From the outset, the Lawson YMCA Hotel , named after donor Victor Lawson, was intended to be the crown jewel of the city YMCAs, a building that would turn people’s heads as they walked down the street and, more importantly, entice them to stay there, rather than in the pricier nearby hotels.
So architectural firm Perkins & Hammond planned a sumptuous art deco building replete with intricately carved panels on the facade, polished marble and gleaming mirrors in the Y’s entryway. The firm topped off the building, named after donor Victor Lawson, with a red neon sign rivaling those of nearby hotels.
The plan seemed to work. Men, famous and not so famous, flocked to the Art Deco building when it opened in 1931. The Chicago Bulls and Chicago Bears stayed there while they were training, as did men who would later become judges.
That was then, this is now. The Lawson YMCA Hotel (now Lawson House YMCA) suffered a serious downturn in the 1980s and is no longer an outpost for the moneyed elite. But that has been true of all YMCAs.
“We went from a hotel concept to a life development concept,” says Tino Mantella, president of the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago. All YMCAs now have a case manager to help residents. “The room becomes secondary, and our social services are our primary focus,” he says.
With that life development concept in mind, the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago has established an ambitious capital campaign to build five new YMCAs and restore or expand 22 existing buildings. Citywide, those restorations have included the Lawson House YMCA, and the Y’s MCAs on South Wabash Avenue, at Lincoln and Belmont Avenues, on Irving Park Road, and in the Austin neighborhood.
These restorations are important because the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) is the largest provider of single-room-occupancy (SRO) housing in the state, with six housing facilities in the city and two in the suburbs for a total of 2,500 rooms. (The YMCAs also provide some housing for seniors and adolescents.)
The restorations at Lawson and on Wabash Avenue happen to be the most significant because they are historic buildings. The Wabash Avenue YMCA, at 3745 S. Wabash Ave., is a national and local landmark.
In both cases, the restorations also extended to a new, revamped mission for these buildings.
The restoration of the Wabash Y could be considered a part of the overall renaissance of the historic Bronzeville neighborhood. Constructed in 1912, it was the first YMCA to aid the growing number of African-Americans who migrated from the South in search of jobs. But this Y didn’t just provide housing; it also provided many social and cultural programs for migrants.
“It wasn’t exactly the Harlem Renaissance, but it did provide some artistic and music programs,” says Paula Lupkin, an assistant professor at the School of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. One visible reminder of the building’s cultural legacy is the Works Progress Administration (WPA) mural in the building’s ballroom. Created by master muralist William Edward Scott, the Depression-era artwork depicts African-Americans in a variety of life’s activities, including scenes from work, sports and education.
The Wabash Avenue YMCA was closed in the 1960s, and eventually sold to the church next door, St. Thomas Episcopal. The building languished for years, until it was designated a national and city landmark in the 1990s.
St. Thomas Episcopal formed a coalition with three other churches to form Wabash “Y” Renaissance Corp. Together the churches raised $10.8 million. Building planners revamped its 130 rooms, making them bigger. They now contain kitchenettes and baths.
“They’re like efficiencies,” says executive director Pat Abrams. The building will reopen in the fall as the Renaissance Apartments Fitness for Life Center.
The new center, which will provide 101 units, has already received more than 700 applications. Members of the staff have whittled down the applications to 150 who they believe will be accepted for Section 8 government-subsidized housing.
The Metropolitan YMCA is leasing back for $1 the center’s first and second floors. It will establish a fitness-health center and a community learning center on those floors.
Still unfinished, the building has already received enthusiastic support from neighbors who laud the center’s goals.
“Our goal is self-sufficiency,” says Abrams. “Most of our residents come from city shelters. They don’t have jobs.”
Like its Bronzeville counterpart, the Lawson House YMCA languished in the increasingly gentrified River North neighborhood.
Just a few blocks east, a new hotel is under construction and new stores abound around nearby Michigan Avenue. With all that new construction, it became a priority for the YMCA to reinvigorate itself. Officials decided to convert the building into an 583-room SRO, a high-class one at that. But they wanted to the restoration to enhance the building’s art deco appearance.
The Lawson building was one of the few begun before the stock market crash of 1929 and completed as planned.
“There were no short-cuts,” says architect Walker Johnson.
So the exteriors and interiors are exquisite. The third-floor period rooms include a log cabin room. “When you walk in you feel like you’re in the North Woods,” says Johnson. There also is an art deco chapel and a ship’s cabin. The rooms were all constructed when the YMCA formed a boy’s club.
Lawson YMCA Hotel even opened a vocational training facility a few blocks west on Chicago Avenue. The building still exists.
Opportunities abounded for men at Lawson in all age groups.
“I talked to a lot of men in their 50s and 60s who stayed at the Lawson YMCA when they first arrived in Chicago,” says Lupkin.
Architects simply modernized the building for the most part, replacing windows, adding air conditioning. The special period rooms were left untouched.
Lawson House has essentially returned to its original mission by becoming an SRO facility and providing a range of social and health services. But not just anyone can rent a room there.
Potential residents must undergo a criminal background check and have a clean rental history. They must earn less than $26,000 (an income level established by the City of Chicago) in order to live at Lawson.
“Most people earn $15,000 or less annually,” says John Lafley, Lawson’s executive director. Lawson staffers also assess the potential resident’s ability to live independently.
Those who fit the criteria typically have lived in a homeless shelter at some point. A Lawson survey showed that 85 percent of that Y’s population had been homeless in the last five years.
Fifty rooms are set aside for retirees on a fixed income of $7,800 or less. “My projection is that you’re going to find a larger number of people who fall into this category as the population grays,” says Lafley.
Lawson House is more than 94 percent rented. “Our goal is to rebuild lives,” says Lafley. “Sometimes that means taking on a person who needs a subsidy. They eventually get off the subsidy and leave Lawson. It’s a neat thing.”
Most recently, Lawson House has opened an on-site primary-care center in partnership with Northwestern Memorial Hospital, providing psychiatric and health care.
Probably the most visible sign of Lawson’s success has been the Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Shop, an ice cream store on the first floor. Ben & Jerry’s gave the franchise to the YMCA. The opening of Ben & Jerry’s was significant, says Lafley.
“It changed a lot of community minds about what it is that Lawson does.”
