WBEZ | Lakeview

Last days for the Western-Belmont overpass

Mon, 06 May 2013 05:00:00 -0500

The City of Chicago is planning to tear down the Western Avenue overpass at Belmont-Clybourn. The junction of the three streets will once again be a normal, at-grade intersection.

Back in 1902 the Riverview amusement park opened at the northwest corner of Western and Belmont. The park drew thousands of patrons each day, most of whom arrived on streetcars—one of the lines was even named Riverview-Larrabee. Private vehicles of any type were rare.

By the 1960s more and more people were driving cars. Traffic around Riverview was congested. The modern solution to the problem was the Western Avenue overpass.

Fifty years ago, the city was in love with fly-over intersections. Similar viaducts were being built at Archer-Ashland and at Ashland-Pershing. Dozens more were in the talking stage. They were mini-expressways, an efficient way to move traffic.

The Western Avenue overpass opened in 1962. It did its job well for five years. Then Riverview closed. The new businesses that went up on its site generated significantly less traffic. And when a police station was built at the Western-Belmont corner, the viaduct actually impeded its operations.

In 1962 few people had complained about aesthetics. Once the overpass was no longer needed, critics discovered it was ugly. It blighted the neighborhood. Besides, the traffic lanes on the viaduct itself were too narrow.

Demolition costs were high. So for decades, there’s been a death-watch at Western-Belmont—a death watch on a viaduct. How long before the thing would fall apart, and the city would be forced to tear it down? Now it looks like this is finally going to happen.

Partly because of the Western-Belmont controversy, overpasses have gone out of fashion in Chicago. The city recently announced a project to reconfigure the Elston-Fullerton-Damen intersection. Before a plan to reroute Elston was chosen, there was a proposal to run Fullerton through as an underpass. I don’t believe that a viaduct was even considered.

I have no idea how tearing down the Western Avenue overpass will affect traffic in the area. We’ll all have to wait and see.

Crunching Lakeview's crime numbers as police start 'Entertainment Detail'

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 01:31:00 -0600

Updated 1:00 p.m.

The snow is not gone yet, but police in Lakeview are preparing to deal with the crime surrounding the area's nightlife.

One police commander has implemented an “Entertainment Detail” to patrol the neighborhood’s vibrant scene that includes bars, restaurants that cater to Cubs fans as well as the city’s gay and lesbian community. But how bad is crime in an area that has shootings and homicides in the single digits?

The numbers are interesting — and while not dealing with a large amount of violent crime — data suggest the neighborhood has become a magnet for theft and robberies.

Cmmdr. Elias Voulgaris recently took charge of the 19th police district, which contains Lincoln Park, Lakeview and Uptown.

"It all comes down to quality of life issues. [People] have to respect the residents and cut down on public drinking, urination and damage to property."

Voulgaris was echoing a similar call from his boss Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

Lakeview usually has single digit homicide numbers compared to that of some neighborhoods on the South and West Sides.

However, after 2010, there were stark increases in thefts and robberies in the neighborhood, which has residents, officials – and businesses – concerned about a neighborhood whose nightlife is a vital part of the city's economy and tourist industry.

Bennett Lawson is the chief of staff to Ald. Tom Tunney (44th). After a very public string of violent incidents, Tunney called for the formation of an “Entertainment Detail.”

The conversations and coverage during and after that time was very heated.

“We’ll have a more formal detail unit from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.,” Lawson said. “The “L” plays a big part of that.”

Lawson and Voulgaris have both mentioned the areas around the “L” stops being magnets for crime.

Also, they both acknowledged that residents have to take additional precautions to protect themselves and be aware of their surroundings.

“There are a lot that grew up in the burbs or in a large state... those that are transient, move to the city for their first job in their 20s, then move back out into the burbs in their 30s, but now we’re seeing more stay in the neighborhood, buying property, the schools are full, as opposed to those being bused into the district from years ago,” Lawson said.

“We’re educating people, telling them to take steps to protect themselves,” he said referring to residents pulling out their iPhones or listening to their headphones.

In 2012, Lakeview had 346 robberies. Of those 346, over 200 of those were strong-armed robberies, or simple muggings. About 49 were by gunpoint, with under a few dozen aggravated, or inflicting injury. It essentially means that most of the robberies are people getting their phones, wallets, etc. stolen – without serious injury.

Voulgaris said the entertainment detail is still in it infancy, and will be in full swing by the spring and summer.

He stressed that they used existing police resources, and rescheduled officers based on the increases in crime on the weekends after the bars start to close. He also said this won't affect normal beat patrols and the detail would work in addition to increased police presence for Cubs games and special events like Chicago's Gay Pride Parade.

We've parsed out the crime numbers and the data would suggest that there have been drops in some areas, like much of Chicago, but spikes in robberies and thefts, and the neighborhood has a larger amount of crime than its neighborhood to the north: Uptown.

Robberies for 2012

Batteries for 2012

Criminal damage

Editor’s note on comparing neighborhoods with a grain of salt

As Chicago’s homicides and shootings rack up, a lot of ire and media coverage centers on policing strategies. In Chicago, a city with storied racial, economic and education disparities, it’s difficult politically and logistically to address public safety issues — and effectively police them.

Are the West and South Sides experiencing more crime than parts of the North Side? Yes.

The conditions however, are more nuanced than a North Side vs. South Side discourse. That dichotomy does exist. Understanding that divide should be the start of discourse, not the end of the discussion.

Such discussions are and should be necessary to an informed public. And it is part of the mission of WBEZ, which takes the form of series on race, recidivism and economic mobility.

It’s important to point out a lot about the nature of statistics. First, they’re absent demographic information. Some areas are more densely populated than others – and those population numbers don’t count visitors to an area. An arrest number or rate cannot easily or accurately convey racial problems, gang activity – or economic and poverty data that are the social causes of crime.

A community area might have a larger area than another. Population is one of many factors in per capita crime. According to the 2010 census, Lakeview had 94,368 people, Austin had 98,514 and Uptown has 56,362.

So how do police divide limited resources to keep a city of nearly 3 million safe?

The police have specialized gang and narcotics units that can be deployed on top of regular patrols that are needed to maintain an overall coverage of a community.

That’s effectively why the Chicago Police Department is divided by police districts and not wards or neighborhoods. Also, those districts are divided into smaller segments called beats which can be as large as a few blocks or several. You wouldn’t waste time having police patrol a non-residential industrial area with the same zeal as a dense tourist area. Both the districts and beats were recently redrawn by the city under Supt. Garry McCarthy, similar to a Congressional district re-map. The police say the changes allow them to redeploy forces as the conditions, population and crime in a neighborhood change.

The hyperbole surrounding some crime (flash mobs) can make perceptions more frightening than reality. Does being in Lakeview mean you’re going to be robbed? No. Does being on the South Side mean you’re going to be shot? No.

The following comparisons offer a snapshot of violent crimes, and illustrate how one neighborhood can have higher rates of violence than another, even when population is taken into account.

In conversations with the commander of the 19th District and city officials, one message that the city and others want made clear is that addressing relatively non-violent crimes in wealthier neighborhoods does not necessarily translate to more or less resources being deployed to areas plagued by violent crime.

Whether or not that’s the case is hard to tell.

All these factors that should be taken into account as the city and its residents, like generations before them, debate self-governance and policing.

Homicides:

Shootings in 2012

Chicago Pride may run two weekends

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 15:00:00 -0600

Chicago Pride is now going to run two weekends.

Well, sort of.

Chicago’s annual Gay Pride Parade consisted of the parade that recently underwent a route change to accommodate record-high crowds and Pride Fest, a two-day precursor to the parade.

The parade itself attracted large crowds, with estimates of 850,000 last year.

However, Pride Fest, a relatively new addition to the Gay Pride Parade organized by the Northalsted Business Alliance, acted more so as a holding area for the spillover crowds that patronized the area’s bars, which during Pride weekend have lines wrapping around a city block with near-hour wait times.

“It’s a pretty intense weekend when you have the festival and the parade. We looked at it, a lot of people have said in past years: ‘Why don’t we do it another weekend?’ When you have a festival on Friday it shuts down a major thoroughfare on a weekday,” said Jen Gordon, spokesperson for the alliance.

The alliance is seeking to have Pride Fest on the Saturday and Sunday before pride, June 22 and 23.

It’s not official. In order to have a parade or special event (outdoor festival) an organization or person must first obtain a permit from the city — and the organization is still awaiting approval from the city.

“We met with East Lakeview neighbors last night and this is what we’d like to go forward with it. Obviously the Pride Festival covers two different wards and in touch with Aldermen Cappleman’s and Tunney’s office,” Gordon said.

The Chicago Annual Pride Parde has a route that starts in Uptown, Alderman James Cappleman's 46th ward and Lakeview, Ald. Tom Tunney's 44th ward.

"We're still getting input from residents," said Sean Kotwa, co-chair for the alliance.

When asked if this would cure the problem of crowds or exacerbate it, giving bar-goers the opportunity to drink and party more on two weekends instead of one, Gordon said they believe it would split up the crowds somewhat, especially for tourists coming in from others states.

“A lot of the people are coming to Pride Fest for the entertainment line up, a lot more activity than the bars on the strip,” she said.

“We want to focus on the idea of celebrating pride and celebrating equality that whole week.”

The North Halsted Business Alliance, which organizes Pride Fest —but not the parade — is still awaiting permit approval from the city.

Comment from Tunney's office was not immediately available.

Walmart makes inroads into Chicago's North Side with Lakeview store opening

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:24:00 -0600

Wal-Mart Inc. made inroads into one of Chicago's most affluent and predominantly gay North Side neighborhoods with its store opening in Lakeview on Wednesday morning.

The "Walmart Express" would be the second store of its type to open within the city, the first being in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood on the South Side, which opened in June. That's not counting the "Walmart Neighborhood Market" in the West Loop or the "Walmart Supercenter" on the far West Side.

Ald. James Cappleman (46th) was present for the opening ceremony. The store at 3636 N. Broadway St. shares a building with a storage facility and resides in Cappleman's ward. Also present was 44th ward Alderman Tom Tunney. Both were said to have helped the retailer navigate the various neighborhood and commerce groups, and address community concerns when the store proposal was first announced.

"I have been pleased with Walmart's outreach into our community and the steps they have taken to identify local residents for job opportunities," Cappleman said.

The store is a very scaled down version to that of its massive counterparts usually found in suburban communities. "As you get to more densely populated neighborhoods like this, you have this Wal-Mart Express format that aesthetically fits in the community," said Wal-Mart spokesman Steven Restivo.

At 14,800 square feet, the store is roughly the size of a standard drug store, which is fitting, as it's right next to a long-standing Walgreens.

A statement says the store will offer "convenient access for fill-in and stock-up shopping trips and features fresh groceries and pharmacy" items.

The store is geared heavily toward grocery shopping, with customers being greeted by a produce section upon entering. This could signal a potential threat not only to its neighboring Walgreens, but the Jewel-Osco only two blocks south on Broadway and Brompton Avenue and nearby Whole Foods just west at Halsted Street and Waveland Avenue.

Wal-Mart has tried for years to break into the Chicago market, sometimes without success. But the battered economy and high unemployment rates have made officials more amiable to the stores provided they create much-needed jobs to their communities.

In 2006, then Mayor Richard M. Daley vetoed a City Council measure that put pay requirements on big-box retailers. The measure was clearly aimed at Wal-Mart.

Only four years later, Wal-Mart announced its "Chicago Community Investment Partnership," a five-year plan to open several dozen stores. The company said this would create approximately 10,000 jobs and 2,000 unionized construction jobs.

That doesn't mean the company's effort to open a store in Lakeview was an easy one. The company faced objections from the South East Lake View Neighbors, a community group representing residents and businesses in the neighborhood. In May, residents attended a screening of Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices at Landmark Century Cinema, where activists had aired their concerns and encouraged others to join a small group on Facebook called "Stop the Lakeview/Lincoln Park Walmart."'

Chicago Neighborhoods First, a community and labor advocacy group, released a statement on Wednesday that announced their "continued efforts to hold Walmart accountable for its promises in Chicago." The group claims the company reneged on promises of starting wages of $8.75 an hour in 2010.

"Those numbers were wages discussed by politicians," said Walmart spokesman Restivo. "Our wages are competitive, if not better than similar businesses in the area."

"This store is creating 45-50 new jobs, with 75 percent of those jobs going to those in the community," said Restivo.

One of those jobs went to South Side resident Sandra Cooper. The 41-year-old from Englewood said she was hired through the Cara Program, a Chicago job placement program. After being on the job market for three months, she said the job was an exciting opportunity. "I can see myself growing with this company," she said.

Restivo said there was outreach to groups to hire within the community. "There are three transgender employees working here," he said. The store is clearly within the boundaries of the established gay community known to locals as Boystown.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony was preceded with grants to various gay and lesbian non-profits and churches, which included Howard Brown Center, Lakeview Presbyterian Church, Center on Halsted and Open Arms Church.

When asked why the opening release said "Walmart Express Opens in Wrigleyville" and not Boystown or even Lakeview, Restivo stressed it was not any slight to the gay community, but that the broader public would be more easily able to associate the location because of Wrigley Field.

The semantics of borders for Lakeview, including Wrigleyville and Boystown, have always been up for spirited debate — especially amongst realtors.

Wal-Mart's next move for the neighborhood is a proposed store opening in spring of 2012 at Broadway and Surf Street — near another Walgreens.

More Photos: Walmart Opens in Boystown

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Crime puts Boystown service agency under spotlight

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 21:47:00 -0500

It’s been just over one week since a video depicting a brutal street attack in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood went viral. That violent incident was just one of several so far this summer in the popular gay entertainment district known as Boystown. But it’s taken the lid off an emotional debate that community’s having about who’s responsible for crime. Some are pointing fingers at Boystown’s Center on Halsted — a social service agency — and particularly its young clientele.

The attack happened just before midnight two Sundays ago. It was a regular weekend night, with people teeming outside Boystown’s clubs and bars on Halsted Street. The video captures a crowd punching, beating, and jeering at a young African American man. He was also stabbed multiple times.

Late last week, Chicago Police announced an arrest. A man from Hammond, Indiana. Others are likely to follow. But before anything was known about the attackers, rumblings began, mostly online, that gay youth from other neighborhoods were committing these crimes. Those rumors got a full airing last week during an explosive community policing, or CAPS, meeting.

SPEAKER: I was one of those kids. I grew up in the neighborhood. So don’t attack the kids. You are to blame.

Almost six hundred people packed that meeting hall in Lakeview.

SPEAKER: When I grew up here, gays were getting beat up on, my friends were beating up gay people. Now you own the community, and what do you do? You turn it on kids that are troubled because their parents can’t afford to feed them so they throw them out on the street. Not on your doorstep? Not on your doorstep?

AUDIENCE: (Booing)

SPEAKER: You guys better wake up. Wake up now. Wake up.

Several gay youths also spoke.

Many said their sexual orientations got them kicked out of their own families and communities.

So they went to Boystown for acceptance… but even there, they felt despised.

SPEAKER: I have been looked at as an individual who is stared down upon because I am dirty, because have no place to sleep, because there are no shelters. Because there are no shelters in Lakeview ...

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Not on my doorstep, buddy…

Catch that? One audience member said, “Not on my doorstep, buddy.” And that’s been the complaint from some… that when the Center on Halsted closes at 10pm, its youth go out onto the streets to loiter, squat, roam, and commit crimes.

When it opened four years ago, the Center was meant to be a safe haven for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people of all ages. That’s worked. The Center says it’s at capacity — 1000 people go there every day for everything from meals, job skills training, gym activities, or to use the Internet.

But some Boystown residents wonder if the youth program is doing more harm than good.

ambi: street noise

CUNNINGHAM: Want to go this way or this way?

GREG: Let’s go that way.

A team of six or so Boystown residents were out on Halsted after midnight this last Saturday. It’s an ad-hoc group of men… they do this every week… sweep the side streets and alleys to call in crimes and suspicious activities they see to police.

SCOTT WHITE: Yeah, they’re literally just west of Halsted…

They report anything from assaults to relatively minor things… like this group smoking weed on the sidewalk.

SCOTT WHITE: Yeah, anywhere from ten to fifteen.

Greg Rohner is one of these self-appointed vigilantes. He’s lived around Halsted since 1998 – before the Center was built. He says he started doing the walks a couple of years ago after he stopped a sexual assault in progress outside his apartment.

YOUSEF: Do you have any reason to believe that some of the crime is attributed to people affiliated with the Center?

ROHNER: I hate to say it but… yeah. I’ve been very involved in CAPS, and I’ve been involved in CAPS all year long. And I was in a CAPS meeting a couple of months ago, and we had somebody that was familiar with people that get services from the Center, and they had a list of the recent arrests, and one person on there was somebody that had been receiving services at the Center.

YOUSEF: Do you think it would be better for them to simply not offer services so that they don’t basically eject all these people onto the streets at 10pm?

ROHNER: I would hate to see that happen. But on the other hand, the problem isn’t getting any better. And when you’ve got people that have no place to go when the Center closes, they’re on the street. And we can’t all take them in. We get them from everywhere, and we do our best here to give them services because their neighborhoods don’t give them services. There’s only so much that we can do, you know?

I asked another one of these crime watchers, John Cunningham, about his take on the Center.

Cunningham says he also doesn’t think closing it, or its youth program, would accomplish anything.

CUNNINGHAM: While that might have been the initial cause of what started things escalating things many years back, I don’t think that that is the current reason. Word got out that it’s a fun, safe neighborhood, and then things escalated, and then unfortunately, so did the criminal element, too.

In other words, the genie’s out of the bottle.

Young gay people across the city know about Boystown now, and they’ll keep coming, regardless of whether the Center on Halsted is there. Still, some people affiliated with Center say, every time crime flares up, they’ll still have to be on the defensive. Modesto Tico Valle is CEO of the Center.

VALLE: We are part of the solution. We are not the problem.

Chicago police have affirmed that the Center was not the problem in the videotaped assault. They say don’t believe the man they arrested or other suspects were affiliated with the Center. Valle agrees with people who say there should be a homeless shelter, or something that takes in youth after hours, but he says it would be a travesty to suspend the Center’s youth programming until it there are 24-hour services, as some Boystown residents have demanded.

VALLE: These young people come here for mental health, for job readiness, for case management. We in some cases are t heir lifeline. Take that away from them, and we have ourselves a larger problem.

Valle says the Center’s critics are just a small, but vocal group and that, as a whole, the Boystown community supports the center and its youth. Yes, the recent meeting aired some ugly comments and accusations. But many more members come forward to offer kind words, donations, and time.

A divided Boystown

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:00:00 -0500

A stabbing captured on video has been the unlikely spark for a fiery debate on race and class in Chicago’s premier gay neighborhood.

The video captured a large group of black youth getting into an altercation with a 25-year-old victim. The scuffle in the late hours of Sunday, July 3rd, resulted in a stabbing of the victim – the second that day - and the third within a three-week period in the North Side neighborhood.

The stabbing incidents, which resulted in no fatalities and two arrests, have become tipping points for a community increasingly on edge about crime in recent months.

In early June, a series of robberies involving the pepper-spraying of victims caused the Chicago Police Department to issue an alert, with bars posting warnings at entrances.

An analysis of crime data by WBEZ shows that Boystown has been the location of dozens of assaults, robberies and batteries since April.

Boystown marred by violence on Dipity.

One of the first major incidents to call public attention to violence in the community took place very early on the morning of June 18^th in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven.

A couple, who lives in Lakeview, was attacked around 3 a.m. Citing safety issues they wished to remain anonymous, but the boyfriend of the victim agreed to be interviewed.

“Some stranger wanted to start a fight. He bumped into the two of us as were leaving Burrito Palace,” said the boyfriend. The restaurant is located on Cornelia and Halsted.

The stranger then followed them to a nearby 7-Eleven where police say he stabbed the victim. The suspect in question, Anthony Bledsoe, was later charged with aggravated battery.

The victim’s boyfriend recently moved to Lakeview, but is a Chicago native from the South Side. He said prior to the incident, three of his friends were mugged. “It’s almost like gang violence,” he said.

A few weeks later, a stabbling incident on July 3rd was captured on video by resident Rob Sall, who, with his partner John Cunningham, has sought to address the violent crimes that were brought directly to his doorstep.

The Chicago Police Department announced on Friday morning that a suspect was arrested in connection with the incident. The suspect, Darren Hayes, 24, of Hammond, IN., turned himself in to police after the investigation began to close in on him.

The police charged him with four counts of aggravated battery. Two knives were recovered by police, and are said to be the weapons used in the case.

The father of the victim told ABC 7 in an interview that the victim had suffered a punctured lung as well as wounds to the chest, back and arms.

“It’s one thing when people are getting mugged, it’s another when they are getting stabbed,” said Sall.

The couple lives on the 3300 north block of Halsted Street in Boystown, the location of the stabbing. North Halsted is also the site of many of Boystown’s popular gay bars, and the couple’s block has become a hangout at times for groups of lesbian, gay and transgendered teens.

Those groups have become a lightning rod – and some say scapegoat – for the spat of violent crimes.

The extent and duration of those violent crimes and the unsettling nature of the video have anger spilling from Facebook forums into heated townhall meetings.

The young homeless of Boystown

At the center of the attention are homeless youth in the neighborhood, many of whom are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered minorities from Chicago’s West and South Sides.

LGBT black and Hispanic youth, like many others, flock to Boystown because of its gay-friendly reputation, its nightlife and its support network.

But many of these youth have been the target of blame by residents who accuse them of loitering along Halsted Street, drinking in public, smoking marijuana, blaring loud music, urinating in public, and vandalizing - as well as engaging in occasional verbal or push-and-shove altercations.

Some websites such as gis.chicagopolice.org or everyblock.com, which utilizes the same data from gis.chicagopolice.org, list a slew of offenses at all hours of the night.

But a common element in a number of the reported stabbing incidents in this predominantly white upper-middle class neighborhood is that many of them were carried out by black men - either individually or in large groups.

Residents have been quick to say their concerns are limited only to crime and don't involve race, but some feel that the loitering and behavior of youth may be leading to the more violent crimes.

Rhaisa Williams is a Ph.D student at Northwestern University who has researched the dynamic in Boystown and argues that race and class divides do play a role in the tension between some residents and youth.

"[B]lack queer youth who do not live nor are employed in Boystown, but come there to "hang out" —which is synonymous to loitering in the discourse— become figures of an inappropriate embodiment that that is antithetical to middle class stability and consumption," she writes.

And with so many strong-armed robberies and assaults - and few arrests - many residents have focused their anger on the Center on Halsted, a local social services organization that serves the LGBT community.

A Center of controversy

The Center, located at Waveland Avenue and Halsted, opened its doors in 2007 with a mission “to provide a safe and nurturing environment," according to the organization's website.

A former worker at the Whole Foods grocery story that sits adjacent to the Center, however, created a Facebook page originally named “Citizens Demanding Center on Halsted ‘Youth Program’ Shutdown,” that later changed to “Center on Halsted FAIL.” (Click on right image for original page).

"I had to call in police for shoplifting on many of the kids I'd see loitering all day in front of and inside the [Center on Halsted]," said the former Whole Foods employee. "I'd say at least half of them were white. Maybe more. Again, not a racial issue.”

The page as of Friday afternoon had 42 “likes.”

Another Facebook page, “Take Back Boystown,” is a different story. With over 3,400 fans, it has served as an organizing forum for concerned residents and, at times, has featured posts by those using pseudonyms with racial overtones, though they have later been purged by moderators.

Tyler Roberts, 34, frequents the "Take Back Boystown" Facebook page and says it occasionally contains racist remarks. He also insists that the Center on Halsted shouldn't be singled out for the actions of others.

"I don't believe for a second that [closing down the Center on Halsted] would solve any problems," Roberts says. "I do however believe they should be holding the youth that frequent the Center accountable for their actions."

Many youth also believe the Center is being unfairly singled out, and note that it's one of the few organizations providing services to transient LGBT youth.

"All we have is the center," said a 28-year old Center member and health educator who goes by the name Peanut Butter. "If they take away the center, they’re going to have a bigger problem."

Kloe Jones, 23, who is transgendered, came to Chicago from St. Louis. “Where I’m from, we don’t have this. We don’t have Boystown. We don’t have a Center on Halsted.”

“There’s a lot of people coming from the South and West Side," said Jones. "It is a predominantly white neighborhood, but this is all we have. There have been muggings and robbings up here, and [white residents] look at the African Americans who come to the Center, as if somehow it’s their fault. There are kids, who are messy, who do things on purpose, but some of us actually do need these resources,” she said.

When asked if there was any connection between the transient youth who occasionally get cited for loitering or other infractions on Halsted Street and the string of muggings in recent months, police have repeatedly said they have yet to find any correlation.

"There is no connection," said Chicago Police Sgt. Debra DeYoung.

'If they want to talk about the youth? Let's put everything on the table.'
--Peanut Butter, 28

Peanut Butter and other minority LGBT youths, however, report being frequently approached by white men in the area for sexual favors or drugs, creating dangers and a double standard.

“They take advantage of the young ones, saying ‘You sleep with me, I’ll pay you some money.’ If they want to talk about the youth, let’s put everything on the table,” said Peanut Butter.

Koko, 17, is another North Sider who frequents the Center and is concerned about sexual exploitation.

“Some of them have to prostitute,” she said. "They’re trying to get their money and find a place to stay, and see if they could stay with the person they could sleep with at the moment."

Tension brews, nerves frayed

On July 2nd, Rob Sall and nearly 60 others participated in a “positive loitering” session. This was the third summer for the event, with the Commander Kathleen Boehmer from the Chicago Police Department's 23^rd District and a number of police officers also participating.

“We would divide in groups of 6-12 people, canvas the neighborhood. Police would issue citations for violations, prostitution -- citing people for small infractions, confiscated knives, violation of parole,” said Sall.

At 11:30p.m. that evening, a group called GenderJUST began protesting the event, claiming purpose of the event was to drive out LGBT youth from Boystown. The protest was covered in detail by the Windy City Times. Sam Finkelstein, the organizer of the “counter-protest,” was arrested later for disorderly conduct.

A few hours later, around 2 a.m., a 27-year-old Lakeview resident was stabbed on Wilton Ave. and Addison —one block west of the Chicago Police Department’s 23^rd precinct headquarters.

That stabbing was eclipsed by the infamous video-taped stabbing, some 21 hours later.

Fight heard round Chicago

On July 3, Sunday at 11:45 p.m., the much-publicized fight broke out after what some say was a verbal altercation among two groups of young people near the intersection of Halsted and Aldine.

In response to the fight, the police shut down much of Halsted, but left the sidewalks open. The bars were letting out, leaving patrons guessing what had happened.

Media reports at the time were scarce.

The Fourth of July holiday weekend in Chicago saw six murders and 28 violent assaults, two of which were in Boystown. Most news outlets such as the Sun-Times, Tribune, CBS 2 and ABC 7 covered the holiday violence in a single, citywide roundup.

But when the video was posted online, the incident garnered widespread attention on major television newscasts and social networking sites despite having no fatalities.

And the video wasn't the only one to surface from the weekend.

The video, on the left, was uploaded to YouTube the same day of the incident at Halsted and Aldine. This attack occurred on Addison and Wilton earlier that day --one block from the area's police station.

In response, Ald. Tom Tunney (44) on Wednesday called for an “entertainment detail” to be formed to assist in beat officers. He said it’s unrealistic to expect beat officers to cover areas where there are high concentrations of entertainment and hospitality venues.

Heated exchanges in a hot auditorium

Outside the Inter-American Elementary Magnet School Wednesday evening, the mood seemed peaceful. An hour before a scheduled Chicago Alternative Police Strategy (CAPS) community meeting, several residents sat on steps and mingled with their Lakeview neighbors.

Teenagers in yellow shirts gathered, prepping for their planned demonstration as members of GenderJUST. The same group that had protested a peace loitering event a few weeks prior.

Just four days after the video-taped beating of a black youth shocked the neighborhood, the community was gathering for a discussion about how to address violence.

GenderJUST gave a few brief speeches lasting only 20 minutes, before they broke into song and made their way into the auditorium.

Nearly 600 attendees filed into the auditorim in an orderly fashion. Some spilled out onto the floor and into the hall. A handful attempted to reach the balcony of the auditorium, which led to a brief and light-hearted exchange with Tunney and a constituent.

Cmdr. Boehmer and Sgt. Beth Giltmier were both in attendance, as was Ald. James Cappleman (46).

Behind a series of mics at the center of the auditorium floor, stood a long and ever growing line of people waiting to comment. The line and the temperature in the room seemed to grow in tandem, with many using their placards to fan themselves.

As the mic was turned over to the crowd, the first boos came out within moments.

One woman asked: "What is CPD doing to examine the role of race in this violence? How are Boystown and its residents welcoming diversity?"

One man angrily accused the gay community of being elitist:

"These kids have slept in cars, have eaten out of garbage cans, have been molested. I was one of those kids. I grew up in this neighborhood. Don’t attack the kids. You are to blame! This community was not always a gay community. When I grew up here, gays were getting beat up. My friends were beating up gay people. Now you own the community. And what do you do? You turn it on kids who are troubled because their parents can’t afford to feed them. So they throw them out on the street. Not on your doorstep! Not on your doorstep! You guys better wake up now!…All of you guys need to make a difference and stop blaming these damn kids."

Many residents called for an increased police presence in the neighborhood, with some directly attacking Cmdr. Boehmer and Ald. Tunney as they stood mere feet away.

Another speaker suggested that the city install collegiate-like alert boxes along the street.

Such requests aren't new. Northwestern University scholar Raisa Williams notes that calls for increased police presence have been a common theme in discussions about neighborhood tensions over the years.

"Boystown property owners reason that they need heightened levels of policing and surveillance to control black youth's actions, which are seen as one of the main disturbances in the maintenance of Boystown," Williams writes.

One after the other, residents came forth to admonish police, aldermen, teens, gangs -- and themselves. Pleas to limit the soliloquies fell on deaf ears.

But at the end of the night, the boyfriend of the June 18th victim took to the mic.

“Us working together as a community –this is how we’re going to get past this. We don’t need to hate each other. We don’t need to point fingers. We need to come together, sit together like civilized adults, respectable youth and people of the future.”

--Landon Cassman and Meghan Power contributed to this report.

Email Elliott Ramos at: eramos@wbez.org

Videotaped street attack divides Chicago's Boystown

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 06:22:00 -0500

A videotaped stabbing and beating of a man in Chicago's Boystown neighborhood has torn wide some rifts in that community.

At a community policing, or CAPS, meeting Wednesday night, it was standing-room only for hundreds in the auditorium of the Inter-American Elementary School in Lakeview. All came because of a common concern about the latest high-profile and violent attack in their community.

The recorded images of the attack show a crowd beating, stabbing and jeering at a 25-year-old African American man Sunday night on Boystown’s busy Halsted Street. Despite many pleas for civility, the packed hall was a highly emotional scene punctuated throughout by booing, cheering, and even one woman’s claim that she had her camera slapped out of her hands.

“The stabbing was just kind of like the icing on the cake,” said John Cunningham, one of the people who witnessed and recorded the Sunday incident from his condominium overlooking the street. Cunningham said Lakeview residents have been concerned about street disorder, from muggings to rowdy night revelers, for some time. At Wednesday’s meeting, though, there was intense disagreement about the causes and solutions for the crime.

“We do have a lot of people in the neighborhood, a lot of people are walking the streets,” said Ryan Acuff, a resident of Halsted Street.

“For people to just be simply there, they’re loitering on the streets, what do we find for them to do?” Acuff said the Center on Halsted, a community and social service agency for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, is overrun by an influx of people in the neighborhood.

But others, like Joshua McCool, said shifting the blame to loiterers was a veiled attempt to scapegoat young, vulnerable minorities. “The idea that race is not part of this is ridiculous,” said McCool, a member of a grassroots organization for LGBTQ youth.

“Because obviously it's not just about being queer, because Boystown consists of queers, white queers, white men, middle class men. So this is a race issue.”

The Chicago Police Department does not believe race or sexual orientation were factors in Sunday’s attack, nor that gangs were involved. The meeting, which normally runs for just one hour, ran for almost two. Chicago Police Department Sgt. Beth Giltmier announced that the meeting would be continued at a later date.

Photographer’s gay pride parade photos on display for first time

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 14:31:00 -0500

If years past are any indication, Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood will be packed to the gills on Sunday, June 26, as revelers gather for the 42nd annual Pride Parade. The parade wasn’t always the big event it is now. Early on participants shared the street with oncoming traffic and marched in front of a pretty sparse crowd.

Photographer Diane Alexander White first shot the parade in 1976. She’s captured the changing nature of the event in Gay Pride Parade Photography, Chicago Style 1976-2008. Her show is now on display at the Center on Halsted. The photos are from the 1976, 2003 and 2008 parades. Eight Forty-Eight's Alison Cuddy caught up with White, who explained why she decided to focus on those three years.

Music Button: Dirty Vegas, "Emma", from the CD Electric Love, (Om Records)

Wal-Mart: Lakeviewers wonder, some worry

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:41:00 -0600

A report that Wal-Mart intends to open its first North Side Chicago store in the Lakeview neighborhood has already raised the hackles of many community residents and business types. But beyond making a Facebook page and complaining to their alderman, it’s not entirely clear what recourse objecting residents will have. “They picked a location that they most likely knew that would be less opportunity for opposition for them to move forward,” said Maureen Martino, head of the Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce.

But first…it should be noted that neither Wal-Mart, nor the company that owns the property at 2840 N Broadway Ave., has confirmed that anything’s been signed. From a Wal-Mart spokesperson: “We have not executed a contract on any new sites in Chicago and we do not have any new projects to announce. We are evaluating opportunities – small, medium and large – across the entire city.” From an employee that picked up the phone at Mid America Real Estate Group: “No comment.”

Still, members of the local residents organization and the chamber of commerce will meet on Monday to figure out what it could mean for the neighborhood, should the big box chain move in. York Chan, president of the South East Lake View Neighbors, said most residents he’s talked to so far oppose the project. But he admitted nobody really knows what they’re objecting to. "We're 24 hours into this without anything proposed,” said Chan. “No one's able to truly evaluate what would be stopping them."

Chan says, normally, when residents object to a new building development in their neighborhood, they can oppose it and potentially kill it during the public zoning process. But when a retailer moves into an existing commercial space that already has the necessary zoning? “That’s what we’re trying to figure out, too,” said Chan. Previously, the space under discussion housed Pet Smart, Wolf Camera, Maui Wowie, and Hollywood Video stores.

44^th Ward Alderman Tom Tunney is also waiting to see plans before he can say where, exactly, residents would have a chance to scrutinize any plan for the 30,000+ sq. ft. property. But he said there’s no question that they will have a chance. “We would ask any retailer to come to our community if they were interested,” said Tunney, “to meet with the chambers of commerce, the residential neighborhood organizations, and then also we have a planning and zoning committee for the entire ward.” Tunney said he learned about the potential deal the same way residents did – from news reports. He says he won’t take a position until he sees a plan.

While Tunney awaits more information, his opponent in the 44^th Ward aldermanic race has been less circumspect. On his Facebook wall, David Winner says he’s “very concerned” about the possible new retailer in the neighborhood. “Besides adding to congestion to an already congested area, this may be the breaking point in what we know as the small ‘mom and pop’ shops along Broadway and Diversey,” he wrote. Unless the rumors of Walmart’s entrée to the neighborhood are conclusively squashed, this issue will likely be a big issue in the race. If nowhere else, the ballot box may become the place where residents voice their concerns.

Revision Street: Dan Terkell (IV)

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 20:20:00 -0500

This week I’ve been talking to Dan Terkell about growing up in Lakeview during the ‘50s and ‘60s with politically engaged parents—one of was blacklisted during the Red Scare. This caused the family some economic strain, sure. They all worked, passionately and for social justice, but this rarely pays. Were he a different person, as Dan’s been explaining, his father Studs Terkel may well have amassed vast wealth. But Studs, and Dan too, are rare types in this day and age: principled, determined, and unwilling to accept as given what has been given.

Terkell takes care of his father’s estate, which must be hard on him. Dan is certainly his own person, with curiosities and proclivities unrelated to his famous father. Yet it’s clear that he developed an unabiding love of Chicago, and Chicagoans, somewhere along the line.

I was political science major, went to, I went to university part time, never experienced campus life. Took me eight years before I graduated because I was working full time, too, so I did get my bachelors in political science. I was thinking of going on to law school but never followed through with it. I did go so far as to take the LSAT, the law-school qualifying exam, and actually did quite well, but I never followed through.

None of the work I’ve done has really had much of a relationship to my academic education. The jobs I’ve had have been relatively mundane. I guess I’m what you would call a bush-league accountant now. I do work for non-profits.

I don’t think my father was stoked on the idea of me going to law school, especially because of his own experiences. He was a law school graduate but never practiced. He just found that wasn’t to his liking. He found it boring, he used to say he had visions of Clarence Darrow but found himself faced with torts and various other mundane subjects and he just lost his enthusiasm for the law. Even though he finished, he never even considered practicing law. Of course, in the mean time he found other diversions…

I guess what led him to focus on becoming what was considered a disc jockey, an interviewer, was—he prided himself on being what he called a street-car student. When he was studying law at the University of Chicago, he’d ride the State Street car south from the hotel his parents managed, where he worked part time. An old men’s hotel on the fringe of the Loop. Not one of the upscale places. So he’d take this marathon street car ride out to the University of Chicago. The transfer point was at 47th and State, so one day he heard this music that really blew him away. At the time it was considered race music. His transfer point was right in the heart of what was known then as the Black Metropolis—it’s now Bronzeville—and he heard this, what was considered race music, coming out of a record store. It was Mahalia Jackson, and it kindled a lifelong interest in music. Especially folk, blues, and gospel . . . so one thing sort of led to another, and I think that’s when he began at the same time to really lose his interest in law…

Music has always been a part of my life, even though I never learned an instrument. I’ve always had fantasies about being able to play the violin and the fiddle. Any variety of genres: classical, folk, whatever, but I never followed through with that. I still have a pretty good voice, though. I sang in the high-school choral groups, a capella choir, the boys chorus. I’ve always been able to carry a tune pretty well.

I always had an intense interest in music of all genres: classical, folk, blues, ‘60s and ‘70s rock. Very eclectic. Popular music of the ‘80s, ‘90s and beyond just doesn’t resonate with me. Truth is, I can’t stand it. I realize that a lot of it has a message—I mean the early days, a lot of the early rap stuff—I remember I was very turned off by early rap. Especially the numbers that were misogynistic, as a lot of them were. But I recognize that a lot of contemporary rap and hip-hop has a message and lot of kids like it. It’s just nothing I’ve really been able to get my head around.

I’m a secular Jew and I have no qualms about being identified as being Jewish, but like my folks I consider myself an agnostic, or as my father used to say a cowardly atheist [laughs]. Unlike folks who consider themselves atheist, I’m not quite so certain that there is no greater power out there. There are too many unanswered questions.

Many of my interviewees have told me that they felt like some of those questions were answered in the events surrounding September 11th. How did you experience those days?

I mean—we can’t afford to go off half-cocked as the Bush administration did and that only compounded the tragedy, extended the tragedy to many millions of others, both here and across the ocean, here and in the Middle East in particular. Of course, it’s made many folks here in certain respects more distrusting, even more cynical.

But I want to focus on an anecdote for a minute. On September 11th, I had an appointment with a lawyer. We were working on my father’s will. So I called the lawyer and asked whether I should still come to the office, and as it was, I did go downtown. As I was coming up the elevator in this downtown office building, there were a couple of other guys in the elevator, I guess office workers somewhere else in the building. They were in shirts and ties. One was white, and the other was very swarthy looking—looks as if he could be Middle Eastern—so the white guy said to his colleague, Now, I want you to take care of yourself.

It was pretty clear what he meant. He said, Just take good care of yourself. Be careful. He was genuinely concerned. It’s just one little observation, but it shows that there are folks out there, even in a crisis, who still have have humane values.