City, community appreciate Bronzeville's landmarks
By Lisa R.
Jenkins
While the Bronzeville community continues to receive a real-estate makeover, its surviving landmarks are recognized and appreciated not only for their construction but for their history.
Bronzeville’s Black Metropolis, an area bordered by 31st Street to the north, State Street to the west, King Drive to the east, and 38th Street to the south, is home to nine noteworthy historic structures.
This area stands out because it provided African-Americans with alternate commercial real estate opportunities when racial restrictions were rampant. Several phenomenal African-American men and women strongly supported development in an area that received an influx of roughly 75,000 new residents when Blacks from the South came to the North in search of better lives for their families in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Civil rights activist Ida B. Wells; Bessie Coleman, the first African American woman pilot; and Andrew "Rube" Foster, founder of the Negro National Baseball League, are just a few of the notables who contributed to making Bronzeville a vibrant community.
With that history in mind, the City's Department of Planning and Development's Landmarks Division in 1998 conferred landmark status on Black Metropolis’s nine historic structures.
Some of Bronzeville's significant buildings remain vacant, but some have been restored or repurposed. Concerning the latter, Chicago Commission on Landmarks Chairman David Mosena said, "Diverse projects like these demonstrate the important contributions that building owners make to the preservation of our city's rich historic and architectural heritage."
The oldest
of the nine is Unity Hall at 3140 S. Indiana Ave., built in 1887 by
architect L.B. Dixon to house the Lakeside Club, a Jewish social
organization. In 1917 it was renamed when the political group the Peoples
Movement Club moved in. Oscar Stanton DePriest, the first African American
elected to the City Council and the first Black living in the North to be
elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, was its leader.
One of the most recognized of the nine Black Metropolis landmarks is the original site of the Chicago Defender newspaper at 3435 S. Indiana Ave. Designed by Henry Newhouse as a Jewish synagogue, the 1899 structure was home to the Defender from 1920 until 1960. Robert Sengstacke Abbott founded the Defender in 1905, and it was a popular media outlet for African Americans throughout the country during the Great Migration of the early 20th century. The Defender now is located at 200 S. Michigan Ave.
Alfred Schartz and Sobel Drieman built The Sunset Café, located at 315 E. 35th St., in 1909. Initially designed as an automotive garage, it was remodeled in 1921 and became one of the city’s earliest and most notable jazz clubs. Music greats such as Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, and Earl “Fatha” Hines often appeared with Sunset Café's house orchestra.
The Sunset Café remained the "it" spot for jazz fans until 1950, when it became home to the Second Ward Regular Democratic Organization. It has housed an Ace Hardware store since the 1970s.
Built between 1911 and 1913 by Robert C. Berlin at 3763 S. Wabash Ave., the Wabash YMCA also was supportive of African Americans during the Great Migration as they left their lives in the South for the unknown in the North. The building once was home to the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which was started in 1915 as one of the first groups devoted to African American studies. The Y stayed there until 1969; the building was sold to St. Thomas Episcopal Church in 1982. St. Thomas continued the Y’s social service mission, and the site reopened as the Wabash Street YMCA in 2000.
Another notable first in African American history was the Eighth Regiment Armory, the first armory in the U.S. built specifically for an African American military regiment, also known as the Fighting Eighth. Constructed in 1914 by James B. Dubelka, the armory sits at 3533 S. Giles Ave.
After becoming part of the Illinois National Guard, the Fighting Eighth was incorporated into the 370th U.S. Infantry during World War I. It was the last regiment to drive German forces from the Aisne-marne region before the armistice on November 11, 1918. After closing in the early 1960s, the armory housed the South Central Gymnasium and in 1999, after a massive $18.5 million renovation, it became home to the Bronzeville Military Academy.
A structure from 1921 built by Albert Anis, the Supreme Life Building, recently received a makeover. Located on the southeast corner of 3500 S. King Drive, it was the site of the first Black-owned and operated insurance company in the North. Arkansas native Frank L. Gillespie founded the Liberty Life Insurance Company in 1919, and after occupying a section of the second floor, Liberty Life partnered with two out-of-town insurance firms and formed the Supreme Life Insurance Company of America. After standing vacant for years, the building became home to the Bronzeville Visitors Information Center in March.
An enterprising young African-American, Anthony Overton, was the brains behind some of Bronzeville's historic sites. One is the Overton Hygienic Building, located at 3619 S. State St. This site was home to the Overton Hygienic Company, one of the top producers of African American cosmetics, in the 1930s. Overton headquartered his other businesses in the Chicago Bee Building at 3647 S. State St.; the Chicago Bee newspaper folded in the 1940s. Z. Earl Smith built these structures for Overton in 1922 and 1929, respectively. The Chicago Bee building has been home to the Chicago Bee Branch of the Chicago Public Library since 1996.
Victory
Monument, at 35th Street and King Drive,
was built in 1926 by John A. Nyden as a tribute to the achievements of the
Eighth Regiment of the Illinois National Guard. Dedicated on Armistice Day
in 1928, the site continues to host the community's annual Memorial Day
celebrations. Leonard Crunelle added the bronze panels and the soldier on
top in 1936. For more information on these and other landmarks
around Chicago, visit
www.cityofchicago.org/
Landmarks.
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