North Lawndale

North Lawndale continued...

That’s not to say that North Lawndale is a neighborhood of the past. Douglas Park is here, one of Chicago's handsomest green spaces. Whole blocks are composed of classic greystones, while pockets of new housing are cause for optimism.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived here -- briefly, but he was here, at an important time. Cobra Records may be forgotten, but it was here -- again, briefly -- but the music made in that studio helped make Chicago and "blues" inseparable to the world.

And there's more . . .

"Benny Goodman made his debut at the Central Park Theater," says John Ross, director at the Murphy Hill Art Gallery, which is in the Garfield Park neighborhood but is spiritually (being steps north of the dividing line) in North Lawndale. Goodman is one of the locals celebrated in the gallery's exhibit honoring North Lawndale. "This was a Jewish neighborhood."

The Central Park, an early movie palace, was at 3535 W. Roosevelt Rd. It opened in 1917, and it's still here, in North Lawndale; it's been the House of Prayer, Church of God in Christ since 1971.

Goodman could have walked to the theater with his clarinet. He lived less than a mile away. The house, at 1125 S. Francisco Ave., is gone; the city has erected a marker at the spot. Across the street: a church that once was a small synagogue.

Golda Meir, who worked at a neighborhood library and would later become prime minister of Israel, lived at 1306 S. Lawndale Ave. Her apartment, though the building is vacant, is there. Across 13th Street and likely visible from Meir's front window is a church that was once a small synagogue.

Douglas Park, one of a trio of grand parks created in the 19th Century (Garfield and Humboldt Parks the others), is at the community's eastern gateway. Landscape architect Jens Jensen, a Danish immigrant and proponent of the Prairie Style popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright, left his signature on all three parks -- nowhere more clearly than with this park's Flower Hall, which is pure Prairie down to its exterior light fixtures.

Greystones are everywhere. A concentration of well-maintained beauties can be seen on the 1500 block of South Central Park Avenue.

Musical history was made here. From 1956 through 1959, Cobra Records (Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Willie Dixon, Ike Turner) produced enduring blues recordings in the building at 2854 W. Roosevelt Rd. One of its hits: Rush's "I Can't Quit You, Baby." The building now doesn't look like much of anything, but the music lives on.

Singer Dinah Washington lived in the neighborhood, at 1508 S. Trumbull Ave. The building stands. As an established star, she would come home to perform in a 1958 benefit at the Lawndale Theatre, another Roosevelt Road movie palace four blocks west of the Central Park.

The Lawndale. For a time, it was the Rena -- but it was the Lawndale when opened in 1927. Among those who performed in this 2,200-seat theater before it went strictly to movies were the biggest names in Yiddish theater -- Aaron Lebedeff, Molly Picon and more. It's still here, in North Lawndale, though even the church it became has checked out.

In 1966, Dr. King lived in the neighborhood, in an apartment at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave., when he was in the city to campaign for open housing. That building is gone [the new Dr. King Legacy Apartments, dedicated in April 2011, proudly stands in its place]  -- but the church on whose steps he spoke during that turbulent time in 1966 is still here, at 3413 W. Douglas Blvd.

When Dr. King was here, it was Shepards Temple Baptist Church. It is shuttered. Years earlier, it was Anshe Kanesses Israel Synagogue -- the "Russiche Shul" -- longtime home of Talmudic scholar Rabbi Ephraim Epstein. But the synagogue long ago moved north with its congregation, to Touhy Avenue in West Rogers Park/ West Ridge.

Once there were an estimated 60 synagogues in North Lawndale. Of those standing, none is a synagogue anymore.

It's something to see . . .