A map from 1968 shows the six-acre cemetery that could be disrupted by the rebuilding of Oak Park Avenue. [Northwest Chicago Historical Society/Matt Schademann)(left); DNAinfo/Heather Cherone]
DUNNING — A revised plan to rebuild Oak Park Avenue — without disturbing the remains of Chicago's poorest and sickest residents who died between 1890 and 1912 — "makes the most sense," the leading expert on the Dunning cemetery said Wednesday.
"This is the best outcome I could have imagined, and it also makes the most sense," said Barry Fleig, the former cemetery chairman of the Chicago Genealogical Society. "It preserves the dignity of those buried there and it is a win for dignity and justice for those who no longer have a voice."
The project was postponed last year after DNAinfo reported Fleig's warnings that the planned work could unearth thousands of bodies buried in the long-forgotten Dunning cemetery. As many as 10,000 bodies are under what is now Oak Park Avenue in Dunning.
"I think they made a great decision," Fleig said.
Fleig is putting together a database of about 38,000 Chicagoans buried in what is now the heart of Dunning, but was once the grounds of a Cook County poorhouse.
Plans approved by Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, in compliance with the Illinois Human Skeletal Remains Protection Act, call for the easement for roadway to be moved east — outside the cemetery — onto property owned by the city, according to plans released by the state agency.
That will allow the road's new storm sewer to be installed outside the cemetery, according to a statement from the Chicago Department of Transportation.
In addition, new lights will be installed on bases that are wider than they are deeper to avoid disturbing any remains, officials said.
The other planned improvements — including new pavement and sidewalks — will not extend more than a meter below the ground's surface and are not expected to interfere with any remains, according to the plans approved by the agency.
In addition, an archeologist will be on hand throughout the construction to monitor "unanticipated discoveries" as the work progresses. That person will have the authority to halt the work, according to the plans approved by the agency.
"Money and progress usually trumps cemeteries," Fleig said. "I'm so pleased. They did good."
[Chicago Department of Transportation]
If human remains are discovered during the roadwork, they will be reburied in the Read Dunning Memorial Park after being examined and cataloged, according to a recommendation from Chicago Department of Transportation officials.
An exploratory dig carried out by a team of archeologists in July "confirmed a section of Oak Park Avenue built in the 1930s crossed a portion of the unmarked" cemetery, according to a statement from the city.
Starting in the 1850s, poor and indigent Chicagoans were buried by the county on 20 acres near Berteau and Narragansett avenues near the county poorhouse. The six-acre portion of the cemetery opened in 1890 near Irving Park Road and Oak Park Avenue, and about 17,000 people were buried there.
The cemetery stopped accepting most new burials after the state bought the 320-acre property in 1912 and built a mental institution. The road was built in 1934, Fleig said.
It wasn't until March 1989 that construction workers building what is now the Dunning Square shopping center found "the top half of a remarkably well-preserved 19th century man, complete with a handlebar mustache and muttonchops," according to the Reader.
That led to the rediscovery of the cemetery — and ultimately the creation of the Read-Dunning Memorial Park to honor those who were buried there.
The rebuilt road will have three 10-foot travel lanes and a striped median to allow cars to make left turns. New sidewalks, lighting and buffered bike lanes will be built, along with curbs and gutters, paid for with $5 million from the Dunning Tax Increment Financing District.
In addition to the storm sewer system, vegetated swale will be built to handle flooding.That part of the project will be funded by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's $50 million Green Stormwater Infrastructure Strategy, officials said.
Torrential rains in April 2013 turned streets in Dunning into gushing rivers and left two to three feet of water in residents' basements for weeks.
The project is expected to be completed by the end of the year, officials said.
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