Stately and elegant, red brick with white trim, partly obscured by a row of trees, the house has nothing to set it apart from the other homes on this affluent residential block of Kenwood. Except that it is protected. In the driveway there is always a black SUV. At the end of the street, where University Avenue meets Hyde Park Boulevard, a black sedan is parked behind a long wall of waist-high concrete barriers and metal pipe fences. The blockade reaches along the street, across the sidewalks and back on the other side, enclosing half a city block in each direction. At every entrance, a blue metal sign covered with yellow and white letters declares in English and Spanish: ATTENTION: BY ENTERING THIS AREA YOU ARE CONSENTING TO A SEARCH OF YOUR PERSON AND BELONGINGS.

Barack Obama doesn’t live here anymore, but his presence does. Read the rest of this entry »

Erika Allen, Chicago project manager of the urban agriculture nonprofit Growing Power, Inc., spoke last Friday at the KAM Isaiah Israel synagogue about the organization’s recent efforts to increase food quality and food literacy within Chicago communities. Growing Power was founded in 1993 in Milwaukee as an urban agriculture development and youth outreach program that teaches communities how to grow wholesome food easily and efficiently. The organization hosts a variety of workshops, training sessions, and community garden projects. Read the rest of this entry »

Hyde Park can sometimes seem like its own little world. In fact, it hosted one near the beginning of its existence: The World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, which attracted over 20 million people in six months, was held on the Midway Plaisance and in Jackson Park. Meanwhile, at the western end of the Midway, the nascent University of Chicago had just completed its first year of classes. Over the next 60 years, the rest of the neighborhood grew up around the expanding university and the hotels, transportation network, and neoclassical museum left behind by the World’s Fair. In the 1950s, two more events changed the course of the neighborhood forever: urban renewal and integration. Disturbed by the level of crime that came with Hyde Park’s status as a South Side entertainment destination, the University, in cooperation with the city and the federal government, managed to level almost all of the bars, nightclubs, and music venues that formerly lined 55th Street. Meanwhile, neighborhood residents united in the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference to try to ease the transition to a racially diverse neighborhood. From the looks of today’s Hyde Park, they seem to have succeeded: Where racial succession, riots, and gang warfare devastated other South Side neighborhoods, Hyde Park is a stable, tight-knit community that was ranked the third most diverse neighborhood in the city by a 2008 DePaul study. North of Hyde Park Boulevard lies Kenwood, a neighborhood whose leafy southern half, south of 47th Street, includes mansions and celebrities (Louis Farrakhan, Barack Obama) that are often grouped with Hyde Park. Read the rest of this entry »

The Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference celebrated its 60th anniversary on Wednesday with “Challenging the Next Decade,” a forum devoted to discussing the future of the Hyde Park community. As Hyde Park was confronted by issues of integration and the community’s deteriorating infrastructure in the late 1940s, the HPKCC was formed to “confer and figure out a way to make integration work,” said HPKCC board member James W. Withrow in his opening speech. The main task of the Conference, according to Withrow, has been to set forth a vision for Hyde Park as “an interracial community of high standards.” Read the rest of this entry »

Education administrators in business suits are gathered, miniature complimentary bottles of San Pellegrino in hand. This is the “CPS Senior Staff Retreat,” and at the front of the Gleacher Center meeting room sits Ron Huberman, the newly-ordained CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, recently transferred by Mayor Daley from his position as the head of the Chicago Transit Authority. The meeting is nearly at an end, but first Huberman approaches the podium and declares his delight in introducing two final speakers, who turn out to be administrators from the CTA. As the woman at the podium begins to describe in-depth the methods of reducing gap times between city buses, I turn to look at the faces around me, searching for signs of incredulity or disbelief to match my own. Read the rest of this entry »

The Chicago Neighborhood Tours website boasts that Hyde Park and Kenwood are “where lakefront vistas, ancient history, architecture and Nobel Prizes meet.” Now that Senator Obama, who used to be the neighbor of thousands of proud South Side residents, has become President Obama, the tour company offers the opportunity to “admire distinctively designed dwellings in President Obama’s Kenwood neighborhood.” Read the rest of this entry »

On November 4, a small group of Hyde Parkers voted the 5th Ward’s 39th precinct dry, effectively canceling plans to replace the decrepit Doctors Hospital with Hyde Park’s first real hotel. Fortunately, a host of alternative lodging options exist around the neighborhood. Why stay at the boring old Ramada at 49th and Lake Shore when you can relax in the comfort of someone else’s home, in an old-fashioned bed & breakfast? Read the rest of this entry »

East 47th Street has had more closings than openings in recent years, but after a few exhausting months of preparation, Zaleski & Horvath MarketCafe opened last month to the delight of the neighborhood. Named after a couple of the owner’s grandparents, Z&H is a small storefront grocery with a deli counter and a few tables. Owners Tim and Karen Schau have lived in the nearby Washington Park neighborhood for eight years and were tired of leaving the area for everyday items, so Tim sold his part in 57th Street’s Istria Café in favor of a new project. They invited Sam and Jess Darrigrand to join them in opening the neighborhood grocery and café. Z&H has high expectations of itself, emphasizing locally produced foods, sustainability, and knowledgeable, neighborly service. The deli and café are outstanding enough to cultivate fans far beyond the borders of the neighborhood. Read the rest of this entry »