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Around the corner on S. Berkeley Avenue, three slender sculptures painted black and orange jut skyward from another open lot.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Mizenburg\u2019s supporters \u2014 among them his children, neighbors and local public officials \u2014 came together at the southwest corner of that garden, situated at E. 41st Place and S. Lake Park Avenue, to celebrate the artist with an honorary street sign in his name.<\/p>\n
In doing so, they called attention to the power of community art projects to transform the streets around them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Four of Mizenburg\u2019s squat, totemic-like wood sculptures form a line along the length of the park.<\/p>\n Anastasia Busby for the Sun-Times<\/p>\n Alderman Lamont Robinson of the 4th Ward, who supported the community\u2019s petition at City Council and hosted the June 27 dedication, said the works are more than decorative.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. Mizenburg really changed the trajectory of not just this block but the South Side with his sculptures.\u201d<\/p>\n Oakland, a pocket community, runs along the Metra tracks just north of Kenwood and east of Bronzeville. It stands out for its carefully preserved collection of late 19th century Queen Anne-style workers cottages and its proximity to Oakwood Beach, reached via a big blue pedestrian bridge, constructed in 2018 to create neighborhood access to the lake front.<\/p>\n When Mizenburg moved here with his wife Gloriadeen and three children in the late 1980s, the artist himself called the neighborhood a \u201chellhole\u201d (referring to gangs and drugs). After renovating their home and building a small studio, he enlisted his sons, Milt Mizenburg III and David Mizenburg, to help clean up some of the trash-strewn empty lots near their home.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the mid-nineties, Mizenburg began making art in the lots across from his house, after gaining permission from leaders at the North Kenwood-Oakland Community Conservation Council and the City of Chicago. Here, the artist is pictured in 1998.<\/p>\n Robert A. Davis\/Sun-Times<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From left: David Mizenburg, Laura Barnes and Milton Mizenburg III pose with Alderman Lamont Robinson and the new street sign honoring Milton Mizenburg Jr.<\/p>\n Anastasia Busby for the Sun-Times<\/p>\n In the mid-nineties, Mizenburg began making art in the lots across from his house, after gaining permission from leaders at the North Kenwood-Oakland Community Conservation Council and the City of Chicago. By this point he had taught himself to make jewelry, furniture (including his \u201ctree top tables\u201d) and sculpture, using hand chisels and a chainsaw to transform tree stumps and other salvaged wood into three dimensional works.<\/p>\n Musette Henley, who has lived in Oakland for more than 30 years, says she would pass Mizenburg working on his outdoor sculptures in the garden every day, on her way to work.<\/p>\n \u201cOh gosh, he was such a wonderful person,\u201d she recalled of the artist, who died in 2016 from blood cancer. \u201cHe had a yellow little sports car, and he\u2019d wear his straw hat and his overalls, his red bandana, like he was on the Riviera somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Patrick McCoy, a photographer and long-time art collector, says Mizenburg was a force. \u201cHe was passionate. Passionate, and kind of hardheaded too.\u201d<\/p>\n Pointing to nearby developments, including Lake Park Crescent, a mixed income housing community and Williams-Davis Park, home to Mizenburg\u2019s first bronze sculpture \u201cRestoration,\u201d McCoy said none of these projects, created as part of Chicago Housing Authority\u2019s Plan for Transformation, would have happened without Mizenburg\u2019s intervention.<\/p>\n \u201cArt has power,\u201d declared McCoy. \u201cWe should have art to help socialize people. Instead, we\u2019re looking at blank walls.\u201d<\/p>\n Over time, the garden became overgrown and the sculptures started to deteriorate. Around 2015, a number of neighbors, with the support of Mizenburg\u2019s family, stepped up, including Yetta Starr, a designer with an interest in preservation.<\/p>\n \u201cI just felt that it was all going to go away because this space wasn\u2019t [being] cared for,\u201d says Starr. \u201cBut his family\u2019s here, his things are here and we should preserve this.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Around 2015, a number of neighbors, with the support of Mizenburg\u2019s family, stepped up to revitalize the garden, including Yetta Starr, a designer with an interest in preservation.<\/p>\n Anastasia Busby for the Sun-Times<\/p>\n Starr and others went to work, hiring an artist to repaint the now faded sculptures, creating new signs and resurrecting a post fence and bench built by Mizenburg. They added garden plots and flowers. Avery Love, a young budding neighborhood artist who attended the ceremony with her father, Anthony Love, pointed out pink and purple blossoms she planted.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was really fun, and I enjoyed spending time in this area because I really like nature, and I like seeing all the cool statues,\u201d said Love.<\/p>\n At the June street sign dedication, friends and family shared their memories of Mizenburg.<\/p>\n Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle popped in, there, she said, to celebrate Mizenburg as an artist and community activist.<\/p>\n Mizenburg\u2019s oldest son, Milt, saying he didn\u2019t \u201cspeak to crowds too often,\u201d was moved to tears remembering how he helped his father, who didn\u2019t finish high school, by reading him books from the library. He told the crowd they, too, could carry his father\u2019s memory.<\/p>\n \u201cHis name will never pass away, even when these signs are gone, even when these statues are gone.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHis name will never pass away, even when these signs are gone, even when these statues are gone,\u201d Mizenburg\u2019s oldest son Milt said.<\/p>\n Anastasia Busby for the Sun-Times<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHow beautiful it is to see something that\u2019s so well loved and taken care of by the community,\u201d Chicago\u2019s poet laureate Mayda del Valle said.<\/p>\n Anastasia Busby for the Sun-Times<\/p>\n![\"One](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783003958_853_.png\")
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