Creating a Promising Future for North Lawndale

by Suzanne Hanney

Driving around the North Lawndale neighborhood, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived during his Chicago Freedom Movement of 1966, StreetWise Vendor A. Allen was so impressed by its greystone two-flats and tree-lined boulevards that he said he’d like to live there.

That was good news to Richard Townsell, executive director of Lawndale Christian Development Corporation and co-chair of the Housing Committee of the North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council (NLCCC), which won a Chicago Neighborhood Development Award (CNDA) last summer for its Quality of Life Plan: “North Lawndale, The Next Chapter.” NLCCC gathered roughly 700 people focused on disinvestment in their Southwest Side neighborhood and broke the issue down via 13 committees focused on housing, economic and workforce development, transportation & infrastructure, arts & culture, and more. The North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN) won yet another CNDA for its transformation of the shuttered Community Bank of North Lawndale into its workforce training center, rooftop apiary, production center for Sweet Beginnings honey products and Wintrust Bank branch.

“For the first time in years, community residents came together and developed a plan for what we want to see happen,” Townsell said of the NLCCC plan in a telephone interview. “This document is our blueprint, but we are looking for the resources to implement the plan.

Townsell

Norvell's Photography

“Unfortunately, in Chicago, because of scarce resources, we’re in a ‘poverty Olympics’ with other neighborhoods. Things have gotten so run down we’re in competition with Englewood and Auburn Gresham and East Garfield as opposed to how do we think about it collectively. Yet on December 15 we just passed an $858 billion [federal] defense bill; that’s bigger than what the next nine countries – China, India, United Kingdom, Russia, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan and South Korea -- spent on defense combined ($777 billion) in 2021.

“How much of that could be used in a plan like this in North Lawndale and in Englewood and in South Shore and in Austin to rebuild neighborhoods that have been devastated since Dr. [Martin Luther] King Jr.’s assassination?”

The CNDA nevertheless means that North Lawndale is making progress. In September 2021, the Chicago City Council approved an agreement with the Department of Housing and Lawndale Christian Development Corporation (LCDC)-Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives for the sale of 250 City-owned parcels in North Lawndale for $1 each under the Reclaiming Chicago Initiative. The idea is for families to build generational wealth and equity in the community and to return properties to the tax rolls.

Earlier that year, in March 2021, ground was broken on two model homes privately owned by LCDC as part of a movement to build homes working families could afford. The three-bedroom homes at 1621 and 1623 S. Avers sold for $260,000 and $280,000, respectively. LCDC is working on 14 more foundations and two more models, Townsell said.

The former bank now houses a state-of-the-art workforce development center

Tom Harris photos

Beelove Cafe rooftop apiary, Sweet Beginnings, and a Wintrust Bank branch

Tom Harris photos

“We’re excited the City has come up with the subsidy to take care of all the infrastructure,” he said. “The City is paying for new water lines, new sewer lines. We just have to pay for the vertical; the foundation is there. We pay for everything above ground. That’s how we’ve made this home more affordable for working families, for people to have an opportunity for ownership not to get pushed out of their neighborhood, to have equity. It will also mean affordable housing in North Lawndale will open up for other folks.”

A state-of-the-art school to help people in the trades – specifically carpentry – is also a goal. “We’ve got a building we’ve acquired. We still need the City Colleges to run it. There is not a robust vocational education system in the city of Chicago, particularly at a time when there are young people who are loaded up with debt at universities.”

Too many programs teach “soft skills” like how to write a resume and do an interview, he said, but afterward, does the applicant know how to hang 10 sheets of drywall?

“Other folks come to this country from countries with vibrant trade systems, with skills, [so] I am suggesting we work on the skill side. Industry is graying. What is it about our training that is making it hard to engage, unless we really don’t want to help the people we say we want to help?"

Lawndale was home to Sears corporate headquarters until 1973, with the move to Sears Tower downtown. Allstate Insurance, a Sears spinoff, was also located there. Other former employers were Ryerson Steel and to the west, the Western Electric plant in Cicero that made telephone equipment. International Harvester had two farm equipment plants to the southeast: the McCormick Works at Blue Island and Western Avenue and the Reaper Works at 26th and Oakley. All of these plants are gone, largely because of obsolescence.

The Ryerson Steel sign on Ogden Avenue remains, but the buildings behind it comprise Cinespace Chicago, the biggest independent movie studio outside Hollywood: the home of "Chicago Fire," "Chicago P.D.," "Chicago Med," and where "Shameless," "The Chi" and "Empire" have also been filmed. Next door is the major Lagunitas Chicago brewery.

The neighborhood’s major employer is Sinai Health Systems, Townsell said, along with Lawndale Christian Health Center, St. Anthony Hospital and Access Community Health Network. The neighborhood is also close to the Illinois Medical District.

The cover of "North Lawndale: The Next Chapter"