WBEZ | Uptown

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.

Uptown man raised alarm on viaduct evictions before death

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 10:37:00 -0500

Just a few weeks ago, Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood lit up with debate over whether it should maintain services for the homeless as it has for several decades. In particular, 46th Ward Ald. James Cappleman and the Salvation Army disagreed over whether the charity organization should continue distributing free meals every day from its mobile food unit at Wilson Avenue and Marine Drive. The two sides say they have since patched over their differences.

WBEZ interviewed some clients of the food truck while the issue was hot. One of them was “Jack,” who declined to share his last name but said he slept under the Wilson Avenue viaduct. “Not everybody has jobs out here, so it does help. It helps a lot,” Jack said, adding that he appeared at the truck almost every day.

Well, in a piece that ran over the weekend in the Sun-Times, columnist Mark Brown focused on arbitrary evictions of the homeless who sleep under the Wilson Ave viaduct. In it, Brown mentions the death of one of those men, a Jack King, who had left the viaduct some days earlier because of the street sweeps. King was found dead March 13 outside a health clinic on Wilson Avenue.

WBEZ has confirmed that this is the same “Jack” we interviewed just six days before his death. During that interview, which we include here without edits, King vented frustration at treatment he said he received at the hands of police for staying under the viaduct. “They took my blankets, rugs I had laid out,” he said. “Maybe they get brownie points for that, I don’t know.”

King said he felt the hostilities began once Cappleman came to office. “He don’t particularly care too much about us,” Jack said. “He’s trying to kick people out of here and there, and you can only chase a person that has nowhere to go so far. There’s got to be something, you know?”

In an emailed response to WBEZ about King’s assertion that the evictions heated up under Cappleman’s watch, Cappleman wrote:

“Since taking office, I've encouraged the Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) to check on the individuals living under the viaduct and in the parks on a regular basis. I've organized regular outreach missions where staff from my office and the 48th ward office, DFSS, and I walk through the park together in the early morning to talk to these individuals to see if we could encourage them to come indoors and take advantage of the programs and services the shelters provide. We've successfully found housing and employment for quite a few of these folks. The gentleman who died is sadly probably not the only person we've lost from problems with drinking and other drugs. If this gentleman had taken advantage of the programs and services available to him he may still be here today. He's the reason why I encourage DFSS to continue to check on these individuals. Everyone deserves a warm bed a safe place to live."

King told WBEZ that he didn’t receive meals from other agencies in the Uptown area because many of them required enrollment in a full-service program to help the homeless. “There’s a lot of circumstances I don’t want to go into, [but] some people don’t qualify,” he said. “I happen to be one of them.” One of King’s friends who sleeps under the viaduct, Gregory Guest, told WBEZ that King had an alcohol addiction.

According to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, King was discovered outside a health clinic at 855 W. Wilson Ave., not far from the viaduct. His cause of death was hypertension and arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Odette Yousef is WBEZ’s North Side Bureau reporter. Follow her at @oyousef.

Bill Millholland: Uptown's bread man

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 05:00:00 -0500

Kitchen Close-ups offers an intimate introduction to characters in Chicago’s food and dining scene. The series runs weekly at wbez.org.

Carl Sandburg in Chicago

Wed, 23 May 2012 07:00:00 -0500

Hog Butcher for the World,

Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;

Stormy, husky, brawling,

City of the Big Shoulders . . .

There was a time when every child in Chicago learned those words. They are the opening lines of Carl Sandburg’s poem “Chicago.” The house where he wrote them still stands at 4646 North Hermitage Avenue.

Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Ill. in 1878, the son of Swedish immigrants. As a young man, he drifted through a series of jobs–milkman, bricklayer, fireman, soldier, hobo, political organizer for the Social Democratic Party. Then he got married.

Time for stability. Sandburg moved to Chicago and became a reporter. He landed a job with the Daily News. He’d been writing poetry for years, with little success. That began to change.

His collection Chicago Poems appeared in 1916. Another anthology followed, then a series of children’s books. Sandburg was gaining a reputation. His publisher suggested he write a Lincoln biography for young people.

Sandburg did the research, and more research. In 1926 he emerged with Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years. The children’s book had morphed into an adult book in two volumes.

The Lincoln book was a best-seller and ended Sandburg’s financial worries. It also made him a literary lion. For the rest of his long life, he was as famous for being Carl Sandburg as for anything he wrote.

He moved to Michigan in 1930, and eventually settled in the hill country of North Carolina. The Lincoln biography grew to a total of six volumes, with the publication of Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. He won three Pulitzer prizes, two for poetry and one for the Lincoln books. In 1959 he even won a Grammy for his narration of Copeland’s “Lincoln Portrait.”

The house on Hermitage was built in 1880 by attorney Samuel B. Gookins. Sandburg rented the second floor apartment from 1911 through 1914. He later lived in Maywood and in Elmhurst. The Carl Sandburg Home is an official Chicago Landmark. It is privately owned.

Though he lived elsewhere after 1930, Sandburg remained one of Chicago’s favorite sons. In 1960 the city embarked on an urban renewal project in the Clark-Division area. The idea was to stabilize the west end of the Gold Coast with a series of high-rise apartments. They called the new buildings Sandburg Village.

Sandburg himself kept Chicago in his heart. He often returned to the city that made him famous. He appeared regularly on Irv Kupcinet’s TV round-table. When Orland Park named a high school in his honor, Sandburg came to the dedication and had a grand time, telling stories and singing ballads.

He had been a workingman. He always cultivated the image of the people’s poet, with rumpled clothing and unkempt hair. A few years after the dedication, he decided to revisit “his” high school. By then a different principal was in charge. The new man thought Sandburg was a panhandler and threw him out.

Carl Sandburg died in 1967. Some years earlier he had summed up his philosophy this way: “What I need mainly is three things in life, possibly four–to be out of jail, to eat regular, to get what I write printed, and then a little love at home and a little outside.”

There in Chicago (#4)

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:15:00 -0500

How well did you find your way around the Chicago of 1952?

The location is one of three places where Broadway and Sheridan Road intersect. The famous Bowlium bowling alley has been replaced by a high-rise apartment. So have the smaller buildings on the left. But the building in the center rear remains--and after 60 years, someone has finally rented the billboard.

Black Ensemble Theater: Quo Vadis?

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 04:50:00 -0600

The major theater event of the last month, and one of the most important arts events of the year, was the November 18 opening of the Black Ensemble Cultural Center at 4450 N. Clark Street, the culmination of a long-held dream and 35 years of survival in a dicey business on the part of Black Ensemble founder and executive director, Ms. Jackie Taylor. Purpose-built from the ground up at a cost of $16 million (as announced at the groundbreaking in September, 2011) or $19 million (as reported at the time of the recent ribbon cutting), the facility includes a mainstage theater, a studio theater, rehearsal space, classrooms, public gallery space, and offices.

When the first shovel of earth was turned just 14 months ago, the line-up of notables in attendance featured Mayor Daley, Gov. Quinn, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, State Sen. Kwame Raoul and at least a dozen assorted aldermen, state representatives and foundation CEO’s and corporate honchos. Never have I seen more ducks lined up in a straighter row. The Black Ensemble Cultural Center was writ in the stars and Jackie Taylor appeared to be fulfilling her manifest destiny.

Now the new venture is up and running and the Big Question for me is addressed directly to Jackie, whom I’ve known since Day One of the Black Ensemble and maybe longer: When are you going to announce an innovative new artistic plan for your company?

To the disappointment of some, Taylor chose to open her dream venue by taking a step backwards and offering a new production of her eleven year old success, The Jackie Wilson Story (running through January 8 and perhaps longer). To be sure, it’s as solidly-produced a show as the Black Ensemble always offers, and the talent on display and musical bang-for-the-buck it provides are splendid, as always. There are a cooking seven-piece band, gifted singers and dancers and a star who channels the biographical subject to an uncanny degree, as always.

And there’s the rub: “as always.” For the last decade or longer, the Black Ensemble has followed a tried-and-true formula of offering “greatest hits” musical biographies of many leading lights of Black music, chiefly drawn from blues, early rock and R&B genres (although not always). The gala opening season Taylor has announced between now and next June offers five cookie-cutter shows, musical bios of Luther Vandross, Marvin Gaye, James Brown and various Ladies of Soul (Aretha, Gladys, Diana, etc.).

But you don’t move into $16 million or $19 million of new facilities to keep on keepin’ on with the same old same-old. There have to be ambitions beyond a new playhouse and attached parking and more parking across the street. I know Jackie had such ambitions once upon a time, genuine artistic ambitions. And maybe now she needs to look to her own past in order to look forward. I’m certainly not the only one (heaven help me, I can’t be the only one!) who remembers when the Black Ensemble Theater produced serious African-American drama before August Wilson came along. Anyone recall when the troupe did plays by Ed Bullins and Lorraine Hansberry?

Taylor also produced, among many others, Medea by Euripides and A Streetcar Named Desire. I remember so clearly Jackie’s answer when I asked her “Why Streetcar?” in which she played Blanche Dubois. “It’s a role I’ve always wanted to play before I get too old, and no mainstream theater company is going to give me a chance to play it,” she said. A little vain, perhaps, but absolutely valid.

But where are those plays now? Where are the opportunities for the Black Ensemble’s gifted artists (although not an acting ensemble, despite the name) to appear in great plays of proven caliber? To take on classics and modern works of social and dramatic interest? To stretch their chops in mainstream repertory they probably won’t have a chance to play elsewhere? To do what the Black Ensemble used to do? To follow—quite literally—in Jackie Taylor’s footsteps?

I don’t say the Black Ensemble never should do a jukebox musical about a great popular artist. Its long string of biographical musical revues (which is what they are) has given employment and a spotlight to many, many, many people and certainly has kept the troupe alive at the box office. But the company no longer can justify such shows as its steady and only diet and live up to its name. Taylor herself has been involved in a majority of Black Ensemble productions as writer and/or director as well as producer, which hardly is an ensemble approach to art or to craft. The company’s Board of Directors has successfully raised a ton of money to provide Taylor with the facilities to do more, and now she needs to do it.

Yes, the Black Ensemble has various outreach and educational programs, but so does every other non-profit theater of any size or substance in town. And, yes, the Black Ensemble has a Black Playwrights Initiative, which offers various types of in-kind support for two dozen writers. However, the work coming out of this program and moving into production—at least so far—is standard Black Ensemble material: scripts for biographical musicals. These programs are costly for any theater company to maintain, large or small, but it’s completely counter-intuitive to support them by turning your mainstage series—the main event for any theater company—into a cash cow of repetitive audience-pleasing shows. A theater company has to take risks and lead its audience to challenging material.

In her message in the opening program, Ms. Taylor promises “African, Japanese and Mexican Culture in 2012 with some unique one-time performance programming” and that’s an OK start for a cultural center in a racially and ethnically diverse ‘hood such as Uptown. But it’s not the same as a fundamental and primary artistic commitment to better, more profound theater and the nurturing of a true ensemble in some form.

Some may say, “Gosh darn it, Jonathan, give them time! They’ve just opened their new doors. You can’t expect everything right away.” But the point is that I’m laying down a dare to Jackie Taylor and the Black Ensemble Theater and the Black Ensemble Cultural Center and its Board of Directors, and there really isn’t a good time to lay down a dare; you just do it. I’m not asking the impossible. I am asking Ms. Jackie Taylor, who is an exceedingly capable and determined individual, to be true to herself and the artist she has been.

Helen Shiller of the 46th ward says farewell

Tue, 10 May 2011 19:33:00 -0500

There were, in fact, toasts to justice and to the people at Helen Shiller’s aldermanic retirement party. And that seemed appropriate enough. The mood was festive but also nostalgic.

Drawing hundreds of long time supporters last Friday night to a bash at the Aragon, Shiller – who didn’t run for re-election this time or tap an heir of any sort – mostly sat by, relaxed and smiling, and listened to the praise and accolades of allies and friends. (Full disclosure: I'm a family friend.)

Shiller was, perhaps, the City Council’s last great – and real – progressive, with impeccable roots and remarkable consistency.

Friday, folks mentioned how she defended subsidized housing, helped pass the human rights ordinance, the domestic partners ordinance, and tripled the city's AIDS budget in 1992. Someone brought up her work with women, how she got the city to fund a domestic violence tracking system and domestic violence counseling.

And, of course, Wilson Yards, the project that consumed her for most of her 24 year tenure in the City Council. But that stretch of nothing is now a huge Target store and retail that Uptown desperately needed, and she got it all without sacrificing low-income housing, her signature and much-misunderstood concern.

Most Chicago politicians with that long a career get rich or go to jail. Shiller did neither. For some, her détente deal with Mayor Daley in 2003 tarnished her independence credentials forever. But what few people realize is that it was Shiller who made Daley say uncle: He tried three times with all he had and couldn’t beat her, and the only way to buy her was to just help her out with the damn Wilson Yards project.

So let’s give credit where credit is due, cuz we’re not going to see anyone like her for a long time. Among her less known accomplishments:

Shiller initiated and passed the nation’s strongest anti-apartheid ordinance in 1990;
changed city regulations in mid 1990s to allow childcare centers to
serve evening and night workers;
helped change city regulations in the early 2000s to make it easier for
storefront theaters to open;
created a program that helps first time homebuyers purchase condos in
gentrified neighborhoods.

She was also about the only alderman besides maybe Ed Burke who actually read the city budget, serving as a checks and balance to the mayor but also against the avarice of some of Daley’s most shameless allies. No one, but no one, is gonna take her place doing that in the new City Council.

So: To the people, Helen, and to justice!

North Side Aldermanic Races

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:54:00 -0600

Updated At: 11:00 p.m. There were a number of tight North Side aldermanic contests, with runoffs to follow in April. Among the highlights are a virtual tie in the 46th Ward race to replace retiring Ald. Helen Schiller, and 83-year-old Ald. Bernie Stone will face challenger Debra Silverstein in a runoff, as Stone edged Silverstein by just a few hundred votes.

Alderman Ward 35

36 of 36 precincts - 100 percent

Rey Colon, (i) 4,451 - 51 percent

Miguel Sotomayor, 2,174 - 25 percent

Nancy Schiavone, 2,117 - 24 percent

Alderman Ward 36

55 of 55 precincts - 100 percent

John Rice, (i) 6,709 - 48 percent

Nicholas Sposato, 3,346 - 24 percent

Jodi Biancalana, 1,964 - 14 percent

Brian Murphy, 656 - 5 percent

Thomas Motzny, 650 - 5 percent

Bruce Randazzo, 628 - 5 percent

Alderman Ward 38

53 of 53 precincts - 100 percent

Timothy Cullerton, (i) 5,795 - 48 percent

Tom Caravette, 2,699 - 22 percent

Bart Goldberg, 945 - 8 percent

Carmen Hernandez, 723 - 6 percent

Mahmoud Bambouyani, 704 - 6 percent

Sheryl Morabito, 672 - 6 percent

John Videckis, 402 - 3 percent

Ed Quartullo, 237 - 2 percent

Alderman Ward 39

47 of 47 precincts - 100 percent

Margaret Laurino, (i) 7,735 - 76 percent

Mary Hunter, 2,392 - 24 percent

Alderman Ward 41

56 of 57 precincts - 98 percent

Mary O'Connor, 5,885 - 30 percent

Maurita Gavin, 4,890 - 25 percent

Richard Gonzalez, 1,887 - 10 percent

Thomas Murphey, 1,718 - 9 percent

Jim Mullen, 1,650 - 8 percent

Daniel Lapinski, 1,593 - 8 percent

Brock Merck, 728 - 4 percent

John Quinn, 528 - 3 percent

Barbara Ateca, 353 - 2 percent

James Schamne, 152 - 1 percent

George Banna, 134 - 1 percent

Alderman Ward 43

57 of 59 precincts - 97 percent

Michele Smith, 5,040 - 37 percent

Tim Egan, 3,862 - 29 percent

Charles Eastwood, 1,394 - 10 percent

Rafael Vargas, 1,219 - 9 percent

Mitchell Newman, 637 - 5 percent

Bita Buenrostro, 408 - 3 percent

Jim Hinkamp, 378 - 3 percent

Mike Jankovich, 356 - 3 percent

Carmen Olmetti, 149 - 1 percent

Alderman Ward 45

53 of 53 precincts - 100 percent

John Garrido, 5,121 - 32 percent

John Arena, 3,567 - 23 percent

Marina Faz-Huppert, 3,065 - 19 percent

Michael Ward, 1,638 - 10 percent

Anna Klocek, 1,189 - 8 percent

Don Blair, 965 - 6 percent

Bruno Bellissimo, 216 - 1 percent

Alderman Ward 46

47 of 47 precincts - 100 percent

Molly Phelan, 2,712 - 20 percent

James Cappleman, 2,706 - 20 percent

Emily Stewart, 2,018 - 15 percent

Don Nowotny, 1,591 - 12 percent

Marc Kaplan, 1,331 - 10 percent

Michael Carroll, 1,241 - 9 percent

Scott Baskin, 821 - 6 percent

Befekadu Retta, 602 - 4 percent

Diane Shapiro, 458 - 3 percent

Andy Lam, 186 - 1 percent

Caitlin McIntyre, 141 - 1 percent

Alderman Ward 47

51 of 52 precincts - 98 percent

Ameya Pawar, 8,351 - 51 percent

Tom O'Donnell, 7,157 - 44 percent

Matt Reichel, 600 - 4 percent

Tom Jacks, 342 - 2 percent

Alderman Ward 48

53 of 54 precincts - 98 percent

Harry Osterman, 10,161 - 81 percent

Philip Bernstein, 716 - 6 percent

Jose Arteaga, 639 - 5 percent

Patrick McDonough, 629 - 5 percent

Steven Chereska, 354 - 3 percent

Alderman Ward 49

42 of 42 precincts - 100 percent

Joe Moore, (i) 6,857 - 72 percent

Brian White, 2,665 - 28 percent

Alderman Ward 50

44 of 45 precincts - 98 percent

Bernard Stone, (i) 4,143 - 37 percent

Debra Silverstein, 3,763 - 34 percent

Greg Brewer, 2,095 - 19 percent

Ahmed Khan, 659 - 6 percent

Michael Moses, 475 - 4 percent

Here is a look at some of the aldermanic races WBEZ reporters will be following closely.

50th Ward

Updated At: 8:40 p.m. Vote tallies show tight races in the 46th and 50th wards on Chicago's North Side, where runoffs appear likely. Candidates in the 46th Ward are vying to replace retiring Ald. Helen Schiller, who represents much of Uptown. Chicago's oldest alderman, 83-year-old Bernie Stone, is fighting to hold onto his seat in the 50th Ward.

On the city’s far North Side, West Ridge residents say this race is about the same issues brought up in past elections: development and beautification of the once-thriving retail corridors on Devon and Western Avenues, as well as building cohesion among the ward’s ethnically diverse populations. When incumbent Ald. Bernard Stone declared that he would run again for an eleventh term, the 83-year-old said now was “not the time for change.”

In his last election Stone found himself forced into a runoff. Later, he lost the Democratic Committeeman seat to State Senator Ira Silverstein. In this race, Silverstein’s wife, Debra, is running against Stone, as is one-time Stone ally, Michael Moses. Both of those challengers hail from the area’s Orthodox Jewish community. Also running are Greg Brewer, an architect who unsuccessfully bid for Stone’s seat in the last election, and Ahmed Khan, a young community organizer of Indian-American descent.

47th Ward

Updated At: 9:06 Ameya Pawar has a slight lead over Tom O'Donnell and two other challengers in the 47th Ward race to replace Ald. Gene Schulter.

In this ward, 35-year incumbent Gene Schulter dropped his reelection bid in January to make a play for the Cook County Board of Review. That unsuccessful run set up the first wide-open race since the 1970s in this ward that includes Lincoln Square, North Center and Ravenswood. Schulter threw his support behind Tom O'Donnell, a longtime ally who is president of the Ravenswood Community Council. Schulter gave O'Donnell at least $15,000, helping set up a huge money advantage for O'Donnell. He raised more than $100,000 since jumping into the race just over a month ago.

His biggest competitor is 30-year-old Ameya Pawar, a program assistant at Northwestern University who bills himself as young, savvy and reform-minded. He collected endorsements from both major daily papers, and managed to raise about $30,000 without the backing of an established political organization. Activist Matt Reichel and Northwestern University administrator Tim Jacks are also running for the seat.

46th Ward

This ward is largely contained within the Uptown neighborhood, which entered this election at a crossroads. For years it’s been under pressure to preserve a tradition of taking care of the economically and socially underserved. At the same time, young homeowners want to see new businesses that can serve them, and raise their property values.

Outgoing Ald. Helen Shiller had championed to keep affordable housing in the 46th Ward, and she won her final battle most recently with the creation of the Wilson Yards mixed-use development. The development brought in a Target and an Aldi grocery, but it also included low-income and senior housing. Shiller’s decision not to run left the door open to eleven candidates, who have had to delicately address economic development while retaining affordable housing.

41st Ward

This ward includes far-Northwest Side neighborhoods like Edison Park, Norwood Park and Edgebrook -- largely white, middle-class areas home to many cops, teachers and city workers. There, the City Council's only Republican, Brian Doherty, gave up a reelection bid for an unsuccessful run for the state legislature. He threw his support behind his longtime administrative aide, Maurita Gavin (who, it so happens, took Alderman Doherty to prom back in the 1970s). She is running on a platform of continuity, promising even to keep largely the same staff.

She faced a huge field of 10 challengers, including three former or current police officers and a fireman. In contention are Mary O'Connor, a small business-owner and Democratic committeeman, Richard Gonzalez, a police sergeant who has loaned large sums to his campaign, and Thomas Patrick Murphey, an urban planner who nabbed the Chicago Tribune's endorsement. Bread-and-butter issues dominated this campaign, like basic city services and preventing local police from being deployed to other wards. Most candidates promised to fight to uphold the area's "suburb in the city" character, dominated by single-family homes and good schools. Also running for this seat are former police officer Jim Mullen, firefighter Daniel Lapinski, small-business owner James Schamne, police officer Brock Merck, George Banna and Barbara Ateca.

Odette Yousef and Gabriel Spitzer contributed to this story.

Retaking the street

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:43:00 -0600

Even though the frigid cold has driven drug dealers and gangs indoors for the next few months, many Chicago neighborhoods can expect those problems to return once temperatures rise again. But this past summer and fall, two communities on Chicago’s far North Side took measures they hope will have a lasting impact on keeping trouble off their street corners. They took very different approaches.

One of those strategies puts tired pedestrians on Devon Avenue in the West Ridge neighborhood out of luck.

“They asked me to remove the benches west of California,” said 50^th Ward Alderman Bernard Stone. Stone said he’d received enough complaints from residents and business owners who said gang members were congregating around the sidewalk benches at night. “I wish we could find a way to have the benches go into the ground at night, but we can't,” said Stone. Stone had Chicago’s Department of Transportation remove all the sidewalk benches, except a few advertising benches, between California Ave. and Kedzie Ave.

Richard Trumbo, owner of The Music House, a children’s music and dance school on Devon Ave., said he hadn’t noticed that the benches were removed. But he confirmed they attracted types that he didn’t need near his family-oriented business. “I've seen prostitutes, I've seen drunkards,” said Trumbo. “It just seems as I drive up and down Devon that it's a place for people with nothing better to do to sit or sleep.”

But Trumbo doesn’t necessarily think removing the benches is the best solution for West Ridge.

“Proper policing might be a better one,” said Trumbo. “(The benches) kind of look attractive. Makes the neighborhood look friendly.”

Lots of neighborhoods in Chicago struggle with loiterers and rowdy youths, but not all of them take the approach that Devon Avenue did. In fact, in the North Side neighborhood of Uptown, residents have decided that they could get criminals off their corners by making the sidewalks more friendly at least to law-abiding residents.

Ed Kuske helps organize what he calls “neighborhood watches,” or “positive loitering,” for his block club near Lake Michigan. During the summer he and his neighbors stake out spots on the sidewalk, in a sort of peaceful stand-off with ruffians.

“What we saw during that first week we were all I'd say 20-35 calls to 911 during that hour,” said Kuske.

The neighborhood started the effort in 2008 because homeowners felt that sidewalk drug sales were on the rise on nearby Sheridan Road.

Kuske said after a solid week of standing watch for an hour per night, the number of gang members loitering in the area began to wane.

“Once we broke that, we can go a couple months before we see somebody doing something now,” said Kuske.

Now the block club only arranges one positive loitering event each week during the warmer seasons.

Experts say positive loitering can go a long way toward helping residents feel like they are gaining control of their neighborhood’s street activity. It can also promote a lasting community cohesion that brings other benefits, according to Wesley Skogan of Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research.

But Skogan said nobody’s formally studied how such community efforts affect criminal presence in a neighborhood.

“In the welter of things that make crime rates go up or down,” said Skogan, “it's hard to tease out the exact impact of these programs, which are modest.”

Skogan said there are few data on how changing the physical environment, as was done on Devon Avenue, affects crime. Until someone does study these differing approaches, these two Chicago communities are sticking to them, hoping that their streets this summer will be as orderly as they are this winter.

Maserati, "The World Outside", from the CD Inventions for the New Season, (Temporary Residence)

Revision Street: Liam Warfield (III)

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:21:00 -0600

What did I hear about you living under a bridge for a while?

Yeah, for a few months. It was great. The Ashland Avenue bridge over the river, by Ashland and Fullerton. It’s actually two bridges because there’s Ashland Avenue and then Webster Avenue, so it’s kind of an L bridge.

When I was in my late teens, probably, one of my friends took me down to this—it’s basically like a huge building under the bridge. The bridge used to go up and down, and they would have these huge concrete ballasts, and they needed these enormous rings for all the gears and stuff. So I would hop a little fence and then had to scramble down this little hill and then go around this fence and do some climbing, and then do some tricky climbing, and then you get into this place.

There’s like this one cavernous room, absolutely huge, and then a bunch of little rooms off of it, and then another fairly cavernous room. It was a huge space, and I started hanging out there in my late teens. It was popular with graffiti artists, ‘cause it was a totally private place for them to paint. Somebody had rigged up electricity, so there were lights in there and stuff.

Very few people ever seemed to go there. I guess me and two of my friends camped out there for a few days, maybe just for fun. I don’t even remember. And then it just turned into a place to live. I lived there by myself for three months, then I lived there with a couple friends for two months the next year.

It was great. We brought a bunch of stuff there and built furniture. I ended up living there with this guy who was kind of my boyfriend, and we had a little bedroom, and we made a bed out of milk crates—we lashed a bunch of milk crates together. And we had a nightstand, and we had a radio and a typewriter. It was like a little house. It was great to wake up in the morning and yawn and stretch and step out. The river is right there. That was usually great. The river often smelled pretty bad.

When I lived there by myself a couple of months, that was pretty intense solitude. And that was pretty nice. Six or seven years ago. I was in my early-mid twenties, I guess. Basically the two times that I lived there, first by myself and then with other people, I had rooms in two different parts of the building.

Why did you move out the first time?

The first time I guess I just went traveling, I left town for a few months. And then the next year when I was living there with friends and we got kicked out by the bridge authority. Then they put up more fences, so we couldn’t really get in anymore.

So you lived there for a total of how long?

Probably five or six months. When I was living there I had a job, too. It was definitely a weird time. I was working at the Music Box Theatre. I’d have to come into the theatre and give myself a sink bath, because I would get really dirty living down there. They never knew that I was basically homeless.

That’s interesting. Did you think of it as being homeless, or squatting, or super-alternative living?

That’s a good question. I don’t know if I’d put a name to it back then. I guess now I would think of it as squatting. I’ve had more exposure to that idea. I don’t know if I had a name for it back then.

Hm. Well, do you have anything else you want to tell people?

I guess I would want to express that I’m just giving you some greatest hits of weird shit I’ve done or that’s been in my life. But it all seems pretty normal to me.

I mostly don’t know what I’m doing in my life. On the whole, that’s probably not a good thing, but in a small way I think it is a good thing because I open myself to different types of situations, that I might not open myself to if I felt I was on a clearly defined path.

This is the first time I’ve ever been interviewed, I think. I’ve always secretly wanted to be interviewed.

What kinds of questions would you like asked of yourself?

I would probably be really hard on myself, like, What are you doing with your life? What are your goals? I tend to be very hard on myself. I was interviewing myself, I would grill myself like that.

Does it bother you that you don’t know what you’re doing most of the time?

A little bit but not too much. I’d say, it’s partly that I don’t know what I’m doing and partly that I’m just lazy, I guess. I’m not sure how much of either of those things.