16. Beth-El / Boys & Girls Club - Pillars & Porticos

BETH-EL Temple/Boys & Girls Club
Year of construction … 1925
Original cost to build … $75,000
Architect … Edward Steinborn
Original owner … Beth-El Congregation

Photo credit: Aleks Eva Photography
Temple to Clubhouse to Apartments
This site has a rich history reflecting the changing demographics of Logan Square, and Chicago as a whole. It began as a simple homestead in the 1890s, became a thriving locus of Jewish religious and social activity from 1920 to the mid-1950s, and then became a safe haven for Logan Square’s high-risk youth by offering programs and mentorship. In addition, it was the site of Chicago’s first freestanding, community-built artwork. The original building now continues on as rental apartments through an adaptive reuse that blends old and new. The open corner space will be the home to a community park created in partnership with the developers, Logan Square Preservation, and NeighborSpace.
Architecture
The yellow brick building with limestone accents was constructed in 1925. Designed by local architect and congregation member Edward Steinborn, it features classic temple architecture melded with the Chicago architectural styles of the time. Many temples and churches of the city carry these same design elements.
At the request of Logan Square Preservation (LSP), the current owners agreed to transfer ownership of the front portion of the open space next to the original building to establish a community park that will be accessible to the public. The developers tore down an annex building along the alley in order to provide parking spaces for the apartments. A new wall modeled after the original façade of salvaged bricks and limestone from the annex separates the park area from the parking lot.
Key Architectural Features

1. Two-story limestone entry archway and “Beth-El Center” panel
2. Two pairs of limestone angel wings above the limestone base
3. Decorative Corinthian column capitals
4. Limestone entablature with the words “Knowledge, Service, Truth” carved in English and Hebrew
5. Three-dimensional brick parapet
A similar motif was part of the previous Beth-El Temple on Crystal Street.
Beth-El Congregation on Palmer Street
After World War I, prosperity and social mobility resulted in many Jewish families moving into former Scandinavian neighborhoods such as Logan Square. In 1920, the Beth-El congregation — then one of the oldest Jewish congregations in the city, dating to 1871 — purchased the property at the northeast corner of Palmer Street and Sawyer Avenue. Other Jewish synagogues in the area at the time were the still-standing 1919 Temple B’nai David Ohave Zedek, at 1908-10 North Humboldt Boulevard, and the demolished 1922 Temple Shaare Zedek, at 3133 West Fullerton Avenue.

Beth-El was formed while still-burning embers from the Great Chicago Fire filled the air. It was the first congregation on the city’s Northwest Side. By 1920, after subsequent moves pushed the congregation further out from downtown, Beth-El bought a parcel of land near Palmer Square, initially conducting services in the existing clapboard house that stood on the lot’s southwest corner.

The cornerstone for the temple building was laid in March 1925 and by mid-October, dedication festivities were concluded. The original layout contained eight rooms and two auditoriums seating 400 and 750. The wooden structure remained and served as a religious school and the caretaker’s family home.

In 1948, the site was improved with the addition of the Joffe Annex on Sawyer Avenue at the alley. The annex was also designed by Edward Steinborn at a cost of $20,000. It provided rooms for a religious school, nursery school, and youth program. The annex was dedicated by past congregation president Nathan A. Joffe to honor his late daughter Adeline, who died of blood poisoning at the age of 19. Joffe was an executive at Reid, Murdoch & Company, known for the massive iconic red brick building with clock tower on the north side of the Chicago River between LaSalle and Clark Streets.

By the mid-1950s, a majority of the members of Beth-El lived closer to Rogers Park than Logan Square, resulting in a relocation of Temple Beth-El to West Rogers Park; in the 1980s, it moved to its current home in Northbrook, Ill. According to the Temple Beth-El History Project Website, the last official service in Logan Square was held on June 15, 1956. The other two congregations left soon thereafter for the same reasons.
Rendering of Beth-El Temple on Crystal Street
Boys & Girls Club of Logan Square
From the departure of the Beth-El congregation through late 2018, the building housed the Logan Square chapter of the 117-year-old Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago. The group provides after-school activities and mentoring for children. Known as the Chicago Boy’s Club at the time, a Logan Square location initially opened in the old Shakespeare police station in 1948.

A story in the May 19, 1956 Chicago Tribune stated that the Boy’s Club “is conducting a $300,000 fundraising drive to cover the cost of the building and extensive remodeling.” The few exterior changes were a Boys & Girls Club banner to cover the “Beth-El Center” inscription above the doorway (which has been removed) and a mosaic mural installation on the west wall (which is to remain).

Longtime Boys & Girls Clubs Director John Stephan (1949-2019) dedicated his life to the service of the community’s children and was considered a father figure to many youths at the Logan Square clubhouse. He led the Boys & Girls Clubs’ involvement in gang prevention and intervention programs and helped change hundreds of at-risk youths’ lives.

Club leadership worked to create the United Peace Zone Coalition, working with gang members — some of whom were in the prison system — to develop a neutral zone one-quarter mile around the club to allow all youth to participate in programs and activities. Director Stephan also partnered with groups such as ALSO and Cease Fire to bring additional gang intervention services to the greater Logan Square community.
Hodes Sculpture Garden
In the 1980s, the Boys & Girls Club of Logan Square was approached by the family of Barnet Hodes, a South Shore alderman known for his distinguished service in defense of democracy, philanthropy, and love of public art, with an opportunity to honor his legacy. The Hodes family, in cooperation with the Chicago Public Art Group (one of the premier public art groups in the country) were seeking a neighborhood partner with open space.

Barnet Hodes (1900-1980) was the city's corporation counsel under Mayor Edward J. Kelley and ran Richard J. Daley’s first mayoral campaign. In the 1930s, he led a group of civic leaders that raised funds to erect the Washington-Morris-Salomon Monument at Heald Square at Wacker Drive and Wabash Avenues, among other notable city monuments. The project at the corner of Palmer and Sawyer entitled Circulo Vivo (Living Circle) was by designed by local artist John Pittman Weber and Oregon-based Lynn Takata. Welder Jose Gonzalez and a team of teen and adult Boys & Girls Club volunteers assisted in its construction. Made from reinforced concrete, the sculptural bench and fountain held the distinction of being the city’s first freestanding, community-built artwork.

The form of the work was inspired from three main sources: Pedro Silva’s Grant’s Tomb Mosaics (1972-1974); Antonio Gaudi’s Güell Park ceramic fragment-encrusted benches (1900-1914); and the work of David Harding in Glenrothes, Scotland, who introduced the Chicago Mural Group to concrete as a community art medium in the 1970s.

Unfortunately, the fountain proved particularly hard to maintain and was demolished and replaced by preschool gym equipment after only two decades. The bench portion of the sculpture was painted blue.
Circulo Vivo in Hodes Sculpture Garden
(Aleks Eva Photography).
Grand Palmer Lodge (Aleks Eva Photography).
A New Chapter – The Grand Palmer Lodge
In 2018, the Boys & Girls Club of Logan Square moved out of the building, citing the extensive cost of necessary maintenance and the decrease in numbers of at-risk students and families in the area. After serving the community for more than 60 years, it put the building up for sale. The current Logan Square Club location is at Funston Elementary School, 2010 North Central Park Avenue.

Community members and neighbors were concerned that the building would be demolished, but an awareness campaign led by LSP convinced the buyers to focus on an adaptive reuse. And thus, architects were instructed to reconfigure the interior space into rental apartments.

As another part of the community engagement process, the developers agreed to a publicly accessible park on the site’s southwest corner. LSP worked with the developers for more than a year to try save the remaining Circulo Vivo sculpture, but the ravages of time had taken a substantial toll. The cost to preserve and/or relocate the bench were simply too prohibitive, and the sculpture and playground were dismantled. The Joffe Annex was razed but pieces of its façade were salvaged.
Victory Gardens to Community Gardens
During World War I, Europe experienced a severe food crisis as farm workers became soldiers and farms became battlefields. The U.S. Government organized the National War Garden Commission to encourage Americans to grow their own food in backyards and vacant lots to allow for the export of more food to those in need in Europe. Originally known as the “war garden movement,” the top-down effort was promoted via posters, motion pictures, pamphlets, and word-of-mouth. The promotion included tips on what to grow and when to plant. Posters asking civilians to “Sow the Seeds of Victory” led to the term victory gardens.

Victory gardens really took root in the U.S. during the Second World War after the U.S. introduced food rationing in 1942 to divert resources to moving troops and munitions. By the end of the war, 40 percent of the U.S.’s produce came from victory gardens. Chicago is said to have led the nation in victory gardens, planting up to 250,000, and the federal government shared the city’s plans with other major urban areas as a blueprint for success.
With the support of organizations such as the Chicago Park District, NeighborSpace, and other grass-roots efforts, Chicago continues this tradition with an estimated 700+ community gardens. These provide food and respite for residents in their communities. The current global pandemic has brought renewed interest in community gardening as people face anxiety about food supplies and a desire for a sanctuary in the city. Refer to the Tour map for the locations of community gardens in Logan Square.
Vision of a New Community Garden
Logan Square Preservation is currently working on a design for park space at Palmer and Sawyer. The concept attempts to capture the past and provide for the future, incorporating elements of Beth-El Synagogue and the Boys & Girls Club to serve as a reminder of the communities that once called it home. It is hoped that this corner lot will evolve into a local destination for art, nature and communal gathering.

-S.L and M.M.W.

For more information, visit:
Temple Beth-El History Project: historyproject.templebeth-el.org
Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago: bgcc.org/logan-square-club
NeighborSpace: neighbor-space.org