Hyde Park's Harper Court in the 1960s

The Cure for the Ills of Urban Renewal?

By Andrea Baer

Just off of Harper Avenue, half a block from the neighborhood's major thoroughfare, on the eastern edge of the center of Hyde Park lounges Harper Court. An ordinary enough triad of buildings shading a sunken courtyard, this unassuming complex reveals the legacy of urban renewal just over 40 years old. Since then, Harper Court has sheltered the non-famous of Hyde Park along side the famed of the area. Despite an attempt by designers to mimic the re-appropriation of the old Victorian brownstones of Chicago, this set of buildings stands in stark contrast to some of its more antiquated neighbors. It more closely resembles two of the neighborhoods nearby shopping centers, one just down the road at 53rd and Greenwood and the other four blocks away at Lake Park and 53rd.

The 1954 Federal Housing Act amended the 1949 Housing Act and provided funding to cities that were attempting to prevent urban blight by initiating proactive 'renewal' projects, demolishing slums and turning over land to private developers. This second act provided a significant amount of funding to Chicago, Hyde Park in particular. The neighborhood turned out to be one of the country's most active participants. During the project's 10-year span, more than 850 buildings in Hyde Park-Kenwood alone were demolished. While some of these buildings were replaced, many were not; part of the project's purpose was to thin out concentrated and perceivably over-congested areas. For that reason, much of the cleared land remained empty or was turned into recreational space. By 1962 so many buildings had been taken down or were slated for demolition that Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, the neighborhood's community action group, became very concerned about the fate of many of Hyde Park's favorite small businesses. These various arts, craft and trade-oriented independent merchandisers had been extracted from their stores, which were very often located in older low-rent buildings. This included the first art colony in Hyde Park, which had been housed in buildings originally constructed for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The new shopping centers, erected in an effort to separate businesses and residences, promised upscale settings, parking and new buildings at prohibitively high rent. Harper Court was intended to present an alternative.

Members of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference approached Muriel Beadle, wife of then University of Chicago President George W. Beadle, with a plan to provide space for these small arts and trade oriented businesses at rent comparable to that being charged in the old store fronts. The Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference hoped that this new space would help to preserve almost twenty of Hyde Park's most beloved small businesses - businesses that they felt gave Hyde Park its unique character. Mrs. Beadle quite readily agreed to chair the committee for the erection of a low-rent, arts related shopping center that would cater to small businesses. In 1963 the Harper Court Foundation incorporated as a not-for-profit organization dedicated to "study[ing] means to prevent or alleviate the effect of urban renewal projects in eliminating the low-rental diversified properties which are necessary for the continuation of small businesses of special cultural or community significance, including the development of a project to accomplish said purposes." (Beadle, 135)

The Hyde Park Foundation's stated purpose required a new structure to be built. In order to do so, the Foundation planned to secure readily available land, raise funds for the initial payment, borrow the rest on a long-term mortgage and impose a sliding rent scale for various tenants. The Foundation was not to make any money on the property and claimed that to the project would be a true community endeavor. Land had been cleared for a new Police Station, Fire Station and church parking lot but none of it was being used. The Harper Court Foundation was the only bidder on the property due to the wording of the call for bids which was spun by a "friendly city council" (Beadle, 213) in favor of Harper Court. Fundraising efforts went better than expected and in fact so many community members purchased slow debentures that the Foundation was able to return more than $8000 of the University's pledged $35,000. The community was also involved in rather extensive polling about which specific businesses and what types of businesses should be opened in this shopping center. Ms. Beadle summed up the collaboration as follows:

Thus the cooperation of the residents of a neighborhood, the city administration and its urban renewal agency, as well as two federal agencies, the Urban Renewal Administration and the Small Business Administration, have helped to create a physical development in which goods and services are not standardized but instead reflect the special character and aspirations of the renewed community." (Harper Court Foundation form letter in Hyde Park Historical Society Papers, 7)

The process of fundraising for Harper Court took most of a year and construction of the buildings began in December of 1964. Tenants moved into the new buildings between September of 1965 and March of 1966 and it was then that Harper Court, dubbed "a new center for the useful arts," was established. In 1968, once Harper Court was stabilized and productive, management was turned over to two "Hyde Park housewives" (Beadle, 360) who could devote all their time to the tenants and customers of Harper Court.

In an effort to preserve the old buildings that had been torn down, the Hyde Park-Kenwood community created a written and pictorial record of all buildings slated to be razed. These words and photos were collected into a small book called Segments of the Past. In a similar spirit Harper Court Foundation had the pathways around Harper Court paved with bricks from old Hyde Park buildings (Business Week, 34). This, along with the public effort to "save the useful arts in Hyde Park" did manage to alleviate mourning over the loss of buildings, character and business sacrificed to urban renewal in Hyde Park-Kenwood.

In the years following its opening, Harper Court and the Foundation succeeded to varying degree. Many of the stores in Harper Court were rented before the launch party, indicating that there were indeed useful arts anxious to participate in this kind of project. The 28 businesses that moved into Harper Court in the late 60s represented a wide sampling of practical arts practes including pottery, instrument repair, and lamp making. In the late 60s and early 70s Harper Court served as home to several Hyde Park arts and culture institutions, including the locally beloved Hyde Park Art Center (Shaw) and the nationally renowned AfriCobra (Frye, 69). Due to this, community investors who had bought debentures received a financial return within the first year after its opening.

Harper Court had its share of misses, as well. Only three of the business owners who had been displaced by urban renewal could hold out long enough to take advantage of the low rent in Harper Court (Beadle, 231.) The others had left the immediate neighborhood or gone out of business all together. And then, shortly thereafter, due to the success of the shopping center, some independent craftsmen were evicted due to increasingly expensive rent. One tailor was forced out in favor of a more lucrative ice cream parlor.

These successes and failures, and the uniqueness of the endeavor, drew the attention of major local and national reports including The Chicago Tribune, Business Week and even the Wall Street Journal. These sources point to the originality of the plan and the pluck of the band of citizens invested in maintaining the integrity of their own neighborhood.