December 25, 2006

Dear family, friends, relatives, neighbors, associates and acquaintances,

Seasonings Greetings from our staff and volunteers working collaboratively on your behalf at the Bronzevilleonline.com Visitor Information Center (BVIC)!

2006 has been an exciting and fruitful year for Black Metropolis Convention & Tourism Council (BMC&TC). Two years ago BMC&TC forged a Community Benefits Agreement with East Lake Management & Development Corporation that generated a grant of $100,000 that was then matched in 2005 by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) grant.

These two grants supported by the successful launch of a “Double Duty Dollar” grassroots fundraising campaign, enabled BMC&TC to raise the $260,000 necessary to complete the build out of the Bronzevilleonline.com Visitor Information Center (BVIC).

On Friday, June 30the, 2006 BMC&TC and the Black Metropolis National Heritage Area Steering Committee hosted a very well attended and successful “Rededication Reception” in the BVIC on behalf of the restored landmark, Supreme Liberty Life Center.

The “A Love Supreme” reception highlights featured Chicago Native Son and famed actor Harry Lennix’s special reading from ‘Succeeding against the Odds’, the Autobiography of John H. Johnson. In addition, the grand opening event also featured a live on air broadcast from the BVIC, by famed Chicago radio personality Cliff Kelly from WVON. Which resulted in additional $32, 500 being raised to assist us in our mission.

Please take a moment to view www.bronzevilleonline.com, to see important educational/civic engagement and other related social/cultural functions and fundraising activities convened in the BVIC. BMC&TC is most proud to have accommodated social gatherings hosted by a variety of friends, relatives, neighbors, associates and collaborators, that have utilized the visitor information center, gift shop and community planning studio in 2006, as an accessible, affordable, space for Internet access training, civic engagement, cultural enrichment and economic empowerment.

As President/CEO of BMC&TC, I want to personally thank you for your past support and respectfully ask for your year end contribution. Local residents, international tourists and hundreds of students at all grade levels have benefited from culturally specific, heritage tourism initiatives convened in the BVIC.

Don’t forget our year-end fundraiser, the “Double Duty-Buy A Brick” campaign; support the Black Metropolis Convention & Tourism Council’s mission of African-American heritage tourism as a means of economic development and historic preservation by donating to the council. Please make your check payable to BMC&TC, as a not-for-profit 501c3 community based organization your contribution is tax deductible.

As we rapidly close out 2006 with holiday festivities and family gathering celebrations, we hope that you will view and continue to support the Bronzevilleonline.com Visitor Information Center in 2007, as your source that binds the community together by promoting and preserving authentic cultural identities, traditions and values of the historic Bronzeville community.

Sincerely,

Harold L. Lucas
President/CEO

Responsible Hospitality Institute Conference 12/4-12/6

By: Tyson Baker
Hospitality Development Coordinator of the Bronzeville Visitor Information Center

The 2020 Vision Leadership Summit: Planning, Managing and Policing Hospitality Zones conference was a complete success. The conference gave prelude to many new and innovative plans of action in the hospitality industry. Many of the participants were from out of state and gave testament to the density of the RHI as a national group. This year, the national conference was held in Chicago for the first time at the Historic Palmer House - the longest running hotel in America, considered by many to be the crown jewel of Chicago. Although it was cold outside, the topics inside were red hot. Topics ranged from how Magnet projects present a problem and a solution to some many business districts, what Community Policing has done for Hospitality Zones, and how Late-night Integrated Transportation can make the difference in revenue and sales for a Hospitality Zone.

This year’s conference was coordinated by Michelle Joseph; her idea to make the conference fresh by having a talk show style panel discussion received rave reviews not only from the conference participants but from the panelists as well. The panelists sat in at a round table up on stage and spoke to each other about pressing issues and ways forward in the hospitality industry. The talk show style panel discussion was very beneficial to the conference. The panelists talked with each other, which gave insight to their many years of experience expertise.

On the last day of the Conference, participants were able to take advantage of a trolley tour of Chicago’s river north district, on the way to a luncheon at Excalibur night club. The luncheon was sponsored by Ala Carte Entertainment and was on District Life Cycles – A Pilot Program in the 18th district. The panelists consisted of the River North Association, Chris Ryan of the Lodge Management Group, and Harold Lucas of the Black Metropolis Convention & Tourism Council (BMC&TC). The event ended with great resolve in a positive direction for the hospitality industry.

More information on the conference:

Responsible Hospitality Institute hosted a national Leadership Summit in Chicago, December 6th - 9th, 2006 at the Historic Palmer House Hilton Hotel. Published and introduced at the conference was Planning, Managing and Policing Hospitality Zones, A Practical Guide. The summit featured workshops on the following Practical Guide topics: Security, Service and Safety, Community Policing in Hospitality Zones, Future of Music and Entertainment, Multi-use Sidewalks, Late-night Integrated Transportation and Quality of Life. This information on how to nurture and sustain vibrant dining and entertainment districts, preserve the local "authentic" experience, and balance the interests of residents and business for late night activity was the result of 5 years of research by RHI.
The Summit kicked off with a Heritage Music & Entertainment panel in the Empire Room. Musicians, writers, historians, restaurant and club staff from cities which were part of the mid-twentieth century music network that formed the foundation of American music - jazz, blues and gospel - shared stories and discussed management of nightlife districts and what can be done today to revitalize heritage music and entertainment.

Please see http://www.rhiweb.org/network/summit/2006/roundtable/heritage.htm for more information.

Lively panel discussions were also held on Split-Use Districts, Magnet Projects, Heritage Entertainment Districts and District Life Cycles, which featured the Chicago HRP. Individual and team participants attended from such U.S. and Canadian cities as Washington D.C., Boulder, CO., Phoenix, AZ, Norfolk, VA., San Jose, CA., Seattle, WA., Oklahoma City, OK., Delray Beach, FL., Cleveland, OH, Providence, R.I., Baltimore, MD, Windsor, ON, Edmonton, AB, and more.

Please see http://www.rhiweb.org/network/summit for all the program overviews.

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Book Smart vs. Street Smart Panel
at Bronzeville Visitor Information Center

On Wednesday, December 13, 2006, scholar and sociologist Mary Pattillo-McCoy of Northwestern University, novelist and DePaul University faculty member Bayo Ojikutu, and esteemed Chicago poet and radio personality Mario (WHPK-FM), came together to engage the Black Metropolis Archive’s Living From the City Within discussion series. The panelists explored the matter of “anti-intellectualism” – seeking to interpret, contextualize, critique, debate and, in some cases, debunk, the idea and its provocative hold over the Black-American cultural collective. Bolstered by furtive input from an audience of local activists and community residents, the discussion placed anti-intellectualism within a context afforded by America’s founding history, touching upon the impact of the country’s expansion on the understood purpose of education, the ramifications of certain systems of indoctrination, & the revision and dismantling of such systems in post-migratory urban settings. At its culmination, the group raised means by which the cultural preservation activities welling up from communities such as Bronzeville might continue to partake in transcending the limitations implied and imposed by anti-intellectualism as a concept.

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Better bronze
Affordable Woodland Park condos add polish to Bronzeville

December 15, 2006
Chicago Suntimes
Real Estate Section

BY JACOB WHEELER
As real estate prices have risen steadily on the North and West sides of the city, eyes have begun to descend, and wallets to open, in the historical Near South Side neighborhood known as Bronzeville.

Sales have begun at Woodland Park, a condominium conversion in a gated development at 35th and Cottage Grove. Geared to the working people in the neighborhood, the development is a mixture of market value and affordable housing. Within the conversion, 20 percent of the homes are available to those making 100 percent of the median income of $65,000, which is the median income for a family of four in the city.

CityView is financing the equity of this project to the tune of around $5 million, much of which comes from the $500 million it has received from the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS). CityView has its hands in affordable housing developments nationwide, including another project in Pilsen, on little-used industrial land stretching between 16th and 18th streets in a primarily Mexican neighborhood, where homes are scheduled for sale as early as March 2007. Cisneros himself is spearheading the movement to give Latinos, the fastest growing demographic of home buyers nationwide, a slice of the American dream.

His book Casa y Comunidad, which translates to "home and community" offers Realtors tips on marketing to Latinos, such as installing gas stoves in the kitchen because they are the best for making tortillas.

CityView's investment in Bronzeville is part of its general portfolio of urban properties.

Room to grow
As evidenced by a drive east on 35th Street from U.S. Cellular Field toward Lake Michigan, Bronzeville still has room to grow. The route is dotted with long stretches of undeveloped land.
Michael Tobin of Northern Realty sees Woodland Park as part of the revitalization that includes cafes, nightclubs and neighborhood attractions. "This is not a neighborhood of the poorest of the poor," he said. "That was a fallacy in the first place. These are good residents of modest means."

Links: Bronzeville wants city's empty lots

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November 2006

City, community appreciate Bronzeville's landmarks

By Lisa R. Jenkins

While the Bronzeville community continues to receive a real-estate makeover, its surviving landmarks are recognized and appreciated not only for their construction but for their history.

Bronzeville’s Black Metropolis, an area bordered by 31st Street to the north, State Street to the west, King Drive to the east, and 38th Street to the south, is home to nine noteworthy historic structures.

This area stands out because it provided African-Americans with alternate commercial real estate opportunities when racial restrictions were rampant. Several phenomenal African-American men and women strongly supported development in an area that received an influx of roughly 75,000 new residents when Blacks from the South came to the North in search of better lives for their families in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Civil rights activist Ida B. Wells; Bessie Coleman, the first African American woman pilot; and Andrew "Rube" Foster, founder of the Negro National Baseball League, are just a few of the notables who contributed to making Bronzeville a vibrant community.

With that history in mind, the City's Department of Planning and Development's Landmarks Division in 1998 conferred landmark status on Black Metropolis’s nine historic structures.

Some of Bronzeville's significant buildings remain vacant, but some have been restored or repurposed. Concerning the latter, Chicago Commission on Landmarks Chairman David Mosena said, "Diverse projects like these demonstrate the important contributions that building owners make to the preservation of our city's rich historic and architectural heritage."

The oldest of the nine is Unity Hall at 3140 S. Indiana Ave., built in 1887 by architect L.B. Dixon to house the Lakeside Club, a Jewish social organization. In 1917 it was renamed when the political group the Peoples Movement Club moved in. Oscar Stanton DePriest, the first African American elected to the City Council and the first Black living in the North to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, was its leader.

One of the most recognized of the nine Black Metropolis landmarks is the original site of the Chicago Defender newspaper at 3435 S. Indiana Ave. Designed by Henry Newhouse as a Jewish synagogue, the 1899 structure was home to the Defender from 1920 until 1960. Robert Sengstacke Abbott founded the Defender in 1905, and it was a popular media outlet for African Americans throughout the country during the Great Migration of the early 20th century. The Defender now is located at 200 S. Michigan Ave.

Alfred Schartz and Sobel Drieman built The Sunset Café, located at 315 E. 35th St., in 1909. Initially designed as an automotive garage, it was remodeled in 1921 and became one of the city’s earliest and most notable jazz clubs. Music greats such as Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, and Earl “Fatha” Hines often appeared with Sunset Café's house orchestra.

The Sunset Café remained the "it" spot for jazz fans until 1950, when it became home to the Second Ward Regular Democratic Organization. It has housed an Ace Hardware store since the 1970s.

Built between 1911 and 1913 by Robert C. Berlin at 3763 S. Wabash Ave., the Wabash YMCA also was supportive of African Americans during the Great Migration as they left their lives in the South for the unknown in the North. The building once was home to the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which was started in 1915 as one of the first groups devoted to African American studies. The Y stayed there until 1969; the building was sold to St. Thomas Episcopal Church in 1982. St. Thomas continued the Y’s social service mission, and the site reopened as the Wabash Street YMCA in 2000.

Another notable first in African American history was the Eighth Regiment Armory, the first armory in the U.S. built specifically for an African American military regiment, also known as the Fighting Eighth. Constructed in 1914 by James B. Dubelka, the armory sits at 3533 S. Giles Ave.

After becoming part of the Illinois National Guard, the Fighting Eighth was incorporated into the 370th U.S. Infantry during World War I. It was the last regiment to drive German forces from the Aisne-marne region before the armistice on November 11, 1918. After closing in the early 1960s, the armory housed the South Central Gymnasium and in 1999, after a massive $18.5 million renovation, it became home to the Bronzeville Military Academy.

A structure from 1921 built by Albert Anis, the Supreme Life Building, recently received a makeover. Located on the southeast corner of 3500 S. King Drive, it was the site of the first Black-owned and operated insurance company in the North. Arkansas native Frank L. Gillespie founded the Liberty Life Insurance Company in 1919, and after occupying a section of the second floor, Liberty Life partnered with two out-of-town insurance firms and formed the Supreme Life Insurance Company of America. After standing vacant for years, the building became home to the Bronzeville Visitors Information Center in March.

An enterprising young African-American, Anthony Overton, was the brains behind some of Bronzeville's historic sites. One is the Overton Hygienic Building, located at 3619 S. State St. This site was home to the Overton Hygienic Company, one of the top producers of African American cosmetics, in the 1930s. Overton headquartered his other businesses in the Chicago Bee Building at 3647 S. State St.; the Chicago Bee newspaper folded in the 1940s. Z. Earl Smith built these structures for Overton in 1922 and 1929, respectively. The Chicago Bee building has been home to the Chicago Bee Branch of the Chicago Public Library since 1996.

Victory Monument, at 35th Street and King Drive, was built in 1926 by John A. Nyden as a tribute to the achievements of the Eighth Regiment of the Illinois National Guard. Dedicated on Armistice Day in 1928, the site continues to host the community's annual Memorial Day celebrations. Leonard Crunelle added the bronze panels and the soldier on top in 1936. For more information on these and other landmarks around Chicago, visit www.cityofchicago.org/Landmarks.

Article courtesy of http://www.nearwestgazette.com/

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Restrictive Covenants map

Racial Restrictive Covenants on Chicago's South Side in 1947

From 1916 until 1948, racially restrictive covenants were used to keep Chicago's neighborhoods white. In language suggested by the Chicago Real Estate Board, legally binding covenants attached to parcels of land varying in size from city block to large subdivision prohibited African Americans from using, occupying, buying, leasing, or receiving property in those areas. This map stems from one used in a lawsuit (Tovey v. Levy, 1948) that was brought to enforce covenants. It shows that in 1947 covenants covered large parts of the city and, in combination with zones of nonresidential use, almost wholly surrounded the African American residential districts of the period, cutting off corridors of extension. Many of the neighborhoods encumbered with racially restrictive covenants were subsequently settled by African Americans once the covenants had been declared unconstitutional.

Based on a map by Robert Weaver
Source: Newberry Library

The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago © 2005 Chicago Historical Society.
The Encyclopedia of Chicago © 2004 The Newberry Library. All Rights Reserved. Portions are copyrighted by other institutions and individuals. Additional information on copyright and permissions.