POTENTIAL WIN: Chicago Plan Commission Approves By The Hand Club For Kids’ Renovation of Altgeld Gardens’ Historic “Up Top” Building, Home to the Birthplace of the Environmental Justice Movement (Chicago 7 2017, 2022)

“A $23.3 million effort to turn an architecturally significant 81-year-old former Altgeld Gardens commercial building into an after-school center has been approved by the Chicago Plan Commission. The panel last week approved the By The Hand Club For Kids’ project to convert and expand the dilapidated one-story modernist building at 13100 S. Ellis Ave. into a facility with classrooms, a gymnasium and meeting space. The development represents quite a potential turnaround for one of the city’s less recognized but historically important buildings.

“Designed by noted modernist architects Keck & Keck — and nicknamed the ‘Up Top’ building by Altgeld residents — the distinctive fan-shaped brick structure with an overhanging curved roof was built in 1945 as stores, offices and services for the then-new Far South Side public housing development. The Up Top was granted preliminary city landmark status earlier this month.

“The building became the birthplace of the environmental justice movement in the 1980s when the late Altgeld resident Hazel Johnson’s People for Community Recovery set up shop there.

“‘We just think that there’s so much great history in the building, and we know it’s something the community wanted us to do,’ By The Hand Club For Kids Chief of Partnerships and Development Andraya Yousfi said. ‘Lots of incredible history in the building that’s really meaningful for the community.’

“By The Hand Club has been active at Altgeld for 25 years. The housing development’s Local Advisory Council President Bernadette Williams was instrumental in getting the organization to reuse the building. ‘With them preserving it, it’s going to be a new amenity [that helps with the] beautification of Altgeld Gardens,’ Williams said. ‘It’s an eyesore right now.’

“The renovation would convert the long-vacant building into a K-12 after-school center with computer labs, nine classrooms, a kitchen, offices and a multipurpose room. And a breezeway that contains a memorial with the names of Altgeld residents handwritten on a yellow brick wall will be preserved. The city’s landmarks designation report said the wall dates back to the 1960s. ‘They’re going to encase those names,’ Williams said.

“The Up Top was designed by architects George Frederick Keck and his brother William. It’s a straight-up modernist structure — more apparent in early photos — quite in contrast to the more traditional-looking Altgeld homes and buildings designed by Naess & Murphy.

“George Keck gained fame by designing the House of Tomorrow, a futuristic 12-sided glass [house] for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. The home, relocated to Beverly Shores, Indiana, after the fair, is currently under restoration. At Altgeld, the Kecks designed ‘a high-quality, cost effective and energy efficient commercial building,’ the city’s designation report said.

“Storefronts with large shop windows face south to take advantage of natural sunlight and the warm rays of the low winter sun. The renovations would bring back the big windows, giving the building a transparency and a visual weightlessness that hasn’t been seen there in at least a generation.

“The landmarks commission’s preliminary designation — which protects the building from demolition and unsympathetic alterations — is supported by the By The Hand Club, Yousfi said. The designation honors the building for its architecture and architects but also for its connection to the groundbreaking environmental activism of Johnson and the People for Community Recovery.” (Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 6/29/26)

The “Up Top” building — named by Altgeld Gardens residents for its elevated position at the northeast corner of the complex — is one of Chicago’s most important and least celebrated examples of mid-century modernism, and Preservation Chicago is proud to have been an active voice for its preservation over many years.

The building has appeared on Preservation Chicago’s Chicago 7 Most Endangered list twice: in 2017, as part of a broader designation of Altgeld Gardens Blocks 11, 12, and 13, and again in 2022, as part of the “Public Housing Sites” designation alongside the Cabrini-Green Rowhouses and Lathrop Homes South Campus. Long before these Chicago 7 designations, it had appeared on our watchlists beginning as early as 2011.

On June 4, 2026, Preservation Chicago was proud to testify in strong support of By The Hand Club For Kids’ project at the Commission on Chicago Landmarks meeting at which the building received its Preliminary Landmark Designation, a milestone Ward Miller called “marvelous and well deserved.”

Keck & Keck, the Chicago firm led by brothers George Frederick Keck and William Keck, brought to Altgeld Gardens the same innovative design sensibility they applied to the House of Tomorrow and the Crystal House at the 1933 Century of Progress World’s Fair — buildings that introduced passive solar principles, floor-to-ceiling glass, and prefabricated construction to a national audience.

At Altgeld Gardens, these same ideas were applied in a civic and commercial context: large south-facing shop windows harvesting winter sunlight, a gracefully curved roofline creating shelter and shade, and a robust brick construction meant to last. The building was central to the wider development. It was the neighborhood’s Main Street, including a grocery store, currency exchange, cleaners, drug store, boutique, barbershop/stylist, pool hall/ deli, adult club/bar, which served Altgeld Gardens residents in a self-contained public housing community deliberately sited far from the city’s commercial core. The grocery store was owned and operated by Alfred Beale. It was called Al’s Certified Grocery store. The drug store was originally a Rexall Drugs. The owner sold it to the pharmacist who worked there and it became Cartwright’s Drug Store. The original owner of the barber shop retired and sold the shop to one of his barbers who happened to be a local resident, Ernest Daurham.

The connection to Hazel Johnson and the People for Community Recovery make this building historically significant in ways far beyond the architecture. Johnson — who grew up in Altgeld Gardens and watched her neighbors suffer disproportionate rates of cancer, asthma, and other illnesses linked to the toxic industrial landscape surrounding the development — founded People for Community Recovery in 1979. Widely recognized as the “Mother of the Environmental Justice Movement,” Johnson’s advocacy for this building helped establish the principle that low-income communities of color have the right to a clean and healthy environment. That legacy is now part of what the City of Chicago’s landmark designation report recognizes and honors, alongside the Keck & Keck design itself.

The memorial wall within the breezeway — a yellow brick surface covered with the handwritten names of Altgeld residents lost to gun violence, dating to the 1960s — adds yet another layer of meaning. We praise By The Hand Club’s commitment to encasing and preserving those names within the new lobby in an act of profound community stewardship.

Preservation Chicago applauds By The Hand Club For Kids, Andraya Yousfi, Local Advisory Council President Bernadette Williams, the City of Chicago, Present Future Architects, Landmarks Illinois, and all the partners who are bringing this remarkable building back to life.

We will remain actively involved until the Chicago Landmark designation for the Up Top building is finalized and building redevelopment is completed, ensuring that this one-of-a-kind Keck & Keck structure — and the environmental justice history it holds — is permanently protected.

Read the full story at Chicago Sun-Times

• Altgeld Gardens’ ‘Up Top’ building to return to tip-top shape as an after-school center; By The Hand Club For Kids’ renovation would revive an often overlooked building that was designed by noted architects then became the birthplace of the environmental justice movement; Lee Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 6/29/26
• Up Top Building Redevelopment Approved By Plan Commission; Ian Achong, Chicago YIMBY, 7/4/26
• Plan Commission approves redevelopment of Up Top Building, The building at 13100 S. Ellis will be converted into a community center, Lukas Kugler, Urbanize Chicago, 7/1/26
• After School Program Set To Redevelop Historic Altgeld Gardens Building; Ian Achong, Chicago YIMBY, 6/24/26
• A neglected Altgeld Gardens building, designed by 1933 World’s Fair architect, is slated for rebirth; Once renovated, the 79-year-old former Altgeld Gardens Commercial Center designed by noted architects Keck & Keck will house after-school programs and social services; Lee Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 6/3/25
• Altgeld Gardens Up-Top Building Rehabilitation and Land Disposition Project; City of Chicago Press Release
• Altgeld Gardens Memorial Wall’s place in Chicago history is clear, its future less so; “The wall is kind of like a historic monument for everybody who used to live or still lives in Altgeld Gardens,” a former resident says. But it’s in danger of being demolished, Linda Paul,  WBEZ, 1/31/23
• THREATENED: Public Housing Sites; Altgeld Gardens Commercial, Cabrini Rowhouses, Lathrop Homes South Campus A 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered
• POTENTIAL WIN: Nonprofit Buyer Plans Renovation of Up Top Building at Altgeld Gardens (Chicago 7 2017 & 2022); Preservation Chicago, 2025
• THREATENED: Public Housing Sites; Altgeld Gardens Commercial, Cabrini Rowhouses, Lathrop Homes South Campus, A 2022 Chicago 7 Most Endangered; Preservation Chicago, 2022
• Altgeld Gardens, Blocks 11, 12 and 13, a Preservation Chicago 2017 Chicago 7 Most Endangered