Landscape Information
Situated directly south of Washington Park and the Midway Plaisance, this irregularly shaped neighborhood measures approximately two square miles. Bound broadly by East 60th Street, South DuSable Lake Shore Drive, East 67th Street, and South Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Drive, Woodlawn borders Jackson Park to the east and Parkway Garden Homes to the west.
Initially developed in the 1850s by Dutch farmers, Woodlawn expanded in the early 1890s prior to the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Beginning in 1928, racial covenants barred people of color from acquiring or renting property in the community. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling of 1940 made such covenants illegal and Woodlawn subsequently became a predominantly African American, middle-class neighborhood. In 1955 the neighborhood garnered national attention after fourteen-year-old resident Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi.
The relatively level neighborhood comprises gridded, tree-lined streets, oriented north-south and east-west. Many of the buildings, primarily bungalows and two- and three-story residences, were established in the late nineteenth century with minimal setbacks. Elevated train tracks bisect Woodlawn from east to west along East 63rd Street, as well as from north to south on the eastern end. The neighborhood features several parks and community gardens, including Mamie Till-Mobley Park, Wadsworth Campus Park, and the Mamie Till-Mobley Forgiveness Garden. The latter was established in 2019 by the environmental justice non-profit Blacks in Green to commemorate the activist and mother of Emmett Till, Mamie Till-Mobley. The following year the organization acquired the Till-Mobley residence, located less than one block south of the garden.
The western section of Woodlawn is located within the Bronzeville-Black Metropolis National Heritage Area, designated in 2023.
