New Life for Dr. King’s Lawndale Dream – Chicago Magazine

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived with his family in 1966, work has begun on the Dr. King Legacy Apartments, a $17-million complex that, when finished, will have 45 units of affordable rental housing, retail space, and a mini-museum dedicated to the efforts of King and others to provide equal access to housing in Chicago." /> Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived with his family in 1966, work has begun on the Dr. King Legacy Apartments, a $17-million complex that, when finished, will have 45 units of affordable rental housing, retail space, and a mini-museum dedicated to the efforts of King and others to provide equal access to housing in Chicago." /> Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived with his family in 1966, work has begun on the Dr. King Legacy Apartments, a $17-million complex that, when finished, will have 45 units of affordable rental housing, retail space, and a mini-museum dedicated to the efforts of King and others to provide equal access to housing in Chicago." />

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On January 26, 1966, King and his wife, Coretta, moved into a third-floor walkup apartment at 1550 South Hamlin, where their rent was $90 a month—$10 more than white renters typically paid for newer, cleaner, and larger apartments in all-white neighborhoods at the time.
Photo courtesy Lawndale Christian Development Corp.
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The King family lived part of each week in the apartment from January until late summer, when King secured from Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley and other civic leaders promises to improve the housing stock in Chicago’s segregated ghettoes.
Photo courtesy Lawndale Christian Development Corp.
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Today, 1550 South Hamlin would be at approximately where the word “Safeway” is on this sign. The apartment building was among many on the West and South sides that were badly damaged in the 1968 riots; it stood empty until 1979, when it was demolished. The area enclosed by the green fence is the site of the King Legacy Apartments, with completion and occupancy expected in spring 2011.
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Plans for the apartment block, designed by Johnson and Lee Architects, call for two-, three-, and four-bedroom apartments on the two upper floors, with retail space on the street level. Rents will start at $230 a month for some two-bedroom units and go up to $1,000 for a four-bedroom unit. Ten units will be set aside for Section 8 tenants.
Photo courtesy Lawndale Christian Development Corp.
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“[Residents] will move from apartments and housing that they weren’t really able to afford—many are spending 60 percent of their income in order to have a place to live—into a place that is affordable, energy-efficient, and a [piece of] history,” says Kim Jackson, the executive director of Lawndale Christian Development Corp. (at right with Shalonda Bedenfield-Causey, a Lawndale Christian Development project manager).
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The MLK Historic District is to include a public park, an upgraded park at Wm. Penn Elementary across the street, a new community center, numerous new trees along the streets, and other upgrades designed to make this stretch of 16th Street a friendly, welcoming hub. (The apartments are in yellow, near upper left of rendering.)
Photo courtesy Lawndale Christian Development Corp.
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A family health center—Kim Jackson calls it “the only good thing that’s come to 16th Street in 40 years”—stands just to the east of the planned MLK Historic District.
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If all goes according to plan, this block, west of the first phase of the MLK Historic District, should eventually get a new city park and a community center. The March-Newberry Association, a facility (pictured here) built in 1930 to provide services to poor Jewish immigrants, will be incorporated into the community center.
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Kim Jackson says that this part of Lawndale had nearly 1,000 foreclosures in 2009, making boarded-up homes a common sight in the neighborhood. Most of the foreclosures were investor-owned rental buildings, which means the dispossessed were more likely to have been renters who were not responsible for a building falling into default.
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When planning the MLK Historic District and the King Legacy Apartments, leaders of the project sought the approval of Dr. King’s family, including his son, Martin Luther King III (shown here at a 2007 meeting with Rev. Martin Harris of the West Side Federation, left, and John Bonds, principal of Safeway Cos., the builder of the project). King’s son, who would have been eight years old in 1966, “shared with us the experience of coming to live here,” Kim Jackson says, “One thing he remembered clearly was that they were not able to go play outside in this neighborhood. That was definitely the image he took away with him, that this was not a place where you were [safe to] play outside, as they did in the South, where he grew up.”
Photo courtesy Lawndale Christian Development Corp.
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While living in Lawndale, King claimed “supra-legal” authority to take charge of this graystone at 1321 South Homan Avenue, where a sick baby was living in an unheated apartment. Claude Jones, who bought the building in 1996, says that he didn’t believe neighbors’ tales of King’s involvement with the building. Now that it has been documented, Jones is looking into installing a plaque on the building’s exterior.
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(12) Construction equipment on the site of the Legacy Apartments

New Life for Dr. King’s Lawndale Dream

In Lawndale, at the site of the Chicago apartment where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived with his family in 1966, work has begun on the Dr. King Legacy Apartments, a $17-million complex that, when finished, will have 45 units of affordable rental housing, retail space, and a mini-museum dedicated to the efforts of King and others to provide equal access to housing in Chicago.

By Dennis Rodkin

January 13, 2010, 9:02 am

In Lawndale, at the site of the Chicago apartment where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived with his family in 1966, work has begun on the Dr. King Legacy Apartments, a $17-million complex that, when finished, will have 45 units of affordable rental housing, retail space, and a mini-museum dedicated to the efforts of King and others to provide equal access to housing in Chicago.

Last April, on the anniversary of King’s 1968 assassination, a coalition of activist and civic groups announced plans to create the MLK Historic District on four acres along 16th Street between Hamlin and Harding streets. The first block of the $50-million project includes the site of King’s apartment—irrevocably damaged in the riots that followed his assassination—at 1550 South Hamlin Avenue. Eventually, the district is to include a park, a memorial to King, a new branch of the Chicago Public Library, and other amenities.

On December 31st, the coalition, led by Lawndale Christian Development Corp., secured the $17 million in financing needed to start work on the Legacy Apartments (that includes $5 million in federal stimulus funds). Groundbreaking followed shortly thereafter. “We’re in the ground, we’re making it happen at last,” says Kim Jackson, the executive director of Lawndale Christian Development. The slide show below looks at the site—its history and the plans for its future—as well as at a nearby home that is also associated with King.

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