Each year since 2003, Preservation Chicago has highlighted historical places or objects — including churches, schools, warehouse districts and even wooden double-hung windows — that could be lost to demolition if action is not taken to restore them.
These are more than 100 locations considered endangered by the group. Some have been highlighted multiple times during the past two decades.
One place on the 2026 list is St. Mary of the Assumption Church and School on the city’s Far South Side, which has been vacant and deteriorating for 15 years.
But Preservation Chicago is hoping the ascension of south suburban Dolton native Robert Francis Prevost, who was named last year to head the Catholic Church, may resurrect the buildings where the future Pope Leo XIV once attended school and served as an altar boy.
Robert Prevost was ‘the pride and joy of every priest and nun’ at St. Mary’s on Chicago’s South Side
“We have the opportunity to restore a building tied to the first-ever American pope in history, who happens to also be from Chicago,” Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago said. “The whole idea of bringing this back and celebrating this as (an) historic site may really help a neighborhood that’s seen just so much disinvestment over that last half century.”
Sources: Preservation Chicago; Tribune reporting and archives
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