GRAND BOULEVARD — The founders of the Inner City Youth and Adult Foundation are retiring and putting their historic home on the market for $2.7 million.
Maurice and Christine Perkins have run the nonprofit that helps people coming out of state prisons find jobs and get re-established out of the historic Swift Mansion, 4500 S. Michigan Ave., for 22 years.
“We did it, we dodged all the bullets on State Street,” said Christine Perkins, who left an administrative job in Chicago Public Schools 22 years ago to start the foundation in a neighborhood that then had the largest concentration of public housing buildings in the country.
The neighborhood’s changing and is now regaining some of the affluence it had when Maurice was a nightclub owner in the late 1970s, and the couple now is looking for someone to take over the leadership of the nonprofit and test the interest in the real estate market for one of Bronzeville’s grandest mansions.
On Thursday, there were 10 men living in the mansion who had been released from prison sometime in the last three months. They were writing resumes and applying for jobs while living among much of the opulence that defined the neighborhood when the mansion was built in 1893.
The meticulously carved woodwork that seems to cover every surface was part of the design of Gustavo Swift, the wealthy Chicago meatpacker who had the mansion built for his daughter, Helen.
“They built this community; it used to be millionaires row,” Maurice said.
Maurice and Christine spent their early years in the neighborhood chasing money, too. In the late '70s, Maurice was known in the neighborhood as the owner of Caesar’s Palace nightclub on 45th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue who bought a new Chrysler every year.
In 1979, Christine said they got a wake-up call.
“One New Year’s Eve, we were holding an event, and a person was chasing someone else, and a bullet when through the window, and it all changed for us,” Christine said.
She said they looked around and realized that many of the people in their nightclub were now out of work, and the neighborhood was going downhill fast.
Maurice and Christine Perkins are planning to step back from running their nonprofit after 22 years. [DNAinfo/Sam Cholke]
In the Army, Maurice had run the Plantation Club in Frankfurt, Germany. After their decision to start helping the neighborhood, Maurice started thinking about why he’d ended up there in the first place.
Maurice said when he was 17, he got arrested, and a judge took pity on him and let him join the Army instead of sending him to jail. He said the experience gave him a second chance, and it gave him the experience he needed to start his own club.
The foundation started in a basement on 48th Street, and in 1995 moved to the Swift Mansion when the Chicago Urban League moved to its new home next door.
The Swift Mansion was built by wealthy meatpacker Gustavo Swift for his daughter, Helen. [Chicago Architecture Foundation/Eric Allix Rogers]
Christine said the work isn’t over for her, but at 67, she and Maurice are allowed to think about slowing down. She said she and Maurice will likely stay involved but at this point have already lost track of how many people they’ve helped.
“I can’t imagine — hundreds, thousands of people have come through here,” Christine said.
She said the nonprofit will live past its historic home and doesn’t think they’ll have a problem finding somewhere else in the neighborhood if there is interest in the historic mansion.
The Swift Mansion is not protected by a city landmark designation, and Christine said the couple wants to sell to someone who will preserve its historic elements.
The Swift Mansion still has much of its lavish woodwork. [Chicago Architecture Foundation/Eric Allix Rogers]
