Two longtime neighborhood fundraisers are moving this fall after decades in the Hyde Park Shopping Center Plaza.
The Hyde Park Garden Fair and Hyde Park Used Book Sale are relocating to Kimbark Plaza after effectively getting the boot from the shopping center’s owner to make room for outdoor dining for Mahari, a new fusion eatery coming to 1504 E. 55th St. this month.
This expansion, joining the outdoor seating of adjacent Ascione’s Bistro, leaves the fundraisers with little space for their wares.
George Rumsey, who helps organize both sales with the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference (HPKCC), estimated that the book sale has been held in the plaza since the 1950s, and the garden fair since 1960 or so.
“We hate leaving the shopping center because both the book sale and the garden fair got their start in the shopping center,” Rumsey said. “There’s a long association with it, and we all feel sort of nostalgic about leaving, but we have to deal with the reality of the current situation.”
Gerald McSwiggan, director of public affairs for the University of Chicago, which owns the shopping center, reiterated in a statement that the move better accommodates the sales’ needs.
“We have enjoyed hosting the events over the last years and wish them success in the new space,” McSwiggan wrote.
He did not respond to questions about whether the U. of C. offered organizers alternative spaces with other property it owns.
Readers peruse thousands of titles at the Hyde Park Used Book Sale, 55th Street and Lake Park Avenue, on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.
Held on the second weekend of October since its inception in 1954, the used book sale began as a fundraiser for Korean refugees during the Korean War, organized by the Hyde Park Co-op grocery store. When the Co-op went out of business in 2007, the sale changed hands to the HPKCC
With prices starting at $1, the sale offers thousands of books in dozens of genres. Proceeds typically go to HPKCC, local park beautification and events and the Englewood nonprofit Growing Home, which provides agricultural training for people facing employment barriers.
Held just as the neighborhood’s fall colors begin to appear, the Hyde Park Garden Fair’s Fall Bulb & Mum sale enters its 64th year this September. Proceeds from the one-day sale – bulbs for a colorful spring bloom and chrysanthemums for autumn color – also go to the HPKCC for community beautification programs at local parks and gardens, among other neighborhood projects.
The fall garden sale will serve as a sort of trial run of the Kimbark Plaza space for the much larger book sale, Rumsey said. Final details are still getting ironed out, but, he added, “we think it’ll all be in place with no problem.”
“I think we’ll be able to adjust after a little trial and error learning how to set up everything,” he said. So far, the plan is to set up the sales not in the parking lot, but on the concrete stretches in the plaza.
The Hyde Park Garden Fair’s annual spring sale, which draws about 1,000 shoppers across two days in May, will also relocate to the plaza next year.
The selection of Kimbark Plaza also aligns with a big goal of the Special Service Area No. 61, a tax district that funds services and programs in the commercial heart of the neighborhood: to get more foot traffic over to the west end of 53rd Street.
“We’ve been talking for two years about things we could do that would bring more activity over to Kimbark Plaza,” said Rumsey, who is also chairman of SSA 61.
Betsy Budney, co-chair of the used book sale, hopes the relocation of the fundraisers will encourage other groups to bring their events to the west end of 53rd Street.
“I’m hoping that when other organizations see what can be done (at Kimbark), that they’ll also want to do something over there,” Budney said. “It’s disappointing, but in the same breath it’s exciting.”
In the meantime, sale organizers are busy sourcing plants and sorting through thousands of donated books. Those with books to donate can drop them off in the lobby of the Hyde Park Bank Building, 1525 E. 53rd St., 24 hours a day through the end of September.
The Fall Bulb & Mum Sale will take place September 21 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Kimbark Plaza, 53rd Street and Kimbark Avenue. The used book sale will take place Saturday, October 12 through Monday, October 14.