Just 50 years ago Lincoln Park was a deteriorating inner-city neighborhood begging for urban renewal.
That day soon came, and the park, zoo, museums, theater, restaurants and culture that its residents enjoy today make Lincoln Park’s journey one worth documenting.
In an effort to tell that story, DePaul University, a key leader in the area’s comeback, spearheaded the Lincoln Park Community Research Initiative in partnership with several Lincoln Park community organizations.
Since its inception in 1998 during DePaul’s centennial celebration, the initiative has collected historical documents now totaling 200,000 sheets of paper, dating to the early 1950s.
The initiative’s goal is to preserve and archive the community history of Lincoln Park, sponsor programs and lectures that highlight Lincoln Park and its residents, and host a Web site that features digital elements of historical materials.
“Lincoln Park is a wonderful story of a run-down, urban neighborhood that experienced an enormous comeback to become a unique community,” said Tom Fuechtmann, executive director of DePaul’s office of community and government relations.
“We want to help the community understand how Lincoln Park took shape and the way the design and structure of urban space determine how people live in a community. We’re doing what a university should do for its community by providing our unique resources in a way that directly serves the community.”
Collection includes maps, posters
DePaul’s resources include the collecting and archiving of historical materials submitted by local community organizations and residents.
The archives are housed in the school’s Richardson Library, 2350 N. Kenmore Ave., and include treasures such as records of the Lincoln Park Conservation Association that date to the 1950s and documents that define the activities of Lincoln Park urban-renewal projects.
Among the archives are histories of academic institutions that helped form the community, including DePaul and the McCormick Theological Seminary, as well as hospitals such as Augustana, Roosevelt, St. Joseph, Grant and Children’s Memorial. Most recently the initiative has collected historical documents dating to when St. Vincent de Paul Church, 1010 W. Webster St., was founded more than 100 years ago.
The collection also includes maps, architectural plans, the urban renewal project of Lincoln Park, photographs, posters, certificates and community awards. The archives feature local newspaper clippings, newsletters and board meeting minutes from community organizations, membership lists of neighborhood groups, records of park organizations, including the Lincoln Park Advisory Council, and the histories of the community written by residents, students and DePaul faculty.
Although materials are still being archived digitally, the public is welcome to review the materials at the library or visit the Web site at www.lib.depaul.edu/speccoll/lpnc.htm.
“We’d love to get more photographs,” said Kathryn DeGraff, archivist and department head of DePaul’s special collections and archives.
She encourages residents to submit pictures of their home when they bought it and of their home today, with the address on the back.
Because DePaul already has the official records of the community, DeGraff is looking for personal memorabilia, records, documents and even letters to neighbors.
“More insights into the early history of Lincoln Park are needed,” she said, particularly of residents and businesses in the community.
From deterioration to urban renewal
During and after World War II, many homes were deteriorating and were converted to boarding houses, forcing many residents to move, fueling a housing boom in the suburbs. Lower-income residents moved into Lincoln Park, and as the economy suffered, many businesses closed or moved elsewhere in the city.
In the years following, Lincoln Park deteriorated, and the city identified the area as a prime candidate for urban renewal in 1956.
The urban-renewal records in the archives offer some of the most significant windows into the creation of Lincoln Park as it is today.
Urban-renewal legislation of the 1950s, at the state and federal levels, mandated a grass-roots organization to represent a conservation area, creating the Lincoln Park Conservation Association. According to its charter, the conservation association represents local interests and acts as a liaison between Lincoln Park residents and agencies of the city, county, state and federal governments. It’s also an umbrella organization for seven Lincoln Park neighborhood associations still operating today.
The efforts of these neighborhood-run organizations, which worked in partnership with major real estate holders such as DePaul and several hospitals, led to the development of today’s Lincoln Park.
Cynthia Bathurst, president of the Lincoln Central Association and an avid researcher of Lincoln Park urban renewal, said that the urban-renewal plan began by emphasizing conservation.
But it also called “for the demolition of a number of structures, creation of parks, converting some streets into pedestrian malls and the widening of other streets,” she said.
Local institutions stay put
Other development plans were pursued, however.
When major institutions such as DePaul and Children’s Memorial were faced with expansion needs, they chose to stay in Lincoln Park.
“These institutions made a commitment to their local community,” DeGraff said, noting that DePaul had been a major real estate holder in Lincoln Park since opening its doors in 1898 as St. Vincent’s College.
When the McCormick Theological Seminary, a stronghold of the community since 1863, decided to move to Hyde Park in 1975, it made way for DePaul’s expansion plans. The university decided to invest in the community and continue to expand its facilities by working with community leaders and neighborhood associations. DeGraff added: “The university had a strong stake in developing the community.”
Other institutions, including St. Vincent’s Church and Center and the Chicago Historical Society, also provided a “stabilizing influence in the community,” Bathurst said.
Lincoln Park High School, a longtime testament to the diversity of Lincoln Park, was also a stabilizing influence in the community. It opened as North Division High School in 1875 and was renamed Waller High School after local businessman Robert A. Waller in 1879.
The name was changed to Lincoln Park High School in 1979, at which point residents persuaded the city to keep this diverse educational institution in Lincoln Park.
These urban-renewal efforts did not go unnoticed by local activists, who routinely demonstrated against Lincoln Park development in the former People’s Park at Armitage and Halsted, also a rallying site of racially motivated and ethnic conflicts during the 1960s.
There were also protests against national chain stores that once planned to build on this lot.
Photos in the collection document these demonstrations.
Urban renewal also dictated the creation of parks to provide gathering places for residents.
Neighborhood associations, the city and the Chicago Park District worked to create Oz Park, named in honor of L. Frank Baum, author of “The Wizard of Oz” and a one-time Lincoln Park resident.
Neighborhood associations continue to support the creation and ongoing renovation of parks in the community such as Lincoln Central, Clover, Trebes, Wrightwood, Mid-North and Jonquil, as well as the playgrounds in Adams and Bauler Parks.
Lincoln Park’s growth continued into the 1980s and ’90s with the development of the Clybourn Avenue corridor. Clybourn, once an industrial zone and buffer for the residential area of Lincoln Park, has become a center for design and home stores.
Associations are still key
With many of the urban-renewal development projects came displacement, higher property values, transportation needs, traffic congestion and parking problems–all issues the neighborhood associations address.
“Neighborhood associations are key to the success of the community because there is a structure there that is well-defined,” said Allan Mellis, vice chairman of the Lincoln Park Conservation Community Council, which was established in 1961 and appointed by the mayor.
Any neighborhood-renewal plan requires approval by the council before it can be enacted by City Council and then by the federal urban-renewal administration.
Associations are comprised of “people who are concerned with the community,” said Mellis, who is a board member of Wrightwood Neighbors Conservation Association and also has the honorary title of “mayor of Lincoln Park.”
“They also provide a way to review plans that are presented by working hand-in-hand with the alderman.”
This partnership with the community and local governmental agencies, he said, continues to offer direction in the development of Lincoln Park. It has led to many residential improvements, the creation of local free trolleys and ongoing discussions to upgrade the Fullerton and North and Clybourn rapid-transit stops to relieve traffic congestion.
`We’re self-sufficient’
History continues in Lincoln Park, ranging from the movement to create landmark status of its architectural gems of the last century to managing new retail and housing development with a balance of renovations.
“If we learn from urban renewal–things were torn down that shouldn’t have been–you have to preserve the character of the neighborhood, because that’s why people want to live here,” Bathurst said.
“We’re not a suburb–we’re urban. But we’re self-sufficient, with museums, parks, industry, wonderful theater, shops and entertainment districts–everything you could possibly want is in Lincoln Park.”
A seminar on Nov. 8 will explore the changing demographics of Lincoln Park, based on recently released census data.
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For more information on the Lincoln Park Community Research Initiative and the seminar, call the DePaul University Office of Community and Governmental Relations at 312-362-8100 or visit the Web site at www.lib.depaul.edu/speccoll/lpnc.htm.
