Streeterville, Naperville and Glenview have something in common: They each tout a children’s museum within their boundaries.
North Lawndale looks to join that club by 2026 with the construction of One Lawndale Children’s Discovery Center at 3140 W. Ogden Ave. When complete, the location will have 15,000 square feet of hands-on interactive exhibits and play areas that will feature spaces centered on art; an area solely for infants and toddlers; a space focused on literacy; a science, technology, engineering, arts and math space; and an additional 12,000 square feet of outdoor recreation and green space.
Educational, recreational, cultural and arts programming will engage children from infancy to 8 years old through a number of interactive exhibits designed with and by the community, said museum founder and Erikson Institute alumna Leslie Bond.
“There are many great museums but there is something to be said when it’s in your community and you can just walk there and take advantage of it,” Bond said. “This is just another effort to say these communities have not had the resources that others have had and their children deserve the same great chance. To have a place you can get to easily and be able to have all that at your doorstep, we hope will make a big difference in kids.”
Bond said work on the Discovery Center began in 2020, but it has faced many delays. Now, a prototype of the center’s literacy exhibit will be showcased at the Lawndale Pop-Up Spot at Central Park Avenue and Douglas Boulevard through the month of June. Bond said the Poetry Foundation is donating hundreds of notebooks, while Open Books will donate books in English and Spanish.
With the theme “Readers Are Leaders,” programming for the prototype will feature community leaders and members reading books to children. The first reader is Chicago children’s author Natasha Tarpley on June 1. While the pop-up will be mostly focused on literacy, information on the other exhibits will be there as well as opportunities for community feedback.
Private foundations, organizations and individual donations have already raised over half of the $7 million cost. Bond expects the project to be debt-free when it opens. And it’s not just adults who are behind the center. Youths have created artwork that will factor into the structure when it’s built, so children can see their work added to the finished product.
“Community really owns this space,” she said. “We will have health workers on-site in the infant-toddler area and the pediatric space because there may be a mom experiencing postpartum depression who doesn’t even know that’s a thing and isn’t connected to other moms. We can have play groups there and organize that. It’s a way to identify things early on and to help educate, but in a fun way.”
Headquartered in North Lawndale, the Discovery Center looks to bring together residents of the North and South Lawndale neighborhoods. While some are positive about the “One Lawndale” concept, other long-term residents are skeptical.
Chelsea Ridley, director of community engagement at Open Books and co-founder of the Lawndale Pop-Up Spot, chalks up the negativity to resource scarcity.
“Everyone is fighting over one piece of bread not knowing that there’s enough bread out there for everyone if we just work together,” she said. “One Lawndale to me is thinking in a more political way of the powers that want us to fight … against each other for the same resources. Think about how powerful we can be if we all work together in a ‘One Lawndale’ way.”
Bond, who is working with dozens of stakeholders to design and build the community-based and community-led museum with a strong caregiver engagement component, envisions a variety of features at the site:
- An on-site teaching kitchen will have a dietician and offer cooking classes, where recipes from community members will be tweaked to be a bit more heart-healthier and subsequently shared.
- A healthy food area, much like the Madison Children’s Museum’s Lunchbox Cafe, will have a refrigerator with prepared foods for visitors to “take what they need, pay what they can.”
- Chickens and an organic garden would offer opportunities for families to take things home that have been grown at the center and grow them at their own homes.
- A science exhibit with a water table will focus on equity through the lens of access to clean water and air, and having kids understand what makes the environment better.
- Sensory areas will cater to neurodivergent learners who might need a little space during a trip to the center. The sensory areas will not just be in one part of the museum, but in every exhibit.
About a dozen stakeholders, including members from the project’s Youth Advisory Council — made up of a dozen youths from Lawndale who meet monthly — sat down at the campus of social services agency UCAN in April to share their thoughts with the exhibit design team from Gyroscope Inc., an Oakland, California-based museum-planning firm.
Catherine Hollis, program director at Malcolm X College, has been working with Bond, the North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council, and the dozens of partners aiding in the development for the last four to six months. She said the Discovery Center represents an avenue where young kids and families can learn together and collaborate together.
“As a resident, to me, this is something that is huge because a lot of times our community is ignored, or we’re seen as the troubled side of town,” Hollis said. “We are a community that loves our families, that loves learning, that wants our children to have the best, and I believe the museum will be a part of that … that will bring a positive light to our neighborhood more than a negative one.”
Allen Rosales, director of professional learning and development at the Carole Robertson Center for Learning, agrees. He thinks the center will be good for fathers in the neighboring communities. “There’s a father crisis out in our communities. … A lot of fathers missing out on beautiful life experiences and playing with (kids) is one of them — it builds relationships, builds nurturing. That’s an opportunity for the community to build that love and relationship with their children.”
Ridley said the center would be a good place to go aside from work, school or home.
“It’s sort of a pet peeve of mine because I’m trying to have meetings here and there’s nowhere where you can have a meeting,” she said. “The coffee shops close at 3 p.m. So let’s have a place to go.”
Having started the Pop-Up Spot museum, Ridley is happy to work with Bond to make the Discovery Center come to fruition.
Ald. Monique Scott, 24th, said the center will draw people to the North Lawndale community, which has a long history of disinvestment.
“This is great because it’s bringing a viable, equitable thing in our community that we’ve never had,” she said. “This is a great start to a new beginning for us. We’ve just been surviving, really. I think this museum will give our children and our families some hope — the opportunity to see what is possible.”
Hours for the pop-up in June are Wednesday-Friday 10 a.m.-12 p.m. and 2-4 p.m., and Saturdays 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Children’s author Natasha Tarpley will kickoff the month by reading to children the morning of June 1.
