By chance, I stumbled on the latest gentrification fight in Uptown around the time I read Walter Isaacson’s essay on the rise of the ride-share and home-share industries in the new economic order.
The Uptown controversy has to do with a sign posted outside 4525 N. Kenmore, the building that was formerly Graeme Stewart School. Chicago Public Schools closed the school and sold it to a private developer who’s turning it into the Stewart School Lofts, which are being marketed shamelessly on a placard over the school’s abandoned playground as “best in the class” rentals.
Morningside is by no means the only developer looking to cash in on converting old schools in gentrifying neighborhood. Svigos Asset Management, a Buffalo Grove-based operation, recently bought the Trumbull School at 5200 N. Ashland for a reported $5.25 million. Svigos has also purchased the buildings that formerly housed Motley School (739 N. Ada), Mulligan School (1855 N. Sheffield), and Peabody School (1444 W. Augusta). All of them have been converted into upscale rental units.
More maddening still is that Emanuel earmarked $16.1 million in TIF dollars to subsidize the development of a high-rise apartment complex at Clarendon and Montrose—not far from Stewart.
This is what is happening to Stewart School which was closed in 2013. I’m disgusted. #SchoolsNotStadiums pic.twitter.com/ZiX7nXWuir
— Erika Wozniak (@ErikaWozniak) June 23, 2017
Wait—that’s another elected official who likes to tweet.
There’s a sort of happy ending to the Twitter exchange. Cappleman finally agreed with Wozniak that the sign is “insensitive to the many students and teachers from [Stewart]” and said he’d ask to “have it changed.”
