Exploring the dynamic history of Chicago’s 63rd Street (Co63), from 1920 to 2020, reveals a compelling narrative of urban evolution and community resilience. This in-depth study, a chapter of the Chicago Centuries Project, delves into the built environment, businesses, and land use changes along this vital Chicago artery. Building upon the foundational research of the 55th Street/Garfield Boulevard project, Co63 utilizes an open-access GIS map and digital archive to meticulously document the transformations of 63rd Street over a century. Undergraduate researchers played a crucial role in this project, developing detailed microhistories and narratives for specific blocks of 63rd Street, some of which were featured in Expositions Magazine’s Fall 2024 issue dedicated to the street’s rich past.
While perhaps less historically scrutinized than Hyde Park, Chicago’s 63rd Street boasts a wealth of photographic and newspaper records, particularly highlighting its prominent role as an entertainment center. This was especially true in Woodlawn, east of King Boulevard (formerly South Park Way), a neighborhood whose fortunes were significantly boosted by the 1893 World’s Fair. The Fair ignited a construction boom along 63rd Street in the 1890s, leading to the establishment of the 63rd Street elevated train line connecting Jackson Park to downtown and the expansion of the Cottage Grove trolley line extending from downtown to Chicago’s southeast steel district. In the decades following the World’s Fair, Woodlawn’s section of 63rd Street thrived as a vibrant entertainment hub, featuring attractions like the “White City” amusement park and numerous renowned jazz clubs, some of which even showcased drag performers as headliners during the 1930s to 1950s. To the west of King/South Park, Englewood, with its convenient rail connections to both the South Side and downtown Chicago, developed into a sophisticated commercial area, famously anchored by a massive Sears, Roebuck & Co. flagship store at 63rd and Halsted. During the 1940s and 1950s, this Englewood district rivaled even the Loop in terms of economic activity.
However, the racial dynamics of Chicago’s South Side dramatically shifted, and both Woodlawn and Englewood became epicenters of discriminatory and exploitative real estate practices. “Blockbusting” became rampant as real estate agents preyed on racial fears, terrifying White homeowners with fabricated stories of an impending “Negro invasion.” These agents would then purchase homes at drastically reduced prices, only to resell them at inflated rates to Black families desperate to overcome Chicago’s deeply entrenched housing segregation. When these families inevitably struggled to meet the exorbitant interest rates on their loans, the brokers would foreclose, reclaim the properties, and repeat the cycle. This predatory system fueled a block-by-block decline as short-term owners, burdened by unsustainable loans, neglected building maintenance. This instability in the residential sector crippled commercial development without external support. Unfortunately, under Mayor Richard J. Daley and subsequent administrations, city resources were primarily directed towards the Central Business Area, leaving 63rd Street’s businesses to gradually fail. Despite the dedicated efforts of organizations like The Woodlawn Organization (TWO), founded in the 1960s to counter the University of Chicago’s expansion plans and dedicated to promoting local businesses and maintaining social services, both Woodlawn and Englewood continued on a downward trajectory, experiencing a staggering population loss of nearly 80% between 1960 and 2020.
Recently, particularly Woodlawn, has attracted attention as a potential redevelopment zone. Numerous “master plans” have been proposed, most notably by the leadership of the Apostolic Church of God, inheritors of Bishop Arthur Brazier’s legacy and a major landowner along 63rd Street. Apostolic Church of God collaborated with the University of Chicago to successfully bring the Obama Presidential Library to Woodlawn, with its campus adjacent to the church’s property at 63rd and Stony Island. Nevertheless, anxieties about gentrification and distrust of these large institutions persist within the local community, who remain vigilant against potential displacement. Englewood is also experiencing its own wave of activism, with some initiatives focused on restoring and improving transit access to 63rd Street. Both neighborhoods grapple with negative perceptions as “abandoned” areas, a narrative partly perpetuated by the lack of readily available historical information. The Chicago Studies program aims to counteract this misrepresentation through its ongoing research into these historically rich communities along Chicago’s 63rd Street.
The Chicago Centuries Project’s work on 63rd Street is an ongoing endeavor. Block-level data is continuously refined and edited for accuracy, completeness, and consistent formatting to integrate into GIS map layers of the street, meticulously prepared by Parker Otto and his team of student GIS mappers. To experience a glimpse of their work, explore the interactive story map available online. This map series visually illustrates the changes in the built environment along 63rd Street from approximately 1925 to the present day. Another version of Parker’s footprints, offering further context from cartographer Noam Levinsky, serves as the “table of contents” for the Fall 2024 issue of Expositions Magazine.
