Oak Park’s main civic building, which serves as headquarters of the police department and municipal government, is not yet 40 years old, but its history and location have earned it a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.
The U.S. National Park Service awarded Oak Park Village Hall, 123 Madison St., the distinction last month due in part to the village’s placement of the building on the east side of Oak Park in an effort to fight re-segregation.
According to the application submitted to the National Park Service, village government leaders were actively implementing policies in the 1960s and 1970s in an effort to discourage real estate discrimination and so-called “block-busting” where unscrupulous realtors would encourage white residents to sell their homes before blacks and other races moved in and reduced their property value.
The application notes that, during “white flight,” the population of the Austin neighborhood of Chicago changed from 99.83 percent white and 0.02 percent black in 1960 to 66.35 percent white and 32.49 percent black in 1970. White flight continued over the next few decades, and now the population is 94 percent black and Hispanic.
Village hall was built on the east side of the village between 1973 and ’75, near the border of Austin Boulevard and Oak Park Avenue, “to send a signal to the residents that no sector of the village would be treated differently from any other,” according to the application.
Edson Beal, a historian with the National Park Service, said buildings usually must be at least 50 years old to get listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but some achieve the status due to the history involved.
He said Oak Park Village Hall was given the exception because local leaders at the time aimed to “show people of all races that they believed in the neighborhood, and it was a symbol that this neighborhood was going to be OK for everyone.”
The building was designed by architecture firm Harry Weese & Associates and is stylistically within the modern movement of architecture.
“It has a tall brick exterior wall, which encloses a single story with mezzanine and basement,” according to the application. “There is a central open courtyard which brings sunlight into the interior public spaces that are arrayed around the courtyard. A wedge-shaped council chambers is elevated above a pool separate from the main mass and supported on brick pylons.”
The former village hall, built in 1903, was on the southeast corner of Euclid Avenue and Lake Street and included 30-foot-tall limestone Corinthian columns and a front stairway, similar in style to other city hall buildings of that era, according to the application.
Doug Kaarre, urban planner with the village and staff liaison to the village’s Historic Preservation Commission, said in a telephone interview that the village has been working on the application since 2012. He said the building was established on the east side on Madison to provide stability in the area.
“The village had very been involved in the desegregation issue and wanted to promote diversity since the 1960s,” he said.