher levels of government, the University and groups and orgs from other parts of the city--and favorable conditions--the effort would have quickly evaporated. Keep in mind also that much of the work was done before the Civil Rights movement really caught hold, and most of the demolition-rebuilding phase was over before the Civil Rights Act was passed.
The Conference reached a high plateau in the mid 50s and early 60s with thousands of members and much foundation support. It was in deep decline and shrinkage in the late 1960s, but worked to find its way in that time of turmoil when the interests of activists turned to black power, antiwar, and rage at the U of C. By the early 1970s the Conference roared back, as much a social services organization as civic and with lots of money, seeking power, and by the mid-70s seeking o muscle its way into development and decision-making control. The collapse by 1980 left the Conference one of many organizations, never again to be at the center of community conversation, although it has gradually become stronger and active in more spheres after reconstitution in the early 1990s.
Three early publications were based on the Conference experience and were followed in the late 50s and early 60s by at least 3 major studies (these latter listed in Urban Renewal home.) The early works were Neighbors in Action by Herbert Thelen and Bettie Sachet, The Power of Words by Stuart Chase, and The Dynamics of Groups at Work by Herbert Thelen.
1949 (c March 1950-issue?) report to members and community. Leslie T. Pennington
All of us are rightly impatient, for amid the issues pressing in upon us time is of the essence. Yet only the full weight of massive resource can meet these issues adequately, and it takes time reliably to accumulate this massive resource. We are already beginning to face specific issues, and several times...we have wished that the massive organization of community resource had had more time to mature. We must remember that a lost battle in these preliminary stages may help us to win the war. While we have lost one or two specific battles where the lines have not been clearly drawn, there have already been specific victories. In at least one block where property owners were individually prepared to sell, block organization of white and Negro neighbors has restored confidence and created a new neighborhood morale.
Meantime... we are steadily gaining strength, accumulating experience, and working out the structure of organization to deploy our forces and to concentrate our resources at those points where concentration is needed.
From 40 members of 7 organizations on November 8 we have moved to 167 on December 12, 193 on February 1, and 350 of some 50 organizations at the present time. As Herb Thelen has suggested, our method is "the personal involvement of friend by friend fellowship by a rapid development of cohesiveness among many friends." The increasing number of residents from all parts of our community who are expressing hearty endorsement of our policy and eagerness to work, is reassuring evidence that most of our neighbors really believe in the future of our community and in fair play among all of its peoples.
A new edition of our Statement of Policy, slightly revised and amplfied...will soon be planographed...for wide public distribution. [Continues with new organization additions, a new executive committee, and meetings with leaders of institutions and government bodies. ]
From our first formulation of policy we have realized that constructive action in our own community would of necessity involve us in responsible city-wide action on the same issues...
[Attached was an Outline-Background of the Conference Problems
[And an outline of the planning-working groups an their purposes/organization. These were:
1955 or 1956 report on Activities and Accomplishments (Materials were not dated or signed)
The Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference was organized in November 1949, to unite Hyde Park-Kenwood residents of all races and creeds in efforts to maintain and improve the community.
BLOCK ORGANIZATION. Neighbors on 316 blocks, organized into 57 block organizations, set standards for block maintenance and improvement. They paint and landscape, rehabilitate property, encourage people to invest in their homes; turn vacant lots into playgrounds; secure traffic signs and signals; light up dark streets; get sidewalks repaired, streets and alleys cleaned, rats eliminated, abandoned cars removed; replace rumor with fact. They participated in planning for Urban Renewal by discussions of proposed plans at block meetings and making suggestions to the Conference Planning Committee.
BUILDING AND ZONING. The Conference has prevented countless illegal conversions and helped to correct over a thousand building and zoning violations. Complaints from block groups and individuals are sometimes settled by neighborly calls; all are investigated before they are reported to the City. The Conference supplies detailed information for the inspections, supporting evidence, affidavits and witnesses to the Building Department and the Corporation Counsel's office; attends all public hearings on zoning variations and secures interested neighbors to give testimony; has set the pattern by which all community organizations now work with the Building Department.
COMMUNITY FACILITIES AND SERVICES. The Conference has spearheaded successful attempt to get more adequate street lighting and street cleaning. It handles numerous complaints of abandoned cars, illegal parking, broken sidewalks, traffic obstructions, noise and smoke nuisances, alley conditions.
REAL ESTATE COOPERATION. The Conference recently organized a series of meetings with real estate firms and owners to discuss community goals and best ways of implementing them. Relationships developed thus far are proving valuable in exchange of information and in handling tenant problems in individual buildings.
LEGAL PANEL. Twenty-five community lawyers provide consultant services for all phases of Conference work. The Chairman of the Panel played an active role in drafting amendments for revision of the Municipal Code and in framing new legislation. (Fines are now mandatory when courts determine violations of building and zoning ordinances; the city can get injunctions to secure compliance with building laws; defendants proved guilty in zoning violations can be required to bear court costs.)
PUBLIC SCHOOLS. The Schools Committee has worked on problems of human relations in the schools; united PTA's and other agencies to obtain adequate school facilities (to date, school funds have been appropriated for six additions), secure more teachers, and initiate a visiting social counseling program. It makes annual recommendations on the School Board Budget and conducts institutes to acquaint teachers and principals with services available to them.
PARKS AND RECREATION. The Conference has helped block groups create play areas for children; publishes a yearly recreational directory of the area; played an active role in saving Wooded Island from being taken over for Army installations; initiated and coordinated efforts to retain the Promontory for recreational use only (succeeded only in getting the fence lines moved to allow more space for civilians and in securing promises from the Army to restore a sidewalk around the outer rim of the Promontory); is now working on development of existing park areas and expansion of community's recreation facilities.
PLANNING AND URBAN RENEWAL. Planning and Survey Committees and 200 volunteers produced Community Appraisal Studies in 1050 and 1951 on which present planning is in part based. The Planning Committee asked the Chicago Land Clearance Commission to survey the area (survey disclosed enough blight to qualify area for redevelopment, this beginning Hyde Park Projects A and B); is working closely with the Planning Unit of the South East Chicago Commission; is setting a pattern for involving citizens directly in planning. Our area was chosen for the pilot urban renewal project largely because of the record the people were already making in helping themselves.
CONSULTANT SERVICES ON COMMUNITY PROBLEMS. Since the Conference was founded, 37 similar organizations concerned with neighborhood conservation have been formed in Chicago. Over half of these have secured the advice and counsel of the Conference on organizational structure, block work, work with City agencies, and similar problems. Neighborhoods facing similar problems in other cities send requests for help and there is a constant stream of visitors from Europe, Asia, and Africa who study the work of the Conference and return to their countries with a new view of democracy in action. Potential leaders in other organizations have been trained at the Conference's community clinics. Requests for Conference participation in city-wide and national conferences are too numerous to fill.
From the Original Policy Statement Adopted unanimously by 300 citizens from 50 civic and religious community organizations December 12, 1949 and amended and reaffirmed by the HPKCC Board of Directors January 19, 1955
I- WE STAND FOR BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS OF ALL
We stand for basic human rights, taught in common by our religious faith, by ethics and by the Constitution of the United states, among them the rights of all persons, irrespective of race, creed, or national origin, peacefully and lawfully to bargain for, rent, buy and occupy living space, to entertain guests in their homes, and to travel in our community, unmolested.
Population pressures of intense overcrowding of Negro districts are leading Negroes to seek living space in other parts of the city, including our own community. We believe this to be inevitable and essential to the welfare of the city as a whole. We believe that this population movement can and should be used creatively by the cooperation of Negroes and whites to build up the standards, morale and character both of our community and of the city.
We are fortunate in that our community is one of the leading educational, religious and cultural centers of Chicago. We are fortunate also that it is made truly cosmopolitan by our large Jewish population, by the Japanese-Americans whom we have welcomed, to our great advantage, in recent years, by the international and inter-racial character of our leading educational institutions and by the number of Negro families who have dwelt happily, peacefully and as good citizens among us for more than twenty years. The nature, character and resources of our community should enable us to develop a positive program for the creative solution of the problems we now face, which will be of substantial benefIt to all of us and set an example both to the city and to the nation.
II- DISPEL FEAR BY EDUCATION
The chief obstacle to such a program is fear--the fear of white residents that they may lose property values, community standards, status and security; the fear of Negroes that they may be hemmed in, that they may be unjustly excluded, unwelcome and insecure in neighborhoods now open to them both by law and by the principles of ethics and religion. It is those fears which have created the patterns of racial segregation. The chief danger is that these fears, leading Negroes to cluster in new districts and whites to flee, exploited as they are by those real estate dealers bent only upon quick profit, will spread the pattern of segregation into areas adjacent to Negro districts. These fears are chiefly based upon prejudice and misapprehension. While property values may decrease slightly when Negroes first move into white neighborhoods, they do so only because of white panic; they soon rise again, even above the old levels, because property is dearer on the Negro market. Whites who are free from fears need not lose property values. There is no need to sell. Our real concern is to prevent urban decay which is caused by overcrowding, exploitation and over-use of property, by its under maintenance and neglect, and by the actual change in an area from residential to transient rooming-house, commercial or industrial use. Occupancy by non-whites or persons of differing religious faiths has no essential relation to these things.
Studies made by the National Association of Real Estate Boards indicate that Negroes, as compared with whites of the same economic status, take as good or better care of their property, both as home owners and tenants, that they are good home buyers and good credit risks for home loans. There is evidence that most of our new Negro neighbors are raising, not lowering, the standards of property care and maintenance in our community. Good persons make good neighbors, regardless of race, creed or national origin.
Attempt to keep Negroes out, which, taken collectively, mean to hem Negroes into ghettoes, are twice evil. The violate our basic rights. They subvert our attention from the true problem [:] how to maintain and advance the standards and values of our living community.
III- MAINTIAN AND ADVANCE COMMUNITY STANDARDS AGAINST OVERCROWDING
We should enlist all residents and property owners of all races and creeds in a concerted movement to keep up all standards set by law, such as sanitation, fire prevention and zoning; and to make sure that the city authorities in health, education, fire prevention, police, street and electricity departments, zoning and building departments, maintain effective services for all residents of the community.
Against the evils of overcrowding we should work to establish and maintain occupancy standards which would limit the number of persons living in a given room and, in property converted, to multiple-family use, provide each family unit with adequate facilities such as kitchen and bath.
Beyond the establishment and maintenance of such occupancy standards we should work together to sustain and revitalize our community by creative programs of planning and improvement.
IV- CONSTRUCTIVE PROGRAM FOR YOUTH
We should engage all citizens and property owners, religious and civic organizations and movements in a community-wide program of constructive recreation and leisure-time activities for children and youth, making sure that all available playgrounds and leisure-time centers are properly supervised, equipped and used for the benefit of all children and youth of the community, and that additional facilities are secured as needed. Juvenile delinquency is the ugly name for the failure of a community to provide for a wholesome and constructive life for its youth. Inter-group prejudice, hostility and violence often appear first in teen-age gangs which have no constructive outlet for their energies.
V- COMMUNITY INTEGRATION
We should promote inter-cultual and inter-group education in churches and synagogues, schools and community organizations. Residents of all races and national backgrounds should be welcomed into the full rights, privileges and responsibilities of all civic and religious organizations within the community. Members of all minority groups should be welcomed, not primarily as such, but as persons in their own right, with their own living interests, relationships, responsibilities, and distinctive abilities in the fields of common life and welfare. This Community Conference has included them as full participating members from its first beginning, and shall continue to be open to them on an equal basis with all community residents of all races and creeds.
CITY-WIDE PROGRAM
The solution of these problems in our own community cannot be disengaged from the same issues in the city as a whole. We must therefore work with city-wide agencies in a city-wide program--with such agencies as the Commission on Human Relations, the Chicago Council Against Racial and Religious Discrimination, and other city-wide religious, educational, inter-cultural and social service institutions. Through them we must promote and sustain the inter-cultural program of our city schools, a more adequate program of slum clearance, of both private and public housing, and of city planning, to serve the welfare of all citizens without discrimination. We must support the Mayor and the Chicago Police Force when they serve and protect the rights and welfare of all the people, and by eternal vigilance hold them to this responsibility and public trust. We must enlist reliable and public-spirited real estate interests, both white and Negro, to reform those practices of business and real estate which now promote and perpetuate racial discrimination and segregation, to sustain and advance the standards and values of our living community without false discriminations based upon race, creed or national origin.
ADDENDUM, DECEMBER 1954
I- DISPEL FEAR BY EDUCATION THROUGH COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION
We seek to strengthen the Conference by enlisting increasing numbers of persons in active Conference membership. We seek to engage increasing numbers of persons in active participation as members of Conference committees and block organizations. In all of this we seek to provide information regarding he nature of community problems and their alternative solutions, and to provide the opportunities required for the public exchange of views which will lead to community decisions. Our principal concern is with the residents of the community. It is in their interest that we enlist participation in these decisions by men and women whose income is from property or business here, and by members of the many educational, professional and religious institutions in the community. Responsible participation by the full community is needed to protect what we now enjoy, to plan what we need for the future, and to solve the problems that arise as we work to make our plans effective.
II- EXECUTION OF PLANNING
We support sound continuous planning relating to land use, population density, old and new housing, schools, recreation, institutional needs, shopping facilities, traffic circulation, and parking. The physical plans should be prepared by professional planners. These plans should be the result of consideration of the various alternatives. Such planning should be sufficiently flexible to adjust to changing conditions, and it should provide for review and revision. It should include planning for community services as well as physical facilities. it should seek the greatest attainable advantages at the least inconvenience to affected interests. While aiming at must new construction, it should retain existing serviceable facilities to the fullest extent that balanced development permits. Such planning should include accommodations for families of different income levels.
III- IDENTIFICAGTION AND SOLUTION OF CURRENT PROBLEMS
Specific problems we must currently and accurately identify and find solutions for through the resources of both our own and other agencies include (1) how to maintain the present interracial character of our community; (2) how to maintain a reasonable balance between the tendency of property values to increase as our program succeeds and the financial ability of present families to live here; (3) how to promote and support realistic and fair relocation policies and procedures in connection with the projected land clearance program; (4) how to obtain priorities for resident families and businessmen affected by land clearance so that they can remain here; and (5) how to effect fair policies and procedures in matters of property acquisition.
December, 1958 Conference News Letter: The Plan Passed-Now What?
For nine years, Conference members and other community residents have worked to achieve a realistic and attractive physical PLAN for the area. With the passage of the Final Plan by City Council on November 7, that goal has been reached. WHAT NEXT?
Among answers to that question are a dozen more questions--questions Jim Cunningham raised in his annual report at the annual meeting--questions like these:
Cunningham was quoted as saying, "In some ways the next 5 years will be as tough as the pas; but we will have the tremendous satisfaction of working to implement a plan we believe in and support. The plan is approved; we have taken a giant step toward realizing our goal of a stable, interracial community of high standards."
Excerpts from the 1973 Annual report.
From the President. ...Behind us we have a traditional mode of operation which has helped this organization become a sizeable, relevant, unified, effective and stable force in the community. Before us we have a new mode of organization which offers even greater opportunities and challenges in shaping the future of Hyde Park-Kenwood.
...In its earliest years this organization concentrated on purely physical problems. In later years, particularly since 1969, the Conference has responded to basic socio-economic issues, devoting much energy to solving problems through collective action of residents and by creating new institutions.
Now the Board of Directors of the Conference proposes three new goals for the future:
The last three years have seen this organization become not only viable, but powerful. Now we must mobilize our power base--which depends on broad representation, effective programs, and financial stability--to implement the new goals before us.
[Rolled out here was the Community Development Corporation- for economic and commercial development, housing management and rehabilitation, and social service facilities. Research project--was this a major reason for the collapse of the Conference later?--too soon, to un-Hyde Park, maybe mismanaged as grant and federal resources dried up? GMO]
Report of the Executive Director, Sharon R. Jeffrey
Today we are part of a community organization that is larger and more effective that ever before in its 24-year history. With a membership of 2,200, a budget of $220,000, 25 active programs, 25 staff members and 400 active volunteers, the [HPKCC] is well-prepared to forge in the new directions being established by the Board of Directors.
...The Conference's great strength is that it responds to the community in substantial programmatic, problem-solving ways. Basically, the Conference has developed five ways to mobilize volunteer resources and solve community problems...
[An example of the first category (unique, she says, to the Conference)- creation c. 1970 by HPKCC volunteers of the Sojourner Truth Child Care Center, a Recycling Center, a rehabilitation foundation for deteriorated buildings--has certification and is in rehabbing a building in the 800 block of 52nd under Al Raby, and planned a health center. For a more complete description of programs and actions, see 1973 in the Urban Renewal Timeline-2 page.]
| 1949 | Spring of 1949, the various parties mentioned above--clerical, university faculty, commission on human relations, are talking to many colleagues. Professor Herbert A. Thelen, of the Education Department invited Wright to address's his seminar on race progress. This led to decision that the fall seminar's project would be to apply group dynamics to a transition neighborhood by seeing what they could do in Hyde Park--just an academic exercise, one must understand...
September 1949, The Social Order Committee of the 57th St. Meeting of Friends including Julia Abrahamson (ignorant of the Wright, Weinstein, and Thelen efforts), deciding that race and housing are the most urgent community issues, invites Wright. He tells them no one anywhere is leading the way on these matters and challenges, : "By God, this is just the group to do it." The committee sets out to invite lots of groups and organizations to send representatives to a meeting November 8 at the Unitarian Church. Rev. Leslie Pennington presided at the meeting of November 8, with 40 present: leaders of the Friends, K.A.M., Isaiah-Israel (not yet merged); former Alderman Moss, First Baptist (biracial), Hyde Park Baptist (not yet interracial and not yet Hyde Park Union Church), Kenwood Community Church, Rev. Cole from Woodlawn, the ministerial race relations committee, at least nine African-Americans--including Earl B. Dickerson (Supreme Life Ins.), Oscar Brown, Sr. (lawyer, housing project manager)--, Prof. Harvey S. Perloff of the U C Committee on Planning, Prof. William Bradbury (College, author), Herbert A. Thelen with 8 students (including George Cooley, future city and park planner and several times president of HPKCC), Russell Babcock of Governor Stevenson's Commission on Race Relations, and a rep. from UC Student Government. There were also observers from various human relations commissions. Pennington phrased the question, "How shall we meet the challenge of the changing population--through conflict or cooperation?" Wright said this involved: not extending the ghetto, raising/meeting community standards and services, integrating new arrivals, dealing with the general housing need. Pennington: What do we intend to do? Audience: If we "go to work," can we succeed, has anyone?--Has anyone really tried--we blacks are not "the menace"- we have just as much stake and want the same standards you do. But we have all these problems, from alleys to taverns, crime, absentee landlords and blockbusters. Put our preachments into practice, at least we will have tried. Is there any existing organization that can or will do it? No; bypass the "shakers"; we must organize until we are strong enough to buck the opposition. Pennington and Wright were delegated to form a steering committee and have a larger meeting the next month. This same night, November 8, a major riot broke out in Englewood (64th and Peoria) when an integrationist labor leader had guests over to his house ("going to sell to", it was rumored)--the riot lasted 4 days. December
12, the meeting was held at the new Community House of Congregation
Isaiah- Israel that would lead to formation of the Hyde Park-Kenwood
Community Conference. 300 showed up representing some 50 organizations,
including every church and temple, PTAs, the recreation centers, and faculty
of U of C and George Williams College. Professor Thelen had his students
in tow, acting as meeting and small-group facilitators and taking notes,
even on facial expressions. Pennington, then Wright spoke. Then students
acted out "socio-dramas" centered around a Negro moving onto
a block. At the start, people of both races are in shock at what they
see, by the last scene some are wiping tears. Next there was breakout
into small discussion groups to develop in effect a set of goals and "to
dos"--ranging from after school and jobs for teens programs to housing
code and police enforcement to fixing infrastructure and services to mentoring
and integrating individuals into their blocks. The suggestion of forming
block clubs was perhaps the breakout idea--in part to
handle rumor-mongering. People realized the city had to be recruited and
problems solved citywide. A statement was approved saying that
the problem is fear and action was needed to be directed to reversing
urban decay. This was to addressed 5 ways: (See Policy Statement
in Early HPKCC UR Records) |
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| 1950 | In 1950 HPKCC starts establishing or allying with block clubs; there would be 60+ by 1956 when the first executive director, Julia Abrahamson, left. U of C prof. Herbert Thelan held clinics on block club group dynamics. Equally important were well-attended public meetings and strong volunteer committees. One gets the impression by noting the committee and project leaders to start with that without the University of Chicago faculty "how to" even the strong involvement of religious leaders and professionals might not have been enough to get the ball rolling and galvanize a community in fear and apathy. Looking back from 1975 in the Herald, Herb Thelan, a leader on block clubs along with Irv Horwitz and others, said "[The Conference] started because people were upset. The original basis of though was self-help." [Could the block approach be used again?] "It would be much harder. Before, people would worry about what would happen if blacks moved in, but they kept this worry to themselves because they thought other people weren't worried. And there was a real loneliness. When blocks first got together it hardly mattered a lot whether they talked about their kids, played poker, or seriously discussed putting in a tot lot, it didn't matter because people just needed each other." Also, as quoted in the March 5, 1955 Nation, " It is only through working together tat people acquire meaning for one another, and the meaning people have for one another make the neighborhood their home."-that's the meaning of the block club movement to its creators. The Conference chose early to be an organization of individuals--how to have one of thousands that could reach intelligent, realizable decisions? Leadership was in the steering committee (composed of reps selected by the committees) and 4 main committees : Block organization (Herb Thelen and Russell Babcock), Planning-Zoning-Reconversion (Harvey Perloff) subdivided into Planning (Martin Myerson-UC) and code Enforcement, Community Survey (St. Clair Drake of Black Metropolis fame and fellow sociologist Everrett Hughes), and Community Organizations (really entities from schools and religious to restaurants. Lucy P. Carner-Welfare Council, Jerome E. Morgan of Midway TV, and William Bradbury). The steering committee made the decision to stretch the reach to 47th partly at behest of KAM and because of the mansion district. North of 47th was thought already too blighted and far away from the central focus--which led to lasting bitterness and turf-consciousness in North Kenwood. The decision to stop at 59th was do to the traditional boundary of Hyde Park since the township was annexed and the Midway's being a natural (and often turf-fight) boundary, with not much of a stopping place to the south until Oak Woods Cemetery. It looked, however, as if Woodlawn was being written off, especially to land-annexing U of C. The meeting
of February 1, 1950 was probably the watershed at which
the Conference took off rather than collapsing or becoming a set of entities.
This meeting of several hundred including lots of specialists
was at KAM Community House. Most of the very long meeting was
conducted as committee working strategy sessions. What they did: March 17,
1950 a committee of 3 meets with UC's Hutchins and business manager for
only time, the meeting is brusk and useless. Relations become very bad
with community orgs, (some of them having UC funding). HP Comm Council,
55th Bus. Assn., HP Planning Assn, Woodlawn Inc. did suspect motives and
fear the conf. threatened HP collapse and turnover and were radicals.
June 6, 1950 HPKCC holds a public report to community meeting 750 attend. Getting and office and preps for incorporation, elections, better discipline follow in next months. Leslie Pennington was the first president, Julia Abrahamson first director by early 1951. August, 1950 HPKCC is looking for experts (city agencies, UC) to enlist to do a formal community study and start planning/mapping to find whether part of the community should/can be designated 'suitable for redevelopment.' This year such a pilot (demonstration) study was begun for the area north of Kenwood--and was agreed to be extended to the Midway: 31st to Midway, Rock Island to Lake. Led by Michael Reese (later to lend HP urban renewal Jack Meltzer), South Side Planning Board, Metro Hsg & Plg Council (MPC), Draper & Kramer, Pace Arch. Assocs, CHA, Chicago Plan Commission, Chicago Land Clearance Commission, Park District, Mayors commission, Chicago Dwellings Assn, depts. of UC, IIT, Harvard, Ald. Merriam in city role--led to clearance and redevelopment ( Lake Meadows etc.) to north, conservation in HPK. HPKCC was hq for a vast community survey org'd by Louis Wirth, Leo Shapiro, Myerson, Thelen, Philip Hauser, NORC. Director D. Reid Ross. It first surveyed dwellings then did a scientific sample of 1600 families--where, how long and how they lived, how they thought of neighborhoods, housing, amenities. This year a massive petition about purse snatching is presented to the mayor and police commissioner, resulting in increased police coverage. For the first time? some call on U of C to set up its own police department. Refer also to the 1950 report to the Conference in the Records section above. |
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| 1951 | The sample survey is taken. Report is issued in autumn 1952 but reflects '51. HPK part is issued June 30, 1951 and widely distributed but met with silence by the community movers. Findings for HPK: 8% of dwellings need replacement, 9+ are overcrowded, 10 have no private sanitation, 8% is non white, 36% moved in past 3 years (mostly low income white and most moving rel. to converted units yet high tenant occupancy, income is still relatively high and proportion professional 4 times higher than city average but these are declining. HPK are called in better shape than north of 47th but threatened: high conversion, overcrowd, aging stock overused. The usual places are especially cited--a rim of blight on 3 sides and all of 55th gradually becoming another: creeping blight is the challenge. Among pluses, people were inclined to stay and vacancy was low. Meantime, teams from 3 universities are studying housing and infrastructure for the whole project area. (Parts by non-UC schools seemed at the time and today rather radical/counter-urban (would shock Jane Jacobs), certainly out of tune with he HPK type neighborhood, calling for neighborhood separation by functions, i.e. residential, working, recreational and a 2/3 cut in population.) The study calls for community-wide education and organizing, encouragement of private investment, and broad engagement of government agencies. Specifics include major clearance, arterial street widening, more parking, closure of residential streets to through traffic, improvements to public transportation, schools, and parks- all of which were eventually incorporated into the actual urban renewal. Nothing immediately came of the study. | |
| 1952 | Block clubs are becoming more sophisticated and things they cannot handle are tackled by sets of blocks, the Conference and other groups or by government. Among government, in these years the city and wards finally systematized street cleaning and timing and set up the sidewalk repair and replacement program with surveys and cost-sharing formulas. Street recreation programs were set up jointly. Late 1952 is when the city conducted the house-by-house inspection, starting with notices of the inspection to over 1,000 owners and how to comply with the code. Compliance board hearings were held by Roy Grahn with Conference volunteers. The actual inspection only found 25 out of compliance, which was met with derision but both sent a message and provided the structure-by-structure information the Conference, SECC, and the block clubs needed. |
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| 1953 | SECC and Conference go to Chicago Land Clearance Commission to ask investigation of a clearance project. CLCC agrees on condition this be part of a comprehensive community conservation plan. The Conference and SECC jointly apply for a grant from Field Foundation. | |
| 1954 | June 16, the 5500 Blackstone block becomes 45th HPKCC-affiliated block club. Staff would grow to eight. The Emil Schwarzhaupt Foundation began to heavily fund Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, which continued to work to influence planning. |
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| 1955 | By early 1955 the Conference takes stock and charts its future in an era in which renewal with much demolition and dislocation will occur (See 1955 addenda to Original Policy Statement and 1955/56 report above.) It expressed concern for all the balances and subtleties in redevelopment that still cause anguish and wrangling in the 21st century, including fears about what renewal is doing to affordability and displacement. | |
| 1956 | HPKCC membership is at a peak at c. 4,000 and with over 60 affiliated block clubs. August 22, Herald publishes the famous full-size edition of the urban renewal "Preliminary Plan" as it then stood, largely developed by SECC and Jack Meltzer. Thousands of copies are given to HPKCC and SECC for their public meetings on the plan. (There were several special editions at critical stages in plan development and revision.) The CCC public hearings are preceded by over 300 meetings with block clubs, gen. facilitated by the Conference Planning Committee and many attended by personally by Jack Meltzer (chief planner with the UC-SECC Planning Unit, the city-contracted plan developer). The Feds set aside $25 m of the expected $39 million cost, the city to provide the remaining third (which it did mainly in services, schools, etc.) The Kenwood Open House Committee was busily stabilizing and promoting Kenwood. SECC and the Conference fought successful lawsuits to enforce single-family requirements there. |
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| 1958 | February 19, Herald publishes the "final urban renewal plan." (More changes would come.) Hearings were held by CCC after much block club review. See above for HPKCC official position on the plan, City Council passage, and what's next. HPKCC was
most active on Urban Renewal planning including disseminating much information
and marshalling witnesses--and the feds did a study on community participation
in planning- dos and don'ts. Code enforcement full time--an
increasing proportion of complaints settled in discussion and of those
that went to court strong fines became routine even though
there was not a general building dept. inspection. The HPKCC Block committee plans reorganization of block club structure. Number of clubs averaging 50 in 330 block strips. The clubs worked most on Urban Renewal (all), a much smaller proportion of clubs worked on such issues as building and zoning, youth recreation, crime, cleanup, traffic/parking and infrastructure . Only 11 held parties! |
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| 1959 | May, first Hyde Park Garden Fair, to be a major part of HPKCC. | |
| 1966-67 | HPKCC still maintaining widespread programs--including (earlier) demonstration housing, committees on schools, appearance of the community, parks, recreation, jobs for teens, youth recreation and services, tenant/landlord relations, school volunteers, safety-rights-justice, women's rights, medical care, air and water pollution. September 6, 1967, Laura Fermi spoke to a women's group on air pollution and the environment. In 1966 HPKCC gave Gov. Kerner an award for efforts on behalf of open housing. 1964-66 there was division in HPKCC over assisting efforts to stop (including with civil disobedience) a superhighway in Burnham and Jackson Parks |
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| 1968 | The Conference was in considerable debt and decline at this time as grants dry up and enthusiasm/membership, block clubs wane. The neighborhood also shakes in this time of urban riots and local gang violence plus activist attention to Vietnam, civil rights, and black causes. | |
| 1969 | Despite its
problems, HPKCC, with Kai Nebel Chair and Donald Clapp Exec. Director, was
doing the following: gathered info through a community goals/concerns task
force-Most desired: community safety, quality education, better race relations,
youth services, low-income housing, and completion of urban renewal. Safety: "Rights and Justice" program including "facts not rumor" media and mass distribution supplement. Conference staff to field incident reporting. Noted crime down 22% in 1968. New schools committee formed under Dr. Sid Kraus. CPS financial crisis to top agenda, 2nd bringing resources to local schools. Race: Annual mtg had forum on "The Black Revolution-Implications or an Integrated Community." Setting up dialogue meetings. Working with KOCO on 47th Pl. rehab of substandard housing, black community organizer hired. Youth services--report on new facilities coming Protesting setting up antiballistic missiles near metro areas Urban Renewal- Richard Wexler, chair, working with the CCC and DUR on recommendations for finishing Urban Renewal. Spec., recommending demo of Alport Bldg 53rd Harper and seeking a redevelopment plan for 53rd............. Pushing for low and moderate scattered site housing in conj with CHA. Air and Water Pollution--reporting violators and publicizing citizenship Parks--vigilant on Jackson Park, any efforts to further degrade. More sculptures commissioned for parks. |
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| 1970 | At this time HPKCC was recovering rapidly from a much declined, conflicted period and emerging from debt. David Truitt attempted to bring new constituencies into leadership positions and make the organization more accessible. HPKCC and
others fight off a proposal for a gas station at 55th and Cornell-reemerges
and is defeated again in 1973 under Conference mobilization. |
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| 1971 | HPKCC organizes first annual Wooded Island Festival, beginning of a turnaround in the large parks. At this time the HPKCC budget was about $96,000- in 1973 it would be twice as large. President was David Truitt. HPKCC was moving into a service organization phase with many new programs. See 1973, 1975, 1976 for description of this peak active era. |
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| 1972 | February 23. Project WhistleSTOP comes to Hyde Park thanks to Hyde Park Bank and HPKCC. There had been an earlier version. HPKCC and the U of C Police would separately revive the program again in the late 1980s. | |
| 1973 | HPKCC income was in the $218,000 range little of which was from grants. Total for 1972 as $180,000, twice that of the year before. Budget items: basic prog incl. salaries $68,o00, WhistleSTOP, cluster classroom, child care task force, operation identification, health care task force, careers for teens, tenant community action center, recycling center, operation burglar Free, alternative schools task force, Wooded Island Festival-25 programs and staff. This is the year the Community Development Corporation was rolled out--maybe too soon and one cause of the Conference's later collapse? HPKCC Safety
programs are credited in part for a significant drop in crime. Local banks
helped sponsor these programs. Issues the
HPKCC fought on: restoration of IC schedule by ICC (won)--important to
neighborhood viability, compromises on Osteopathic expansion, |
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| 1974 | Quality of life issues loom large. December 11, Sonja Gilkey, Marcella Gewirth and others mobilize against high-sodium lights deleterious to trees--and stop city crews. At the other end of the spectrum, HPKCC sponsored a Discover Hyde Park business coupon book. See 1976 for range of activities. | |
| 1975 | In February a runoff for alderman is forced between Al Raby (head of HPKCC) and Ross Lathrop (headed HPKCC Safety Committee-introduced WhistleStop) to replace retiring Leon Despres. The machine candidate backed by Marshall Korshak came in a poor third. In April Lathrop wins, but will be ousted in 1979 by Larry Bloom supported by IVI. HPKCC is
highly active on issues and institutions, including schools and parks
(this is before local school councils, Friends of the Parks, "settlement"
of discrimination against south side parks, and formation of park advisory
councils.) HPKCC produces another in its more than two decade series of
guides to area schools. It runs a recreational swimming program also.
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| 1976 | According to a Conference brochure, here is what HPKCC was doing in 1976: Block Club Task Force, HPKCC Community Development Corp (affiliate) technical assistance and business recruitment, environment-parks committee fought super-highwaying the Drive through the park, proposed an EPA center in the area and protested park neglect esp. Jackson. Housing continued code enforcement, surveyed housing stock and preferences, and supported Chicago open housing ordinances and US Housing and Development Act. Condos and Coops association was active and held an Energy Conservation Fair. Schools was active, holding open houses in schools, publishing a directory to schools, taking positions such as on drop out rate, impact of magnet schools, speech therapy, desegregation and "continuous progress program." Transportation sued over lack of hearings on big fare increases and gains included many more buses on the Jeffery and a Culture Bus. WhistleStop was at a peak, so was BurgalrFREE and Safe Homes. There was a big turnout at the Wooded Island Festival. The Conference was still in the YMCA, since about 1970 under David Truitt. Presidents since included Mary Houghton and Al Raby. | |
| 1978 | August 30, HPKCC holds an overflow crowd meeting for forum on "Rentals vs Condos." Most are pessimistic about the future of rental housing in Hyde Park. |