There were 16 students in the 2012 graduating class at Stewart Elementary School. I was one of them. I remember graduation day vividly. We were holed up in room 107, adjacent to the auditorium. We could hear the sound of feet shuffling and our loved ones exchanging pleasantries over our own nervous conversation. We filed out of the room in two lines, one of boys in red gowns, the other of girls in white, in order from shortest to tallest. I was last in the line of seven boys. My palms oozed sweat while the butterflies in my belly danced to the school band’s rendition of the classic graduation march “Land of Hope and Glory.” My nerves followed me onto the stage, and I remember shedding tears as I delivered a reminiscent and hopeful valedictorian speech to an auditorium packed with my classmates, extended family, staff, and the entire seventh-grade class. I remember being vaguely aware that day that I might not see many of these faces ever again, and that it would be my last time up on that stage. I hadn’t the slightest inkling, however, that six years later, Stewart Elementary as I knew it would no longer exist.
By the time the next school year began, Stewart’s school building was desolate. Its lawn had been turned into a small tent city for the neighborhood’s homeless, and discussions had begun about how to repurpose the 90,000-square-foot building and the adjacent parking lot. CPS teamed up with the Metropolitan Planning Council and the office of 46th Ward alderman James Cappleman to organize a series of planning workshops. These workshops, called the Uptown Corridor Development Initiative, allowed members of the community to present their ideas for the repurposing of the school grounds. MPC used the input to develop eight recommendations including various combinations of retail, housing (both market rate and affordable), parking lots or garages, and space for nonprofit incubators. None of those renderings bear much resemblance to what currently exists at Stewart School.
“We wanted to keep as much of the charm as we could,” says Alison Solway, Morningside’s marketing manager. “Most of the units have the original hardwood floors, the original decorative molding on the walls. We even kept the chalkboard in one of the units. In some of the rooms, we had to come in and remove coat hooks that had people’s names on them.” Scattered throughout the hallways are renderings of blueprints of the school’s original layout, a reminder of the classrooms each unit has replaced. The two-story auditorium where I gave my graduation speech is now two separate units.
According to statistics provided by CPS, nearly 93 percent of Stewart’s student population prior to its closing was eligible for free or reduced-cost lunch. That’s 25 percent higher than the average of other schools in the same district. Williams and I were both among them. She grew up in a three-bedroom apartment nearby, sharing a room with her younger sister, who also went to Stewart. According to Williams, the rent for their apartment was income based, so her family paid about $500 per month. A three-bedroom unit in Stewart School Lofts rents for $3,505 per month now.
McCray and Washington have more than 50 years of teaching experience between them. But at their current income level, paying the rent for the unit that was once their classroom—$2,755—would be a serious stretch. It would also be a stretch for many people who are already living in the neighborhood: the median household income in Stewart’s census tract is $39,076. But the white population of Uptown has increased 64 percent since 2000, while the average rent in the community continues to see a slow but steady increase.
