Woodlawn, Chicago
Encyclopedia
Woodlawn, located in the South Side
of the City of Chicago, Illinois, USA
, is one of 77 well defined Chicago community areas
. It is bounded by Lake Michigan
to the east, 60th Street (beyond which is Hyde Park
) to the north, Martin Luther King Drive to the west, and, mostly, 67th Street to the south. Both Hyde Park Career Academy
and the all-boys Catholic Mount Carmel High School
reside in this neighborhood, and much of its eastern portion is occupied by Jackson Park
.
, over half were on some form of public aid, and the median household income was over $13,000. As of 2008, according to city-data.com, the median household income is over 25,000 and in parts of eastern Woodlawn the white population is almost 30% and growing fueled by gentrification. http://www.city-data.com/
. During the first half of the century, many University of Chicago
professors lived in Woodlawn. With the Supreme Court
ruling outlawing racially restrictive covenant
s in the 1950s, the combination of the expanding African American urban population, their limited housing options, and exploitive real estate maneuvers that divided up apartments into kitchenette
s, Woodlawn began to have its first African American residents. Cayton and Drake described the anxieties and clashes that took place at the edge of the ghetto in Black Metropolis. The play Raisin in the Sun is based on Lorraine Hansberry
and her family, who were one of the first to move in.
Like other communities bordering the ghetto, Woodlawn experienced intense bouts of white flight
when the first African Americans moved into the neighborhood (especially the Washington Park Subdivision
). Many institutions and people moved to the suburbs, a process that was facilitated by new federal housing loans. This combination of white flight from large apartments and high housing demand of the incoming African American population often proved lucrative for realtors, who routinely subdivided the vacated apartments. From this, buildings were over-filled with families. Absentee landlords seldom did much to maintain the buildings.
Others attempted to integrate this area but met with limited success. For example, the First Presbyterian Church (6400 S. Kimbark) integrated in 1954 and by the 60's had a markedly mixed character. However, older members often felt put out by the demographic and "cultural" changes that came with integration, and by the mid 1960s the Church's finances and membership rates were in trouble. For better or worse there had been an across the board change in the community.
to the north, similar demographic and racial changes began in the 1950s but with radically different results. The University of Chicago, a large land owner with vested interest in the character of the neighborhood, fought through many avenues against what it saw as the encroachment of blight.
As Arnold Hirsch argues in his chapter "Neighborhood on a hill" in Making the Second Ghetto, the University, through the SECC and, at times, with brute force, made Hyde Park the site of one of the first "urban renewal" projects in the country. In an attempt to maintain a number of white families, the University tore down "slum" areas, often employing eminent domain powers. In the process, many African Americans were displaced from Hyde Park, and cultural centers like 55th Street were leveled.
After their success in Hyde Park, the University moved quickly to begin a second urban renewal project in Woodlawn. A one mile wide area from 60th to 61st in Woodlawn was scheduled for renewal and the University's planned South Campus. The plans were drawn, there was a press conference, and the campus was eventually constructed.
At one time, the University of Chicago Law School raised more than $10,000 each year for charitable support for the children of Woodlawn but in 1999 it eliminated that support and shifted the funding to student scholarships for public interest jobs primarily outside the Chicago area.
, founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation
, to discuss plans to organize the community. But several major members of the Alliance at that time were displeased with Alinsky's brashness and controversial direct tactics. In the initial years, when TWO was still under the IAF umbrella, Nicholas Van Hoffman, Alinsky's second in command, planned most of the actions. After the University's plans were known, several prominent churches gave the seed money for the organization, which began in 1961.
TWO, like other IAF organizations, was a coalition of existing community entities such as churches, business and civic associations. These member groups paid dues, and the organization was run by an elected board. The TWO moved quickly to establish itself as the "voice" of Woodlawn, mobilizing existing leadership and bringing up new leadership. A prime example of the newly empowered leadership in TWO was Reverend Arthur M. Brazier
, who was the first spokesperson and eventual president. Brazier started out as a mail carrier, became a preacher in a store front church, and then, through TWO, burgeoned into a national spokesman for the black power movement. Brazier became a very powerful pastor in Chicago.
As Fish argues in Black Power/White Control TWO picked issues that mobilized resident participation, and at the same time built power for the organization to take on large outside entities like the University and the City (i.e. Mayor Daley). The group took part in the flurry of activity surrounding the Freedom Rides and the Civil Rights Movement by loading up over 40 buses of people from Woodlawn and riding to City Hall to register to vote. They also rallied against slum landlords and cheating business owners. TWO also took action on the University and were able to gain a seat on the City planning board (which stopped the University's plans).
TWO faced continually worsening conditions in the neighborhood, and there are many arguments about its efficacy. Especially controversial was Brazier's opposition to a planned and nearly completed Chicago 'L'
extension to the neighborhood, which forced the Chicago Transit Authority
to tear down the station and tracks and forfeit millions of dollars in federal funds in 1996.
Butler founded WECAN in October 1980 after watching 13 children die in an arson fire in a building next door to her home. WECAN quickly became a neighborhood and citywide advocate for rescuing at-risk and abandoned buildings, preserving an estimated 5000 units of housing in Woodlawn since its founding. Many of its programs - Abandoned Property Program, Vintage Homes For Chicago, Step-Up Housing - have become citywide models. WECAN was a founding member of the citywide Chicago Rehab Network of community developers. The organization and its founder, Mattie C. Butler, have been honored with local and national awards including the 1989 Petra Foundation Award and the 2008 Community Empowerment Advocate of the Year Award.
As the focus of development in Woodlawn has shifted toward new construction and condo conversion, WECAN is seen as a vocal advocate for affordable housing for low-moderate income residents and especially seniors. That stance has on occasion brought the organization into conflict with other groups in Woodlawn, particularly TWO, who have pushed for new development at what WECAN sees as the expense of current residents. WECAN led the opposition to the teardown of the 63rd Street CTA elevated line, a battle it lost. Woodlawn has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the city and is particularly affected by foreclosures of apartment buildings and condominium conversions.
WECAN sits on the New Communities Program Executive Steering Committee, operates 132 units of affordable housing, and operates supportive services, after school programs and its Housing Resource Center.
(aka Chief Malik, Angel) and Eugene Hairston (aka Chief Bull) ran a small clique around 63rd and Blackstone in Woodlawn called the Blackstone Rangers
. By the middle of the 60s, Jeff Fort and Chief Bull had pulled together 21 street organizations and had become the dominant youth gang on Chicago's South Side, maintaining a strong political identity, while also involved in criminal activities. In 1966, the Rangers provided security as Dr. King and the Congress On Racial Equality marched through hostile white neighborhoods like Cicero and Marquette Park. Under the influence of the nonviolent civil rights movement, they changed their name to the Black Peace Stone Nation. During the riots in the aftermath of Dr. King's assassination the "Stones" are credited with preserving and protecting the Woodlawn neighborhood, which saw minimal distrubance in contrast with Garfield Park and the West Side. Over time the ties with nonviolence faded as the name was changed to Black P. Stone Nation, P. standing optionally for "people" or "power." After Eugene Hairston was locked up and released in the late 60s, Jeff Fort took sole leadership of the street organization of 50,000 members. In the 70s the Stones became more political and more involved in community power structure. It even received funding from the Federal Government to run a job training program in Woodlawn. It was not long before the government came down on the Stones for malfeasance, and Jeff Fort went to prison until 1976. While in jail, Jeff Fort was influenced by the Nation of Islam
and upon his release renamed the Rangers the Moorish Temple of America, and eventually the El Rukns. The Black P. Stone Nation (aka the Moes), whose territory is in between the Stone streets (Blackstone and Stony Island Avenue
), are still a very strong force in the Woodlawn community. It has even grown into south suburban areas like Calumet Park and Harvey, and are often at war with the Gangster Disciples
.
, incorporating Midway Plaisance North (south of 59th Street) and Midway Plaisance South, north of 60th Street. Now dominated by a green space of low valleys, the Plaisance is widely known as the site of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, in which the green space was to be designated as the Fair location (but was never utilized). The Plaisance is now a well-maintained walking and bike riding thoroughfare amidst the University's campuses. Between 60th and 61st Streets (with Stony Island Avenue to the east and Cottage Grove Avenue to the west) are several of the University's South Campus buildings including: University of Chicago Press, the law quadrangle and law library
, the School of Social Service Administration
, the Harris School of Public Policy Studies
, the National Opinion Research Center
, the Center for Research Libraries, and Chapin Hall. Some of the University's faculty and several hundred of its graduate and undergraduate students live south of 60th Street in University-owned real estate and dormitories, as well as in privately owned residences.
Woodlawn has made great strides into stabilizing as a neighborhood and community. There are many new hopeful developments and infill projects as greater education and more stable income slowly drips back into the area. The University of Chicago formerly had a "stance" on the neighboring communities to help inform students of stable and safe areas. Namely, students were encouraged to avoid any area south of 60th Street. Before officially abandoning such "stances," the University's stance on Woodlawn changed to allow that it was a generally stable and safe area, which seems to match a general trend of the improvement of the South Side of Chicago. Yet, at the same time, some at the University argue that the best policy towards Woodlawn should be one of showing no economic quarter to those who oppose the Universities' expansion. Subsequently, there exists a level of tension between some of the residents of Woodlawn against the University, despite a long standing promise by the University not to expand south of 61st.
To replace the decaying Shoreland Hotel
, the University of Chicago began construction in the summer of 2006 on a new fourteen-story residence hall on the corner of 61st St. and Ellis. The new residence was designed with input from residents of both Hyde Park and Woodlawn and was explicitly designed so as to minimize possible alienation of the Woodlawn community (which could occur via blank walls, etc.). Some see this as an attempt by the University to encroach upon Woodlawn, but it remains to be seen how this new development will affect Woodlawn residents. University police patrols extend two blocks farther south than the new dormitory, to 64th Street.
is a 500 acre (2 km²) park on Lake Michigan
in the neighborhoods of Woodlawn, Hyde Park
, and boadering South Shore
.
The land for Jackson Park was set aside in the 1870s. The area was originally a "rough, tangled stretch of bog and dune" until it was transformed by Frederick Law Olmsted
, the architect of New York City
's Central Park
. The park is connected by the Midway Plaisance
to Washington Park on Woodlawn's North end.
Jackson Park's moment in the sun was the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
. For this event, hundreds of acres of undeveloped park was turned into the spectacular, but temporary, Beaux-Arts "White City."
Some sites worth visiting are the pleasant Osaka Garden, the Jackson Park Golf Course, the gilded Daniel Chester French
statue Republic (a replica of a much larger statue built for the Columbian Exposition), several lagoons, one of which features the Wooded Isle, and the 63rd Street Beach with its magnificent beach house.
South Side (Chicago)
The South Side is a major part of the City of Chicago, which is located in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Much of it has evolved from the city's incorporation of independent townships, such as Hyde Park Township which voted along with several other townships to be annexed in the June 29,...
of the City of Chicago, Illinois, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, is one of 77 well defined Chicago community areas
Community areas of Chicago
Community areas in Chicago refers to the work of the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago which has unofficially divided the City of Chicago into 77 community areas. These areas are well-defined and static...
. It is bounded by Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
to the east, 60th Street (beyond which is Hyde Park
Hyde Park, Chicago
Hyde Park, located on the South Side of the City of Chicago, in Cook County, Illinois, United States and seven miles south of the Chicago Loop, is a Chicago neighborhood and one of 77 Chicago community areas. It is home to the University of Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, the Museum of Science...
) to the north, Martin Luther King Drive to the west, and, mostly, 67th Street to the south. Both Hyde Park Career Academy
Hyde Park Career Academy
Hyde Park Career Academy is a public 4-year high school located in the Woodlawn neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It is a part of the Chicago Public Schools District 299.-Notable alumni:...
and the all-boys Catholic Mount Carmel High School
Mount Carmel High School (Chicago)
Mount Carmel High School is an all boys, Catholic high school in the city of Chicago, Illinois. Located in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, the school has been operated by the Carmelite order of priests and brothers since 1900...
reside in this neighborhood, and much of its eastern portion is occupied by Jackson Park
Jackson Park (Chicago)
Jackson Park is a 500 acre park on Chicago's South Side, located at 6401 South Stony Island Avenue in the Woodlawn community area. It extends into the South Shore and Hyde Park community areas, bordering Lake Michigan and several South Side neighborhoods...
.
Demographics
In the 1990 census, Woodlawn had approximately 27,000 individuals, living in 10,000 households. Over 98% of the population was African AmericanAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
, over half were on some form of public aid, and the median household income was over $13,000. As of 2008, according to city-data.com, the median household income is over 25,000 and in parts of eastern Woodlawn the white population is almost 30% and growing fueled by gentrification. http://www.city-data.com/
Racial transition
Up until 1948, Woodlawn was a middle class, white neighborhood, which grew out of the floods of workers and commerce from the 1893 World's Columbian ExpositionWorld's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
. During the first half of the century, many University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
professors lived in Woodlawn. With the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
ruling outlawing racially restrictive covenant
Restrictive covenant
A restrictive covenant is a type of real covenant, a legal obligation imposed in a deed by the seller upon the buyer of real estate to do or not to do something. Such restrictions frequently "run with the land" and are enforceable on subsequent buyers of the property...
s in the 1950s, the combination of the expanding African American urban population, their limited housing options, and exploitive real estate maneuvers that divided up apartments into kitchenette
Kitchenette
A kitchenette is a small cooking area.In motel and hotel rooms, small apartments, college dormitories, or office buildings a kitchenette usually consists of a small refrigerator, a microwave oven or hotplate, and, less frequently, a sink...
s, Woodlawn began to have its first African American residents. Cayton and Drake described the anxieties and clashes that took place at the edge of the ghetto in Black Metropolis. The play Raisin in the Sun is based on Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry was an African American playwright and author of political speeches, letters, and essays...
and her family, who were one of the first to move in.
Like other communities bordering the ghetto, Woodlawn experienced intense bouts of white flight
White flight
White flight has been a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. It was first seen as...
when the first African Americans moved into the neighborhood (especially the Washington Park Subdivision
Washington Park Subdivision
The Washington Park Subdivision is the name of the historic 3-city block by 8-city block subdivision in the northwest corner of the Woodlawn community area, on the South Side of Chicago in Illinois that stands in the place of the original Washington Park Race Track. The area evolved as a...
). Many institutions and people moved to the suburbs, a process that was facilitated by new federal housing loans. This combination of white flight from large apartments and high housing demand of the incoming African American population often proved lucrative for realtors, who routinely subdivided the vacated apartments. From this, buildings were over-filled with families. Absentee landlords seldom did much to maintain the buildings.
Others attempted to integrate this area but met with limited success. For example, the First Presbyterian Church (6400 S. Kimbark) integrated in 1954 and by the 60's had a markedly mixed character. However, older members often felt put out by the demographic and "cultural" changes that came with integration, and by the mid 1960s the Church's finances and membership rates were in trouble. For better or worse there had been an across the board change in the community.
1960s
By the early 1960s Woodlawn was a predominantly African American neighborhood with a population of nearly 90,000 people. 63rd street was one of the busiest streets on the South Side and was famous for its jazz clubs. Despite its bustle, Woodlawn was an economically deteriorating community, and attempts to revive its citizenry were short-lived and fractured. The community escaped the riots that devastated the West Side after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. Nevertheless the last remaining white business owners fled. A rash of arsons destroyed a reported 362 abandoned buildings between 1968 and 1971.The University of Chicago
In Hyde ParkHyde Park, Chicago
Hyde Park, located on the South Side of the City of Chicago, in Cook County, Illinois, United States and seven miles south of the Chicago Loop, is a Chicago neighborhood and one of 77 Chicago community areas. It is home to the University of Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, the Museum of Science...
to the north, similar demographic and racial changes began in the 1950s but with radically different results. The University of Chicago, a large land owner with vested interest in the character of the neighborhood, fought through many avenues against what it saw as the encroachment of blight.
As Arnold Hirsch argues in his chapter "Neighborhood on a hill" in Making the Second Ghetto, the University, through the SECC and, at times, with brute force, made Hyde Park the site of one of the first "urban renewal" projects in the country. In an attempt to maintain a number of white families, the University tore down "slum" areas, often employing eminent domain powers. In the process, many African Americans were displaced from Hyde Park, and cultural centers like 55th Street were leveled.
After their success in Hyde Park, the University moved quickly to begin a second urban renewal project in Woodlawn. A one mile wide area from 60th to 61st in Woodlawn was scheduled for renewal and the University's planned South Campus. The plans were drawn, there was a press conference, and the campus was eventually constructed.
At one time, the University of Chicago Law School raised more than $10,000 each year for charitable support for the children of Woodlawn but in 1999 it eliminated that support and shifted the funding to student scholarships for public interest jobs primarily outside the Chicago area.
TWO (The Woodlawn Organization)
The Woodlawn Organization coalesced around the perception that the University would pursue a land use policy in Woodlawn as it did in Hyde Park, and it has its roots in the pastors' Alliance of Woodlawn. Several years earlier, the Alliance had called in Saul AlinskySaul Alinsky
Saul David Alinsky was a Jewish American community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing, and has been compared in Playboy magazine to Thomas Paine as being "one of the great American leaders of the nonsocialist left." He is often noted...
, founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation
Industrial Areas Foundation
The Industrial Areas Foundation is a national community organizing network established in 1940 by Saul Alinsky. IAF provides training and consultation, furnishes organizers, and develops national strategy for its affiliated broad-based community organizations. There are currently 57 IAF...
, to discuss plans to organize the community. But several major members of the Alliance at that time were displeased with Alinsky's brashness and controversial direct tactics. In the initial years, when TWO was still under the IAF umbrella, Nicholas Van Hoffman, Alinsky's second in command, planned most of the actions. After the University's plans were known, several prominent churches gave the seed money for the organization, which began in 1961.
TWO, like other IAF organizations, was a coalition of existing community entities such as churches, business and civic associations. These member groups paid dues, and the organization was run by an elected board. The TWO moved quickly to establish itself as the "voice" of Woodlawn, mobilizing existing leadership and bringing up new leadership. A prime example of the newly empowered leadership in TWO was Reverend Arthur M. Brazier
Arthur M. Brazier
Dr. Arthur M. Brazier was an American activist, author and pastor emeritus of the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, Illinois...
, who was the first spokesperson and eventual president. Brazier started out as a mail carrier, became a preacher in a store front church, and then, through TWO, burgeoned into a national spokesman for the black power movement. Brazier became a very powerful pastor in Chicago.
As Fish argues in Black Power/White Control TWO picked issues that mobilized resident participation, and at the same time built power for the organization to take on large outside entities like the University and the City (i.e. Mayor Daley). The group took part in the flurry of activity surrounding the Freedom Rides and the Civil Rights Movement by loading up over 40 buses of people from Woodlawn and riding to City Hall to register to vote. They also rallied against slum landlords and cheating business owners. TWO also took action on the University and were able to gain a seat on the City planning board (which stopped the University's plans).
TWO faced continually worsening conditions in the neighborhood, and there are many arguments about its efficacy. Especially controversial was Brazier's opposition to a planned and nearly completed Chicago 'L'
Chicago 'L'
The L is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs. It is operated by the Chicago Transit Authority...
extension to the neighborhood, which forced the Chicago Transit Authority
Chicago Transit Authority
Chicago Transit Authority, also known as CTA, is the operator of mass transit within the City of Chicago, Illinois and some of its surrounding suburbs....
to tear down the station and tracks and forfeit millions of dollars in federal funds in 1996.
Woodlawn East Community And Neighbors Inc.: WECAN
As TWO moved to consolidate its position as the Voice of Woodlawn, other community organizations arose to deal with specific issues of housing and community empowerment, such as the arson fires that destroyed hundreds of buildings in Woodlawn in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Perhaps the most prominent of these organizations is Woodlawn East Community And Neighbors Inc. (WECAN) founded by Mattie C. Butler, a 40-year Woodlawn resident and sister of Hall of Fame R&B singer/current Cook County Commissioner Jerry Butler.Butler founded WECAN in October 1980 after watching 13 children die in an arson fire in a building next door to her home. WECAN quickly became a neighborhood and citywide advocate for rescuing at-risk and abandoned buildings, preserving an estimated 5000 units of housing in Woodlawn since its founding. Many of its programs - Abandoned Property Program, Vintage Homes For Chicago, Step-Up Housing - have become citywide models. WECAN was a founding member of the citywide Chicago Rehab Network of community developers. The organization and its founder, Mattie C. Butler, have been honored with local and national awards including the 1989 Petra Foundation Award and the 2008 Community Empowerment Advocate of the Year Award.
As the focus of development in Woodlawn has shifted toward new construction and condo conversion, WECAN is seen as a vocal advocate for affordable housing for low-moderate income residents and especially seniors. That stance has on occasion brought the organization into conflict with other groups in Woodlawn, particularly TWO, who have pushed for new development at what WECAN sees as the expense of current residents. WECAN led the opposition to the teardown of the 63rd Street CTA elevated line, a battle it lost. Woodlawn has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the city and is particularly affected by foreclosures of apartment buildings and condominium conversions.
WECAN sits on the New Communities Program Executive Steering Committee, operates 132 units of affordable housing, and operates supportive services, after school programs and its Housing Resource Center.
Gangs
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Jeff FortJeff Fort
Jeff Fort is a former Chicago gang leader, co-founder of the Black P. Stones gang, and founder of its El Rukn faction. He was convicted in 1987 of conspiring with Libya to perform acts of domestic terrorism.- Biography :...
(aka Chief Malik, Angel) and Eugene Hairston (aka Chief Bull) ran a small clique around 63rd and Blackstone in Woodlawn called the Blackstone Rangers
Black P. Stones
The Almighty Black P. Stone Nation is a Chicago-based street gang estimated to have more than 30,000 members. The gang was originally formed in the late 1950s as a civil rights organization called the Blackstone Rangers...
. By the middle of the 60s, Jeff Fort and Chief Bull had pulled together 21 street organizations and had become the dominant youth gang on Chicago's South Side, maintaining a strong political identity, while also involved in criminal activities. In 1966, the Rangers provided security as Dr. King and the Congress On Racial Equality marched through hostile white neighborhoods like Cicero and Marquette Park. Under the influence of the nonviolent civil rights movement, they changed their name to the Black Peace Stone Nation. During the riots in the aftermath of Dr. King's assassination the "Stones" are credited with preserving and protecting the Woodlawn neighborhood, which saw minimal distrubance in contrast with Garfield Park and the West Side. Over time the ties with nonviolence faded as the name was changed to Black P. Stone Nation, P. standing optionally for "people" or "power." After Eugene Hairston was locked up and released in the late 60s, Jeff Fort took sole leadership of the street organization of 50,000 members. In the 70s the Stones became more political and more involved in community power structure. It even received funding from the Federal Government to run a job training program in Woodlawn. It was not long before the government came down on the Stones for malfeasance, and Jeff Fort went to prison until 1976. While in jail, Jeff Fort was influenced by the Nation of Islam
Nation of Islam
The Nation of Islam is a mainly African-American new religious movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in July 1930 to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African-Americans in the United States of America. The movement teaches black pride and...
and upon his release renamed the Rangers the Moorish Temple of America, and eventually the El Rukns. The Black P. Stone Nation (aka the Moes), whose territory is in between the Stone streets (Blackstone and Stony Island Avenue
Stony Island Avenue
Stony Island Avenue is a major thoroughfare on South Side of the city of Chicago, designated 1600 East in Chicago's street numbering system. It runs from 56th Street south to the Calumet River. Stony Island Avenue continues sporadically south of the Calumet in the southern suburbs, running...
), are still a very strong force in the Woodlawn community. It has even grown into south suburban areas like Calumet Park and Harvey, and are often at war with the Gangster Disciples
Gangster Disciples
The Black Gangster Disciple Nation is a gang which was formed on the South-side of Chicago in the late 1960s, by David Barksdale, leader of the Black Disciples, and Larry Hoover, leader of the Supreme Gangsters. The two groups united to form the Black Gangster Disciple Nation .The gang has made...
.
Present-day Woodlawn
The area between 59th and 60th Streets is known as the Midway PlaisanceMidway Plaisance
The Midway Plaisance, also known locally as the Midway, is a park on the South Side of the city of Chicago, Illinois. It is one mile long by 220 yards wide and extends along 59th and 60th streets, joining Washington Park at its east end and Jackson Park at its west end. It divides the Hyde Park...
, incorporating Midway Plaisance North (south of 59th Street) and Midway Plaisance South, north of 60th Street. Now dominated by a green space of low valleys, the Plaisance is widely known as the site of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, in which the green space was to be designated as the Fair location (but was never utilized). The Plaisance is now a well-maintained walking and bike riding thoroughfare amidst the University's campuses. Between 60th and 61st Streets (with Stony Island Avenue to the east and Cottage Grove Avenue to the west) are several of the University's South Campus buildings including: University of Chicago Press, the law quadrangle and law library
University of Chicago Law School
The University of Chicago Law School was founded in 1902 as the graduate school of law at the University of Chicago and is among the most prestigious and selective law schools in the world. The U.S. News & World Report currently ranks it fifth among U.S...
, the School of Social Service Administration
University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration
The School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago is one of the world's leading schools for the training of social workers and researchers in social welfare scholarship, ranking 3rd...
, the Harris School of Public Policy Studies
Harris School of Public Policy Studies
The Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies is the public policy school of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It is one of the top policy schools in the United States. It is located on the University's main campus in Hyde Park...
, the National Opinion Research Center
National Opinion Research Center
NORC at the University of Chicago, established in 1941 as the National Opinion Research Center, is one of the largest and most highly respected social research organizations in the United States. Its corporate headquarters are located on the University of Chicago campus...
, the Center for Research Libraries, and Chapin Hall. Some of the University's faculty and several hundred of its graduate and undergraduate students live south of 60th Street in University-owned real estate and dormitories, as well as in privately owned residences.
Woodlawn has made great strides into stabilizing as a neighborhood and community. There are many new hopeful developments and infill projects as greater education and more stable income slowly drips back into the area. The University of Chicago formerly had a "stance" on the neighboring communities to help inform students of stable and safe areas. Namely, students were encouraged to avoid any area south of 60th Street. Before officially abandoning such "stances," the University's stance on Woodlawn changed to allow that it was a generally stable and safe area, which seems to match a general trend of the improvement of the South Side of Chicago. Yet, at the same time, some at the University argue that the best policy towards Woodlawn should be one of showing no economic quarter to those who oppose the Universities' expansion. Subsequently, there exists a level of tension between some of the residents of Woodlawn against the University, despite a long standing promise by the University not to expand south of 61st.
To replace the decaying Shoreland Hotel
Shoreland Hotel
The Shoreland is a former hotel in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. It was added to the United States National Register of Historic Places in 1986...
, the University of Chicago began construction in the summer of 2006 on a new fourteen-story residence hall on the corner of 61st St. and Ellis. The new residence was designed with input from residents of both Hyde Park and Woodlawn and was explicitly designed so as to minimize possible alienation of the Woodlawn community (which could occur via blank walls, etc.). Some see this as an attempt by the University to encroach upon Woodlawn, but it remains to be seen how this new development will affect Woodlawn residents. University police patrols extend two blocks farther south than the new dormitory, to 64th Street.
Jackson Park
Jackson ParkJackson Park (Chicago)
Jackson Park is a 500 acre park on Chicago's South Side, located at 6401 South Stony Island Avenue in the Woodlawn community area. It extends into the South Shore and Hyde Park community areas, bordering Lake Michigan and several South Side neighborhoods...
is a 500 acre (2 km²) park on Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
in the neighborhoods of Woodlawn, Hyde Park
Hyde Park, Chicago
Hyde Park, located on the South Side of the City of Chicago, in Cook County, Illinois, United States and seven miles south of the Chicago Loop, is a Chicago neighborhood and one of 77 Chicago community areas. It is home to the University of Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, the Museum of Science...
, and boadering South Shore
South Shore, Chicago
South Shore is one of 77 well-defined community areas of the City of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. A predominately black neighborhood located along Chicago's southern lakefront, it is a relatively stable and gentrifying neighborhood...
.
The land for Jackson Park was set aside in the 1870s. The area was originally a "rough, tangled stretch of bog and dune" until it was transformed by Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
, the architect of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
. The park is connected by the Midway Plaisance
Midway Plaisance
The Midway Plaisance, also known locally as the Midway, is a park on the South Side of the city of Chicago, Illinois. It is one mile long by 220 yards wide and extends along 59th and 60th streets, joining Washington Park at its east end and Jackson Park at its west end. It divides the Hyde Park...
to Washington Park on Woodlawn's North end.
Jackson Park's moment in the sun was the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
. For this event, hundreds of acres of undeveloped park was turned into the spectacular, but temporary, Beaux-Arts "White City."
Some sites worth visiting are the pleasant Osaka Garden, the Jackson Park Golf Course, the gilded Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor. His best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Life and career:...
statue Republic (a replica of a much larger statue built for the Columbian Exposition), several lagoons, one of which features the Wooded Isle, and the 63rd Street Beach with its magnificent beach house.