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Chicago: Looking at the South Side neighborhoods? days of yore

By Libby Pearson

Orientation Issue 2006: The City

Congratulations, you?re a student at the University of Chicago and are now a resident of Hyde Park, a neighborhood in the often-neglected South Side of Chicago. The history of the University is, for better or for worse, inextricably tied to the history of the South Side. As such, in this article we?ll tell you a little bit about it so that you have something to talk about with the locals.

Woodlawn

Originally settled by German and Dutch immigrants in the 1860s and 1870s, Woodlawn, lying south of Hyde Park, was pretty boring until the late 19th century, when rapid transit finally arrived and the 1893 Columbian Exposition brought tons of jobs to the neighborhoods around Jackson Park and the Midway. As a result, 63rd street became the commercial center of the South Side during the first few decades of the 20th century. Woodlawn was also a center for blues and jazz, featuring dozens of bars, clubs, and ballrooms stretching from Stony Island to Cottage Grove.

Illinois Central station, a huge structure on 63rd including a hotel and several restaurants, was later to be the arrival point for the thousands of African-Americans who came to the South Side during the 1940s and 1950s. Before this, Woodlawn was a predominantly middle-class white neighborhood. The same area is now around 97 percent black. Remember Lorraine Hansberry?s 1959 A Raisin in the Sun from English class? The affluent whites-only neighborhood that the black main characters attempt to move into is, yes, the Woodlawn, just a few blocks south of the campus.

As the Supreme Court outlawed racially restrictive covenants in 1947 and poor black southerners began to flow into urban areas in the north, the racial makeup of Woodlawn and many Chicago neighborhoods began to change in the middle of the century, the era during which the phrase ?white flight? comes into use. As the middle class whites left, they abandoned large apartments that were exploitatively divided by real estate companies into little more than kitchenettes for the new black residents, who were usually unable to find better housing.

African-American gangs began to operate in the late 1950s and early 1960s, organized by the likes of Jeff Fort and Eugene Hairston. By the end of the 1960s, the two had united 21 street organizations with around 50,000 members, creating the Black P-Stone Nation, an organization with a political front that received money from the federal government to create a job-training program in the neighborhood. Fort was even invited to Nixon?s inauguration in 1969. The government eventually discovered misappropriation and both founding members ended up in prison.

Efforts by community leaders to integrate Woodlawn during this era failed. By the early 1960s Woodlawn had a population of almost 90,000. 63rd Street still had its bustling commerce and famous jazz clubs, but the economy was deteriorating rapidly and crime was on the rise. The University looked to projects either to buffer itself from the turmoil in Woodlawn or somehow to solve the area?s problems.

A similar process of white flight and economic decay was going on in Hyde Park. As the University had a vested interest in the appearance of its surrounding community, it joined with the newly-formed South East Chicago Commission and began one of the first urban renewal projects in the country with the goal of demolishing ?slum? areas. Cultural institutions on 55th street were leveled and many community members were displaced. After Hyde Park, the University turned its eye on Woodlawn. Of course, the residents were not pleased.

Under the threat of the University?s bulldozing the entire neighborhood, Bishop Arthur Brazier and U of C alum and activist Saul Alinsky formed the Temporary Woodlawn Organization (TWO), a coalition of churches, businesses, and civic associations. The community united against the wishes of the University. After TWO managed to gain a seat on the city planning board, it was able effectively to stop the University?s plans.

In its early years, TWO also fought against slum landlords and made efforts to get Woodlawn residents involved in the civil rights movement. TWO still exists today as The Woodlawn Organization, and recently has organized the anti-war efforts of Woodlawn residents by busing them to demonstrations around the city and country.

Despite the victory against urban renewal, Woodlawn continued to deteriorate. Gang wars, arson, and building demolition pushed the more mobile residents out. Instead of blocks of buildings dotted by empty lots, the blocks began to look more like empty lots dotted with lone buildings. In 1990, Woodlawn had only 27,000 residents, over half of whom were on some form of public aid, with the median household income over $13,000.

In the last few decades, Woodlawn has slowly stabilized. Much of the eastern branch of the Green Line was demolished, reducing crime. The last few years have seen a flowering of new single-family homes through the Homes on Blackstone project and condominiums that are selling quickly. However, with these developments comes the debate of gentrification.

The University?s current opinion is that Woodlawn is safe enough for students to wander around in. A handful of students live in apartments south of the Midway. 63rd Street around the feet of the Green Line still has a few shops and restaurants, and Burton-Judson residents often walk south to this stop instead of walking up to the 55. Because of the bloom of housing, this neighborhood should see a few commercial changes as well.

Hyde Park

Real estate speculator Paul Cornell, first cousin of telegraph tycoon Ezra Cornell, founded Hyde Park in the 1850s. At first, the term ?Hyde Park? meant anywhere from 47th Street down to the 100s. While the southern areas became industrial, Hyde Park and Kenwood became genteel and the former shrank its borders until it stretched from 47th to 61st.

Things really began to heat up in 1892 and 1893, when John D. Rockefeller founded your alma mater and the World?s Columbian Exposition took over the Midway, respectively. The Columbian Exposition, featuring the world?s first Ferris Wheel and ice cream cone, allowed well-heeled visitors to boat around the canalized Midway Plaisance and browse exhibits of the world?s cultures, organized by ?primitiveness.? The acres of marble palaces and pavilions have for the most part disappeared; the only structure that remains to this day is the current Museum of Science and Industry.

Middle class white families gathered around these jobs as the University grew up. But in the 1950s and 1960s, Hyde Park felt the same influx of African Americans and economic decline as many neighborhoods in Chicago. As stated before, the University of Chicago stepped in by showing the rest of the country how urban renewal is done. The average income soared by 70 percent but the black population fell by 40 percent.

For many reasons, Hyde Park has avoided the economic fate of its adjoining neighborhoods, such as Woodlawn and Washington Park. The University of Chicago?s money and political power exerts tremendous force on the neighborhood, but the place still seems to have a culture of its own. Three economically vital streets, 57th, 55th, and 53rd provide shopping and restaurants to the 40,000 racially and ethnically diverse residents. The fact that one of the most pressing community issues is whether or not to pave the limestone Promontory Point that juts into the lake at 55th is testament to the stability of the neighborhood.

Washington Park

Washington Park is the park and neighborhood west of Hyde Park that the 55 bus takes you through when you want to escape the South Side via the Red Line. Words that come to mind are ?dilapidated,? or occasionally ?dangerous.? Don?t get me wrong, the park is beautiful and features the DuSable Museum of African American History, named after Jean Baptist Pointe DuSable, a Haitian fur trader who was the first permanent settler in Chicago. Just don?t walk around there at night.

The story is much the same as our other neighborhoods. Founded in the 1880s, an economic boom came to the Italian, German, and Irish immigrants when rapid transit and the Columbian Exposition arrived in the South Side. Fast-forward to the 1950s and 1960s, when apartments were divided for the new poor black residents and the middle class that remained. The neighborhood has seen little revitalization since then, and the University has notably kept its interest and money out of the area.

Kenwood

The Kenwood story is a little different. Like Hyde Park, it was founded by a famous rich guy, Jonathan A. Kennicott, in the 1850s. Wealthy families moved in and built the mansions that still spread between 43rd and 47th today. Like the other neighborhoods, the economy took a dive and urban renewal was in the air. However the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference preserved the buildings in the Kenwood area.

Many Jewish residents left by the 1960s, being replaced by middle class black and white residents who were more than happy to take the huge homes at reduced value, preventing the area from being taken over by slum landlords. However, Kenwood?s economy has not been as perky as it could be. To revitalize the area, the shopping plaza on the corner of 47th and Lake Park was planned in the 1980s and finished in 1999, bringing a branch of the now-closed Hyde Park Co-op grocery store and a Walgreen?s to the area. Lake Park Avenue between 47th and 43rd has seen much construction, raising the concern of some residents.

Overall, Kenwood has weathered the social and economic storms of the last century better than the other three neighborhoods in the area. Because the neighborhood never became very poor, future gentrification probably won?t be an issue. Kenwood is now a relatively sleepy neighborhood, filled with huge houses and trees and wide streets.