Start at 53rd St and Hyde Park Boulevard

I decided to start the tour on the corner of 53rd Street and Hyde Park Boulevard because this is really where the story of the Lakefront in Hyde Park begins. This is where Paul Cornell created Hyde Park--as a resort community on the lakefront.

Before we start, turn and look west on 53rd Street.

As of 2009, there's an empty lot where two famous spots in Hyde Park once stood. Ciral's House of Tiki was the last(?) remaining of the dozens of bars that covered Hyde Park during the 1940s, when thousands of servicemen from the Washington Park Armory would come into town looking for entertainment during World War II. A bar was there as early as the 1930s.(1) Hyde Park had been notoriously dry earlier in its career. In the 1980s, Gene Hackman came to the Tiki while in Chicago filming "The Package." Past it was an art deco building used as a parking garage, which figured in a Katherine Anne Porter short story.

On the northwest corner of 53rd and Hyde Park Boulevard is a building that was once the East End Park Hotel. It was designed by William P. Doerr and built in 1923. He used unusual angled corners because of the site's irregular shape, creating views of the lake across the park. This design was interesting enough to earn it a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. (2)

Across the street, to the east, was the start of Hyde Park's reign as a lakeside resort. Paul Cornell placed the Hyde Park Hotel here in 1857 to catch the lake breezes far south of the famously smelly city. Back then, this park was the beach. It was easy to get to once the Illinois Central railroad put in a stop (still a stop on the Metra to the west). To the east was a long pier, so that people could arrive via steamship or sail. The location was an immediate success. Mary Lincoln stayed here for a time after the assasination of her husband.

By the 1920s, in the resort heyday, there were 200 trains a day from this stop to the Loop, reaching a peak of 300 trains.

The original Hyde Park Hotel was replaced by a new one at 51st and Lake Shore, where Paul Cornell's house once stood. He built it between 1887 and 1890, in time for the Columbian Exposition. Furnished throughout with solid mahogany, it had 450 rooms and 175 bathrooms. It had a sourth veranda that faced a beautiful park, where lake breezes cooled the people rocking on the porch. During the Fair, an orchestra played every morning on the veranda--the omnipresent tune was "After the Ball" that summner of the Fair. The hotel was right on the sandy beach, with a long pier jutting out just south of it. The 1920s killed the beachfront hotels because the landfill for Lake Shore Drive and the Promontory cut them off permanently from the shore.

You can see its location, for Regent's Park rises where it once stood. Regent's Park has rooftop gardens, which have had five landscaping awards since 1998 from Mayor Daley's Landscape Awards Program. The garden is in the space between the towers. The towers are 36 stories tall.

In 2008, Regents Park became famous because President-Elect Obama would exercise in its fitness room.

Many of the large apartment buildings in East Hyde Park started out life as resort hotels. On the southeast corner, of 53rd and Hyde Park Boulevard, there's the currently named Del Prado. One of the great features are the terra cotta decorations. Chicago is built on clay, and some of the clay in the city was apparently the best for terra cotta this side of Italy.

60 apartment structures were built on the lakefront in the 1920s. (Harris p. 15)

The Del Prado started life as the Cooper Carlton Hotel-- Cooper as in James Fenimore Cooper. That's why the terra cotta blossoms forth as Indian heads and eagles--though the Indian heads have more to do with plains Indians and very little to do with Mohicans. It was designed by Henry Newhouse and built in 1918. (2) This used to be the favorite hotel of American League baseball teams when playing the White Sox. It too is listed on the National Register. It was the home of the Hyde Park Art Center for a time before they opened their new headquarters north on Cornell. When I was first in Chicago, there was a top floor restaurant called the House of Eng with wonderful views of the city. It also had an all night restaurant on the ground floor that I patronized as a bleary-eyed graduate student.

Antheus is redoing the hotel and hopes to restore it to its former glory, including a restaurant with views out on the park.

There was an earlier hotel in Hyde Park called Del Prado--located on the Midway Plaisance in 1891 to serve the University and the Columbian Exposition.(2)

Next to the Del Prado on the east is the Hampton House, where Mayor Harold Washington lived when he was in office.

Hampton House was built as the Sisson Hotel, another water front resort. The Sisson was built in 1917. (2) The Sisson had suites of two to six rooms, a terrace and sun garden on the roof.(2) The water of the lake lapped the pier, right across the street. The tennis courts in the park now, would have been very very wet in the early 1920s. The Sisson was the first high rise in Hyde Park. There was a restaurant at water's edge in the northeast corner of the building where the Parents' Coop is now. Later the hotel was renamed the Hotel Sherry.(2) Postcards show the rivalry between the Sherry and the Cooper-Carleton--the each showed themselves standing at water's edge without the other anywhere in sight.

Looking south from the Hampton House, there's Harold Washington Park, the original home of the Monk Parakeets. The huge tree with the monster nest blew down several years ago and the monk parakeets are spreading relentlessly outward. Smaller nests can sometimes be seen in a few of these trees, but most of the birds have relocated.

The tennis courts have been in this location since 1935. The park was broken off from Burnham Park when Lake Shore Drive went through, but formally it separated in 1992 when it was designated as the Harold Washington Playlot of 13 acres. It's a popular place for big picnics and barbeques--especially for the Fourth of July. Chess tables were added on the corner.

Going around the corner on South Shore Drive, there is a row of relatively new luxury townhouses where once the Sinai Temple stood, a sign of the changing city. The congregation left East Hyde Park and moved north.

Pause and look up 54th. You can see how in the resort heyday, the hotels strove to offer their residents a view of the lake. The tracks block off 54th, so the owners of this lot on Cornell exploited the view right up the center of the street.

It's 5421 S. Cornell, built by Reichert & Ffunk in 1928. (p. 54 Harris). Originally an apartment filled a full floor of each of the 17 stories and advertised a "Bungalow on every floor." Salmon colored brick and limestone trim. Gables of oak and plaster on top.

On the northwest corner of 54th is one of my favorite Hyde Park houses, this small cottage tucked inside East End, a semi-enclosed group of condo buildings.

It was in this complex that Senator Barack Obama lived when he was elected. I got to see the media frenzy as he tried to vote the morning of his first election as Senator. I was working as a precinct worker in the other precinct that votes in the CTU building.

He has since moved to the house in Kenwood. East End Park has one of the best locations--right on the park and the lakefront.

The building looming overhead is the Shoreland Hotel.

It opened for business in 1926 at the height of the roaring Twenties. It had a bowling alley, full service hair salon, restaurant, coffee shop, and two ballrooms(1). It had 1,000 rooms. At the time, it was Chicago's third largest hotel--and hosted all kinds of visitors--from Al Capone to Amelia Earhart, but it had horrible timing because Lake Shore Drive was already cutting the Shoreland off from the shore. It's listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It's architect was G. H. Gottschalk.(2)

For years, it has served as an undergraduate dormitory for the University of Chicago and became extremely run down, but now it's being converted to luxury rental apartments and the grand ballrooms will be restored. The crystal ballroom has survived almost intact as has the leather lined Al Capone room.

It has some wonderful decoration.Including the one pictured below at the very top of the towers.

Once upon a time, the oval shaped garden in the front had a fountain and statuary. The apartments had all that was modern in the way of kitchens, showerheads, and fixtures. There were state of the art automatic pin setters for the bowling alley. And we know this because all of these products made a point of advertising that they had been chosen for the Shoreland Hotel, a proof of high quality. The main lobby had heavy Oriental rugs and palms.(1)

According to Harris (p. 78) it had an indoor miniature golf course, and in 1925 some of the 9 room suites rented for $1377. The hotel would provide silver, glass, china, and linens if needed. The lobby arches two stories high, the original chandeliers were replaced in the 1930s with some spectacular Art Deco crystal chandeliers.

This arcade between the Shoreland and the 5490 Building once held the offices of Sojourner Magazine in the 1970s, an early feminist publication.

The 5490 building is still the home of luxury apartments, now condo.

Built in 1916-17, it was originally just yards away from the water. It was built by H. Gottschalk who built the Shoreland. It used to be called Jackson Shores Apartments. The architects specialized in movie palaces (Rapp & Rapp) and in the 1920s, did the Chicago Theatre. The top story was originally to house the extra servants. The curved corners are still "orangeries" though now referred to as solariums. (Harris p. 82)-

One interesting detail are the pavers forming an edge between the sidewalk and the landscaping, running along the 55th Street side of 5490.

These are the pavers that once formed the streets of Chicago. They are made of the hardest volcanic rock, imported on barges from Baraboo, Wisconsin. (Wiggers 2004 tour) Quartzite in the pavers used to make the streets sparkle in the sun. They had to be hard to handle the steel rimmed wheels. They have a lovely rich color and texture. Since I took that picture, the 5490 Building has gotten rid of about half of them. Wish I'd been there when they did!