The former garage at 6100 S. Blackstone was already home to a community of artists, artisans, and activists when Dan Peterman took over the title in 1996. The Resource Center–which had owned the ramshackle brick building before Peterman–pioneered recycling programs and neighborhood projects in Woodlawn beginning in the early 70s.
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At the time Woodlawn was dealing with the legacy of more than 20 years of depopulation and disinvestment. Sixty-first Street functioned as a no-man’s-land between the upper-middle-class community huddled close to the University of Chicago in Hyde Park and the poor, black community of Woodlawn.
The Resource Center was “moving across boundaries in a way that very few other things were,” says Peterman. “They were working to improve the situation. Not by direct solution, but just by saying, ‘Well, look, there need to be more points of connection, more points of interface.’” The garden, which brought together people from both sides of the divide, was an example of this strategy.
On April 25 a fire destroyed much of 6100 S. Blackstone. For several weeks the future of the building was uncertain, but it now appears that Peterman will rebuild. With a little luck, by October all of the old tenants will be back in the newly christened “Experimental Station,” a name taken from Frank Lloyd Wright’s famed “Art and Craft of the Machine” speech, in which he wished for an environment where art and technology could come together.
The free discussion will begin at 5:30 Friday, June 15, at the Instituto Cervantes in the John Hancock Center, 875 N. Michigan, suite 2940, and will be followed by wine, tapas, and a jazz set by the Tim Fitzgerald Trio. Call 312-335-1996 for more information.
