BRONZEVILLE SOUTH LAKEFRONT Historic Black Metropolis Is Also Home to Universities, Arts, Parks
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Chicago Neighborhoods 2015: Assets, Plans and Trends – A project of The Chicago Community Trust BRONZEVILLE SOUTH LAKEFRONT Historic Black Metropolis is also home to universities, arts, parks Chicago’s South Lakefront neighborhoods have been drivers of the city’s evolution for more than 150 years. Greystone mansions and magnificent parks built in the late 19th Century, followed by the 1893 Columbian Exposition at Jackson Park, attracted huge waves of development and population growth, marking the South Side as the city’s most powerful area beyond the central core. By 1920, the Great Black Migration had brought some 100,000 African-Americans to Chicago from the southern states, creating an economically diverse, though racially segregated, area called the Black Metropolis or black belt. It was and still is the center of African-American life in Chicago. Today the South Lakefront is undergoing massive and widespread redevelopment. Five Chicago Housing Authority Source: Calculations by Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University using (CHA) developments are being completely rebuilt as mixed- 2010 Decennial Census. income neighborhoods. In and around Hyde Park, the University of Chicago has invested more than $1 billion in new facilities and partnered with private developers on off- campus housing and retail projects. With a new Tax Increment Financing District in place, the Washington Park neighborhood is in line for more investment along Garfield Boulevard. And Woodlawn’s 63rd Street spine has new housing at Cottage Grove and two new specialized schools at Ellis Avenue: the Hyde Park Day School and Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School. Supporting these investments are the area’s numerous locational advantages, which include diverse transportation choices, five miles of lakefront parks and beaches, and a long history of civic activism among residents, community organizations, and local institutions. Jackson Park and Washington Park remain major attractions – home to the Museum of Science and Industry and DuSable Museum of African American History, respectively – while Burnham Park boasts natural prairies along the lake and a new harbor at 31st Street. Bronzeville rebirth At the core of the South Lakefront’s identity is its history as the Black Metropolis, the vibrant group of neighborhoods that housed most of Chicago’s African-American population into the 1950s. Hemmed in by racial covenants and often-vicious bigotry, the Black Metropolis became an economically integrated and severely overcrowded center of black-owned businesses, church life, and social organizations, creating the rich social and architectural legacy that continues in today’s Bronzeville. A new era began in 1940, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck BRONZEVILLE S. LAKEFRONT OVER TIME 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 down the covenants that restricted sales or rental of housing to African-American families outside of the black belt. This Population 309,167 230,346 171,085 152,749 127,307 prompted massive outmigration into other South and West Share of population in poverty Side neighborhoods. Over the decades that followed, as high- 31.3% 43.0% 45.0% 36.3% 28.3% rise public housing was built and later demolished, the South Percent owner-occupied/renter occupied Lakefront grew to a 1960 population peak of 369,000 residents 9/92 12/88 15/85 20/80 27/73 – many of them poor – and then declined to 127,300 by 2010. Sources: Calculations by Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University using U.S. Census data from US2010 Project at Brown University. Today, the South Lakefront is becoming more economically and racially diverse, driven by market forces as well as conscious policies of the City of Chicago and Chicago Housing Authority. Over the last 20 years, the Chicago Housing Authority has demolished all 36 of the 16-story high-rise towers that once stood alongside the Dan Ryan Expressway – the Robert Taylor Homes and Stateway Gardens developments, being redeveloped as Park Boulevard and Legends South – plus about 3,200 units at the Ida B. Wells, Madden Park, and Clarence Darrow developments, where the new buildings are called Oakwood Shores. New mixed-income – one-third Chicago Neighborhoods 2015 Summary of Assets – Bronzeville South Lakefront – February 2015 – Page 2 market rate, one-third affordable, and one-third low-income – are under construction at scattered sites throughout Douglas, Oakland, Grand Boulevard, and Kenwood, including Lake Park Crescent and Jazz on the Boulevard. Nodes of renewal With thousands of housing units coming on line and many acres of vacant land still available, the area is experiencing renewal across a wide geography. New construction and rehabilitation projects include: Historic structures: On the 3600 block of South State Street, the landmarked terracotta headquarters of the black-owned Overton Hygienic company has been rehabbed; two doors down, the Bronzeville Bee newspaper building has become the Chicago Public Library’s “Bee Branch.” In between and across the street, mixed-income housing is under construction as part of the 1,300-unit Park Boulevard. Farther south at 47th and Michigan, the 1929 Rosenwald Apartments are undergoing a $110 million rehab. Built by Sears magnate Julius Rosenwald, and vacant since 2000, the complex will return to its roots as quality, affordable apartments, with retail and office space planned. Mixed-use developments: Shops and Lofts at 47 opened in late 2014 at 47th and Cottage Grove, with 96 units of mixed-income rental housing above ground-floor retail that includes a Walmart Neighborhood Market. The $45 million project resulted from eight years of effort by the nonprofit Quad Communities Development Corp., with three development partners. Grocery store: A full-service Mariano’s will be built at 39th and King Drive, bringing 400 jobs to land vacated by the Chicago Housing Authority. Athletic facilities: XS Tennis is partnering with the City of Chicago to build a $9.8 million tennis complex at 51st and State Streets, with eight indoor and 19 outdoor courts. At 61st Street and Cottage Grove in Woodlawn, Metrosquash has signed a ground lease with the POAH housing group and is building indoor squash courts adjacent to the new Woodlawn Park affordable housing development. Both XS and Metrosquash specialize in youth programming. Recreation: The City Council in November 2014 approved Tax Increment Financing assistance for the $16.2 million Quad Communities Art and Rec Center to be developed in Ellis Park, 35th Chicago Neighborhoods 2015 Summary of Assets – Bronzeville South Lakefront – February 2015 – Page 3 Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, by the Chicago Park District and The Community Builders. A $1.2 million investment will expand Buckthorn Park at 44th and Calumet. These developments build on other long-standing anchors. North of 35th Street, the Prairie Shores and Lake Meadows high-rise developments have been racially and economically mixed since they were built in the 1950s and 1960s; in recent years, the area has seen an influx of more than 2,300 Asian residents. Nearby are the Illinois Institute of Technology, which has invested heavily in its modernist campus and its University Technology Park, and the Illinois College of Optometry at 3241 S. Michigan. Farther south, scores of well-preserved greystones and decorative brick houses are part of the Kenwood-Oakland Conservation District, which grew out of a resident-driven 1988 planning process. Streets in this area, close to the lakefront, have seen major reinvestment and new construction that is compatible with the historic homes nearby. All of the South Lakefront will soon gain improved access to beaches and the Lakefront Trail. An $18 million pedestrian bridge is under construction at 35th Street, and at 41st and 43rd Streets the City of Chicago will build, in 2016, a pair of new pedestrian bridges with curving ramps to provide views of the lake and Chicago skyline. The neighborhood also has new protected or buffered bike lanes on major arteries including King Drive and Drexel Boulevard. Hyde Park and the University of Chicago A consistent driver of change and stability is the Hyde Park neighborhood, home to the University of Chicago and related institutions. With 15,000 students and more than 18,000 non-faculty staff jobs – one-third of which are held by South Lakefront residents – the university and its medical facilities have anchored the South Lakefront since the 1890s. The university became an aggressive driver of urban renewal in the 1950s, partnering with the City of Chicago on slum clearance and redevelopment intended to combat rapid racial and economic change. The university’s actions were controversial in that era, with many organizations in Hyde Park and surrounding neighborhoods perceiving the changes as driving out the poor and creating barriers Chicago Neighborhoods 2015 Summary of Assets – Bronzeville South Lakefront – February 2015 – Page 4 around the campus. Community organizations today are just as active – and sometimes critical of the university – but relations have improved thanks to better communications and continued investment by the university in community partnerships, facilities, and job training. For instance, along 61st and 63rd Streets in Woodlawn, south of the Midway Plaisance, new buildings and streetscapes present welcoming faces to the community, rather than the fences and parking lots of previous decades. The university’s Urban Education Institute works closely with four charter schools in neighborhoods north and south of the campus. And the Arts + Public Life program, under the leadership of renowned artist Theaster Gates, has opened an arts incubator next to the Garfield Green Line station in the Washington Park neighborhood. Within Hyde Park itself, the university led the redevelopment of Harper Court on 53rd Street, adding a hotel, restaurants, and 12-story office tower; is a partner on the modernistic, 267-unit Vue 53 development on the site of a former gas station; and on 55th Street is building a $148 million dormitory designed by architect Jeanne Gang.