This YMCA facility served as an important social center within the Black Metropolis area, and it also provided housing and job training for African Americans migrating into Chicago in the early 20th century.

[2] Louis Gregory, a traveling speaker for the Bahá'í Faith and often attending national conventions of the religion held in Chicago area, is known to have stayed there in the spring of 1918 and gave talks to clubs while in town.

[3] Black contralto Marian Anderson gave one of her early performances here in 1919.

Wabash Avenue YMCA was opened in 1914, supported by Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company at the time.

In the late 1990s, however, a nine-million dollar renovation project was undertaken by The Renaissance Collaborative to return to the building to its rightful condition.