Woodlawn

The Woodlawn neighborhood is within MLS area 8042. It is located on the south side of Chicago and is one of the 77 well¬-defined communities in the city. Woodlawn is bounded by Lake Michigan on the east, 60th street to the north, Martin Luther King Drive on the west, and 67th street on the south.

Up until 1948, Woodlawn was a middle class, white neighborhood with many Chicago University professors living in the area. When racially restrictions were outlawed in the 1950s, the combination of the expanding African American urban population, their limited housing options, Woodlawn began to have its first African American residents. At first, the older population fought integration but today Woodlawn has made an immense advancement in stabilizing the neighborhood and the community.

Woodlawn has many new hopeful developments and infill projects as greater education and more stable income slowly returns to the area. Jackson Park is a 500-acre park on Lake Michigan in the neighborhoods of Woodlawn, Hyde Park, and bordering South Shore. The area was originally a rough place until it was transformed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the architect of New York City’s Central Park. Some sites worth visiting at the park are the pleasant Osaka Garden and the Jackson Park Golf Course.