As warm weather eases its way into the city, the Burnham Building, a 120-year-old pavilion in Jackson Park, ought to be a perfect little spot to visit. Located on Marquette Drive just north of 67th Street, the one-story, open-air structure sits on a slight elevation, allowing the building’s patrons to better catch Lake Michigan views and breezes. The view from the rear of the building is no slouch either. It overlooks the Jackson Park Golf Course and the residential skyline of the South Shore neighborhood. But the building designed to resemble a Greek temple is instead a Chicago Park District ruin. It sits fenced off and rotting away in spite of its visible roadside location along Marquette Drive and its history: The 1912 pavilion was designed by Daniel Burnham’s architecture firm, D.H. Burnham & Company. It’s a situation that should have been remedied years ago. A Chicago Park District spokesperson said it “is moving forward with plans” to renovate the building. She said the agency is working through a mandated federal environmental assessment procedure — a process that started this year — before work can begin. Here’s hoping that’s a good sign. Because right now, even though a placard outside the pavilion promises “Jackson Park Burnham Building Improvements Coming Soon,” the only real work that’s been going on at the building has been done by a growing forest of weeds, a band of unauthorized graffiti artists and Father Time. “I think it’s an eyesore in the community,” said prominent South Shore resident Carol L. Adams. “And it’s a sign of the neglect that often happens in Chicago around historical buildings. That place is historic, and it needs to be restored.” A car for the course Odd as it may seem, the pavilion’s future seemed brighter in 2021 when a driver lost control of her SUV and barreled into the already-dilapidated building, essentially creating two wrecks for the price of one. Not long after the accident, the park district sent out crews who replaced the structure’s failing Spanish tile-clad roof with a temporary one, cleaned things up a bit, added temporary structural elements to stabilize the building and erected a chain-link fence out front. Was help for the pavilion — which is also a comfort station with bathrooms — finally at hand? Nope. It turned out to be another false start. The park district’s South Lakefront Framework Plan from 2018 called for the building’s restoration and reuse, and even renamed the pavilion the “Burnham Building” as part of the major improvements called for under the document. But nothing happened. And restoration of the pavilion was a point in the park district’s proposed $30 million 2016 plan to combine the Jackson Park and South Shore Cultural Center’s golf courses into a giant PGA championship-level facility created by golfer Tiger Woods’ TGR Design firm. The golf course project has gone nowhere — perhaps for the best — but neither did its call to fix the pavilion. And another decade passed. Jackson Park and the Obama Center Take a walk though the 551-acre Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Jackson Park, especially this time of the year, and its beauty is absolutely apparent. And so is the city’s decades-long neglect of this historic, nationally recognized park. The concert stairway at the picturesque overlook and roundabout at 64th and Promontory Drive, just north of LaRabida Hospital, is crumbling. The Clarence Darrow Bridge at the park’s Colombian Basin — built for the 1893 World’s Fair — is overgrown and so unsafe that it’s been cut off from the public since 2013. The laundry list of what the park needs is a long one, and the pavilion’s condition, while a civic embarrassment, is just one item. Next year, the eyes of the city — and maybe those of the nation — will be drawn to Jackson Park when the Obama Presidential Center opens. It’s way too late to get all of the big park in proper shape in time for the ribbon-cutting. But the city and the park district must use the opening as a catalyst for Jackson Park’s restoration. And not for the Obama Center’s benefit either. But as just due for the everyday Chicagoans, particularly nearby residents, who patronize Jackson Park and had to sacrifice 20 acres of parkland for the center to be built. “When you think about the numbers of people who’ll be coming to our community [to visit the Obama Center], if you think about the drive along South Shore Drive, you know that [the condition of Jackson Park] needs to be remedied,” Adams said.