Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood once boasted a population of 125,000 residents and manufacturing sites for some of the city’s largest companies. But following its peak-industrial height of the 1970s, the industries and most of the people left, with just 40,000 residents remaining today.
Recognizing the community’s past and present, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks approved a measure Thursday that could allow the West Side neighborhood’s most famous corporate resident, Sears, Roebuck & Co. District, to stand for many years to come.