Site
K
Turn right on Lake Park and go four blocks south to 55th
Street. The New Hyde Park Shopping Center, designed by Harry
Weese, is located on the northwest corner of 55th and Lake Park
Avenue. This small version of a suburban-type mall is part of the
urban renewal plan that changed 55th Street in the 1950s and 1960s.
The city demolished most of the commercial structures on 55th Street
and all of the commercial structures on Lake Park Avenue north of
55th Street to make way for the new shopping center. The University
of Chicago has owned this property since 1984.
Site
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Continue south on Lake Park Avenue to 57th Street and turn right.
Architect John Vinci restored the cable car station at 5529 S.
Lake Park for the Hyde Park Historical Society. This neighborhood
organization is among the best of its kind in the city. Many of
its members are professional historians, writers, and others who
are interested in the community's past.
At 56th Street the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad underpass is the site
of "Women's Struggle," a mural painted by Astrid Fuller
in 1975. This work of art traces the history of the women's movement.
Ms. Fuller has another mural about women's history on the northeast corner
of the 57th Street underpass: it is entitled "Pioneer Social Workers."
Fuller's 1973 "Spirit of Hyde Park" decorates the south
side of the same underpass. "Justice Speaks: Delbert Tibbs/New Trial
or Freedom" by William Walker is presented on the northwest corner
of the underpass. The 57th Street Art Colony was located just east of
the underpass on Stony Island Avenue. Artists had settled in a group of
concession stand storefronts which were originally built for the Columbian
Exposition in 1893. The storefronts were demolished as part of the urban
renewal program in the early 1960s. The only vestige of the art colony
that remains today is the famous 57th Street Art Fair held every summer.
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