The First House in Hyde Park's Urban Renewal

In researching Hyde Park’s urban renewal, I bumped into the first house to be demolished, 5456 S. Blackstone, owned by Byron and Donna Sistler.

Byron Sistler had served in World War II as a Tech Sergeant 5th Grade. He and Donna had bought their house around 1948 when he found a job as an insurance underwriter downtown and their oldest son was on the way. With the terrible housing shortage in Chicago (and nationwide) after the war, they rented the second floor to Byron’s sister and brother-in-law and the basement to a lodger. Housing was tight and money was too. The upstairs had outside stairs in the back. They were members of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, which had been founded in 1949, a grassroots organization with a vision of a healthy integrated community, even though no one was sure it could be achieved. Donna Sistler volunteered for the publicity committee of HPKCC.

In 1953, Donna contributed a couple of articles to the Hyde Park Herald, including one about how to use that new-fangled gadget, the kitchen blender. Their wooden house looks like those built in the 1880s when the cable car made it easy for workers to travel to jobs outside Hyde Park. The forces of urban renewal—the Chicago Land Clearance Commission “guided” by the University’s Southeast Chicago Commission’s urban planners had drawn up a plan. She mentioned a fire that meant they needed to do repairs, so the Sistlers’ house was an easy first choice for demolition.

In a letter to the Herald, Donna Sistler pointed out that it was hard to heat and hard to repair. She said that the Land Clearance Commission gave them a fair price that enabled them to move into a co-op apartment at 5647 S. Blackstone. All she asked was that the LCC make an effort to help her neighbors who were older and not so mobile to cope with the loss of their homes. She was willing to do what needed to be done for a better community, which was the dream of the organizers of HPKCC. As she said,

They’d been told that their property would be part of a surface parking lot, but that was before Webb & Knapp had made their bid to be the developer and produced their plans. They made money from the townhouses. They made none from the parking lots, so it’s a townhouse that sits at 5456 Blackstone today.

The Sistlers were interviewed by Chicago’s brand-new Public Broadcasting station, WTTW, which had a whole series called “Road to Renewal.” Donna Sistler testified to City Council that she was on board for a better tomorrow for her children. They were making the best of the hand they’d been dealt.

A grand ceremony was going to launch the demolition. The Southeast Chicago Commission, which as Julian Levi said was the political wing of the University of Chicago, the President of the University, Lawrence Kimpton, and Mayor Richard J. Daley were there. The SECC was going to meet in the United Church of Hyde Park on 53rd and Blackstone, then 1000 residents would walk one block south where a dais was going to hold the dignitaries while church bells rang out across the neighborhood. As the Southeast Economist, May 5, 1955, announced, the Sistlers were participating.

The Sistlers quickly wrote into the Herald that oh no, they were not. It was one thing to say they looked forward to a better community and quite another to imply that they were overjoyed about what they called the “civic surgery” taking place. They were losing the place they loved as home. No one on the dais had once spoken to them. They hadn’t gotten a vote.

The Harvey Wrecking Company took charge, turning their house into a pile of lumber and rusty nails. The children of the 1950s were apparently a hardy lot, playing in the demolition rubble.

The Sistlers remained in the neighborhood as 47 acres were redone and the neighborhood in fits and starts managed to integrate. They supported the idealists who hoped for a better community. Byron Sistler served on the Hyde Park Cooperative Society Credit Union board. In 1964, someone complained in the Herald that there were people letting their toddlers wade into the lake with nothing on. Byron Sistler replied,

But as Urban Renewal had kept rolling over the neighborhood and it became clear that private institutions like the Lutheran School of Theology were joining the University of Chicago in wielding eminent domain in pursuit of their private interests, it was clear that the goal wasn’t the creation of community, but the destruction of it. The population was cut in half as the working-class section north of 55th Street and the multi-story multi-use buildings along 55th were leveled. Byron Sistler wrote to the Herald about how Hyde Park’s residents in 1967 were struggling to have a voice:

In 1968, the Sistlers moved out.

Herald Article: Darrow Bridge

I think it’s been so long since I’ve organized a newsletter that I may not have mentioned that there’s a new Herald Article on the Darrow Bridge. Check it out if you haven’t already. It’s a beautiful bridge that deserves to be saved:

https://www.hpherald.com/evening_digest/hyde-park-stories-darrow-bridge/article_959e124e-da46-11ee-8a5e-4750cf1455a5.html