Ridge Historical Society
National Police Week: The History of the Morgan Park Police Station – Part 3
By Carol Flynn
This is the timeline for the Morgan Park police station:
1914 – The Village of Morgan Park annexes to Chicago; a Morgan Park police station is established as part of the Chicago Police Department, incorporating the four officers previously employed by the Village.
1918 – Morgan Park station is discontinued; a small substation continues in a barn.
1928 – A new station is planned but never built.
1929 – A new Morgan Park station opens in a storefront at 1925-27 Monterey Avenue.
1936 – A new station is built at 1830 W. Monterrey Ave.
1961 – The Morgan Park police station is closed once again.
1975 – The Morgan Park police station is reopened at 1830 Monterey Ave.
1983 – The City of Chicago announces plans to close the Morgan Park police station again but the community prevails in keeping the station open.
2004 – The current 22nd District Police Station at 1930 W. Monterey opens.
Throughout its history, the City of Chicago has gone back and forth on the philosophy of a centralized versus a decentralized police station. “Centralized” calls for command and decision-making coming from fewer people at the top levels of the hierarchy, resulting in fewer facilities to maintain with fewer administrative staff. The belief is that less budget spent on administrative costs frees up more for actual officers out on the street. When the pendulum swung toward centralized command, Morgan Park lost its police station and had to rely on services from either Kensington or Gresham.
When the pendulum swung toward “decentralized” policing, that is, command and decision-making are focused in the communities where the services occur, Morgan Park got its police station back. And of course, this being Chicago, the role politics played in deciding where police stations were established – or removed from – can never be discounted.
In 1960, it was announced that the City of Chicago was reorganizing the police department again, consolidating districts and closing some stations. Just as in 1918, the rationale was that less money spent on administration would allow for more police on the street.
The proposal included combining the 12th and 13th districts and eliminating the Morgan Park station at 1830 West Monterey Avenue. The community, led by the Beverly Area Planning Association (BAPA), strongly opposed this. But appeals to the mayor, city council, and police department went unheard, and the station closed at midnight, December 18, 1961. The Chicago Board of Education took over the old police station.
In the spring of 1975, it was announced that the Morgan Park police station would reopen in the building on Monterey. The current Police Superintendent, James M. Rochford, supported decentralized policing efforts. In the past, the main reason the districts were aligned the way they were was actually due to the technology at the time – the coordination of the telephone exchanges system and the police radio zones. The telephone system was due to be computerized, which would end this system and allow the police department to set boundaries based on community needs rather than telephone lines.
The 22nd Police District opened its doors in March 1975 in the existing building at 1830 Monterey, necessitating the Board of Education to vacate the premises.
The boundaries of the district were the Dan Ryan Woods on the north; the Chicago, Western, and Indiana railroad tracks on the east; and the city limits on the south and west.
In 1983, it was once again proposed that Morgan Park be one of three stations to close to reduce administrative costs for the city. The community fiercely fought the closing and it did not happen.
In 2000, it was announced that as part of a continuing program to replace aging and outmoded police stations citywide, a new station would be built at 111th and Esmond Streets. The city used its power of eminent domain to acquire some of the property, forcing the removal of some occupied homes. The Edna White Community Garden had to relocate to the land vacated across the street when the old building was torn down.
The new facility opened at 1900 West Monterey Avenue in the summer of 2004. Where the old station had no lockers, no private rooms for discussions, no holding cells, no parking lot, and limited technology, the new station not only had lockers, it included a fitness room. It had a community room and private meeting rooms, a lockup, two parking lots, and, most important, high-tech equipment. It was also built to be “green,” using recycled materials and energy-efficient design elements.
The 22nd District has been operating out of this building for seventeen years.