The Rosenwald #2 - a photo on Flickriver

The Rosenwald #2

            Dear Musk:
Let me tell you about a rich man totally unlike you -- a man who used his wealth for GOOD.

Julius Rosenwald was born into money in Springfield, IL, to a father who was a clothier. They lived just down the street from President Abraham Lincoln's former house.

Eventually, he was the largest clothing supplier to mail-order retailer Sears Roebuck, and he became the company's chairman, president and part owner.

His business acumen built Sears into what was then the world's largest retailer, with a mail-order catalog, department stores, and a 40-acre headquarters complex centered around 925 S. Homan on Chicago's West Side. Several generations of consumers all over the world knew that "Homan and Arthington" was shorthand for Sears, Roebuck and Company.

With all his business success, he knew, like Andrew Carnegie, that with great fortune comes great responsibility. At a time when southside Chicago landlords were carving up turn-of-the-century mansions and apartment buildings into kitchenettes with as many as ten people to a room, Rosenwald built the Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments, a five story apartment building with storefronts facing 47th St. between Wabash and Michigan. One of those stores, naturally: Sears.

For forty years, for middle-class black families it was the Dakota of Bronzeville, and always had a waiting list of hopeful tenants. Its residents included poet Gwendolyn Brooks, singer Nat King Cole, boxing great Joe Louis, and musician Quincy Jones.

It endured a period of abandonment and neglect in the early 2000's, due in no small part to former Alderman Dorothy Tillman, who wanted this historic building torn down. Tillman was thankfully voted out in 2007, and current Alderman Pat Dowell spearhead the complete renovation of the Rosenwald, which reopened for tenants in 2016.

Musk, if you want to be remembered as Rosenwald was, instead of "Mr. Fork in the Road", this is the kind of thing you should be doing, instead of attending press conferences using your son on your shoulders to try to make yourself human, and pretending that Tesla and Space X don't benefit from government subsidies.

BTW, no one does their best work when they're worried about whether their jobs will be there tomorrow morning because they haven't told the boss what he or she wants to hear, at your companies or in government.

Taken in: United States / Illinois / Chicago / Robert Taylor Homes (historical) (show map)

Taken on: February 15, 2025

Tags:

Chicago

city

urban

Rosenwald

The Rosenwald

Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments

apartment

apartment building

Bronzeville

south side

47th St.

Wabash Avenue

Michigan Avenue

winter

snow

Dakota

middle class

African American

residents

landlords

Dorothy Tillman

Pat Dowell

alderman

WPD2025Urban « less

Sets appears in: • The 79th Street Sears, Soon to Close • 61st & Western Sears store, closing more » • Meanwhile, Back in the Neighborhoods.... • Sears Roebuck's Former West Side Chicago Headquarters • Around Chicago « less

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Camera: samsung Galaxy A15 5G, f/1.8, 1/151 sec, 4mm, ISO 20 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	samsung Galaxy A15 5G
Aperture:	f/1.8
Exposure Time:	0.007 sec (1/151)
Focal Length:	4mm
ISO:	20
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Spot
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	A156USQS5BYA3
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