Washington Park Court District
Encyclopedia
Grand Boulevard, Chicago
Grand Boulevard, located on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, is one of the well-defined Chicago Community Areas. The boulevard from which the community area takes its name now bears the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive...
community area
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...
neighborhood on the South Side
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 Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. It was designated a Chicago Landmark
Chicago Landmark
Chicago Landmark is a designation of the Mayor of Chicago and the Chicago City Council for historic buildings and other sites in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Listed sites are selected after meeting a combination of criteria, including historical, economic, architectural, artistic, cultural,...
on October 2, 1991. Despite its name, it is not located within either the Washington Park community area or the Washington Park
Washington Park (Chicago park)
On December 6, 1879, former U.S. President Ulysses Grant took part in a tree planting ceremony in the park. A memorial boulder with a plaque commemorated the event. In the 1920s black semiprofessional baseball teams played at Washington Park...
park, but is one block north of both. The district was named for the Park.
The district includes row houses built between 1895 and 1905, with addresses of 4900–4959 South Washington Park Court and 417–439 East 50th Street. Many of the houses share architectural features. The neighborhood was part of the early twentieth century segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
ist racial covenant wave that swept Chicago following the Great Migration
Great Migration (African American)
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...
. The community area has continued to be almost exclusively African American since the 1930s.
Architecture
Washington Park Court, which runs one-wayOne-way traffic
One-way traffic is traffic that moves in a single direction. A one-way street is a street either facilitating only one-way traffic, or designed to direct vehicles to move in one direction.-General signs:...
northbound from East 50th Street to East 49th Street, is a one-city block
City block
A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern of a city, they form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric...
-long street located at 432 east in the Chicago street numbering system. Officially, it runs from 4900 south to 5060 south in the numbering system. The street and several adjacent homes at one end are recognized as a distinct district within the city, according to the City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development. In May 1990, the district was one of ten that were under consideration for Chicago Landmark status, and it was designated a Chicago Landmark on October 2, 1991. The district was named for the Park, which was designed by landscape architect
Landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...
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 T. G. Dickinson Real Estate Company, which created the subdivision in 1892, mandated 10 feet (3 m) setback
Setback (architecture)
A setback, sometimes called step-back, is a step-like recession in a wall. Setbacks were initially used for structural reasons, but now are often mandated by land use codes.-History:...
s for all properties and originally sold lots in small groups of two or three. Between 1895 and 1905, the tone of the district became clear with the development of its row houses. In 1990, the district contained forty-nine row houses that span a wide variety of architectural styles including Classical Revival and Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...
. As of 2004, the district contained fifty-one properties. The street hosts residential designs of architect Henry Newhouse and of developers Andrew and John Dubach. At least twenty-five of the lots were developed by the Dubaches and at least twelve of the properties were designed by Newhouse. Their architectural contributions set the tone for the block, which uses mostly brick
Brick
A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...
and limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
houses that share porch
Porch
A porch is external to the walls of the main building proper, but may be enclosed by screen, latticework, broad windows, or other light frame walls extending from the main structure.There are various styles of porches, all of which depend on the architectural tradition of its location...
and cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
lines. Most houses have mansard
Mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...
s or recessed roofs with bay
Bay window
A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room, either square or polygonal in plan. The angles most commonly used on the inside corners of the bay are 90, 135 and 150 degrees. Bay windows are often associated with Victorian architecture...
fronts.
Demographic change
Between 1900 and 1934 the African American population in Chicago grew from 30,000 to 236,000. The population was initially diluted in scattered places, but during this time, due to the change in the demographics of ChicagoDemographics of Chicago
During its first century as a city, Chicago grew at a rate that ranked among the fastest growing in the world. Within the span of forty years, the city's population grew from slightly under 30,000 to over 1 million by 1890...
, it became concentrated in two large strips of land. The racial concentration was enforced by violence for few decades, until restrictive covenants became the preferred way to enforce segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
. Although they were previously rare, racially restrictive covenants among property owners that outlawed the purchase, lease, or occupation of their properties by African Americans became common in Chicago in the 1920s following the Great Migration
Great Migration (African American)
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...
, especially after the 1926 United States Supreme Court upheld racially restrictive covenants in Corrigan v. Buckley .
During the first half of the 20th Century, The Black Belt
Black Belt (region of Chicago)
The history of African Americans in Chicago dates back to Jean Baptiste Point du Sable’s trading activities in the 1780s. Du Sable is the city's founder. Fugitive slaves and freedmen established the city’s first black community in the 1840s...
was the term for the African American neighborhood from 22nd Street to 31st Street along State Street
State Street (Chicago)
State Street is a large south-north street in Chicago, Illinois, USA and its south suburbs. It begins on the Near North Side at North Avenue. For much of its course, it lies between Wabash Avenue on the east and Dearborn Street/Lafayette Avenue on the west...
on Chicago's South Side. South Side local businessmen and the 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...
became alarmed at the prospect of poorer blacks moving from the Black Belt due to a combination of racial succession and economic decline. Because 85% of Chicago was covenanted, most black neighborhoods were bounded by covenanted areas. The Washington Park Court Improvement Association changed its focus from neighborhood improvement projects, such as planting shrubs and cleaning streets, to upholding segregationist policies. When necessary, the organization resorted to violence to pursue its segregationist purpose, and between 1917 and 1921, bombs were used to discourage encroachment into majority white neighborhoods. The bombs were used at the residences of African Americans as well as the properties of real estate agents and bankers.
Eventually the term Black Belt included the region from 39th Street to 95th Street between the Dan Ryan Expressway
Dan Ryan Expressway
The Dan Ryan is an expressway in the city of Chicago that runs from the Circle Interchange with I-290 near downtown Chicago through the South Side of the city. It is designated as both Interstate 94 and Interstate 90 south to 66th Street, a distance of...
and 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...
. Since the 1930 United States Census, the Grand Boulevard community area has been over 90% African American. In both the 1960 and 1990 Census, the community area was over 99% African American. As of the 2000 Census, the area was 98.2% African American and 0.8% Hispanic.