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Continue south on South Shore Drive to 71st Street. As you leave
Jackson Park going south on South Shore Drive, you will notice
a golf course on your left. This was once the exclusive South
Shore Country Club. The clubhouse is located just off the intersection
of 71st and South Shore Drive. The architectural firm of Marshall
& Fox designed it early in the century after the closing of
the Washington Park Club and Race Track. The South Shore Country
Club became a bastion of Chicago's South Side WASP elite. The Irish
soon joined the club as they came to dominate South Shore along
with their Jewish neighbors. Jews, however, along with blacks, were
not allowed to join the club. Membership peaked in 1957 at 2,200,
but already affluent white South Siders were leaving the neighborhood.
The property was sold to the Chicago Park District in 1974 for just
under ten million dollars. The Park District planned to demolish
the elegant old building, but South Shore residents organized to
save it. Neighbors created the Coalition to Save the South Shore
Country Club. Out of this experience residents also established
the South Shore Historical Society. The Country Club has
become an important symbol of a positive future for South Shore.
Because of local efforts, an important part of Chicago's history
has been saved. The Park District has spent over six million dollars
in renovating the elegant old structure. Several successful celebrations
have already taken place on the grounds including a jazz festival.
The above photograph shows a Jackson Park Life Saving Station
around 1910. Jackson park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted,
included a marina and a coast guard station by the time of World
War I.
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Do not make a lefthand turn at 71st Street, but keep to
the right and go south across the I.C.G. railroad tracks one block
to 72nd and Yates. Turn right at 72nd Street and go five blocks
west to 2126 East 72nd Street. Joseph McCarthy's massive Tudor
Gothic church of St. Philip Neri (1928) overlooks a neighborhood
of well-built homes which were once occupied by its Irish-American
parishioners, but are now predominantly black-owned. This church
seats 1,700 people and is one of the largest in Chicago. St. Philip
Neri parish was founded in 1912 to serve forty Catholic families
in the area.
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