Washington Park, Woodlawn

Woodlawn, Washington Park continued...

So Woodlawn remains strong of spirit.

"We are an organized community," says Ingrid Silmon, director of the Woodlawn Organization's Family Life Center. "We get things done." Including much new mid-price housing, particularly along 63rd Street.

That street, once the commercial heart of the neighborhood, has lost much of its retail, but west of those new houses, under the 'L' tracks near the corner of 63rd Street and Cottage Grove, is Daley's Restaurant. It began life as Daley's Lunch Room back in 1892 -- no relation to the mayors -- and these days its whole catfish, ribs and perfect waffles draw crowds.

Two handsome Woodlawn churches, back-to-back off 64th Street, deserve a look. First Presbyterian Church, on Kimbark Avenue, was Chicago's first chartered church, tracing its existence to 1833, the year the city became a city. The present building dates to 1928; urbanologists will be interested in the church's historic relationship with the Blackstone Rangers, a 1960s street gang whose role in Woodlawn is too complicated to get into here but shouldn't be ignored.

The other church: Shrine of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, on Woodlawn Avenue, which opened in 1923 as St. Gelasius Catholic Church. It's a functioning church (traditional Latin liturgy) undergoing an ambitious interior restoration.

The Washington Park neighborhood, to visitors, is important for the namesake park (named for George, not late mayor Harold) and, more so, for the museum within it.

The park's conception belongs to Frederick Law Olmsted and his partner, and despite changes (the original blueprints were lost in the 1871 Great Chicago Fire) resembles other Olmsted projects, with lagoons and boulevards along with playing fields. Daniel Burnham's architectural firm designed the Refectory (used mainly for private events), stables (under renovation) and the administration building -- now home of the DuSable Museum of African American History.

The museum's permanent galleries feature displays related to African culture, the civil rights movement and the role of African Americans in America's armed forces from the revolution onward; temporary and traveling exhibits make repeat visits a must.

Also here: a life-size, robotic Harold Washington that addresses visitors from his re-created office and introduces a video showing highlights of his election and tenure as mayor.

At Washington Park's eastern gateway is "Fountain of Time," Loredo Taft's 127-foot-long concrete sculpture featuring Father Time watching over 100 other figures, in various situations, presumably heading toward a common fate. It is an important, in some ways startling work, much restored (time hasn't been kind) and a major factor in the park's designation as a United States Registered Historic District.

The sculpture was dedicated in 1922 -- which gives it a link to Harold Washington and a Hall of Fame ballplayer, and brings us back to Woodlawn .

Chicago is a great cemetery town, and Woodlawn's Oak Woods Cemetery (entrance on 67th Street near Cottage Grove Avenue, open daily, visitors welcome) may be the neighborhood's most fascinating tourist site.

Jesse Owens, the great star of the 1936 Olympics, is at rest here, as is Capone-era Mayor William Hale "Big Bill" Thompson and the Rueckheim brothers, who brought Cracker Jack to the world. Enrico Fermi. Ida B. Wells. More, famous and not. Also here: an estimated 6,000 Confederate soldiers who perished, mostly from disease, at Camp Douglas, a Union prisoner of war camp near the east end of 35th Street (Bronzeville neighborhood). A monument at Confederate Mound is guarded by cannons.

Now, from 1876 to 1897, Adrian "Cap" Anson played brilliantly for and eventually managed the team that would become the Chicago Cubs.

Anson, a notorious racist and blamed by some for keeping the Major Leagues all-white until 1947, is buried in Oak Woods Cemetery. He died in 1922.

Buried not far from Anson: Harold Washington. Chicago's first African American mayor was born in -- 1922.

Time, sometimes, sculpts interesting things...

For more information about Woodlawn/Washington Park, please contact the Washington Park Consortium (773.324.7592) or the Woodlawn New Communities Program (773.363.4300).