Avenue
The Guaranty Bank & Trust building hasn't housed a
commercial transaction----not a legal one,
anyway----since its doors closed almost 25 years ago.
Vacant and occupying a prime corner on the edge of
Jackson Park, the old bank has evaded demolition
and redevelopment.
Built in 1923 as Stony Island Trust & Savings, the
bank was planned as a $500,000, eight-story tower
with two floors of banking and six levels of furnished
apartments, but was pared down. The bank nearly
closed a half-dozen times and took on new names,
becoming Stony Island State Savings in 1930,
Southmoor Bank & Trust in 1948 (the "Southmoor"
name is still visible above the columns) then
Guaranty Bank in the 1950s. The Nation of Islam
bought the bank in 1973 and was its final owner. It
closed in 1982 and became another abandoned
building in the Woodlawn community.
The building is a ruin, but a fantastic one---part of a
dying breed of beautiful neo-classical banks that
were half-scale versions of their prestigious
downtown counterparts. . Guaranty greets the street
with a quartet of 30-foot Doric columns, capped by
an impressively-detailed entablature. There are
swag elements around the windows and the cornice
is intact.
Money is flowing into Woodlawn again with new
homes and reawakening commerce on Stony Island.
Now is the time to investigate preserving this
building. It'll never be a bank again. Golden
opportunities were missed over the last 10 years as
two new banks were built and a third now planned
within blocks of the building, but perhaps the bank
could be turned into residences. A well-designed
parking structure with ground-floor retail could be
built in the vacant to the north. The new building,
adjoining the old, would provide convenient parking
for residents and animate the street. A private,
terraced landscape could be built atop the parking
structure. The green space would be high enough to
overlook wooded Jackson Park and become one
with it. With Woodlawn on the upswing, Guaranty
Bank is bound to see a new beginning or a bitter
end. Which will it be?
