The old Douglas Park Auditorium hits like a hallucination at the corner of Ogden & Kedzie in North Lawndale. More than a century old, the classical structure with brilliant ornament was shoddily built on a lagoon, notes the present-day church's minister who constantly contends with flooding. The building was once the Jewish community's stomping grounds, hosting an array of events, theater, and activism. An African-American population succeeded the Jewish one in the 1950s, and racial segregation and disinvestment have rendered North Lawndale destitute. Look around, there are as many empty lots as full ones.
·Hint: This 'Hotbed of Leftist Activity' is Now a Church on Southwest Side [Curbed]
·Essay: 3202 W Ogden [The Reader]
·Douglas Park Auditorium Postcard [Chuckman's Collection]
Filed under: