South Shore, Chicago
South Shore is an African American neighborhood, located on Chicago's southern lakefront. It is a relatively stable and gentrifying neighborhood that has generally been long neglected. Many middle-class African Americans have re-settled in the neighborhood, restoring some of the most beautiful homes on the city's south side. Luxury condominium conversions are plentiful.
The jewel of the neighborhood is the South Shore Cultural Center, previously a country club. The South Shore Country Club 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 a private stable, beach, and golf course. Tennis, horseback riding, and skeet shooting were enjoyed by guests the likes of Jean Harlow, Will Rogers, and Amelia Earhardt. Between the first and second World Wars, a housing boom brought the 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 loveliest troves 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.
| Community Area 43 - South Shore Chicago Community Area 43 - South Shore Location within the city of Chicago | ||
| Latitude Longitude |
41°45.6′N 87°34.8′W / 41.7600°N 87.5800°W | |
| Neighborhoods |
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| ZIP Code | 60649 | |
| Area | 7.69 km² (2.97 mi²) | |
| Population (2000) Density |
61,556 (up 0.06% from 1990) 8,002.3 /km² | |
| Demographics | White Black Hispanic Asian Other |
1.14% 95.5% 1.03% 0.14% 1.18% |
| Median income | $37,748 | |
| Source: U.S. Census, Record Information Services | ||
Recently, a Starbucks has opened up shop in South Shore, which has generally been a healthy indicator for an area's economic development.
South Shore has always been a popular neighborhood among the African American community because of its proximity to downtown Chicago.
Parks
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 1870's. 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.
