In 1995, Henry Cisneros, secretary of Housing and Urban Development for the Clinton administration, called Bronzeville’s Robert Taylor Homes “without question, the worst public housing in America today.” Though the homes are gone, their legacy remains a sore spot in the history of Chicago’s public housing. 

The twenty-eight Robert Taylor Homes made up the largest housing project in the U.S. at the time of their completion in 1962. At sixteen stories tall each, the complex’s buildings contained over 4,400 apartments. The monolithic structures stretched from Pershing Road down to 54th Street, bordering the Dan Ryan Expressway to the west and State Street to the east,

Named for Robert Taylor, the Chicago Housing Authority’s first African-American chairman, the project was intended to provide adequate housing for low-income African-American families. The location of the homes was no coincidence; in accordance with the laws of the time, the residents of a housing project could not alter the racial makeup of the area.

The plans were misguided and chronically underfunded, and the Robert Taylor Homes were ultimately a failure. The buildings were perpetually overcrowded, peaking at 27,000 residents despite being designed to hold no more than 11,000. They were also in a constant state of disrepair.

Though the project came to exemplify the failures of public housing, it was still a home for thousands of residents. In 1996, HOPE VI, a program started by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to replace failed modernist housing projects with mixed-income communities, allocated federal block grants to redevelop the Homes. The residents were gradually moved out  by 2005, and the final building was demolished in 2007.

Redevelopment of the area has been a slow process, however, and replacing such a vast housing project with low-rise apartments and houses has proved to be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. According ABC 7 Chicago, critics say that only 300 of Robert Taylor’s 4,400 apartments have been replaced with affordable housing. Since 2007, Brinshore Development, one of the top producers of affordable housing in Illinois, has constructed 840 of the projected 2,400 mixed-income units of its Legends South Development on the site of the Homes. Part of the project has created government-subsidized affordable housing, with the other portion remaining at market rate. According to Brinshore Principal Richard Sciortino, “This allows us to have a healthy mix of incomes, so we can attract working families.”

Plans have also been announced to add a $9.8 million, 112,000-square-foot tennis facility to the area (see page 17). Despite its troubled legacy, the hope is that new structures on the site might bring some of the benefits that the development failed to provide the first time around. Progress may be slow, but investment in the Washington Park neighborhood’s revitalization efforts was what was missing in the original Robert Taylor Homes project.

The post Home Histories: Robert Taylor Homes appeared first on South Side Weekly.

On February 19, President Obama—with Mayor Emanuel at his side—announced the designation of Pullman as a National Monument to a crowd of cheering supporters at Gwendolyn Brooks Preparatory Academy. For the Emanuel campaign, the announcement was a valuable pre-election coup: “Rahm hasn’t just fought for a national park in Pullman. He’s fought for new opportunity and new jobs in Pullman and for every Chicagoan in every neighborhood,” said Obama. For residents of Pullman, who have been working to have the area recognized by the National Parks Service, the moment was the culmination of a five-decade grassroots movement to preserve the neighborhood’s rich historical and architectural value.

Under the American Antiquities Act, the President has the power to declare historic landmarks as national monuments by public proclamation and “may reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.” For Pullman, this means that the historic district will become a part of the National Parks Service, albeit a smaller one than a full-fledged national park.

The National Parks Service will maintain portions of Pullman similar to the way it looks after the Washington Monument or the Statue of Liberty. The combined area will be bounded by 103rd and 115th Streets to the north and south, and Cottage Grove Avenue and the Norfolk and Western Railway line to the west and east. The National Park Service will control the already federally owned Clock Tower and Administration Building, while the State of Illinois will maintain ownership of the Hotel Florence and residents will continue to own the row houses and small businesses in the community.

“Essentially the national monument designation means the Clock Tower Building will be improved into a visitors’ center, and the National Park (Service) rangers will provide security and interpretive services for tourists,” Kayce Ataiyero, a spokeswoman for House Democrat Robin Kelly, who represents Pullman, told the Tribune. She said the designation will not have a major effect on the everyday lives of Pullman’s residents.

The Pullman National Monument will receive a modest yearly budget from the federal government, which will go toward programming and maintenance costs, but the monument will rely primarily on support from private donations for funding. The National Park Foundation, the official charity of the national parks, has announced that $8 million in donations has been received so far. “The gifts will help jumpstart critical projects at the new park,” the Foundation said in a press release, “including the establishment of a visitor center, educational and experiential exhibits, and programming in the Administrative Clock Tower Building designed to engage schoolchildren, the community, and visitors about the importance of Pullman to America’s collective history.”

Although the specifics for the National Park Foundation’s plan to revitalize the area have yet to be announced, it’s clear that their direct influence will be limited to the historic district of Pullman, despite the state of many long-distressed homes outside of the district itself.

Founded in the late 1870s, Pullman was designed to fit company owner George Pullman’s ideal of a better industrial American society. He envisioned a company-owned town where his workers and their families could live in brick row houses with access to amenities such as a school, library, and theater. He also wanted to shield his workers from the moral indecencies of nearby Chicago, and discourage the influence of the organized labor movement.

Not everyone, however, shared George Pullman’s idealistic—and often paternalistic—vision of paradise. His control was overbearing, even at times tyrannical. In his 1885 exposé of Pullman in Harper’s Monthly, Richard T. Ely asked: “Are we not frequently trying to offer the gilded cage as a substitute for personal liberty?”

When workers walked out in 1894 over wage cuts without reduced rent, it sowed the seeds for the event that put Pullman on the map: the Pullman Strike—a boycott by railroad workers against Pullman car-carrying trains that ended with a federal injunction, military invervention, and the deaths of thirty strikers in clashes with federal troops.

But despite its historic significance, the fight to save the neighborhood has been a long one. In 1960, consultants to the South End Chamber of Commerce recommended that Pullman be demolished between 111th and 115th to make way for industrial expansion. Citizens fought to save their community, reactivating the Pullman Civic Organization that same year. In 1971, Pullman was designated as a National Historic Landmark, and it later received similar state and local designations. Although the historic district had been saved from demolition, these designations did not come with a steady stream of government revenue.

Pullman residents formed the Historic Pullman Foundation in 1973 and purchased the Hotel Florence—a massive red brick Victorian hotel—to save the building from demolition and to preserve its legacy as one of the original structures built by the Pullman Company. The Hotel and the Clock Tower and Administration Building were sold to the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency in 1991 as part of an effort to refurbish and preserve the architecture of the historic district of Pullman, but progress has been slow and the buildings are still in need of major repairs. The Clock Tower and Administration Building still hasn’t fully recovered from a fire in 1998.

Although it’s unlikely that National Monument status will spell an end to those preservation efforts, the increased funding and tourism the designation could bring might lighten the load of area preservationists and ensure that the town’s storied past is presented to visitors well into the future.

The post Pullman Earns National Monument Status appeared first on South Side Weekly.

Applications recently closed for the fourth iteration of the city’s Large Lots program, in which residents of Pullman and Roseland were eligible to purchase over 300 city-owned abandoned lots, each for less than the cost of a cup of coffee: just a dollar. As the program expands, it raises the question of whether previous phases have been successful. What has become of the 430 lots already sold?

Finn Jubak

The original Large Lot pilot project took place in the Greater Englewood Area with applications closing in April 2014, and most owners received their deed earlier this year. In order to get a better sense of the results of the program in the Greater Englewood Area, the Weekly visited thirty of the total 276 lots sold in the first portion of the program. Their current state was compared with photos of the lots before sale on largelots.org, a website created by Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Chicago and DataMade, and adopted by the City of Chicago as the official Large Lots website. Of the lots sampled, almost all seemed to show signs of improvement. Lots that once sat unused have been transformed into decorative green spaces for tenants or reborn as community gardens, and although some changes were more dramatic than others, almost all the lots felt like someone owned them.

The $1 Large Lots Program is part of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development’s Green Healthy Neighborhoods planning project, which the city’s website describes as “a 10- to 20-year planning strategy to maximize the use of vacant land and other neighborhood resources.” Ideally the program should be a win-win for community members and the city government, because it returns ownership to the local community, and in doing so increases revenue from property taxes and cuts maintenance costs. The city owns thousands of vacant lots across the city—some 13,500 according to the Tribune—that sit unused, accumulating weeds, litter, and abandoned cars, while the government foots the bill for upkeep.

Finn Jubak

The Large Lots program sells available vacant lots to eligible nonprofit groups and residents who already own property on the same block. In order to qualify, applicants must be current on all city taxes and debts. They must also agree to meet the criteria of the city’s Municipal Code, which requires enclosing the area with a noncombustible screen fence, cutting weeds, and doing general maintenance. The program aims to increase local investment in the area, create wealth within the community by allowing owners to sell their properties after five years, and rejuvenate vacant lots that had previously been eyesores.

Although it’s too soon to tell what long-term economic effect the program will have on the community, the immediate benefits are beginning to be felt. Signs of ownership can already be seen in the Woodlawn and Englewood lots; out of thirty, only four seem to have no signs of improvement. Some lots have yet to be fenced in, but the majority showed multiple signs of upkeep: mowed grass, litter removed, weeds cut back.

Finn Jubak

This program is still in its earliest stages. Most owners in the Greater Englewood Area only received their deeds a few months ago after applying last year, and as the first participants of the program, they have no example to follow when it comes to lot ownership. As a result, it is unrealistic to expect the lots to undergo an overnight turnaround, and the current progress, though largely undramatic, is encouraging. Moreover, by working together through community organizations, some lot owners have created solidarity among owners and worked together towards common goals.

The Resident Association of Greater Englewood (R.A.G.E.) is one group that has been working with owners to transform their lots. Its president, Asiaha Butler, said that R.A.G.E. was the only group to submit its own recommendation to the city for the Green Healthy Neighborhood Plan, which implemented the Large Lots program. Many members of R.A.G.E. are also Large Lot owners. “R.A.G.E. has really become a ‘Large Lots Owners Club,’ ” she joked. The Weekly spoke with her, as well as other members of R.A.G.E., after a focus group they held with $1 Large Lot owners to discuss people’s experiences with the program and to work together to realize everyone’s personal goals for their lots.

“The biggest thing [for lot owners] for the first six to nine months is funding and realizing their initial goals,” Mekazin Alexander, a Large Lot owner and member of R.A.G.E., explained. “Then phase two will be actually completing big projects. It takes patience; meeting basic city requirements and criteria is the first step.”

Finn Jubak

While lot owners figure out their long-term goals for their lots and clear away detritus, they have also been working with R.A.G.E. to obtain resources to complete larger projects. In order to secure funding, R.A.G.E. has already applied for a Chicago Neighborhood Development Award as well as other grants. Butler said that R.A.G.E. has also been working with local businesses to acquire materials and they have led volunteer projects with local high-school students to clean up some of the lots. Since the goal of the Large Lots Program is rooted in community building, R.A.G.E. has incorporated the local community in its Large Lot revitalization efforts.

Andrew Koski

Some owners have already completed ambitious projects with their lots. If you were to drive past the William Hill Gallery today in Woodlawn, it might be hard to believe that such a stunning, well-curated sculpture garden was a weed-filled lot just ten months ago. While such a project, certainly no small task, is not feasible for every lot owner, it stands as a clear example of the kind of positive reversal that the one-dollar lot program can make possible.

“Most of the work was done by a small group of neighborhood volunteers and myself,” Hill said. “One major challenge was the removal of limestone, broken glass, and metal from the vacant lot.” Urban sustainability was one of the main goals of the project, so with the help of volunteers Hill recycled much of the brick and limestone back into the sculpture garden. He also repurposed cement from when the city replaced the sidewalk, using it to create a winding pathway through the garden.

Andrew Koski

Hill said the project as a whole had evolved over a three-year period. The gallery and sculpture garden were originally founded on the adjacent property in the spring of 2012, and the Large Lot was added this year. The William Hill Fine Art Sculpture Garden is now a 5,000-square-foot garden space dedicated to educating community members in visual arts and gardening. The garden isn’t Hill’s first endeavor in transforming previously abandoned lots, though. He also leads the nearby Dorchester Botanical Garden Project, where he provides educational programming for area youth on the topics of urban farming, sustainability, and using edible plants for healthy living.

The Large Lots program has not only been useful for individual owners; for I Grow Chicago, a nonprofit community organization in Englewood, the program was a real estate boon. It provided them with the land to create an extensive community garden on a vacant lot at 6403 South Honore Street, right across the street from their Peace House, an abandoned residence that they renovated with the help of local youth. The Peace House serves as their headquarters, where they offer educational programming and support services to community members of all ages. According to their website, “through sustainable farming and educational programs in nutrition, movement yoga and the arts, [ I Grow Chicago] foster[s] creativity, wellness and empowerment for individuals in the community as a whole.”

Finn Jubak

In the coming months, residents of Pullman and Roseland will be notified of their Large Lot application status, and for those accepted, there will certainly be much to be hopeful about, and also much to consider. When asked what advice she would give to Large Lot buyers in Roseland and Pullman, R.A.G.E. member and lot owner Tina Hammond exclaimed, “Talk to someone in Englewood!” Butler said, “It’s a process; it takes time and patience.”

Property tax hikes are another concern for potential owners, especially considering Mayor Emanuel’s budget that City Council approved October 28, which includes a record aggregate of $589 million in property tax increases. Butler said that current Large Lot owners will not be taxed until next year, but added that she does not expect the increase will drastically affect lot owners, since the properties are small.

Finn Jubak

The R.A.G.E. members also said that a major concern was the lengthy process to receive the deed to the lot; for most of the owners, it took about a year. Hammond said that one R.A.G.E. member has still not received a deed. Butler said that the backlog has been due to staffing capacity issues at the Department of Planning and Development (DPD), but she was hopeful the issue would improve going forward. The DPD did not respond to comment for this story.

Another concern has been providing new Large Lot owners with the necessary information to improve their lots. Alexander said that the city does not clearly explain to new owners the criteria for lot maintenance and the deadline to meet it, which is troublesome because the city can impose stiff fines for noncompliance. Alexander said that one R.A.G.E. member has already been threatened with a ticket for not trimming a tree.

To streamline the process and ease concerns, Butler said, “LISC is working to secure a Large Lot coordinator who could follow up with owners and help them with any issues.” LISC Chicago is a part of a nationwide nonprofit corporation, LISC, which operates throughout the country to help local community organizations improve their neighborhoods. LISC Chicago also partnered with DataMade to create the largelots.org website.

Issues with the rollout of the program aside, the Large Lots program has already had an impact on participating communities, even though the first three phases were only pilot projects. For residents in Roseland and Pullman, as well as other potential neighborhoods, it will be exciting to see what these lots can become and witness what local ownership can do for a community.

Finn Jubak

The post Lots to Love appeared first on South Side Weekly.

In a 2014 column, Mary Schmich of the Tribune called block club signs an “underappreciated art form in Chicago.” These signs, which can be found on residential streets all over the South and West Sides, tend to follow a pattern: a word of welcome, the location of the block club, and a list of rules that prohibit loitering, drugs, loud music, littering, gambling, etc.

Finn Jubak

Block clubs originally flourished in Chicago to combat the rising drug trade in the 1980s and 1990s, but activists and block club leaders say that the number of block clubs in the city has been increasing again in recent years. Now, instead of focusing solely on surveillance as the painted eyes on some signs suggest, block club platforms are expanding to include initiatives in housing, education, public health, green infrastructure and more.

And in some neighborhoods, the fundamental structure of block clubs is transforming: isolated groups of concerned neighbors are now becoming cohesive networks of block club “alliances” and “federations.”

“Our motto is ‘Connect the Blocks,’ ” says Val Free, the Lead Coordinator of the Southeast Side Block Club Alliance (SEBCA). During a recent SEBCA information session, she outlined the basic tenet of their strategy: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Free believes an organization composed of block clubs can realize the full potential of the skills and resources that individuals in its neighborhood have to offer by connecting people within neighborhoods. In South Shore and the Southeast Side in general, says Free, “we have a lot of human capital that’s doing great things everywhere else but in their own neighborhoods. So how do we begin to engage those folks to feel like they’re a part of the neighborhood?”

One of SEBCA’s main goals is to reach out to residents that live and sleep in a neighborhood but don’t actually have a vested interest in it, or “bedroom neighbors,” in Free’s words. “They work someplace else but they never really live here,” she says.

Although she has lived in South Shore for years, Free was not always a block club and community organizer. She worked in corporate America for over twenty years, and says she used to be a bedroom neighbor herself.

“I was one of those bedroom neighbors—I came home, I went to sleep, I went to work, I went to sleep, and I did everything outside of my neighborhood,” she says. “I never wanted to move away from my neighborhood, but I did everything outside of [it]…My son didn’t go to the schools in the neighborhood, we weren’t a part of the neighborhood—we just lived here.”

But when she began organizing the people in her building to remove a negligent building manager, she “woke up and realized” what was happening to her neighborhood. She formed a tenants’ association for her building and they succeeded in removing the building manager. Although she hadn’t worked as a community organizer before, she found that her work in the Strong Communities department of the YMCA helped in community outreach. “Those skills kind of transferred to me and I didn’t realize that’s what was happening,” she says.

Andrew Koski

After forming her building’s tenants’ association, she also formed a block club across the street. Then, while she was in transition from her job at the YMCA corporate office, she was drawn into block clubs and community organizing efforts by organizations that heard about her building’s success. From that point, her outreach efforts blossomed into three distinct organizations: The Planning Coalition, the Southeast Side Block Club Alliance, and South Shore Works.

She first formed the South Shore Neighborhood Network, which spawned an initiative that brought the leaders of eighty block clubs together at an assembly. Although she had initially intended to focus on South Shore, there was so much interest from block clubs in other Southeast Side neighborhoods that they expanded the group’s name to encompass the Southeast Side as a whole. The Planning Coalition now directs SEBCA, which organizes block clubs, tenants’ associations, and homeowners associations across the Southeast Side. It also created South Shore Works as an independent organization in order to specifically focus on development in South Shore.

SEBCA focuses specifically on organizing the neighborhoods of South Shore, Calumet Heights, Greater Grand Crossing, South Deering, and South Chicago. They want to give residents the tools to start their own block clubs—they’re currently making a block club handbook with resources for block club leaders. They also plan to bring the groups together once a year for an assembly where they can share information, discuss organizing models that they have found effective, and talk about the challenges that individual block clubs are facing.

Although SEBCA’s official launch was on February 27th of this year, they had worked with new and existent block clubs before then. Last summer, they “started five block clubs in a matter of two months,” Free said.

One of the most established block clubs they are working with currently is Ben Handy’s Ridgeland Block Club Association in Calumet Heights.

“I’m excited about [SEBCA],” Handy says, because “we need initiatives with more communication and sharing.” The Ridgeland Block Club Association was originally founded six years ago, when Handy started a newsletter for his neighbors called The Ridgelander, which spread information about neighborhood news and events and is now published online on their website, ridgelandblockclub.com.

The Ridgelander created such a buzz among Handy’s neighbors that they eventually formed a block club for their stretch of the neighborhood, extending along Ridgeland Avenue from 87th Street to 90th Street. The Ridgeland Block Club Association was officially founded two years ago, and this month it became a 501(c)(3) organization.

Andrew Koski

As a lifelong resident of Calumet Heights, Handy has seen firsthand the demographic changes that the neighborhood has experienced over the past decades. “We were one of the original five black families on the block,” says Handy, who still lives in the family home. In those days, Handy says, “block clubs only did parties,” because “the neighborhood had young families with kids.” Today, most of the residents are older, and most of the children have grown and moved away. “One of the challenges when [the Ridgeland Block Club Association] started was finding a reason to exist,” Handy says, “we are trying to be more relevant in our focus for our residents.”

Although their focus is primarily directed toward other initiatives, the Ridgeland Block Club Association did have their first block party last year: the Ridgeland Homecoming, which Handy says was a “successful rebranding strategy” because it invited people who grew up there to return for a neighborhood reunion. This year, he says, the homecoming will include two other block clubs, and might include even more clubs next year.

Free made it clear during a SEBCA information session that the Alliance isn’t trying to change individual block clubs’ cultures or structures. Rather, SEBCA wants to partner with block clubs to initiate communication between clubs, become more effective in uniting block clubs, and “create block clubs that run their neighborhoods.”

She also said that the block clubs should bring CAPS—Chicago Alternative Police Strategy—to them, not vice versa. CAPS works with block clubs to ensure public safety by holding workshops for block clubs, and block club members have long been active at CAPS beat meetings.

According to the recent Police Accountability Task Force report, when CAPS was originally conceived in the early 1990s, it was “designed to promote positive police interactions and engagement with the community as a key to long-term crime reduction.”

Finn Jubak

The report continues, “CAPS was based on five key features:” a problem-solving model, a neighborhood-specific focus, communication between police and residents through beat meetings, mobilizing city services to solve quality of life problems, and new tools like crime maps to identify chronic problems. “Over its first five to ten years, CAPS had successes and failures”—overall community involvement increased, public perception of the CPD improved and problems like “physical decay” decreased. However, CAPS had less success in creating lasting relationships with its communities: “while beat meetings were well attended,” the report reads, “CAPS did not succeed in consistently developing deep, genuine and lasting partnerships with local stakeholders.”

Funding for CAPS was cut significantly by the late 2000s, and beat meeting attendance “dropped off significantly after 2000.” Although Mayor Emanuel tried to revive the CAPS program in early 2013, “the overall budget for CAPS did not change” and “public confidence in CAPS remains low,” according to the report.

Despite the decline in the city’s support for CAPS over the past two decades, it remains the sole link between neighborhood organizations like block clubs and the police. CAPS therefore still plays a vital role for block clubs in their efforts toward public safety. Rather than rely on CAPS—a chronically underfunded city resource—to organize block clubs, residents have to organize independently and use CAPS as a resource for public safety.

Finn Jubak

Free says that while CAPS is a good resource for workshops and crime prevention, its scope is limited, and public safety is only one facet of SEBCA’s overall platform. “There’s only so much we can do with CAPS with the vision that we have for where we’re going,” she says. To that end, SEBCA has been working with multiple organizations to provide diverse resources for block clubs, including the Black United Fund, local small businesses, nonprofits, and churches.

One of SEBCA’s first successful partnerships was with the University of Chicago Medicine, which operates an Outpatient Senior Health Center in South Shore. The two organizations recently co-hosted a “Jazz Breakfast” to tell block club members about UofC Medicine’s Comprehensive Care Program Study, which is currently working with Medicare patients to study the benefits of receiving healthcare from the same doctor in the hospital and at the outpatient clinic, for primary care.

The doctors leading the study explained that UofC Medicine is partnering with SEBCA because SEBCA provides a great way to reach out to local seniors who might want to participate in the study. For Free, the partnership is an example of the impact SEBCA can have by connecting block clubs—one of them being the Ridgeland Block Club Association—to useful resources provided by external organizations.

Finn Jubak

SEBCA is not the only organization on the South Side creating networks of block clubs, though. Across the Dan Ryan, the Southwest Federation Block Clubs of Greater Englewood has been organizing an association of block clubs since 2008. They describe themselves as “a collective body of multiple block clubs,” including one block, several blocks or vertical block clubs, “in partnership with residents, organizations and businesses.” They recently held a workshop for interested residents to help them form new block clubs or update existing block clubs. About a third of the workshop attendees were already block club members; another third were interested in forming new ones.

“We have lost the nosey Rosie neighbor who sees all and knows all,” says Debra Thompson, the Federation’s president. “A block club is an extended family that should reach out to isolated seniors.”

Miss Ruby Miller, “the oldest block club president in Englewood,” was a guest speaker at the workshop. She described how her block club has impacted her block, from helping neighbors with childrearing to using a petition to stop a sex offender house from being placed on her block.

“Just because you live in the hood, doesn’t mean you can’t accomplish what you want to,” she said. She also described how her block club rallied together to remove a group of tenants across the street who were bringing in drugs and prostitution, and she said they have three police officers who are dedicated to her block and who are always only a phone call away.

The workshop also included a presentation on how to structure and charter a block club. Twentieth Ward Alderman Willie B. Cochran gave a presentation about the resources for block clubs, specifically regarding building code violations, because “so many neighborhood problems are caused by one building.” He explained how block clubs can work with the alderman’s office to resolve issues through a Troubled Building Initiative.

Finn Jubak

Later at that meeting, 911 and 311 dispatchers gave a presentation with tips on how to use those services effectively and fielded questions from attendees about response times and service requests. One dispatcher said they attend workshops with “block clubs all the time to disseminate information.” This portion of the workshop generated enthusiasm from the attendees, who made it clear that although many block clubs are starting to focus on a broader range of issues, public safety remains one of the primary concerns of every block club.

There were also presentations from the Englewood Whole Foods community liaison, who said that Whole Foods is looking to partner with block clubs to cater block parties, the Working Families Health Center, and Englewood Blue, a South Side business accelerator. With the wide variety of programming, it was clear that the Southwest Block Club Federation has a broad focus in its community engagement programs.

Many of the attendees had questions about how to make signs for their block clubs. One of the presenters responded, “It’s really up to your block club,” but another suggested that the clubs should “take out all the ‘no’s, make it friendlier, and welcome people to the neighborhood.”

Andrew Koski

This advice seems symbolic of the new direction block clubs are taking in both the Southeast Side and the Greater Englewood area: by organizing together, individual clubs are becoming more than just neighborhood watches registered with CAPS. As collectives, block clubs are able to interact actively and dynamically with the police force, local organizations, and the city government.

Block club signs, the “underappreciated art form,” are not going away any time soon, but as block clubs themselves transform, the signs may start to look a little different too.

The post Building Blocks appeared first on South Side Weekly.

• Best Tacos on the Beach
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• Best African & Caribbean Grocery Store

There are so many little things that make living in Calumet Heights special, insignificant things really, but the older I get, the more I realize that little things are what matter most to me in life. My neighborhood has no great monuments except for a few charming churches where neighbors gather to give thanks each Sunday. The parks I enjoyed in my youth can’t rival their more famous cousins downtown. Our major thoroughfare, Stony Island, is a workhorse that funnels suburban commuters to the north, not one of the beaux arts visions that sprang from the minds of Burnham or Olmsted when our city was keen to flex its muscles to the world. Even the sleepy little street where I grew up, Ridgeland Avenue, is eclipsed by its more famous sibling to the west, but despite these things I couldn’t be more proud to call this place home.

Calumet Heights is part of a cluster of neighborhoods that have become my point of reference, my home base…the Southeast Side. Pullman, South Chicago, South Shore, Avalon Park, Chatham, and Grand Crossing are all members of this “tribe.” Each neighborhood is distinct and unique, but they all share a commonality that makes me feel at home here. We are all strivers. People here care about each other and dream big. When faced with challenges, we “roll up our sleeves and get to work.” Maybe it’s the proximity to the old steel mills, the refineries of northwest Indiana, or the manufacturing past of Pullman that make everyone here, no matter their socioeconomic status, at heart a working-class person. I grew up among school teachers, city workers, and police officers just a hop, skip, and jump from the doctors and dentists on Pill Hill. At the end of a long week my parents would visit neighborhood “lounges” (a South Side version of the taverns of the North Side) to let off steam and listen to Al Green and Curtis Mayfield on the jukebox.

As a boy I dreamt of an exciting world beyond the Southeast Side from the safety of my hiding place high in a tree in front of my house. I’d often go there to read books in the dappled light of its leaves. I’d listen to the whoosh of sprinklers and the drone of lawn mowers while trying to catch a whiff of grilled meats from some distant neighbor’s grill. My buddies and I would hunt for garter snakes among the ragweed of the railroad embankment by Funtown on 95th in earshot of the rollercoasters and Ferris wheels. It’s funny to me now that at the time this was all happening I didn’t value these experiences at all. I couldn’t wait to get away and discover the “true me” that I knew was out there somewhere. But even after going away to college in New England, moving to D.C., living on the West Coast, and expatriating to Brazil, the simple, “insignificant” pleasures I’d dismissed as a youth kept calling me home.

Now I’m back, in the same house on Ridgeland that I knew as a child with some of the same neighbors I loved. They’re a bit older now but then again, so am I. Some of the things I remember from my childhood like Funtown are gone but most are still here, all the important things. The spirit of the place, the comfort and safety, the care and concern, the can-do spirit are all still here, and even though some stores have closed and old friends have moved away or passed on, the intangible and indescribable spirit of the Southeast Side is very much still here. I hope that you will get a sense of some of the great things that are going on in this neck of the woods by reading this section of the Weekly’s “Best of the South Side Edition” and want to be the first to welcome you to our part of the city!

Ben Handy is the president of the Ridgeland Block Club Association and publishes the neighborhood newsletter The Ridgelander at ridgelandblockclub.com. He is a passionate leader who shares his enthusiasm, strategic thinking, and community building ideas with his neighbors in Calumet Heights. He has professional experience in both the private and public sectors, but his abiding passion to build up communities in need has drawn him more to public service.

Best Tacos on the Beach

Morelos Tacos in Calumet Park

Andrew Koski

Straddling the Indiana border to the east, Calumet Park beach in East Side is the southeastern-most Lake Michigan coastline in Chicago. The 199-acre park was originally designed in 1903 as part of the South Park Commission’s neighborhood park system, following the plans of the famous Olmsted brothers, which also included Washington and Jackson Parks. The park boasts a seemingly exhaustive list of amenities for year-round use: sports fields, two gyms, a fitness center, the Lake Shore Model Train exhibit, a gymnastic center, sewing and upholstery studios, a woodshop, and multi-purpose rooms.

But in the summertime, the beautiful sandy beach and cool waters of Lake Michigan are obviously the main draw. If you didn’t bring your own picnic, have no fear—I would go as far to say that the beachside concession stand at Calumet Park, Morelos Tacos, is the best in the city. Of course they have the usual fare—beef hot dogs with distinctly neon green relish, burgers, chips, candy, soft pretzels, and pop—but the clear standouts on the menu are the tacos and tortas. For taco options, they offer steak, chicken, chorizo, and al pastor, topped, of course, with cilantro and onion and served with limes and homemade salsa. I ordered my usual go-to, al pastor, and I wasn’t disappointed. The meat was perfect, juicy and flavorful, and the marinade was the ideal blend of sweet, savory, and spicy. In fact, some of the best I’ve had, with a location that can’t be beat.

Although I didn’t order it, I’m going to have to return for the milanesa tortas—the lifeguard in front of me in line ordered one (I’m sure park employees know this place better than anyone) and it looked sublime: a toasty bun, with crispy breaded steak, cheese, lettuce, and toppings pushing out from the sides. Regardless of what you order, how can you really go wrong with fresh tacos and tortas on one of Chicago’s best beaches on a sunny summer’s day? (Andrew Koski)

Calumet Park, 9801 S. Avenue G; Morelos Tacos, 9807 S. Ave. G. Fieldhouse open Monday–Friday, 8am–9pm; Saturday, 9am– 5pm. Park open daily 6am–11pm. Beach open daily Memorial Day to Labor Day, 11am-7pm. (312) 747-6039. chicagoparkdistrict.com

Best Block Party

Ridgeland Homecoming

Jason Schumer

If there’s one thing to be said about the members of the Ridgeland Block Club Association (RBCA), it’s that they know how to put one hell of a block party.

That’s not a surprise, seeing as they’re no newcomers to the thing. While the RBCA’s Homecoming Block Party—which spans the four blocks of Ridgeland Avenue from 91st Street to 87th Place, and the two blocks of 87th directly to the west of Ridgeland—is only in its third year, some of these blocks have been throwing block parties forever. Sherry Rodgers-Hamelin, proud treasurer of the RBCA, says there’s been a party on her block “every year since I’ve been here, and I’ve been here thirty-six years.”

But the RBCA’s annual Homecoming Block Party is doing something new with the end-of-summer tradition. Those festivities were organized by and held on a single block; the RBCA’s Homecoming Block Party is six blocks. And it’s growing. Sean Conner, point man for Ridgeland residents living between 90th and 91st, said that “it’s the very first year” his block has participated in the party. “And it’s going to grow from here.” Today, the Homecoming Block Party has morphed into something spectacular: three DJs, a couple bouncy houses to boot, some food trucks, and barbecue galore. Richard Alapack—artist, activist, and founder of We All Live Here—even swung by to make some street art for the occasion. “There’s something for everyone,” Conner tells me. And he’s right, down even to the music choice. The DJ right outside his house is playing an old school set. “We’ve got a lot of old people. This is for them,” Conner says. Down the street, the other two DJs are spinning a mix of house and R&B. As a child of the 1980s, it’s the house that Conner is excited about, which happens to be what the DJ on Rodgers-Hamelin’s block is playing. She says to “send him down here.” That seems to be what the Homecoming Block Party is all about: meeting not just the next-door neighbor, but the neighbor on the next block, and on the block after that—really, the entire community. “It’s not just about the Ridgeland Block Club,” Conner tells me. “When we were growing up, everybody knew people from all over. So we advertise every block really, from Stony all the way to Jeffrey.”

Three years in, and organizers of the Homecoming Block Party are in high spirits. “We expect this to grow,” Conner says. But it’s not attendance that animates the festivities. “We just want the spirit,” he adds. “The spirit of love, camaraderie, and remembering the old. That’s what it’s all about.” (Michael Wasney)

Ridgeland Block Club Association, Ridgeland Ave. (872) 240-2933. facebook.com/ridgelandblockclub

Best Field Trip

Bronzeville Children’s Museum

The first question many visitors insist on asking when they walk into the cream-colored building on the corner of 93rd and Stony Island, Peggy Montes wryly notes, is the obvious one. “People who come in always say, ‘What’s with the name?’ But there’s a Bronzeville in Milwaukee, Cleveland, L.A.—‘Bronzeville’ just means wherever black people live,” the Bronzeville Children’s Museum president says. “We called ourselves that because we wanted to emphasize culture at that particular time, when migrants were able to accomplish what they did in the segregated area known as Bronzeville.”

The idea for a Black children’s museum—the first of its kind in the U.S.—came to Montes twenty-four years ago, on a trip from Dallas to Houston to visit a convention put on by the Association of Children’s Museums. When she returned to Chicago, she scraped together enough money to open the museum’s first incarnation in Evergreen Plaza. (The ribbon-cutting ceremony was attended by then-State Senator Barack Obama.) And despite its move to a new address, few things have changed in the interceding years. Montes is perhaps even more of a venerable institution herself, on a par with the museums she’s spent much of her life furiously working at and advocating for. At eighty, she’s a chairman emeritus at the DuSable Museum, and a member of the Illinois Arts Council. But the museum’s principles remain the same. “I believe that museums should be educational, even with very young children,” she says. “And I’ve always loved cultural institutions. We’re about exposing all people to the history, culture, and continuity of African Americans.”

The exhibits reflect this educational philosophy. In the STEM room, for instance, students are given space to interact with plasma balls and green screens, while the portion of the museum focused on nutrition is, practically, aimed at combating the rising epidemic of childhood obesity. The highlight is perhaps the exhibit on Black inventors (famous and obscure), which features a wax-like statue of George Washington Carver surrounded by scattered soybeans, peanuts, and sweet potatoes. There’s also a video in which Washington Carver, now our animatronic emcee, guides us through a tour of Black inventors whose ideas have changed the course of ordinary life: Elijah McCoy, Patricia Cowings, Madam C.J. Walker. The blend of fun and education, Montes says, is an attempt to teach to engaged students with a greater purpose in mind: “This is a small world, now. We need to know about the history of all of the people of the world, so we can get along with each other.” (Christian Belanger)

Bronzeville Children’s Museum, 9301 S. Stony Island Ave. Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–2pm. (773) 721-9301. bronzevillechildrensmuseum.com

Best African & Caribbean Grocery Store

La Fruteria

It’s easy to become a little exasperated with the “international” aisle at your local supermarket—the neat partitioning of countries and cultures, the dearth of choice outside a few popular culinary traditions. One place to turn for relief from this frustration is La Fruteria, the Mexican, Caribbean, and West African grocer along Commercial Avenue. (Owner Antonio Macias is a bit of a local impresario; he also runs Macias Produce a few storefronts down.) It’s the sort of place that respects the distinction between sweet potatoes, yams, and boniato, and gives half an aisle to different West African palm oil varietals. The store contains what feels like an infinite number of spice racks—Mexican for chipotle flakes and chia seeds, West African for ugba and dawadawa—and there’s a big butcher in the back where you can buy goat and oxtails, or just turkey drumsticks and ground beef. In short, come here for the things that Mariano’s, Jewel, or Treasure Island can’t give you. (Except for the sound system blasting Shaggy, who seems fated to haunt every grocery store under the sun for the rest of time.) (Christian Belanger)

La Fruteria, 8909 S. Commercial Ave. Monday–Saturday, 7am–8:45pm; Sunday, 7am–7:45pm. (773) 768-4969.

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Open Mike Eagle, born and raised in Chicago, moved to Los Angeles after college, and for the most part, he didn’t look back. He joined the hip hop collective Project Blowed, formed the trio Thirsty Fish with Dumbfoundead and Psychosiz, released his first solo album Unapologetic Art Rap in 2010, and has a forthcoming stand-up and music show, The New Negroes, on Comedy Central that he will co-host with comedian Baron Vaughn. But on his most recent album, Brick Body Kids Still Daydream—a hazy, dark, powerful, and sometimes sweet recollection of the Robert Taylor Homes and their demolition, he comes home. The album reimagines the story of the Robert Taylor Homes, imbuing it with equal parts childhood fantasies, fuzzy memories, and the real-world darkness of a city that isolated, ignored, and then forcibly displaced thousands of its most vulnerable residents. This mix is perfectly encapsulated by the video for “Brick Body Complex”: Eagle plays Iron Hood, a superhero trying to warn residents that their building is coming down, fight back against gentrification, and stop the city’s demolition; in the end, at the moment when it seems Iron Hood has stopped the demolition, the cops show up to haul him off to jail.

Eagle spoke with the hosts of the South Side Weekly Radio Hour to talk about his process, his feelings behind the album, and why he came home. Catch the full-length interview on 88.5 WHPK next Tuesday, October 24 from 3pm–4pm and online.

Andrew Koski: What inspired you to revisit Chicago as the subject matter for the album after being in L.A. for more than a decade?

It was literally just having the train of thought of “What happened to the Robert Taylors?” and actually looking into it and being kind of horrified and in many ways disturbed by what I found. It just made me want to kind of connect to the mind state I was in when I was growing up…it made me want to look into my own past to try to find some material to write from.

AK: So what was it like actually coming back then and seeing what’s become of the space and the lack of progress in replacing this housing?

It was hard and weird. It was really weird seeing that—those big empty fields and trying to mentally put together how it was when all those buildings stood. So the first initial impression is just being in awe and intimidated by this big empty space. And then when I looked around there this first time when I went back, somebody had painted on a wall, under maybe a viaduct or train tracks—they had painted 3919 on the wall. And that was where that building stood. And that was a bittersweet feeling too, because you know, one of the big, bad feelings of being there is experiencing that erasure if you did have some experience with those buildings. But then to see that somebody took the steps to commemorate it somehow made me feel a little better. I also found out last time I went that they do a reunion there every year, the people who lived there. I ended up talking to some people who were hanging out around the park there who used to live there, and apparently they do a reunion, and that was really nice to hear too. That the people there, you know, they’re doing their best to hold onto the community.

Erisa Apantaku: Did you come back at all during the crafting of the album? What sorts of inspirations—both musically or visually or written—or memories did you incorporate into the album?

I did come back once and took a bunch of photos and decided to take it all in. I just [went] by myself and tried to have a moment there on the land and understand what it all meant to me. Inspiration-wise, actually, one of the bigger inspirations was this videogame series called Dark Souls that I’ve also been playing a lot of. And its means of storytelling is very indirect—a lot of it is based on clues and a lot of it is adventuring through ruins. And in that way I kind of wanted to mythologize the Robert Taylor Homes too. Like, to try to treat it like there’s some lore there, or there’s some stories that may have been like oral traditions or legacies or just local myths and try to play those up.

EA: I was reading an interview you did with Chicago Magazine that you feel like there should be something commemorating the Robert Taylor Homes, like a plaque. In Brick Body Kids Still Daydream, were you trying to create a space for future generations to kind of understand the space?

Maybe not intentionally. I think I was just mining feelings and then through my own lens of my experience of that place, I think that it ends up sounding like that. When I was going through this last time it occurred to me that what I did, maybe not what I was intending to do, but what I did with the album was kind of create an audio version of a mural. And in that way it’s commemorating but it’s not a documentary. It’s more like an impressionistic kind of painting of these different scenes of things that may or may not have happened there.

AK: Do you think this is more of a public album, compared to some of your more introspective feelings on past albums?

That’s possible, but from my position inside the work, it’s hard for me to think of it that way. I set intentions to just make whatever kind of song should be made, based on where my mind is headed at the moment. There’s definitely songs on this album that are bigger—more expressive, outwardly, than some of my older stuff, but I also don’t know if that could just be a function of where I am in songwriting.

EA: Which tracks do you think are more expressive?

“Brick Body Complex” is a big outward-based song. “No Selling” is a big song, even a song like “Daydreaming In The Projects,” where my delivery is more melodic, I still think there’s an expressive quality to the emotions of the song…I think maybe this album is just a little bit more emotional, outwardly emotional, than my past work, because I tend to shy away from even consuming entertainment that’s too emotionally available for some reason, and this effort is probably like the most overtly emotional I’ve been.

EA: Do you wish you could have played at a South Side venue when you came through?

I mean, my ultimate fantasy is to set up a stage, like right there on the space where the buildings were, and just do a show there. That’s the dream scenario. But the reality of it is that I’m also pursuing a weird career, and I have to pay attention to what factors make the most business sense too, so I tend to want to be where people are used to going for live music, and people might not be used to going to an empty field to do that. There is a place that I played on the South Side once—the Shrine, I think? And look, that’s part of what I found out when I talked to the people who were around the park that day—they have music out there when they do the reunion. So there’s ways to fit that all together. That would be really amazing.

EA: Do you plan to come back, for a reunion?

I would love to. I absolutely would love to. I had just missed it apparently. They say it’s typically in early September. So if I were able to get that information in a timely manner, I would love to come. That would be…like, this one guy I talked to, he has an address sign and some bricks from his building. He said his family was the second family to move into his building, and he said he brings the sign and the bricks out during the reunion. That’s the kind of stuff that I want to see—I want to touch that stuff, you know? I want to talk to people about which building was there, so I don’t have to put that stuff together so much from my memory.

AK: So it seems to me that this album took a step by having a more central focus and it felt more serious, because it’s a monument to these buildings. Is that something you want to continue doing, to get more specific or have a more serious focus like this album?

I think I have to take it based on legitimately whatever I’m feeling, because there’s stress in this album that isn’t from the buildings. There’s stress in this album that is from the political situation, and I think that me being grounded in a sort of stressed-out emotional state right now is what led to that subject matter being the thing that I found most interesting to create from. It felt like I was processing kind of dark, heavy feelings, some of which didn’t have anything to do with the Robert Taylors, but I was able to use that as a vehicle to get some things out and figure out what to say about other stuff.

EA: What do you do day to day to keep going? I know that’s a really bleak question, but I think a lot of people ask that question.

I just try to find the words to process my feelings best I can. I won’t say substantial, but I have a social media platform presence; I have a music career that on paper doesn’t even make sense—that’s stuff to feel  fortunate for. I say that I have tools, where if I feel like I have a good idea, I have a means of spreading it. And I use a lot of mental resources to try to figure out what to do and what to say—but also, I have to honor my emotions, too, and sometimes I do feel dark and I do feel bleak and I do say dark and bleak things, because I think even overall…one of my values is that it’s very important to me that people get to honor their real individual feelings. We live in a society that doesn’t always allow for that, especially in minority or oppressed groups, you don’t often feel license to feel certain ways or to express certain things, and so I’d always want to reinforce and be an example of a person who feels like he can say what he means to say. So it’s tough right now, it’s tough, and I’m trying to figure out a way through it, but I think a lot of it is try to figure out the things to say to people. And when I correctly say those things, and watch that affect people on social media or here, or a song or a line people relate to, then that helps me go forward.

EA: The “95 Radios” video was gorgeous, just want to put that out there.

You know, for these videos, I had this dark comic television concept, and I connected with these really talented directors and they all had the license to take each concept and put their own spin on it, and I think, man, they all did a really good job. We have more videos coming.

AK: That one especially, it comes across that you’re trying to give a voice or a platform to these kids growing up in the projects—that’s also in the lyrics on “Daydreaming In The Projects”—so what would you say to a kid who’s now growing up in that situation, not in the Robert Taylor Homes, but somewhere in Chicago, where they’re dealing with the aftermath of the demolition of these buildings?

It’s hard to know one thing to say, because there’re so many situations that a kid could find himself in…If the kid was like me, I would say, “Keep looking for alternatives, and embrace those and don’t be afraid of them.” I often didn’t feel comfortable being able to express liking the types of music or television that I liked because of social pressure that wasn’t really real—and ultimately connecting to those things really kind of saved my life.

There’s a lot of lives that can be lived in that kind of situation, and there’s a lot of danger, and a lot of pain and loss. And a lot of it can be transformative, and maybe a general thing to say is…don’t be afraid to try to process your scars and your negative experiences. Have a person to talk to.

AK: What is the process like to make an album that’s so specifically about one place when you’re in a totally different place? You’re in LA, but you’re making this album, pulling from memories, but also trying to imagine this space that couldn’t be more different geographically.

You know, there has been some force, some thrust in my work as long as I can remember, where I’ve had this question in my head creatively on what the value of memory is, because I remember a lot of really weird stuff, even pop culture-wise, the things that have impressed themselves upon my memory indelibly are sometimes really silly, or a commercial jingle, or the opening to certain television shows. When you’re a kid…especially in terms of marketing, things present themselves like they’re the most important thing ever and that they’re always going to be that way all through time. I remember hearing songs on the radio, or videos being played over and over again, where if you were eleven or twelve, you were gonna go, “This song is going to be a part of pop culture canon forever,” but now it’s just something that you don’t remember at all! There’s always been this question in my head, of what is that worth, what is the function of a memory like that, and I found in this project this complete license to mine and use every memory I could come up with. And since it was a mural it didn’t have to be factual, it could just be me painting pictures of things that I remember. That was just incredibly gratifying for me because I have this existential question about what memories are worth. So to be able to use them in a way that seemed more important than just me doing that felt really good.

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This week on SSW Radio we talked with South Side native Lena Waithe about her show The Chi; checked in on community developments in Woodlawn, South Shore, and Jackson Park; and highlighted the personal histories of three South Side women

To kick of Women’s History Month, we shared three stories from South Side women told at Englewood Speaks: I Remember When at Kusanya Café. In an ever-changing city, Clarence Hogan (aka Sonny Speaks), who developed and hosts storytelling series Englewood Speaks, explains the importance of storytelling: “When people look back on this community, it will tell a story of what it meant to live in Englewood at a certain time and a certain place.” This week, we featured stories from Debra Thompson, Rashanah Baldwin, and Jill Allison as they remembered their community way back when.

Residents of Woodlawn convened last Saturday for the ninth Woodlawn Community Summit. Weekly senior editor Christian Belanger attended and captured prayers, keynote speeches, and thoughts on the changing neighborhood from community members.

“This is Chicago from my lens and I think Chicago is vibrant. I think it is colorful. I think it is full of life,” South Side native and creator of The Chi, Lena Waithe, explained in an interview with the Weekly’s Olivia Obineme and Erisa Apantaku. The conversation covered the genesis of the Showtime series—a mix of James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and news reports from Chicago—and the practicalities of shooting a series in Chicago’s South and West Sides. Waithe also discussed Black queer representation in Hollywood and her new project Twenties, which was recently picked up by TBS.

“They’ve set their sites on a PGA-caliber course,” Weekly contributor Jonathan Ballew explains of developers in his conversation with SSW Radio hosts Andrew Koski and Sam Larsen. Jonathan joined us to discuss his reporting on the proposed Tiger Woods-designed golf course that would replace the current Jackson Park and South Shore courses. In the conversation, Jonathan, who’s been reporting on the proposal for the past seven months, talks about developers plans and community reactions to the new course.

And of course, South Side Weekly Radio wouldn’t be complete without the Weekly Read. This week, she schooled us on primary elections (early voted has started y’all!) and some Dred Scott Supreme Court history.

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This week on SSW Radio we talking with a beatmaker, heard from attendees of a public newsroom, and continued our series on WHPK community DJs.

At a City Bureau Public Newsroom at Build Coffee in March, researcher Daniel Kay Hertz shared excerpts from his upcoming book on gentrification in Lincoln Park. Audience members reacted to the excerpts, giving feedback to Hertz and discussing the cyclical nature of historical discussions of gentrification.

Raised on jazz, when Jorie Johnson got the chance to show her stuff to then-format chief Richton Guy Thomas, she did not disappoint. The hour-long “audition” left her with a show on WHPK. For the past four years, Jorie K’s Journey has shared all types of jazz with her listeners. Johnson joined WHPK hosts Olivia Obineme and Andrew Koski in studio for a deeper look at her show and her hopes for the community.

Nigel Jackson, who goes by HarmonicSapien, doesn’t seem himself as a producer as much as a conductor. Jackson pulls samples from throughout the musical landscape to create his beats. Talking with SSW Radio’s Erisa Apantaku, Jackson described his first exposures to music, beatmaking, and how he likes to approach collaborations with other artists.

The post SSW Radio: Lincoln Park’s Gentrification, Jorie Johnson, and More appeared first on South Side Weekly.

The location of the homes was no coincidence; in accordance with the laws of the time, the residents of a housing project could not alter the racial makeup of the area.

The post Home Histories: Robert Taylor Homes appeared first on South Side Weekly.

Pullman could finally see the revitalization that preservationists have been working toward for years.

The post Pullman Earns National Monument Status appeared first on South Side Weekly.

$1 lots from Englewood to Pullman

The post Lots to Love appeared first on South Side Weekly.

“We were one of the original five black families on the block,” says Handy, who still lives in the family home. In those days, Handy says, “block clubs only did parties,” because “the neighborhood had young families with kids.” Today, most of the residents are older, and most of the children have grown and moved away. “One of the challenges when [the Ridgeland Block Club Association] started was finding a reason to exist,” Handy says, “we are trying to be more relevant in our focus for our residents.”

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Best Tacos on the Beach Best Block Party Best Field Trip Best African & Caribbean Grocery Store here are so many little things that make living in Calumet Heights special, insignificant things really, but the older I get, the more I realize that little things are what matter most to me in life. My neighborhood […]

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pen Mike Eagle, born and raised in Chicago, moved to Los Angeles after college, and for the most part, he didn’t look back. He joined the hip hop collective Project Blowed, formed the trio Thirsty Fish with Dumbfoundead and Psychosiz, released his first solo album Unapologetic Art Rap in 2010, and has a forthcoming stand-up […]

The post A Mural of Memories appeared first on South Side Weekly.

This week on SSW Radio we talked with South Side native Lena Waithe about her show The Chi; checked in on community developments in Woodlawn, South Shore, and Jackson Park; and highlighted the personal histories of three South Side women To kick of Women’s History Month, we shared three stories from South Side women told at […]

The post SSW Radio: Lena Waithe Talks The Chi, Personal Histories for Women’s History Month, and More appeared first on South Side Weekly.

This week on SSW Radio we talking with a beatmaker, heard from attendees of a public newsroom, and continued our series on WHPK community DJs. At a City Bureau Public Newsroom at Build Coffee in March, researcher Daniel Kay Hertz shared excerpts from his upcoming book on gentrification in Lincoln Park. Audience members reacted to the […]

The post SSW Radio: Lincoln Park’s Gentrification, Jorie Johnson, and More appeared first on South Side Weekly.