Kenwood, Oakland

The South Side neighborhood of Kenwood is a wonderful place to experience some of Chicago’s oldest and most beautiful homes. 19th century mansions were home to Chicago’s wealthiest industrialists and merchants, including William Rand of Rand McNally; Julius Rosenwald, founder of Sears, Roebuck; and meatpacker Gustavus Swift. Over the decades, residences were built in the Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Italianate and Prairie School styles, making Kenwood one of the most architecturally diverse and historically significant neighborhoods in Chicago. A number of prominent architects are represented in the area, including the Blossom House (4858 S. Kenwood) designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

By the middle of the 20th century, many of the stately homes had been subdivided into apartments and fallen into disrepair. The neighborhood experienced a revival in the 1980s and 1990s as families, attracted by Kenwood’s proximity to both Hyde Park and downtown Chicago, began buying the homes and restoring them to their former glory. Kenwood's renaissance has also been spurred by the election of its most famous resident, President Barack Obama, and the re-opening of the Hyde Park Art Center as one of the oldest alternative exhibition venues in the city.

To the north, the predominant residential community of Oakland is home to the former Abraham Lincoln Center, a social service center for the defunct All Souls Church and now home to Northeastern Illinois University’s Center for Inner City Studies. The Center was originally begun by Jenkin Lloyd Jones, and designed by his nephew, Frank Lloyd Wright. Only the interior of the building, however, retains Wright’s design after his uncle that of the exterior. 

Located throughout the city, Chicago Tribute Markers of Distinction commemorate where notable Chicagoans lived and worked. Four markers located in Kenwood/Oakland honor former Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck, Sears Roebuck executive Julius Rosenwald, architect Louis Sullivan and blues legend McKinley “Muddy Waters” Morganfield.