With more than 350 sites to choose from during the Chicago Architecture Center’s free Open House Chicago event this weekend, it can be a challenge to decide which to visit. Here’s a suggestion: Bronzeville’s Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church, at 45th Street and Vincennes Avenue. It has a unique place in the architectural and musical history of the city, but the most compelling reason to get there may be the one that stands just under two miles away, on the southeast corner of Indiana Avenue and 33rd Street.
Two years after Pilgrim Baptist was completed, Chicago was hit by a major economic recession. It was 1893, the year famous for the opening of the Columbian Exposition. Visitors were streaming into the city, but no new buildings were getting commissioned. The partnership of Adler and Sullivan, which had enjoyed more than a decade of success that included the design of buildings like the Chicago Stock Exchange and the Garrick Theater, was already under strain. Adler wanted to bring his son into the business; Sullivan—perhaps suffering from the alcoholism that would plague his later life—wasn’t enthusiastic about that. By 1895, under the additional stress of the recession, the partnership had broken apart.
The congregation numbers only a little more than 100 active members now, many of them elderly, Butts says. But a new pastor, Darryl N. Person, is about to be installed, and the plan is to build the membership while raising the money to restore the building. The Open House Chicago viewings are Saturday, October 19, from 10 AM to 5 PM, and Sunday, October 20, from 1 to 5 PM. If you don’t make it—or even if you do—a free gospel music concert in honor of the installation is set for 7 PM at the church, 4501 S. Vincennes, on Friday, October 25, and the public is invited. v
Sat 10/19-Sun 10/20, various times, various locations, Chicago Architecture Center, 111 E. Wacker, 312-801-2588, openhousechicago.org, free.
