Chicago, IL--This weekend’s openhousechicago was a rare chance to see the original Sears Tower of Homan Square in Lawndale, a peek into the dusty projector room at a former vaudeville and movie house in Pilsen, and Jens Jensen’s office in Humboldt Park, among 150 sites open and free to the public. You just had to show up.
Even spitting rain wouldn’t deter me from heading to Homan Square, and take a tour of the yet-to-be-restored brick tower landmark at 900 S. Homan Ave. From the 14th floor, I could easily see the second Sears Tower (now Willis Tower), site of my first job out of college. Across the street, students offered guided tours of Power House High, in a building that once housed the power generators for the Sears campus. The school preserved a few of the ash ovens and conveyer belts that men worked in front of, as the enormous chimney burned coal to fire the plant.
From Lawndale, it was a short drive to Pilsen and home to Apollo 2000 Theater at 2875 W. Cermak Road. The Mexican community hosts lavish parties in the former vaudeville and movie house, but a tight stairway up to the projector room shows a world left behind–large projectors still sitting, empty film cannisters and boxes marked “trailer” sit waiting for the last picture show. Los Corrales, a restaurant next door to the theater, made a great lunch stop with reasonably priced food and excellent service.
St. Adalbert’s Church, 1650 W. 17th St., an Italian Renaissance style church originally built for the Poles who once lived in Pilsen, still offers a mass in Polish. Polish words are inscribed above the magnificent white marble altar. But Mexican families were there with babies on this weekend, as well as tourists like me taking photos of the artwork and the replica of Michelangelo’s Pieta.
Heading northwest, the next stop was La Casita de don Pedro at 2625 W. Division. It’s a traditional Puerto Rican home with tin roof and front porch, and local residents gather for drumming workshops. The courtyard statue of Don Pedro Albizu Campos, honors the Puerto Rican who fought for independence and died shortly after release from a U.S. federal prison. Farther west, Humboldt Park’s restored 1896 stables building at 3015 W. Division, is home to the Institute of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture. The former office of famed landscape architect Jens Jensen is still being restored, but the panoramic views from the semi-circle shaped room span the park and even over to his former home, a greystone across the street.
Also in the 219-acre Humboldt Park: the Refectory and Boat House at 1440 N. Humboldt Drive, a Prairie-style building on the National Register of Historic Places overlooking a lake, and well as the Humboldt Park Field House at 1440 N. Sacramento, featuring two gyms and a ballroom, flanked by marble columns.
North and east of Humboldt Park, Uptown hosted a number of venues, but time was running short. I ended my tour of the day at Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation at 5029 N. Kenmore Ave.. The last extant cathedral-style synagogue in the city, closed since 2008, reopened for this event. Climbing the old marble stairs to the sanctuary, where a glittering Italian mosaic ark stood, as rain dripped through the ceiling and left puddles on the floor. Rotting sills leaked air and light around the stained glass windows. Pigeons perched on the women’s balcony. Agudas Achim, an Orthodox congregation that serves an immigrant population in the nearby neighborhood, still hopes to save the building.
So many sites and so little time. Next year, I’ll be starting my tours of openhousechicago a little earlier.
