SOUTH SHORE — As the Park District drafts its first “strategic plan” in more than a decade, some residents say they want officials to take full advantage of the South Shore Cultural Center’s potential as a hub for arts and culture.
The Park District hosted its final in-person town hall for its latest strategic plan Monday evening at the South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore Drive.
Attendees visited activity tables to share how they use Park District facilities, what they enjoy about the facilities and what can be improved.
The information gathered this week and at other community sessions will be used as officials draft the district’s strategic plan, parks Supt. Rosa Escareño said. The plan is the district’s first since 2012 and is expected to be finished this summer.
“I’m looking forward to gathering as much information [as possible], so that we can see where the community would like us to go in the future,” Escareño told Block Club Monday.
A virtual town hall on the strategic plan is 6 p.m. Feb. 7. To join, click here.
A community survey on the Park District’s future is open until Feb. 18. To take the survey, click here.
Park District Has ‘Turned This Building Into An Event Space’
The South Shore Cultural Center is an icon of the community and its organizing power, as residents fought to save the former South Shore Country Club in the ’70s. The Park District initially planned to demolish the building, but neighbors pushed officials to rehab it instead.
After saving the center, residents pivoted to establishing it as a “palace for the people” and a beacon of the community’s cultural wealth, as reported by South Side Weekly. A half-century after that fight, some neighbors say the cultural center is hardly living up to those visions.
The cultural center is no stranger to performances, art exhibitions and other events. Youth arts group Kuumba Lynx began holding programs there last fall. In addition, institutions like the South Shore Opera Company, South Chicago Dance Theatre and others are program partners in the space, according to the center’s park advisory council.
But the Park District can do much more to expand its roster of long-term, community-driven programs at the cultural center, said Brandon Patterson, program committee chair for the council.
Patterson, who grew up in South Shore, he attended summer camps, piano lessons and Park Kids after-school programs at the cultural center as a kid in the ’90s and 2000s. Since then, he’s been “disturbed” by the decline of such programs, he said.
Patterson isn’t the only one with such concerns, he said. Many of his neighbors and fellow council members are worried about the “privatization” of a space intended for community arts and culture programs, he said.
“This is a cultural center,” Patterson said. “That is no longer the way in which this building functions. [The Park District has] turned this building into an event space. They rent it out for galas, for weddings, for corporate functions and whatever else.”
The cultural center’s advisory council proposes the Park District boost the number of classes, cultural programs and full-time staff at the center through of the strategic plan process — with a focus on neighborhood youth.
Such measures would show a “renewed commitment” from park officials to follow the cultural center’s “original vision and purpose.” Other attendees at Monday’s meeting said they want to see that renewed commitment, too.
Deborah and Farid Muhammad reminisced fondly on events they’ve attended at the cultural center with less of an artistic focus, like Girl Scouts dances and community banquets. But there should “absolutely” be a greater focus on complementing those events with sustainable cultural programs, the couple said.
“I think [park officials] should create more means of incentivizing youth, parents and community representatives” to visit the cultural center, Farid Muhammad said. “In the past 10 years, I would say there has been less engagement.”
The South Shore Cultural Center “used to have all kinds of activities after school,” Deborah Muhammad said. “The kids would get bused from their school and dropped here … and they had all kinds of dance classes, music classes, arts classes, from 3 o’clock until the parents picked them up at 6. On Saturdays, they would have dance classes and arts classes.
“Now, I don’t see much of that at all.”
The House City music series that came to Rainbow Beach in 2021 and outdoor movie screenings at the center are good examples of programs that could be sustained and expanded at the center, said Robin Boyd, South Shore resident and president of the Don Nash Community Center’s advisory council.
Community events at the cultural center are generally “well-attended [and] safe, and people really enjoy the use of the beach and the grounds,” Boyd said.
But “I really feel like this park is underutilized — severely underutilized,” she said.
Ald. Desmon Yancy (5th) is “in agreement” with neighbors and park council members who want the Park District to host more community programs at the cultural center, he said.
Neighbors have told Yancy they want more youth initiatives at the center, while older people have pushed for more programs that are “culturally competent and not cookie-cutter,” the alderperson said.
“I’m talking with some groups who are interested in bringing some play space here to the park, and we’ll see what we’re able to bring to fruition,” Yancy said.
Upon taking office last year, Yancy praised the South Shore Cultural Center’s natural and architectural beauty. It’s the location in the 5th Ward he would preserve forever, exactly how it is, he told Block Club in May.
“I feel like the South Shore Cultural Center is going to be an extremely pivotal part of the redevelopment of South Shore,” though “nothing is in the works right now” on that front, he said this week.
The cultural center is “a beautiful park,” Escareño said. The input from Monday’s attendees is what the Park District hoped for in planning input sessions around the strategic plan, the superintendent said.
“The parks belong to the people. We should try to be as responsive as possible,” Escareño said. “The thing with that — you don’t always make everybody happy. Some people want the same thing to go the opposite way. Our goal is to try to find the right balance, and try to engage as much as we can.”
South Siders Want More Funding, Promotion For Their Parks
Residents’ desires to expand local park programs are not exclusive to the South Shore Cultural Center.
Murray Park facilities could benefit from safety and aesthetic improvements, such as new floors and increased maintenance and new programs, said Lisa Moss, an advisory council member for the West Englewood park.
Moss hopes her suggestions through the strategic plan process, like creating a double-Dutch program for older people at Murray Park, will be reflected in the final plan.
“I’m hoping that [the plan] will be implemented and give more [resources] to each park that really needs it to attract people in the neighborhood,” Moss said.
The Park District should also invest in expanding programs and maintenance at South Side facilities like Don Nash — and in better promoting the programs already in place, Boyd said.
“One thing the Park District could do better is marketing,” she said. “The [park advisory councils] can have programming … but we don’t have the budget to be able to market events so that the entire community knows.”
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