About the Author:
Susan O’Connor Davis is an independent scholar and a founding member of the nonprofit Kenwood Improvement Association. After working in the design industry for nearly twenty years, Davis now serves on the Board of Governors at the Smart Museum.
Review:
“Susan O’Connor Davis’s work draws well-deserved attention to Hyde Park-Kenwood’s beautiful buildings and details their history. These architectural gems are a lasting legacy for future generations.” (Toni Preckwinkle Cook County Board President)
“Few city neighborhoods have been as studied as Chicago’s Hyde Park. Susan O’Connor Davis has created an extraordinary guide to a remarkable place. Chicago's Historic Hyde Park is a compelling visual account that introduces the reader not only to a complex local history, but also to one grounded firmly in the larger currents of both architectural change and urban development. Davis’s account ranges from Paul Cornell’s early Hyde Park through the still controversial urban renewal era and right up to current preservation efforts. This meticulously researched, wonderfully illustrated, lovingly written, and well-documented book is an important contribution to the history of Chicago and urban America.” (Dominic A. Pacyga author of Chicago: A Biography)
“In Hyde Park, unlike many Chicago neighborhoods, major Chicago architects completed residential commissions for wealthy Chicago families. At the same time, the broad currents of changing population and economics brought dramatic change, as Hyde Park moved from an elite enclave to a diverse neighborhood within a vibrant city. Chicago’s Historic Hyde Park provides a richly illustrated and detailed view of a neighborhood that has been the home to many influential Chicagoans, including President Obama. Expanding on Jean Block’s groundbreaking Hyde Park Houses, Susan O’Connor Davis explores the evolution of housing over the twentieth century, showing how these broad patterns affected the stories of individual families, homes, and properties. And in so doing, she brings history to life.” (Ann Durkin Keating author of Chicago Neighborhoods and Suburbs: A Historical Guide)
“Susan O’Connor Davis has created an invaluable resource for urban planners, preservationists, architects and anyone else who simply loves learning about the history of one of Chicago’s most fascinating neighborhoods.” (Jonathan Fine Executive Director, Preservation Chicago)
“While relating the rich and nuanced stories of the structures that defined Hyde Park and Kenwood over the past century and a half, Susan O’Connor Davis closely examines the always evolving, often controversial social dynamics of those neighborhoods. Would that every neighborhood in the country had a book like this!” (Patrick Reardon former urban affairs writer of the Chicago Tribune)
“Davis looks at Hyde Park, long an incubator of ideas for scholars, writers, athletes, religious leaders, politicians, and others. . . . Arranged chronologically and geographically, Davis’s book―replete with remarkably clear black-and-white photographs of extant and demolished buildings―includes vignettes of nationally or locally famous persons. . . . Recommended.” (Choice)
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