“The Elijah Muhammad House in Kenwood is one step closer to landing on the National Register of Historic Places, while advocates for Promontory Point made their case for a city landmark designation at a meeting of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks’s Program Committee on Sept. 22.
“The Program Committee reviews public landmark suggestions for buildings and areas in the city and forwards them to the city’s Department of Planning and Development. (It does not vote on the suggestions.) Becoming a landmark confers legal protections on a property, including against alterations or demolition. The committee also considers nominations to the National Register of Historic Places, a federal list of historically significant landmarks.
“The Elijah Muhammad House, 4847 S. Woodlawn Ave., is already part of the Kenwood Landmark District, whose borders are 47th Street to 51st Street and South Blackstone Avenue to South Drexel Avenue. Elijah Muhammad, the longtime leader of the Nation of Islam, lived in Kenwood until his death in 1975. At Wednesday’s meeting, the house was up for a nomination to the National Register.
“Wendy Muhammad bought the house in 2018 and plans to turn it into a museum. The property was at the center of a short-lived controversy this past March, when Ald. Sophia King (4th) proposed and subsequently withdrew an ordinance that would require city permission for some cultural exhibits and libraries, including many house museums, before they could be built. (The Muhammad house had already received its permits by then, and so would not have been affected by the legislation.)
“Suellen Burns and Richard Tolliver, the two Landmarks Commission members at the Program Committee meeting, both recommended that the property be nominated for the National Register. The project will be considered by the full commission at its Oct. 7 meeting.”(Belanger, Hyde Park Herald, 9/22/21)