Caryl Yasko's Labor of Love

posted by Elizabeth Fama

If you passed by the 55th Street mural, Under City Stone (c. 1972), last summer, you might have seen the artist, Caryl Yasko working to restore it. She spent several weeks there, if I'm not mistaken. All I know is that in less time, my daughter painted a mural of a pod of hippos and an entire African landscape on all four of her bathroom walls. I'm not sure who is funding the restoration, but as of March, 2008, the Chicago Public Art Group was still trying to find a donor for its repair. Perhaps Ms. Yasko was donating her time.

You can see from the water on the ground that this mural gets a fair amount of weathering. The new steel frame "bent" system that supports the viaduct does not prevent seepage. In the middle of winter, there was a gigantic icicle spitefully crawling down the middle of the restored section of the mural.

In short: this particular wall is not suited for lasting mural art. Either that, or someone needs to maintain it almost annually. But how about this instead: maybe the mural artists should rotate, and we should accept that it's an impermanent art form? Or, if it's cheaper, maybe we can put up panel art, as is slated for the 53rd Street viaduct, and we can actually rotate the pieces periodically, rather than be tied to the art trends of the past?

Personally, I'm in the mood for hippos.

Ding Dong, Orisha's Dead!

Bobcat S250 Skid-Steer Loader with HB1180 Hydraulic Breaker in action.

Some residents along 55th Street near Harper Ave. were awakened at 7:26 AM on Saturday morning by the sound of heavy machinery. But this cacophony was welcome, because it heralded the long-awaited end of a neighborhood eyesore.

Straddling the border between the 4th and 5th wards, Orisha Wall was erected in 1986 by artist Muneer Bahauddeen, via funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for "Community Development Block Grant activities." Not a handsome piece to begin with, Orisha was built with unsuitable materials for the outdoors (concrete covered with glazed ceramic tiles), and quickly began to crack, chip, and crumble. Despite pleas from residents, neither alderman seemed willing or able to remove the sculpture. To read all about how Hyde Park Progress inspired Irene Sherr to doggedly seek the sculpture's removal (at a ridiculous DOT price tag of $18,600), read this post.

Ah, progress! Break out the bubbly.

ALERT: Sculpture on 55th Near Harper in Danger!

posted by chicago pop

Why is this person dancing? Because the wrecking crews were out this morning tearing up everything around Orisha wall. Or, last time we checked, everything except the sculpture itself.

But don't worry, we checked with the responsibles, and we can assure you: it's coming down. The city has its own way of doing things, but it will happen.


So our reaction is: Yay! Finally! Happy dance!

I hope nobody is too shocked: we announced the doom of this sculpture back in May 2008, where the tangled history of the case is laid out. But of course, not everybody reads this blog, which is why it was good of the Tribune to run the story, too ("Hyde Park sculpture to come down without controversy," June 11, 2008).

Hooray!

Fama's Photos

Beth's photo essays sum things up, get things moving, and sometimes make them go away. Beauty and the Beast sparked the first big discussion of the Co-Op -- and of anything, for that matter -- on HPP. The outpouring of opinion on this topic was but a sign of things to come.

Hyde Park Anti-Progress brought attention to a severely deteriorated and unsightly piece of public art on 55th Street. As a result, and after much labor on the part of a number of sympathetic Hyde Parkers, this sculpture is slated to be removed.

That's progress.

****

Beauty and the Beast

(Originally posted by Elizabeth Fama on Saturday, August 27, 2007)

Photo taken on Friday, August 23, 2007 in a newly-opened store approximately 12 minutes north of Hyde Park by car (I can't mention the name, because the Team Members asked me very politely not to take photos after I snapped this one):


Photo (below) taken on Saturday, August 25, 2007, in the only supermarket in Hyde Park. Their slogan: "A love affair with wonderful foods." Comment: unrequited. Their previous slogan: "Dedicated to outrageous service." Wait...OK, yeah, this one is correct.

Hyde Park Anti-Progress

(Originally posted by Elizabeth Fama on Monday, August 6, 2007)

What is this, and when will it go away?

(location: 55th Street and Harper Ave.)

We all clean our closets once a year -- maybe once every couple of years. Aw, heck, I'm even OK with every three or four years; we lead busy lives after all. So, here's the dilemma when the clutter is "public art": who decides when it has served its useful life?

This wasn't a successful sculpture when it went up. It's disgraceful, now that it has crumbled to bits and is growing tree-sized weeds. Even the steel posts that were installed to protect it are rusting.

If Hyde Park had a metaphorical "husband" somewhere, we'd tell him to drag it out to the alley for garbage pickup.

Celebrate! Orisha Wall is Coming Down.

posted by Elizabeth Fama

Thank goodness -- no, thank Irene Sherr -- the dilapidated sculpture on the 55th Street median just west of Harper Avenue is finally going to be removed.

Orisha Wall by Muneer Bahauddeen, 1986

Soon to be demolished.

There's no date set for its removal yet, but it's official. The City of Chicago Department of Transportation has sent a letter to the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce requiring its removal.

How did this happen? I'm glad you asked.

1) Irene Sherr's interest was piqued because the bloggers at Hyde Park Progress were foaming at the mouth about this sculpture, and about the fact that, since it straddles the line of the 4th and the 5th ward, neither alderman seemed willing or able to tear it down.

2) Because she's a woman of action, Irene contacted a lawyer specializing in art and artists, and dug around for documentation on the sculptures.

3) Here's what she found:

a) The City of Chicago received funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1986 for "Community Development Block Grant activities."

b) The Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce requested money for public art, and specifically for two sculptures -- the one that's coming down, and another created by Matt Freedman, that sits in Harper Court:

People Watching by Matthew Freedman, 1986.

(Interesting aside: Matt was paid less than half of what Muneer was paid. In fact, Matt was paid less than the amount it will take to remove Muneer's sculpture.)

c) As part of the 1986 grant agreement, the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce was to keep at minimum $2,300 in escrow for the maintenance of the sculptures, or for their removal if the City requested it for any reason in the future.

4) Irene spoke with Jim Poueymirou at the Chamber of Commerce and with Robert Mason, at the Southeast Chicago Commission (SECC). Everyone agreed that something needed to be done, although another source told me that the Chamber initially thought maybe the sculpture should be saved and moved to an inside location (oy vay).

5) The SECC wrote a letter to the 4th and 5th ward aldermen, who both asked the Department of Transportation to check the condition of the sculpture.

6) The DOT wrote a letter to the Chamber saying "Due to the deteriorated state of the statue, the City requests that the Chamber either repair the statue or remove it from the property and restore the site." In that letter, the DOT estimated that the cost of removing the sculpture and restoring the median (which DOT will do) will come to $18,600.

7) Out of politeness (not a legal requirement), someone notified Mr. Bahauddeen that Orisha Wall was slated to be removed. He was disappointed. Apparently he has decided the decay is part of the artistic statement.

8) The Chamber of Commerce checked its coffers, and discovered -- oops -- there's only $1,200 in the escrow account.

9) Alderman Preckwinkle and Hairston offered to pay $9,000 each from their 2008 menu money.

10) The DOT says that removal and restoration of the median should occur this spring, this fall, or at the latest, next spring.

Post Script: in taking the second photo, I noticed that Matt Freedman's bronze sculpture, which is doing far better than Orisha Wall, is nonetheless in need of maintenance, or it too will begin to fall apart.

Um, Irene,...are you up for Round Two?

Retire and Rotate, Part I

posted by Elizabeth Fama

This is a sculpture called Judith and Holofernes:

It moved around a few times after Donatello created it, sometime between 1455 and 1460. In 1495 it was placed in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, as a symbol of the freedom of Florence from the tyrrany of the Medici. But by 1504 it had been moved inside the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, and another sculpture took its place:

Not too shabby. You see, for the longest time the Italians were not afraid of moving their public art around, or retiring it and replacing it with something else. Sure, the pace of rotation and retirement may have slowed, now that sculptors aren't making pieces of the quality of The David, and now that Florence is almost exclusively a tourist town. All those visitors need to be able to find the attractions, after all.

But Hyde Park is not a tourist town. We're not pleasing anyone but ourselves with public art. We should feel free to retire and rotate.

Take the mural, Under City Stone, for example (on which I have previously ranted here). Jon Pounds of the Chicago Public Art Group (CPAG) is raising funds to refurbish it. The rubric used to judge the merit of murals, according to Pounds, is "connection with the community, historic importance, and impact on other muralists." But this neglects what I believe are the more important standards of aesthetic beauty, artistic training, and current fondness by the community. (The historic importance he refers to is the fact that Caryl Yasko was one of the founders of the outdoor mural movement.)

Under City Stone (painted in 1973), and the artist, Caryl Yasko, with her recent indoor mural in the Manitowoc Public Library (photo credit [right]: Patrick J. Young, for the City of Manitowoc).

Here's the thing about murals, historic or not: they decompose. Paintings have to be inside buildings with a controlled climate to last for decades or centuries. Does Jon Pounds hope we'll refurbish Under City Stone every 35 years ad infinitum? I'd be in favor of letting someone else have a shot at it right now. That would be more in the spirit of the "outdoor art" movement, anyway.

If anyone is feeling sentimental about these installations, maybe the Hyde Park Historical Society and the CPAG can be persuaded to document them in photographs and paperwork, and display them in a small exhibit.

Another of our eyesores, the sculpture called Orisha Wall (1986) on the 55th Street median, was especially fragile to the elements and started deteriorating immediately after it was installed. By 1992 it was already listed in the category "treatment urgent" by a committee called Save Outdoor Sculpture. And here's why: the darned thing is made of glazed, kiln-fired tiles, attached to a concrete base with tile wall cement, and then grouted. Another sculpture installed at the very same time (Matt Freedman's Watching People, in Harper Court) is made out of a more traditional outdoor material -- bronze -- and has withstood the elements.

Orisha Wall (erected in 1986), and its artist, Muneer Bahauddeen (photo of Mr. Bahauddeen [right] reproduced with permission of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.)

This is a close-up of Orisha Wall -- a portion on which the glazed tiles are completely missing:

And here are some glazed ceramic tiles that Mr. Bahauddeen recently installed on the Marquette Interchange in Wisconsin:

(reproduced with permission of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation)

I sure hope the tiles are covered from the elements, or the sponsors of the Interchange beautification project will have a crumbling mess on their hands as well.

That is, unless they understand and embrace the Hyde Park Progress principle of "retire and rotate."

When Public Art Goes Bad

...WHO WILL STEP UP TO THE PLATE AND RETIRE IT?

posted by Elizabeth Fama

Some of our readers may be entrenched enough in Hyde Park to remember the Virginio Ferrari* sculpture that was in front of Woodward Court (now the home of the Graduate School of Business's Harper Center). It looked something like this when it was in one piece:

summer, 2004

I searched up and down on the Internet, and I could not find a photo of it in situ in its glory days. Even Virginio Ferrari has decided not to put it in his online portfolio. I did track down the actual sculpture, however, and it's living a modest but comfortable life in a little mechanical graveyard behind the steam plant on 60th and Blackstone. It looks like this:

January, 2008

You see, this sculpture happily served its useful life. It adorned the front of an ugly, squat dorm without upstaging it; over the years it supported thousands of college students reading a book between classes or flirting a bit; it even let a little girl climb on it nearly daily in the late 1970s on her way to the Laboratory Schools (as if she wasn't late enough). When it's useful life was over -- voila! -- the private owner (i.e. the University) simply retired it.

The sculpture below is publicly owned, so apparently, in spite of our pleas, it can't be removed.

And the mural below is not only publicly owned, but heaven help us, local and national organizations are fighting to refurbish it...whether we like it or not.


The Getty Foundation says, "The qualities that make these murals so distinctive -- their outdoor locations and the materials used to create them -- can hasten their disintegration and decay." Well, duh. That's why we should consider them transient art, and either give someone else a shot at the wall (in my opinion, a classically trained artist), or re-think the visual design of our underpasses entirely.

*2019 Edit: It has come to my attention (through an astute reader) that the duct-like sculpture shown at the top of this post was not created by Virginio Ferrari, but by Buky Schwartz. Since this post was originally published, the pieces have been moved to 60th and Cottage Grove (visible on a satellite image). 

Zeno's Paradox: Do Classically Trained Public Muralists Exist?

posted by Elizabeth Fama

A recent headline in the Hyde Park Herald caught my eye. It's a second appeal for information leading to the whereabouts of Albert Zeno, the muralist who created "Alewives and Mercury Fish," an amateurish piece of public art that graces the southern wall of the 55th Street Metra underpass.

I don't want to sound mean about this -- I genuinely hope that Albert Zeno is alive and well. And if the Chicago Public Art Group does find him, I hope Mr. Zeno has spent the intervening years studying at the Chicago School of Representational Art,* for the sake of us all.

* SORA's motto: "Life without art is unimaginable. Art without study is unattainable."

Who You Gonna Call?

posted by Elizabeth Fama

Put down your pick axes, pick up the phone!

Just so it doesn't get lost in the comments, here's the contact information for the 4th and 5th ward aldermen, in case you want to call or write to them to request that they remove the sculpture on 55th Street near Harper:

Leslie Hairston: 773-324-5555, lhairston@cityofchicago.org
Toni Preckwinkle: 773-536-8103, tpreckwinkle@cityofchicago.org

If there's something strange
in your neighborhood
Who ya gonna call?
YOUR ALDERMAN!

If there's something weird
and it don't look good
Who ya gonna call?
YOUR ALDERMAN!

Hyde Park Anti-Progress

posted by Elizabeth Fama

Ahh...the 55th Street and Lake Park repaving project is nearly complete: the street is shiny and black, waiting for fresh lines and a new median; the construction barricades are down; the Metra underpass has free-flowing lanes again...



But, hey! What happened? Why is this still here?!


I thought we all agreed that it needed to be hauled out for garbage pick-up? And isn't this the perfect opportunity to do it -- when the crews are preparing to build a fresh median anyway?


So I thought I'd call the appropriate alderman to ask for its removal. But observe the crazy maps of the 4th and 5th wards:

At first I thought the sculpture was halfway between the two wards, but now I think it might be in that little "bump out" that's in Ms. Hairston's domain. Neither office is open on a Saturday, so the burning question will have to wait until Monday.

But maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe the two aldermen would have a stronger voice than one alone.

"Ms. Preckwinkle and Ms. Hairston, tear down this sculpture."

Don't make us get our hammers and chisels out, like the Berlin Wall. Just do the right thing.

Beauty and the Beast: Part 2

posted by chicago pop

Old timers may remember one of the first views of Hyde Park as you came round the bend at 51st Street southbound on Lake Shore Drive used to be a rather twee little pipe that sputtered water like the arteries of a severed limb into an algae-cloaked pond. Seemed, in its own way, to say a lot about the neighborhood.

Alas, 'tis no more, and for this we give thanks.

A few weeks ago our little boat pond, long languishing in a northeastern corner of Harold Washington Park, welcomed this curious, though not unattractive, gold-plated weather vane with what looks to be a rooster solidly perched on top. Aesthetes among us may recognize the handiwork of internationally renowned artist Virginio Ferrari, who has left his sculptural deposits in front of Pick Hall, as well as the Lab School, and Wylers Children's Hospital.

Transported from its former location at Ravinia, this obelisque-esque needle is a gift of Regent's Park owner Bruce Clinton to the neighborhood. Together with the refurbishing of the boat pond, and the new landscaping immediately surrounding it, this is a great improvement of a highly visible neighborhood asset.

Now, if only we could see it! After some reconnaissance, it seems that the sculpture is, somewhat contrary to our principles here at HPP, auto-oriented, in that its best views are to be had from the Drive, and then at either dawn or dusk, when the sculpture's golden skein begins to glow. A jog down the path near 51st Street offers those on foot the best views. From most other perspectives, it is rather overwhelmed by the expanse of the pond. Squinting our eyes on a balmy late summer afternoon, however, it was possible to think we were in the Luxembourg Gardens, where there really are little Parisian boys who really do have toy boats, and are able to float them without climbing over a fence. Daniel Burnham would be in ecstasy at the resemblance.

Medusa at Rest

But we'll take it! It is, after all, quantum leaps above this beast, the portrait of a welder's nightmare in tubing. Another of the insults to civic beauty lining 55th Street, this hangover from an orgy in the welding shop of disgruntled Streets and Sanitation workers sprouts like some wicked mushroom in a half-crescent, neglected pond in Nichols Park.

We don't know who made it, what it's called, or how much was wasted to commission and install it. It stands as a monument to the axiom that, if enough people dig into their pockets and chip in, every neighborhood can adorn itself with really bad art. This corner is windswept and vacant, like other portions of this badly laid out though valuable park, about which more to be said later.

Nichols Park, and Hyde Park, deserve better than this.

Hyde Park Anti-Progress: Part II

Take a Deep Breath. It's Time for a Discussion About Murals.

When we talked about this gem, I pointed out a dilemma with public art: who decides when it has served its useful life?

At the risk of being publicly excoriated, I'm going to talk about murals. Murals that some of you may love.

But before we start I want to make sure you understand: I'm not a white wall fanatic. I'm not a gated-community board-member type who likes to tell people what color to paint the trim on their houses.

I LIKE art.

Some of my best friends are artists.

And yet...

I think this puppy should go to mural heaven:

The Chicago Public Art group recommends restoration of Under City Stone, although there is currently no funding for it. (The University of Chicago and the Southeast Chicago Commission have arranged funding to refurbish the murals under the 56th Street viaduct [Childhood is Without Prejudice, and Where We Come From...Where We are Going].) But even if there were thousands of dollars available I just can't see how restoration would work on this one, and whether we should spend money that way. After all, the above section is one of the only ones you can still see.

Most of it looks like this:

And this:


I suppose that professional restorers have found Rembrandts under paintings of dogs playing poker and have successfully, painstakingly brought the masterpiece to life.

But will you flay me for saying this isn't a Rembrandt? I mean, look at that guy's head in the middle of the segment below -- the guy who's tilting his face up, with the underbite (you may click the photo to enlarge). He looks like a cartoon next to everyone else. What's with THAT?


There are entire sections that are blocked out, to cover up tagging, so someone will have to find archived photos to try to reproduce what was there...

On the east end, the metra tracks leak onto the wall, so that the image AND whatever tagging was there are completely obliterated:

Here's what I think, taking as given that there are either public funds or private donations aplenty for public art (which there aren't):

1) We should consider outdoor murals to be temporary in nature. They're not inside the Sistine Chapel, after all -- they're exposed to the elements, to the railway drippings from above, and to taggers who ought to be ashamed.

2) We should periodically paint the slate clean and give another artist a shot at temporary fame.

3) We should subject potential artists to a competition in order to choose folks with genuine talent. If I'm on the panel, I'll vote for representational artists. But I'd better not be on the panel, because it should be professional artists -- not a neighborhood committee -- who do the picking.

4) We should make it clear to the artist that his work is temporary, so that he won't get all huffy when it's time for it to go.

5) We can document the different murals over time through extensive photos. Perhaps the Hyde Park Antiquarian Society would take on this job.

A Little Bit about the Mural:


In all the years Under City Stone has been up I've never read the poem above those poor downtrodden, mostly pregnant folks. To tell you the truth, as a kid I avoided looking at the mural at all, because it seemed to want desperately to disturb me, and I refused to comply. Besides, I always seem to be walking in the wrong direction or on the wrong side to actually read it, or I was in a car going west under the viaduct.

The artist is Caryl Yasko, who (through the ever trusty Google search) seems to be alive and well in Wisconsin.

The text is a poem by James Agee (1909 - 1955), with a fairly grim message about the alienation of commuting by subway -- a message I don't much agree with, after driving around L.A. in my car for a year (that's alienation).

Rapid Transit
(c. 1937)


Squealing under city stone
The millions on the millions run,
Every one a life alone,
Every one a soul undone:


There all the poisons of the heart
Branch and abound like whirling brooks
And there through every useless art
Like spoiled meats on a butcher's hooks


Pour forth upon their frightful kind
The faces of each ruined child:
The wrecked demeanors of the mind
That now is tamed, and once was wild.

Monster Rally To Save Doctors Hospital

Enormous Crowds Throng to the Defense of Historic Hospital

Chicago Police and Park District Security were overwhelmed by a recent rally in defense of the threatened Doctoral Hospital on Stony Island Avenue. Mounted police, half a dozen Segway Units, and aerial surveillance helicopters were all dispatched to maintain order as the crowds, which police estimated to peak at around 10 to 15,000 people, virtually shut down 57th Street and Stony Island.

Preservationists from around the nation continued to arrive by the busload throughout the morning, at one point roaring so loudly that the speakers -- all 23 Board members of the Hyde Park Antiquarian Society -- could not be heard above the tumult. As the crowd spilled over into nearby Jackson Park and the sun began to set, many protesters could be heard asking locals, "Does anyone know where we can find a good hotel?"

Hyde Park Anti-Progress

What is this, and when will it go away?

(location: 55th Street and Harper Ave.)

We all clean our closets once a year -- maybe once every couple of years. Aw, heck, I'm even OK with every three or four years; we lead busy lives after all. So, here's the dilemma when the clutter is "public art": who decides when it has served its useful life?

This wasn't a successful sculpture when it went up. It's disgraceful, now that it has crumbled to bits and is growing tree-sized weeds. Even the steel posts that were installed to protect it are rusting.

If Hyde Park had a metaphorical "husband" somewhere, we'd tell him to drag it out to the alley for garbage pickup.

Harper Court: Commercial Death Trap

What would you say if someone told you that their business had experienced a 60% jump in profitability after changing locations? Probably: "Ah, you finally moved out of Harper Court!"

That's exactly what happened to Toys Et Cetera since moving in February 2007. Not only has the move increased revenues for the toy store, it has generated a spill-over effect for neighboring merchants at its new location on 55th St. To quote The Herald ("New tenants in shopping center spark sales", July 25, 2007):

Antwan Chandler, manager for Wesley's Shoe Corral, 1506 E. 55th St., said since Toys Et Cetera moved in there has been a dramatic improvement in business.

So here we have a small business that obviously has solid fundamentals, solid enough to give a boost to its neighbors. What can we learn from this?

Harper Court is the Bermuda Triangle for small businesses. What tenant is going to look at the Toys Et Cetera example and want to locate there? Harper Court currently has all the features needed to scare away shoppers: it is run-down, its tenants have very little relation to each other (someone visiting to buy a burrito might not necessarily want to rent a bike or arrange for a catered event), and its design is outdated and unappealing. Frankly, it's always a little scary to walk around the weird "sunken courtyard," one of those bizzare public space concepts from the 60s that should never have happened.

There is a future for Harper Court, but in its present incarnation it is a commercial death trap.

Why Hyde Park Progress?

Why Hyde Park Progress?

Simple. Two comments recently overheard in local cafes sum it all up. From a visiting Bay Area academic: "This isn't much of a neighborhood." From a young faculty member of the Social Sciences Division of the University: "It's great for kids, but is basically boring."

I have a home here, am raising a kid here, and went to school here. I occasionally teach for the University. And I think the neighborhood needs to change. I know there are plenty of people who agree. But these are feelings and sentiments that aren't represented by the "establishment voice" of Hyde Park, which is comprised of the Hyde Park Herald, the Hyde Park Historical Society, and various other caretaker community groups. These groups have a demonstrated record of preserving the status quo. They have a poor record of improving on it.

The residents of this neighborhood who feel these institutions do not represent their voice share a few things in common. Above all, they feel that Hyde Park and its surrounding communities need more retail and commercial amenities. This means an openness to change of several sorts: increased street life, which leads to greater neighborhood safety; greater mixture of land uses, together with increased residential densities in newer developments. Many residents agree that the Establishment paranoia regarding change, outsiders, traffic, and congestion are overblown and can be properly managed.

The current Hyde Park Establishment, which sees itself as steward of the neighborhood's essence, is in fact quite removed from it. Hyde Park was not conceived and built as an autarkic community on the model of Chavez's Venezuela or Castro's Cuba. It has been a part of the City and its economy since the development boom of the late 19th century, and was together with the South Side the home to most of the City's wealth and influence. All of this changed after World War II. Racial and social changes, together with Urban Renewal, cut the neighborhood off from its surroundings in an effort to protect it from decline.

This is the status quo that the current Establishment seeks to protect. It was Urban Renewal that drove out the businesses, dead-ended the thoroughfares, and drained the night-life and urbanity from the neighborhood. This is the heritage of which the Establishment is now the steward, and to which they offer no alternatives. The Establishment derides Urban Renewal; but they are the unwitting stewards of its bucolic legacy. Chicago is nowhere near as densely populated as it used to be. Many of its now deserted South Side thoroughfares were bustling with commerce and public transportation as recently as the early 1960s, as much of the North Side is now. The current condition of Hyde Park is a historical aberration by any measure.

Hyde Park Progress thinks there is space for a voice other than that of obstructionism sounded by "community" activism. Hyde Park Progress is a pro-development voice from within the neighborhood which argues that our quality of life is just as dependent on convenient shopping, 24-hour street safety, and urban vitality, as it is upon plentiful parkland and historical architecture, and wants to make the blending of these a priority, not a distant dream.