The Paw Print

By Luna Randall, Staff Writer

The other day, I found out that my elementary school had closed. I felt fairly indifferent to it at first, but it got me thinking. What will they do with the building? St. Stanislaus Kostka Church was at one point the largest Polish parish in the U.S., and in 1874 they opened a school to go alongside it, St. Stanislaus Kostka Academy. It originally served as an all-girls high school, but integrated into co-ed K-8 school in 1977. The property itself is massive and holds enough capacity to service much more than its 98 students. With all this space, and its storied history, what should be done to make it of use to the city or even give back to children it once served? Surely, a building so significant it rerouted the plans for the Kennedy Expressway must become something greater than a vacant shell.

Chicago has seen many businesses come and go throughout the course of its history. Retail stores on the decline, bankrupt small businesses, old financial institutions and now-defunct city offices were all once housed in buildings. Many of those buildings were beautifully crafted, leaving behind hints of the taste and purpose they fulfilled at their time of construction, featuring ornate handiwork and complex detailing. These traces of Chicago’s architectural history now have modern purposes or have been left vacant. One striking example of this is the Sullivan Center, also known as the “Goth Target” located downtown. After the Great Chicago Fire, Leopold Schlesinger and David Mayer decided to move their dry goods store to that corner. After a dispute with architect Louis Sullivan over the number of floors, it ended up being 12 stories with an expansion onto Madison Street in order to support its height and with bronze-plated iron work around the frame to prevent damage from fire. It was bought by H. G. Selfridge and Co. in 1904 and was subsequently passed over to Carson Pirie Scott, an iconic department store chain. In 2006, it was announced they would be closing the retail location and the building remained unused until 2010, when Target moved in. The building’s history explains the mismatch between the decadent architecture of the past and the sterile store of the modern day.

This pattern is reflected in many other buildings and is the reason this clash of aesthetics is so prominent throughout the city. Old prospective business owners built grandiose buildings, but were forced to sell the properties amidst declining fortunes. This cycle rinses and repeats till the structures eventually fall into the hands of a megacorporation, with one or two major renovations along the way.  Large retailers opening up in these vacant areas does provide some benefits, such as creating greater accessibility to food supplies and boosting economic activity. However, their intrusion can be detrimental to local businesses and overtake community areas. This also makes citizens in general feel like the city is falling victim to placelessness. The degradation of former historical institutions into generic retail spaces like Walgreen’s almost mocks the community residents who still cherish memories from the past. 

In the Canaryville neighborhood, the Stockyards Bank was built in 1925 to financially serve industrial workers in the nearby manufacturing districts. The area it was built in used to be a major hub for meatpacking and manufacturing, but as those industries declined around the 1960s, the two banks within the building merged and eventually moved out by 1973. The city government has recently proposed to revitalize the space into a cutting-edge recording studio, making it one of the few in the Midwest and among the best in the nation. This aspirational project is closer to what one would imagine being inside such a property: serving a grand, interesting purpose to match its exterior. Many Chicagoans are excited for this development as it will foster more creativity in the area, create more jobs and further develop the cultural identity and influence of Chicago. 

There is not much anyone can do to prevent the boring fate of most buildings. As regular citizens, we do not have the power that the city government does nor the funds to buy these places for all our whimsical desires. I personally have no say in whether or not my childhood school becomes a community center or a CVS. While there is merit to both scenarios, the city would be better off taking proper care of  these historical treasures and turning them into something to enrich Chicago. Their visual appeal and charm deserve to be translated into positive functionality. Creating these community spaces, alongside a sparing amount of retail stores where needed, would be the healthiest way to use these stunning places for the overall benefit of the city and the people.