South Shore, Chicago

South Shore is one of 77 well-defined community areas of the City of Chicago, IL. A predominately black neighborhood located along Chicago's southern lakefront; it has become more diverse in recent years. It is a relatively stable and gentrifying neighborhood that has been long neglected. Michelle Obama, wife of 2008 Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama, grew up in South Shore.

The jewel of the neighborhood is the South Shore Cultural Center, previously The South Shore Country Club, which began as a lakefront retreat for the wealthiest of Chicago’s movers and shakers. Marshall and Fox, architects of the Drake, Blackstone, and Edgewater Beach Hotels, were hired to design an opulent, Mediterranean-style clubhouse for a membership that included Chicago's most prominent families. The grounds provided private stables and members-only beach, and golf course. Tennis, horseback riding, and skeet shooting were enjoyed by guests the likes of Jean Harlow, Will Rogers, and Amelia Earhart. Between the first and second World Wars, a housing boom brought a development of luxury cooperative apartments and mansions to the neighborhood surrounding the club. In 1974 the club held its last members-only event. Today, the Chicago Park District owns the property. It has been restored to its original design and is now open to the public.

At the northern end of South Shore is the historic district Jackson Park Highlands which is one of Chicago's greatest examples of structural history and 19th-Century architecture, with an abundance of homes in the style of American Four-Square, Colonial Revival, and Renaissance Revival on suburban sized lots.

Located in the Bryn Mawr section of South Shore is the Allan Miller House located at 7121 South Paxton Avenue. Commissioned by advertising executive Allan Miller, this home is an excellent example of Prairie-style architecture. Built in 1915, it is Chicago’s only surviving building designed by John Van Bergen, a former member of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture firm.

Neighborhoods

Jackson Park

Jackson Park is a 500 acre (2 km²) park on Chicago's South Side, bordering Lake Michigan and the neighborhoods of Hyde Park and Woodlawn.

The land for Jackson Park and its sister Washington 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.

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."

Everything from the World's Columbian Exposition has been demolished except the old Palace of Fine Arts, which is now the Museum of Science and Industry and the Japanese garden on the Wooded Isle.

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), and several lagoons, one of which features the Wooded Isle.

Jackson Park is connected by the Midway Plaisance to Washington Park. In accordance with a canal that Olmsted wanted built between the two parks, a long excavation was made on the Midway; but water has never been allowed in.

Jackson Park Highlands is the neighborhood that goes along with the park. Its homes were built in the early 20th century by some of the most notable architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright. Home prices range from $300,000 to $1.8 million. Many of the homes are tri-level and have anywhere from two to seven bedrooms. Some of the more "modern" features of the neighborhood at the time where to exclude alleys and set the homes further back from the sidewalk. Also, Jackson Park Highlands portrays home styles from around the world which explains the different types of houses seen on various streets. Some of the notable Chicagoans that have resided in the Highlands include James Montgomery, Ramsey Lewis, Bo Diddley and Rev. Jesse Jackson. Jackson Park Highlands is currently home to Judge Greg Mathis.

External links

* [http://egov.cityofchicago.org/webportal/COCWebPortal/COC_ATTACH/Community_Areas_SOUTH_SHORE.pdf Official City of Chicago South Shore Community Map]

Notes

Geographic Location 2
Center = South Shore, Chicago
ENE = Lake Michigan
Southeast = South Chicago, Chicago
Southwest = Avalon Park, Chicago
West = Greater Grand Crossing, Chicago
Northwest = Woodlawn, Chicago