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Austin
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Neighborhood Promotion and Neighborhood Map Thumbnail
Explore This Neighborhood
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Austin continued...
Renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen's designs can be appreciated in many of Chicago's grandest parks -- Jensen put the babble in the Garfield Park Conservatory's brooks, and he tweaked existing designs in Humboldt and Douglas Parks, among others -- but Columbus Park, in Austin, was his baby, and it shows.
This, a National Historic Landmark, is a park with berms and brooks and Prairie Style character throughout, along with a 9-hole links-style golf course (also Jensen's design) and the requisite ball fields.
Midway Park is not a park but a parkway -- a calm residential street (calm despite being just a block north of the CTA Green Line 'L' tracks) with a grassy median. It also happens to be the heart of the Austin Historic District, listed on the National Register, and with reason.
On this street, and on Race Avenue a block north, is a collection of homes that represent the vision of top architects of the late 1890s and early 1900s, including John Chubb, Robert Hyde, Holabird & Roche, John Krall and four houses by Frederick R. Schock.
One of the Schock homes (at the northwest corner of Midway Park and Menard Avenue) was the architect's own residence and a must-see. He threw everything into it -- rock, shingles, leaded glass and other elements -- while somehow retaining the Queen Anne essentials.
Out of the district but just a few blocks away, on Central Avenue near Madison Street, is Walser House (1903), a Frank Lloyd Wright design that's unmistakably a Frank Lloyd Wright design. That it's on this busy street surrounded by apartments and across from a schoolyard makes it a wonder that it's survived all these years, but here it is.
A bonus: A short walk from Walser House, on Madison Street, is MacArthur's Restaurant, a soul-food cafeteria that, though relatively new (established 1997 across the street, moved here a few years later to accommodate the crowds), has established itself as an Austin destination. While waiting in line -- especially long after church services and funerals -- it's fun trying to identify the celebrity-customers in the gallery of 8-by-10s along the wall. (Hint: Shaquille O'Neal is the tall guy. Another hint: Try the ham hocks.)
The neighborhood's churches rival the residences as architectural attractions. St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church was St. Thomas Aquinas when its cornerstone was set in place on Washington Street in 1923; by any name, this English Gothic church with Austin's tallest bell tower is a beauty (especially from the inside). Though smaller, the interior of Our Lady of Frechou, home church of Fraternite Notre Dame (502 N. Central Ave.), is no less ornate within.
Assumption Greek Orthodox Church, on Central Avenue near the south end of Columbus Park, is a splendid example of the Byzantine style.
And finally, about the Austin Town Hall. It was built in 1929, 30 years after Austin was annexed by Chicago, on land that was home in 1870 to the seat of the government of Cicero Township.
How all this resulted in what today is essentially a park field house that looks like it belongs in Philadelphia would be of little interest to visitors; more interesting is that the architects who designed it, Michaelsen and Rognstad, also designed the Pui Tak Center (formerly the On Leong Chinese Merchant's Association Building) in the Chinatown neighborhood.
In a city as diverse as Chicago, versatility always has paid off.
For more information about Austin, please contact:
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