WBEZ | Chicago neighborhoods

Uptown, past and present

Mon, 13 May 2013 05:00:00 -0500

Uptown. The name seems more generic than natural. And the district the city calls Community Area #3 did start out as a series of separate communities.

During the 1850s, two rival railroads–the Milwaukee Road and the Chicago & North Western–built parallel lines north from Chicago. Where the railroads opened stations, settlement sprang up. Buena Park was about five miles north of Madison Street. Moving further north, there was Sheridan Park, then Edgewater. All three were annexed by Chicago in 1889.

In 1900 the first North Side ‘L’ line pushed through the area to a terminal at Wilson Avenue. Rapid growth followed. The three distinct communities lost their separate identities and blended together. By the 1920s the whole area was referred to as Uptown.

Why “Uptown?” If you think about it, that was pretty savvy marketing. The name tried to put the community on the same level as Downtown, aka the Loop. The main local business street also adopted a more cosmopolitan identity: Evanston Avenue became Broadway.

In New York, Midtown was outpacing the city’s older business areas. The same thing could happen in Chicago. Uptown boosters predicted that one day the Broadway Limited would locate its Chicago terminal at Wilson Avenue.

It seemed possible in the 1920s. Department stores, banks, hotels, and every manner of business were moving in. You could find or do almost anything in Uptown. Even Al Capone was investing in local real estate.

People from all over Chicago came to Uptown for entertainment. The action centered around the intersection of Broadway and Lawrence. Major movie palaces included the Riviera and the 4,000-seat Uptown, the city’s largest. For dancing, there was the Aragon ballroom. The Green Mill was the place to go for hot jazz, and over on Clark Street, the Rainbo Gardens complex offered assorted cabaret shows.

After a busy Saturday night, there were churches available. All Saints Episcopal and St. Mary of the Lake Catholic were architectural treasures. The biggest congregation gathered at the People’s Church, where flamboyant Unitarian pastor Preston Bradley held forth. Summer Sundays might also include a visit to Lake Michigan for fishing off the Horseshoe or swimming at Montrose Beach.

And when you died, you could still find what you needed in Uptown. Graceland Cemetery, the city’s most fashionable burying ground, was located in the community.

The Crash of 1929 and the Depression hit Uptown particularly hard. Businesses died and money left. Large apartments were carved into rooming houses. Poorer people moved in. The newcomers included African-Americans, American Indians and Appalachian whites.

By 1970 portions of Wilson Avenue had become a skid row. The crime rate soared and ‘L’ commuters were warned not to change trains at Uptown stations. About this time residents north of Foster seceded from Uptown, gaining official recognition as Community Area #77, Edgewater.

Some sections of Uptown remained intact. These were mostly on the outer edges, near the Chicago & North Western tracks or along Marine Drive. Two blocks of Hutchinson Street were designated an architectural landmark district. The construction of Truman College helped stabilize the central area.

During the 1980s nearby Wrigleyville and Boys’ Town began attracting yuppies, and it seemed likely Uptown would follow this path. That brought protests from various community groups. They claimed that Urban Renewal simply meant Poor Removal. Three decades later, gentrification continues to be a hot-button local issue.

Today Uptown is home to 56,000 people. One of Chicago’s more diverse communities, the population is identified as 52 percent white, 20 percent black, 14 percent Hispanic, 11 percent Asian.

Uptown endures. The Green Mill and the Aragon remain in business. Along Argyle Street, Asian restaurants are thriving. The boarded-up Uptown Theatre still stands, awaiting a financial angel with deep pockets. New apartments and commercial development have replaced the old ‘L’ yards on Broadway.

Uptown endures.

Neighborhood divisions laid bare, in the span of a block

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:41:00 -0500

For urban dwellers and fans of cliché Hollywood flicks alike, you’ve probably encountered the “wrong side of the tracks” motif.

It goes like this: A neighborhood changes for the worse on the “other side” of the tracks or one must be careful of the people who live on the “wrong” side. The warning isn’t always about railroad tracks, of course. Instead, it’s a veiled admonition about which streets to cross or avoid in a particular neighborhood.

This was the case for Marya Lucas, who asked Curious City this:

Why do neighborhoods sometimes change from really good to really bad in the span of a block?

The question, she says, was partly inspired by her move to Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood not long ago. There, she couldn’t help but notice how different life was on either side of North Avenue, around Sedgwick Street.

It’s not a simple question, nor is there an easy answer. There’s ample scholarly work about neighborhood space in Chicago and how it’s polarized. The bottom line is that any full, honest answer must grapple with some unseemly history: racist real estate policies, the creation of ghettos and local political power.

I’m never one to shy away from race, but in taking up this Curious City question I didn’t want the issue to dominate an explanation of why there are “good” versus “bad” blocks. My editor and I thought seasoned experts (e.g. people who wrote the aforementioned hyperlinked books and academics such as Northwestern University’s Albert Hunter) should take on that heavy lifting, but we could offer some on-the-ground observations and other perspectives to round out Marya’s question.

First, a practical question: Where could Marya and I head to see and hear about block-by-block neighborhood change? We could’ve harkened back to Studs Terkel’s book “Division Street” for modern-day inspiration, focused on areas around public housing, visited Canaryville, compared Hyde Park (home to the University of Chicago) to Woodlawn (too easy) or pulled the microphone out in Uptown.

Neighborhood disinvestment is hard enough to explain without the white side being the so-called more desirable one and people of color living on the “other” side. Hence, Marya and I headed to a majority black South Side neighborhood, where the gulfs between people and space are surprising and visible.

Social division along the lake

On South Coles Avenue, between 75th and 71st Streets, boarded-up apartment buildings and houses stand out as eyesores. Residents complain about loitering at one of the corner stores. At one point residents say the Chicago Police Department designated one of the corners a hot spot for drug and gang activity.

But just one block over, on South Shore Drive, high rises face Lake Michigan. On the dead-end side streets, oversized bungalows with well-kept lawns have direct access to the beach. One sleek modern home looks like it got lost on its way to South Beach.

Several blocks away in the same neighborhood, homes in the Jackson Park Highlands are stately and splendid. The homes’ diversity in architecture reinforces the pleasing aesthetic.

Car access is blocked on either side of the Highlands by uninviting pedestrian malls. There, multi-unit apartment buildings — many boarded-up — are crammed together in high density.

Welcome to South Shore.

Hover over the map below to view more images of the neighborhood.

Between South Shore Drive and Coles

South Shore is truly mixed-income. Approximately 2,700 housing vouchers are in use there, meaning that Section 8 subsidized housing is more present here than in any other Chicago neighborhood. I happen to believe the best skyline city views are in South Shore (and I’ve got company in that opinion). There’s a modicum of commercial activity, Obama’s favorite pizza place and large homes with lots of hardwood character and detail. There’s also crime, and it's home to the Terror Town faction of the Black P Stone Nation.

And all of this is in plain sight.

Lawrence Wilder, a landscaper and maintenance man, has lived on 74th and Coles Ave. for most of his life. He said families have struggled to pay property taxes and utilities when senior citizen homeowners pass down their houses to their children.

Wilder notices the differences between South Shore Drive and Coles Avenue.

“About 10 years ago, maybe more than that, it was like a murder on every corner within a five-block radius,” Wilder said. “Because once they started moving people out the projects, putting them over there in them buildings, them transient spots and stuff, it gets wild. So they eventually move out or lose their Section 8 voucher and it dies down. Or when someone get out jail, now he wanna be, ‘I’m gonna take over and all this kind of stuff.’”

The day Marya and I ventured out, we brought along Janet Smith, an urban policy professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago. At one point, while sitting in the car and admiring the vista of the lake while parked on one of those South Shore Drive cul de sacs, Smith weighed in on what distinguishes this area from Coles Avenue.

“[People] are connected to that space of the view of the lake, view of the city. They’re holding onto the piece of land. It’s a foothold to the beach. They can literally have their back to change around them — good or bad,” Smith told us.

Further west, there’s another desirable section of South Shore — the Jackson Park Highlands — with borders at 67th to 71st, Cregier Avenue to Euclid Avenue. There’s no access to the Highlands from 71st Street, and inside the four-block radius lies a mini-labyrinth of one-way streets and cul de sacs. (I was told if criminals are confused, they’re less likely to enter.) Every new homeowner receives a welcome basket of food and pays $50 annually to the neighborhood association, which funds mosquito abatement, holiday events and summer functions. The housing stock is similar to a Hyde Park or Kenwood but at a much lower price point.

Yvonne Webb and her husband moved to the Highlands almost 40 years ago. If an ambulance pulls up to a neighbor’s home, the phone rings. They let each other know when they travel out of town. They have phone trees to call the police.

“We try to get to know our neighbors,” Webb said. “We all have a vested interest. People want a certain quality of life. I think it’s because it’s an ownership aspect because it’s not so transient here and we’re all looking for the same thing — a high-quality of life. Without being elitist. I have to say that because I think that’s something very important. I don’t think it’s an elitist thing; I think it’s a sense of community.”

There are just a few apartment buildings within the Highlands. But on the margins of that community lie huge multi-unit apartments. Tammye Coleman, a nine-year Highland resident, said apartment dwellers aren’t afforded the same type of community-building opportunities.

“If landlords had that same mentality, or [if] someone could organize fun things to do. You rarely see block club parties on a block that’s all apartment buildings because then who coordinates it? You never get a chance to meet your neighbors,” Coleman said.

Smith said renters aren’t inherently problematic.

“I raised a lot of questions about who owns the properties, the multifamily properties. What their intentions were. Were they there to milk the property? So buy it cheap, just put a little bit in, maintain it so it meets the code? Have tenants in there but charge higher rents than they need to. It felt like it was about real estate investment first and not about community,” Smith said.

A takeway

It was clear from our visit that South Shore residents think about the space they live in, and they see it connected to internal and external forces, too. The physicality — the impact of the lakefront, the cul de sacs, the pedestrian malls and the street restrictions — plays a major role. And, as we heard from both residents and Smith, economics and ownership contribute to how different one block can feel from the next.

The sections of South Shore with strong community associations fare better when it comes to keeping their blocks safe and pretty. No one Marya and I spoke to suggested that there were too many apartment buildings in South Shore, but it’s clear those residents — many of them low-income or lower-middle class — don’t have similar safety nets of phone trees and block clubs. Their landlords don’t invest in those efforts. And it makes some sense; they’re investing in beachfront property, perhaps waiting for paydirt. Put enough of these different incentives close together, and you build a small, but real, division — one that’s apparent to neighborhood natives and newcomers alike.

South Lawndale, aka Little Village

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 05:00:00 -0500

Our subject is Community Area 30, the area of the West Side generally centered around 26^th and Central Park. Historically, the neighborhood was known as South Lawndale.

That’s still the official name. But around 1964 community leaders here began referring to their turf as Little Village. North Lawndale was going through some bad times, and the people south the Burlington railroad wanted to emphasize their separate status. To keep the narration simple, I’m calling this area SLLV.

In 1869 the City of Chicago annexed most of the area that would become SLLV. The only hints of civilization then were a few farms and a little settlement near the Burlington tracks. That would soon change.

The Great Fire of 1871 wiped out downtown Chicago. The McCormick Reaper Works on the lakefront was among the properties destroyed. The company rebuilt on the outskirts of the city, at Western and Blue Island avenues. When employees at the new plant began settling nearby, developers began subdividing in SLLV.

Over the next 30 years, the community grew slowly and steadily. Many of the residents were Czechs moving west from Pilsen. There were also some Germans and Poles. In 1889 the city annexed the area west of Crawford Avenue (Pulaski Road), giving SLLV its current boundaries.

The real building boom came with the new century. In 1903 the massive Hawthorne Works opened just to the west, while to the north, the Douglas Park ‘L’ line was being extended. Cottages, two-flats, and distinctive three-decker flats began filling up the 25-foot lots of SLLV. A ribbon commercial strip took hold along 26^th Street.

Meanwhile, other factories and rail yards were being constructed along the community’s eastern and western borders. The Sanitary and Ship Canal was built along the southern periphery, and attracted similar development. SLLV became an island surrounded by a sea of industry.

The population reached 84,000 in 1920, making SLLV was one of the most densely-packed communities in Chicago. The residents were mainly blue collar and Czech. The most prominent was Anton Cermak, businessman and political boss. Cermak’s clout brought the community the Cook County court house and jail complex. In 1931 he became mayor of Chicago.

From Cermak’s time into the 1960s, SLLV didn’t change much. The population steadily declined to about 60,000, which was a blessing. Poles replaced Czechs as the dominant nationality. A few African-Americans lived in the northeast section. There were also a small number of Hispanics.

The last-named group proved to be the future of SLLV. In 1970 about a third of the population was Hispanic, and by 1980 that proportion had become 74 percent. At the same time, the total number of residents began rising. The 1980 census counted 75,000 people living in Community Area 30. Twenty years later the population reached a historic high of 91,000.

Today SLLV is home to about 79,000 people. The 2010 Census identified the population as 84 percent Hispanic, with 12 percent African-American and 4 percent White. The Mexican community is the largest in the Midwest. A highpoint on the calendar is the 26^th Street Mexican Independence Day Parade in September.

Hawthorne Works and most of the other factories are gone, and many SLLV residents work in clerical and service jobs. The 26^th Street strip continues to be one of the city’s busiest outlying shopping districts. In recent years several public schools have been built to serve the area.

SLLV has always suffered from a lack of parks. Though Douglas Park is just to the north, the only facility in the community itself is Piotrowski Park on 31^st Street. Perhaps some of the vacated industrial land can be devoted to recreational facilities.

Springfield is now the battleground in Chicago’s politics of booze

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:43:00 -0500

Eaid Masud manages Skip’s Food & Liquor on 55th and Damen. On a recent weekday morning, he’s at the register ringing up meats, canned food and snacks. Behind him, the wide shelves brim with a rainbow of alcohol — everything from the cheap stuff to the high end.

This store could be in a kind of jeopardy. On Wednesday the executive committee in the Illinois House approved a bill that would allow Chicago to close liquor stores for up to 30 days when they’re the stage for criminal activity or they threaten “the welfare of the community.” Current law allows the city to close such establishments for just seven days.

Support from the full House is still needed.

Not that Masud is worried. He said Skip’s is a family-owned business that’s a part of the West Englewood community. But Masud is aware liquor stores can sometimes attract crime.

“There should definitely be more police presence in the areas where they think there’s activity like that going on,” he said.

Still, neighbors have complained about the store and, as Masud acknowledges, Skip’s deals with people who loiter or illegally sell loose cigarettes in the parking lot. He said if he sees drug dealing, he calls the police.

“We act accordingly and call authorities but sometimes like during the summers there’s a lot of teenagers and maybe fighting outside or along the streets,” he said. “It’s out of our control. It’s nothing we allow; it just happens.”

State Rep. Esther Golar, a Democrat, introduced the bill. She said she’s fed up with drug dealing and shootings at liquor stores. Her district is in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, which she dubs a liquor corridor with up to 60 such establishments.

“These liquor licensees, which are the owners, they have knowledge of this,” Golar said. “Many times they’re either too scared, they do not care or many times they’re complicit in allowing these illegal activities to occur.

Golar’s bill would allow the liquor commissioner to shutter an errant store for 30 days — up from the current seven days. An investigation and a hearing would take place during that time.

“We wouldn’t be doing anything that’s not in the law right now,” Golar said. “It’s just that we need more time. Rather than having a store close down for seven days, they reopen up with the same issues. I’ve seen this over and over again. And what does it do for the community? The negative impact these stores have.”

The problems and politics surrounding liquor stores problems aren’t limited to Englewood. Booze is a quality of life issue in many communities. In some, residents feel store owners show them too little respect and, in others, they’ve effectively removed malt liquor or otherwise dictated what alcohol a store can sell. In other areas, voters approved measures that turned entire precincts dry. After a long fight, Bronzeville got one store shut down.

The East Village Association is happy with a moratorium on packaged liquor stores from Division Street to Augusta Boulevard. The area had been populated by Latino immigrants. A wave of gentrification has washed over the community and new residents say they want to eliminate liquor-store vagrancy and crimes.

“Drunks hanging out on the streets led to crime,” said Neal McKnight, president of the association and a supporter of Golar’s bill.

“Anything that gives sort of a little bit of teeth to the liquor commissioner in dealing with difficult businesses is good for me,” he says. “When they [liquor stores] go bad it’s really difficult to get them to close ... fighting tooth and nail with the businesses.”

The East Village group has voted to lift a liquor-ban moratorium, subject to approval by the liquor commissioner, that would allow a convenience store to only sell beer and wine. No malt liquor, Wild Irish Rose or single bottle sales unless it’s a craft beer.

Originally, the group wanted to ban mass-market beers such as Budweiser but scaled back. McKnight said the board recently decided such a limitation would be overlimiting.

Last year Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the city would be aggressive in collecting data on problem businesses. Convenience stores and liquor stores are placed on the monthly flagged business list and subject to increased inspections by all city departments. Since April 2012, the city has taken disciplinary action on 89 liquor establishments and revoked 19 licenses.

A spokeswoman for Emanuel says Golar’s bill would complement the city’s efforts, as it would target liquor stores that have been on a list of trouble building.

However, the caveats and qualifications don’t satisfy Jerry Rosen of the Beverage Retailers Alliance of Illinois.

“It’s the most horrible bill I ever heard,” Rosen said, adding that problem liquor stores should be the province for police.

“It totally flies in the face of a retailer’s rights,” he said. “They’re just taking away any rights he may have. When you shut somebody down because somebody made a complaint or an accusation of a criminal activity, you’re in essence almost putting them out of business.”

Illinois has a 30-day credit law for distributors of wine and spirits to purchase those beverages. Rosen says this new liquor law could end up putting someone out of business permanently, and an army of lawyers is fighting the bill.

Rosen’s prediction: Golar’s measure will be ruled unconstitutional and doesn’t stand a chance.

Still, with the current state of Chicago booze politics, Rosen said he’s ready to testify against the bill, if need be.

Norwood Park, past and present

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:00:00 -0600

Norwood Park, Community Area 10, is one of Chicago’s railroad communities. The original settlement was planned around the Chicago & North Western commuter line. But that’s not the beginning of our story.

In 1833 Mark Noble filed claim to 150 acres of land in the area. He built a frame house on a glacial ridge and lived the life of a gentleman farmer. Today his home, at 5634 North Newark Avenue, is the oldest building in Chicago.

Other farmers followed Noble. Then in 1868, a group of Chicago investors purchased 860 acres near the railroad for real estate development. Taking their name from a popular novel, they called their community Norwood Park. A town hall and shops were built across from the C&NW station.

The new town featured wide lots with expansive front lawns. Instead of following the rigid Chicago grid, the streets were pleasantly curved–one of them even formed a circle. Three small parks were laid out and hundreds of shade trees planted.

To promote development, frequent ads were run in the Chicago newspapers. It’s worth quoting one of them–

"Only 11 miles from the Court House on the Chicago & North Western, 30 minutes ride. Eighty feet above the lake on beautiful, rolling ground, perfect drainage. No malaria, no saloons, no nuisances of any kind. Good society, churches, graded schools, stores.”

New settlers arrived. They built large Victorian homes on the high ground near the ridge. As Norwood Park grew, the residents saw the need for city services. In 1893 they voted to become part of Chicago. Today the historic heart of the original town is called Old Norwood.

The eastern part of the community was not developed until after annexation. Though closer to the city, the land here was marsh. New sewers solved that problem, and bungalows began going up.

By 1930 Norwood Park was home to 14,000 people. A local shopping district had evolved near Northwest Highway and Raven, and a string of small factories lined the railroad. Then came the Depression and World War II. Building stopped, with large areas to the south and west still prairie.

Development resumed after the war ended. Now the families of the Baby Boom were buying cars and looking for ranch homes. The outer portions of Norwood Park–Big Oaks, Union Ridge, Oriole Park–were filling up. The population reached 27,000 in 1950, and 41,000 ten years later.

Still, it took a while to tie Norwood Park to the city. The railroad was fast, but expensive. Most residents who wanted to get downtown faced a long, slow journey, driving on surface streets or riding the Milwaukee Avenue streetcar.

The Northwest (Kennedy) Expressway was completed in 1960. The community now had convenient auto access to other areas, though traffic grows heavier each year. The O’Hare branch of the CTA Blue Line has been an alternative since 1983.

Drawing a map of Community Area 10 should not be attempted by amateurs. That’s because the boundaries are so complicated. Politics is the reason, of course.

During the 1950s Chicago wanted to establish a land connection to the new O’Hare Airport, and began claiming large swaths of territory. The boundaries of Community Area 10 were stretched west to Cumberland Avenue. But in the middle of all this Chicago land, there are several blocks that refused to join the city, and remain unincorporated. They are known as Norwood Park Township.

Today the Chicago community of Norwood Park is a stable, middle-class area. The population of 37,000 is largely White European American. About 12% identify as Hispanic. Local landmarks include the Noble home, Superdawg Drive-in, and Taft High School, inspiration for the musical Grease.

New documentary shows in a quest for jobs and commerce, a corner of Englewood is vanishing

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 05:00:00 -0600

The Area from The Grid on Vimeo.

For the past few years, Chicago photographer David Schalliol has been telling us--showing us--that Chicago's West and South Sides are disappearing. Building by building; block by block.

As a native South Sider, I see Schalliol's haunting photos of clipped rowhouses, single-family homes standing alone against wide vacant lots and I am reminded of Johnny Ola's great and wistful line in Godfather II: "One by one, our old friends are gone. Death--natural or not..."

Earlier this week, I told you of a beautiful old printing plant in the Washington Park neighborhood that is now being demolished to make way for a Northfolk Southern Railroad truck depot. But look above and check out The Area, the fascinating mini-documentary that appeared on Gapers Block The Grid series this week. Here, Schalliol and his team tell the story of an entire quadrant of Englewood--just bit northwest of the doomed printing plant--that's being wiped away by the same railroad company.

It's not building by building, here. It's the disappearance of an entire neighborhood. Natural or not.

After watching the video, I caught up with Schalliol for a quick Q&A:

Q: What drew you to this story--and when?

A: I first became aware of Norfolk Southern's plans to expand into the neighboring community while working on my To be Demolished project, for which I photographed 100 buildings threatened with demolition in 2012. To that end, when I visited the neighborhood in February of last year, I immediately noticed wrecking companies exercising three demolition permits within eyesight of each other. It was the only time while working on the project when that happened, and it was clear that something bigger was going on than simple demolition. I saw it both as an important story that wasn't being told and an opportunity to explore understudied social processes. Additionally, while I am used to approaching issues as a photographer or a sociologist, this seemed like a project that required a documentary film component. I reached out to The Grid's Brian Ashby, who could advise me on the filmmaking and Dave Nagel, who edited this short. Having that support will be instrumental for the development of the feature-length film about the situation.

Q: What do you want people to take away from this?

A: I hope that the documentary short and the subsequent film can provide a new way to frame the conflicts introduced by solutions to freight transportation problems and open a window into the community affected by the process. Eventually, I also hope to be able to inform the discourse about the relationship between sociological and documentary work. This is a complicated situation, and I am happy to have the opportunity to work towards any additional clarity.

Q: But isn't this about bringing jobs to the city? If a marginal neighborhood is cleared away, isn't that actually progress?

A: Of course, the mayor is right to trumpet new, quality jobs, but as is seen in the short, many residents are skeptical that they will have the opportunity to fill them. Their expectation is that while the jobs will be South Side jobs, they won't be jobs for South Siders. As such, they believe they will bear most of the costs of the projects and receive few, if any, benefits. Additionally, residents who live near the expansion project but will not be displaced by it are concerned about the health and environmental consequences of a major expansion to the intermodal facility. As for clearing away the neighborhood, clearing it doesn't mean solving its problems. This is particularly challenging for those with teenagers, who can be marked by their association with their previous neighborhood, even if they are not involved in gang activity.

Q: Will you follow this story in the future?

A: Yes, my plan is to follow the events in the neighborhood at least until all residents have moved from the area; however, I won't necessarily stop then. Since early in the project, I have been keeping in touch with families who have already moved to other communities, and I plan to continue following their experiences as they establish roots elsewhere. Those experiences will be part of the sociological and documentary work.

Brighton Park, past and present

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 05:00:00 -0600

Brighton Park is a Southwest Side neighborhood located about seven miles from the Loop along Archer Avenue. It is officially designated as Chicago Community Area 58.

There are at least three different stories on how Brighton Park got its name. What’s agreed on is that settlement began in the 1830s, during construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal.

The land itself wasn’t very inviting. Much of the area was low-lying and marshy, with the occasional clay hole. Flooding was frequent. Still, a few truck farmers stuck it out.

Local businessman John McCaffery is called the Father of Brighton Park. Seeing possibilities where others saw swamp, he built a plank road along what is now Western Avenue and began subdividing the land to the west. In 1851 the Village of Brighton Park was incorporated.

Railroads entered soon afterward. Various industries were established. Brighton Park had a nail factory, a brickyard, a cotton mill, and even a stockyard. One of the biggest plants made blasting powder—until a lightning strike blew up the place.

Brighton Park became part of Chicago in the great annexation of 1889. Yet as it developed, the community was cut off from the rest of the city on three sides. On the north was the Sanitary and Ship Canal, successor to the Illinois and Michigan. On the west were the massive yards of the Santa Fe Railroad. On the south was an industrial park.

That isolation didn’t halt the wave of settlement. The meatpackers were always hiring at the Union Stock Yards, only a short streetcar ride away. There were also plenty of jobs around locally, particularly after the Crane Plumbing Company opened its new plant in 1915. Cottages and two-flats began going up along the side streets. Archer Avenue became a thriving commercial strip.

The new people were mainly Poles, with a sprinkling of Lithuanians. The population of Brighton Park reached 46,000 in 1930. At that time 37 percent of the residents identified themselves as Polish, the largest concentration of that group in the city.

For much of the 20^th Century, the community was solid and stable. True, the population was dropping every decade, and was recorded as 30,000 in 1980—a decline of one-third over the course of fifty years. That was explained as due to normal aging, and the vogue for smaller families. Brighton Park looked the same as always.

In 1979,r a reigning pope came to Chicago for the first time. John Paul II was Polish, and he made it a point to visit his fellow countrymen at Five Holy Martyrs parish in Brighton Park. After he left, a portion of 43^rd Street was renamed Pope John Paul II Drive.

Brighton Park began changing during the 1980s. The Crane plant had closed in 1977, and now other factories started shutting down. The railroads scaled back as trucking cut into their freight business. With the decline of heavy industry, most of the residents worked in clerical or service jobs.

There were other demographic changes. In 1980 about 15 percent of Brighton Park residents identified as Hispanic. By 2010 that figure had risen to 85%. The population count had rebounded to 45,000, near the historic high.

Today the Orange Line ‘L’ cuts through the edge of Brighton Park, giving the community easier access to the rest of the city. Some factories remain, while others have been replaced with new housing and new strip malls. There are fewer Polish restaurants, and many more serving Mexican food.

The neighborhood also faces the usual urban challenges. Crime and unemployment are too high. The housing stock is growing older. There aren't enough recreational facilities, and the schools could be better.

Would John McCaffery recognize Brighton Park? Probably not. But he'd be proud of the place, just the same.

Rogers Park, past and present

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 05:00:00 -0600

“We’re Number One! We’re Number One!”

Any Chicago neighborhood can shout that. But Chicago’s official Community Area #1 is Rogers Park, in the city’s northeast corner. That’s where some anonymous U of C social scientist started the numbering system in the 1920s.

The earliest residents here were the Potawatomi. Sometime before 1800 they established villages along the glacial ridge that’s now Ridge Boulevard. The land eastward toward the lake was too low and swampy for much of anything.

When white Americans moved in, they stuck to the high ground. In 1839 Philip Rogers built a cabin near (present-day) Ridge and Lunt, and began truck farming. Over the next several years, other farmers settled in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood.

Patrick Touhy, Rogers’ son-in-law, really spurred development. During the 1860s he organized many of the locals into a building and land association. The Chicago & North Western Railroad arrived on the scene in 1873. Five years later, the Village of Rogers Park was incorporated.

Growth was slow but steady. Large Victorian homes were erected in the blocks between the C&NW line and the ridge. A small commercial district sprang up just east of the train station, around Clark and Lunt. In 1885 a second commuter line was completed through the eastern lowlands by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad.

Rogers Park was a sleepy little community of 3500 people when Chicago annexed it in 1893. But as the century turned, ‘L’ service came to Rogers Park over the CM&SP right-of-way. And then Rogers Park really took off.

Loyola University relocated from the West Side. Two-flats and large apartment blocks went up near the ‘L’, and the Howard line became the city’s busiest. The population jumped from 6,700 in 1910 to over 57,000 twenty years later.

Rogers Park didn’t have a single dominant shopping district. Most stores were small and locally-owned, and could be found in clusters near the ‘L’ stations. Clark Street, the main streetcar line, developed its own commercial ribbon.

Howard Street was a special case. The street bordered Evanston–which was dry–so a whole range of bars and liquor stores set up on the Chicago-side of Howard. ”Going to Howard” was a favorite field-trip for generations of Northwestern students.

East of the ‘L’ the border jumped north of Howard to include the few blocks up to Calvary Cemetery. Here the narrow streets were crammed with three-story apartments that shaded the sidewalks the whole day. Someone called the area The Jungle, and the name stuck.

In Patrick Touhy’s day, most people in Rogers Park were English in ancestry. They were later joined by Germans and some Irish. Beginning about 1910, a significant number of Russian Jews began moving into the community. By 1950, when the population reached 63,000, they were the largest identifiable ethnic/religious group.

Rogers Park was a good place to live. Public transit was fast, stores were plentiful, crime was low, rents were affordable, and Lake Michigan was at your doorstep. That last one was important in the era before air conditioning.

My wife and I lived in Rogers Park during the 1970s. Our apartment was across from Loyola Beach, and if you sat in the right chair, you could actually see the lake from our living room. Nearly every summer weekend, relatives and long-lost friends descended on us. Could the reason have been that it was often 20 degrees cooler at our place than a few miles inland?

In the years since, like many Chicago communities, Rogers Park has had problems. Some of the older housing deteriorated. Businesses left. Crime increased. Parts of The Jungle became blighted.

Yet the positive factors remain. Meanwhile, new construction has replaced many run-down buildings. The Gateway Centre Plaza has helped stabilize the area around the ‘L’ terminal.

The 2010 Census counted 55,000 people in Rogers Park. The community has a diverse population–39% White, 26% African-American, 24% Hispanic, 7% Asian. Rogers Park also boasts an active historical society and numerous other community organizations.

"We're Number One!” In many ways, it’s true.

South Chicago, past and present

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:30:00 -0600

North Chicago is in Lake County. West Chicago is in Du Page. East Chicago is in Indiana. But where is South Chicago?

South Chicago is part of the city, located about a dozen miles southeast of the Loop. It’s officially designated as Community Area 46.

If Jefferson Davis had been listened to, this area might have become downtown Chicago. In 1833, as a young Army officer, Davis surveyed the various rivers that could be linked to the planned Illinois-Michigan Canal. He said that the Calumet River was the best choice. Speculators began buying up nearby land.

Then the politicians picked the Chicago River as the link to the canal. The Calumet River boom went bust. For the next few decades, growth here was slow.

A few scattered settlements developed. The biggest of them was Ainsworth. By 1867, when the Village of Hyde Park annexed the area, the name “South Chicago” was coming into common use.

Enter James Bowen, often called The Father of South Chicago. In 1869 Bowen organized a company to develop the Calumet River and its harbor. The company also began buying land, subdividing it, and laying out streets.

Did Bowen know something? The very next year, Congress made a major appropriation to deepen the Calumet River.

A few industries had been located in South Chicago. As the harbor was improved, more industry came. And with lumber yards and iron forges and grain elevators going up, railroads started laying track to serve them. And with railroads coming in, even more industry was attracted to the area, and–well, you can see where this is going.

The one industry that made South Chicago was Steel. The big daddy of the steel plants was South Works, opened on the lakefront near 91st Street in 1881. By 1901 the facility stretched all the way north to 79th Street. That was the year it became part of the new U.S. Steel corporation.

South Chicago was annexed by Chicago in 1889. The community then had about 24,000 people, and more were on the way. Many of these settlers were Poles and other Eastern Europeans.

Housing was built quickly and cheaply. The blocks near South Works were divided into “shoestring lots”–140 feet long but only 25 feet wide–and crammed with frame cottages and two-flats.

The result was the worst living conditions in Chicago. The steel mill that gave jobs also fouled the air and deafened the ears. The land itself was low and swampy. One writer described the area as having “pools of water, ditches clogged with soot, garbage, and industrial debris, [as well as] decomposed animals.”

Things were better away from the mill. The northern sections of South Chicago remained vacant until the 1920s. Then brick bungalows began going up.

Population growth continued, peaking at 56,000 in 1930. Now the residents included many Mexicans, with a sprinkling of African-Americans. The blocks around 92nd and Commercial became a major commercial district–locals referred to it as “Downtown.”

South Chicago was made by Steel. At one time, about 70% of the adult men were employed in the steel industry, at South Works or at other plants in nearby communities. The Chicago-Gary corridor was the steel-producing center of the world.

The American steel industry declined after World War II. The reasons why this happened have been debated at length. South Chicago suffered through the decline. The final blow came in 1992, when South Works closed for good.

Today the community is trying to rebound. The 2010 Census counted about 32,000 residents. The population is 75% African-American, the rest mostly Hispanic. Ambitious plans have been advanced for developing the vacant South Works land. And once again, this site may become the key to the survival of South Chicago.

Albany Park, past and present

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 05:00:00 -0500

Take a ride out to the far end of the Brown Line. You pass Western Avenue, cross the river, and now the train is running on the ground, in an alley behind two-flats and large apartment buildings. You’re in Community Area #14, Albany Park.

The first permanent settlers arrived here in the 1840s. They were mostly German and Swedish farmers. William Spikings was among them. He built a brick farm house with his own hands and lived in it for over 70 years, watching the city grow out to him.

These early settlements were part of the Town of Jefferson. After Chicago annexed the town in 1889, the developers moved in. One of them called his subdivision Albany Park, after his native city in New York state. The name stuck.

Electric streetcars ran on Lawrence Avenue as early as 1896. The real breakthrough came with the arrival of the "L" line — then known as the Ravenswood branch — in 1907. And now Albany Park took off.

The "L" terminal was located at Kimball and Lawrence. Soon the surrounding blocks were filled in with massive apartment buildings — only the lakefront had a denser concentration of dwelling units. Lawrence Avenue became a ribbon commercial street. Stores also sprouted up along Kedzie and Montrose.

Away from the terminal, the apartments thinned out. East of Kedzie, where the river turned, a charming bungalow enclave called Ravenswood Manor developed. The section west of Crawford (Pulaski) also became a bungalow belt. This area was part of an older settlement known as Mayfair.

Raw numbers tell some of the story. The 1910 Census counted about 7,000 people living in Albany Park. Ten years later the figure had grown to 27,000. Another ten years, and the population was over 55,000.

Haugan School was expanded several times until it stretched over an entire city block, becoming Chicago’s largest elementary school. Roosevelt High School grew so crowded that the nearby Von Steuben School was converted into another high school. The city widened Kimball Avenue, and the street got its own bus line.

Most of the new people were Eastern European Jews. They came from West Town, Lawndale and the Maxwell Street area. With temples, schools, community centers, theaters, and all manner of businesses, Albany Park became the center of Jewish life in Chicago.

The community remained stable into the 1960s. But the city was evolving, movement to the suburbs accelerating. More people were driving cars, and didn’t depend on public transit. If you didn’t need the "L", why bother to live in a congested area of apartment hulks?

By the 1970s Albany Park was in trouble. Much of the Jewish population had dispersed. Crime rose, property values fell, storefronts became vacant. The neighborhood was on its way to becoming a slum.

New vigor came in with a new wave of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Asia and Spanish-speaking countries. The population decline was halted. Albany Park became one of the city’s most ethnically-diverse communities.

The 2010 census reported that 52,000 people were living in the Albany Park. About half of the population was Hispanic. Non-Hispanic Whites numbered 29 percent, and Asians — mostly Koreans — were 14 percent. African-Americans were counted at 4 percent.

So this is the Oz you'll find at the end of the Brown Line. Through all the changes, Albany Park has endured. You can’t really call it a typical Chicago community — a “representative” community might be a better way to put it. Some of it is pretty, some of it is gritty. But Albany Park is never boring.