What's That Building: South Shore Cultural Center and Beach

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**Sasha-Ann Simons** (0:55)
Hey Chicago, I'm Sasha-Ann Simons, and this is In the Loop.
As always, stick around for a rundown of the latest news here in the Chicago area at the end of this episode. Now, today on the pod, the latest addition of our recurring series What's That Building. We've been doing a summer beach tour, making stops at the interesting buildings that line Chicago's lakefront on South Side beaches. This time around, a closer look at a building that was once a country club, had a cameo in the Blues Brothers movie, and was the site of the Obama's wedding reception. I'm talking about the South Shore Cultural Center. And according to our architecture guru, Dennis Rockin, the historic Spanish style building sits on the shores of the quintessential Chicago beach. Now, Dennis and I recently stopped by the property, got a view of the city's skyline from the sand, and met up with South Shore resident Paulette Curry.
Let's listen.

**Dennis Rodkin** (1:55)
It's a beautiful beach. I love it.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:57)
I won't go to any other beach.

**Claire Lane** (1:59)
It's cozy. It's not a lot of people here.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:05)
Black girls have the concession stand.

**Claire Lane** (2:09)
And it's just no stress, no mess.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:13)
It's beautiful.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (2:23)
Dennis, this is perhaps the most spectacular entrance to a building that there ever was.

**Dennis Rodkin** (2:31)
Isn't it? Especially because you come through this garden, it feels a little bit like Mexico today because it's so warm, but you've got bamboo, we have these low palm trees, you come to this big Spanish revival building.
This building was based on a club in Mexico City. So this all really sets the tone of where we're headed.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (2:52)
The building is majestic, and I'm obviously talking about the South Shore Cultural Center, down on the South Side in the city of Chicago.

**Dennis Rodkin** (2:59)
And we're here because for our summer series on South Side Beaches, I knew we had to do this one. This is not only the best beach on the South Side or the best beach and building on the South Side, but to me, quintessential Chicago Beach, North Side, South Side suburban.
You have so many things. We're about to look at the beautiful architecture. There's a nice beach, there's a view of the skyline. We even see out to the water cribs that pipe our drinking water in, so we get a feeling for Lake Michigan. There's also racial history here. There is natural history here. You could hardly find a beach that sums up Chicago better.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (3:38)
Plus golf and tennis.

**Dennis Rodkin** (3:40)
Golf, tennis and horses.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (3:42)
What more could you ask for? All right, well, we're standing in the garden at the very front of the building, Dennis, and looking at it, I mean, I can tell this is not your typical Chicago structure.
What are we looking at?

**Dennis Rodkin** (3:54)
Well, as I said, based on a club in Mexico City, and for a reason, in the early 1900s, a downtown real estate investor who was very plugged in, wanted to start, it's kind of hard to believe because we're only at about 70 hundred south. He wanted to start a country club, really an alternative to the downtown clubs that people of his caliber were attending. And he used to come down here with his kids to buy fish, fresh fish caught in the lake.
When this was just sort of a sandy expanse, the city ended about a block west of us, and all of this was kind of a sandy marsh. This banker and real estate investor, Lawrence Hayworth, had a vision to create a country club. He had to haul in soil from about nearly 50 miles south from Moments. He wants to build a golf course, and based on a club he had seen in Mexico City, he conjures up this building with the help of Marshall and Fox, important architects whose other buildings in the city include the Blackstone Hotel, the Drake Hotel, the Edgewater Beach Hotel. And so they come down here, and they make him first a smaller version of this, because remember, he's betting that a country club will work.