House Committee reports that after Northside Friends Meeting was asked by our building owners, Edgewater Presbyterian, to move to Room 312 by June 1, an eager group of volunteers helped clean the room on Saturday, May 30. The very next day, after a final Meeting for Worship in the Scout Room down the hall, many Friends stayed on and pitched in to rapidly relocate chairs, cabinets and library into the new space, the former location of props and costumes storage for our building neighbor, City Lit Theatre.
Northside Friends new space before clean-up. The plywood panel and a defunct air conditioner were removed May 22, in preparation for clean-up and move-in the following week.
The vintage 1929 room includes a fireplace with mantel accented by two stylized heads—comedy and tragedy. The southern wall features four arched, leaded glass windows. Building owners Edgewater Presbyterian plan to restore these windows in our new space in a few months. Until that time, the four windows on the southern wall have been sealed with stripping and Plexiglass panels and must not be opened. (Northsider Helen Haug artfully decorated the plain Plexiglass panel on one window to simulate the leaded panels on the other three windows.)
Northsider Kyr Esler, our Meeting’s contractor for facilities, worked with Edgewater Presbyterian Facilities Manager Dwight Elmore to open an east-facing window for the first time in decades.
Two other oversized frosted glass windows on the eastern wall admit light. In preparation for the relocation, Meeting contractor Kyr Esler and Edgewater Facilities Manager Dwight Elmore loosened and opened one of these windows for the first time in decades.
Northside Friends new space features a fireplace (no longer working). Mantel decorations are theatrical faces of Comedy and Tragedy. Markings at the top indicate where former occupant City Lit Theatre stored costumes and props.
Planned improvements yet to be considered by Northside Friends include a 24,000 BTU air conditioner, rug or carpeting, and possibly baffles to attenuate echoes from the high beamed ceiling. Northside Friends former worship space, the Scout Room, will be occupied by the social service agency Nepalese Aid. Its former first floor rooms will now be occupied by a new building partner, Griffin Theatre Company.
During the move, the Tech Committee redeployed the computer, camera, microphones, mixing board and sound system that delivers the hybrid version of Meeting for Worship, Second Hours and Business Meeting online. Tech Committee member Dou-Yan Yang stood by remotely to test the system on Zoom to make sure all would be ready for Sunday, June 7 Meeting for Worship and Business Meeting take place in the new location for the first time.
This is Northside Friends Meeting’s third site within the Edgewater Presbyterian Building since July 2025 when it first relocated there. Its former home for 15 months at Chicago Friends School had been sold. Prior to that Northside Friends Meeting met at the Japanese American Service Committee center for more than two decades.