https://youtu.be/LofU0m8OsJ4 Every second counts during an emergency response emergency vehicles rely on drivers to do their part and clear the… See the most recent messages from LASD - South Los Angeles Station, Los Angeles County Sheriff, powered by Nixle Sign up to receive messages by email & text message The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department asks you to please celebrate this historical day responsibly Don’t make #CincodeMayo a deadly holiday due to drunk & drugged driving we responded to a call of a person with a lower leg injury near Switzer Falls in the Angeles National Forest We had rescuers going down trail as @SEBLASD Air Rescue 5 lowered a medic to the victim The primary Mission of Parking Enforcement Detail (PED) is to ensure the residents of the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County are provided with expeditious vehicle movement to help alleviate parking congestion improve the availability of parking choices and to assist the communities in addressing all parking 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innovative sound design Created in 2002 by former host Jad Abumrad the program began as an exploration of scientific inquiry Over the years it has evolved to become a platform for long-form journalism and storytelling Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser Three people were wounded in a shooting Monday in the 1200 block of South Lawndale Avenue The three were hospitalized in good condition were wounded in a drive-by shooting Monday evening in Lawndale on the West Side The three males were in the 1200 block of South Lawndale Avenue about 6:30 p.m when a vehicle drove up and someone inside fired shots Chicago police work the scene where three people were shot in the 1300 block of South Lawndale Avenue on Monday evening A 15-year-old boy was struck in the back and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition Both men were also taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition Police photograph the scene Monday evening where three people were wounded in a drive-by shooting in Lawndale a 19-year-old man and a 31-year-old man were shot and hospitalized in good condition Terms of Use • Privacy Notice • Cookie Policy • Terms of Sale were standing on the sidewalk in the 4000 block of West 26th Street about 7:44 p.m when a vehicle approached them and someone inside shot at them Two men were injured in a shooting in South Lawndale on Sunday night were in the 4000 block of West 26th Street about 7:44 p.m The 36-year-old was shot several times and was in critical condition; the 25-year-old was in fair condition with a graze wound on his neck A newly-constructed home in North Lawndale on South Sawyer Avenue that was built by United Power for Action and Justice Gerald Warren feels like he’s part of his block in North Lawndale was born in the West Side neighborhood like his wife and he’s seen it evolve into a diverse community “We really do like the community,” Warren said but this is really growing into something that I want to be a part of.” After living in Plainfield, Warren now owns a home among new and familiar neighbors thanks to the largely community-led campaign Reclaiming Chicago which has drawn support from the city of Chicago aims to build 2,000 homes on the South Side and the West Side The homes are being built on vacant lots in neighborhoods including North Lawndale where Warren and his wife closed in March on one of the newly built homes When the city-backed campaign was announced in June 2021, the homes were expected to be built over the next three to five years organizers say the 80 homes under phase one are complete with the campaign closing on 81 vacant lots in Back of the Yards says United Power for Action and Justice lead organizer Amy Totsch The foundations for new homes in North Lawndale on South Kedzie Avenue which are being built by United Power for Action and Justice “This is really a strategy that is led and shaped and driven by local institutions and seeking out a strategy for vacant land for the population loss in many of the neighborhoods for decades of disinvestment,” Totsch said Organizations like United Power are helping to lead the charge along with Lawndale Christian Development Corp. The Resurrection Project and the Southwest Organizing Project and they expect to have all 80 sold by the end of the year Totsch said the organizations expect to start construction on 155 homes by the end of December as well as on some of the newly-acquired homes She said many of the buyers are working-class families and first-time homeowners with professions ranging from Chicago Public Schools teachers to postal workers And many are multi-generational households Reclaiming North Lawndale project director at Lawndale Christian Development Corp. said buyer demand for the North Lawndale homes is high — with more than 600 people on its waiting list “I have folks that are basically hounding me every month That’s how much interest there is,” Adjei-Danso said who can be disadvantaged in the traditional homebuying process owning a home can be a pathway to creating generational wealth Organizers provide services to potential buyers that demystify the process Warren said he attended a few classes on the ins and outs of homebuying Adjei-Danso said the Lawndale Christian Development Corp hosted a meeting in North Lawndale with the Cook County assessors office to discuss property tax bills “We’re not getting the complicated conversation — it’s simplifying what homeownership is,” said Imelda Salazar community organizer with the Southwest Organizing Project “All these things have opened up the doors for communities that were denied before.” The wheels are finally turning after the group of organizers expressed their frustrations last year over the city’s red tape that held up construction Totsch said Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Cut the Tape initiative to speed up housing and commercial development has helped a bit but “there’s still lots of room to keep things moving.” Allocations in the state’s budget have allowed organizers to offer subsidies to new homebuyers But higher construction costs have led to higher prices — the average mortgage for the new homes ranges between $180,000 to $260,000 United Power is seeking to grow its Reclaiming Chicago fund from $22 million to $40 million which would allow it build another 100 homes The organization is also speaking with donors and it plans to ask the state in the next legislative session to commit $15 million the group said it received $10 million from the state to provide average subsidies of $30,000 to each homebuyer there’s room for affordable home ownership — creating homes for working families,” Totsch said “We think the state can continue to do that and there’s lots of room for that going forward.” director of financial wellness at the The Resurrection Project; Adjua Adjei-Danso Reclaiming North Lawndale project director at Lawndale Christian Development Corp.; Amy Totsch lead organizer at United Power for Action and Justice; and Imelda Salazar director of financial wellness for the The Resurrection Project said families like the Warrens aren’t just experiencing big milestones such as their their first holiday as homeowners — they’re also experiencing the smaller first moments like sleepovers and washing clothes at home instead of at a laundry “We have families that are eager to continue to invest in their blocks,” Carretero said “They want to be able to build a community with their neighbor They want community gardens to come in; they want the ecosystem that’s supposed to complement housing I think families understand the investment that comes into owning a home By Adrian Naves Little Village is predominantly made up of Mexican American often referred to as “La Villita” (La Vee-yee-ta) by the locals and is part of the South Lawndale community area Known as the “Mexico of the Midwest,” Little Village is a vibrant and rich neighborhood with Mexican American culture inspiration and art everywhere and nearly 1,000 locally owned businesses in the area The people in the community love supporting their local businesses and some have decades operating in Little Village Nuevo Leon Restaurant located at 657 W 26th St A new restaurant has recently opened up its doors in Little Village have expanded their Carnitas Uruapan restaurant which their menu will also feature beer and cocktails key items their two other restaurants locations are lacking on the menu the second-generation restaurateur whose father built the carnitas emporium in Pilsen discussed about expanding the family-owned business into Little Village “It Feels like a full circle moment…Little Village feels very much like a place where I’m at home it’s just kind of a throwback vibe for us.” Said Carbajal Little Village has blossomed over the years from a strong support from the community While most folks in Little Village call Chicago home some of the locals aren’t usually aware of how it all started…it’s always important to learn the history before the year you were born – best way to learn some interesting and fun facts New Carnitas Uruapan restaurant located at 3801 W Little Village before it became “La Villita” Little Village first saw an influx of German and Polish immigrants to the neighborhood following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 many people in the community worked in the local factories and has been a working-class community since then they had become the major ethnic group by WWII The neighborhood centered around 26th street became known as “Czech California” and other Eastern-European residents settled west past the limits of Chicago and into the neighboring suburbs of Cicero and Berwyn the Little Village area increasingly shifted to Latino immigrants the initial wave was mostly migrants from Pilsen Little Village became the main entry point for newly arriving Mexican immigrants to Chicago and the rest of the Midwest South Lawndale is made of up both Marshall Square and east of Kedzie Ave but most folks refer to the entire area as “La Villita.” 26th Street is the pillar as the main commercial district one of the city’s highest-grossing shopping strip Little Village has the vigor and density of a major city with a strong public transportation and high walkability but also as a close-knit community of independent businesses and non-profits that make it one of the most self-motivated neighborhoods in Chicago when people visit La Villita they’re welcomed by a terracotta arch towering over 26th St with a “Bienvenidos a Little Village.” The arch was designed by Mexican architect Adrian Lozano who built it in 1990 to acknowledge the influence of Mexican culture in Chicago Little Village also hosts Villapalooza every year the neighborhood also hosts their large annual parade in honor of Mexican Independence Day with colorful floats For a shopping experience that models and resembles markets in Mexico Little Village Discount Mall is worth a visit folks can find a wide range of items like Mexican handcrafts and Central Park along the northern edge of Little Village plan a visit to Little Village and head to the newly opened Carnitas Uruapan restaurant take a stroll in the neighborhood and soak up the environment For more information about Carnitas Uruapan restaurant menu and times, please visit: carnitasuruapanchi.com Mi Tierra En La Villita located at 2528 S Kedzie Ave A man who was found shot early Saturday in North Lawndale has died Officers responding to a call of a person shot found the 28-year-old about 2:30 a.m in an alley in the 1300 block of South Harding Avenue Farro Jamal Becton suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was taken in critical condition to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead about 11:20 a.m. police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said was attending a baby shower when he was shot and killed July 7 A man who was shot Sunday while attending a Little Village baby shower has died, marking the 20th homicide victim of the violent July 4th holiday weekend Guillermo Ruiz Hernandez was at a home in the 2800 block of South Lawndale Avenue when several shots were fired and a car sped away according to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office was found lying in the backyard of the home suffering from a gunshot wound above his right eye initially in critical condition but Ruiz Hernandez of the 3000 block of South Springfield Avenue according to the medical examiner’s office Video surveillance showed a gunman wearing a black and gray hooded windbreaker firing “several” rounds at a speeding sedan according to a police report obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times Shell casings were recovered near the corner of 28th Street and Lawndale Avenue no one answered the door of the vine-covered brick two-story home where the shooting happened but at least two dogs were heard inside barking A small backyard was surrounded by gray fencing and a second-story window appeared broken who has lived a few houses away from the scene for more than 40 years decried recent violence in the city while adding his block was “mostly quiet.” “Every day you hear people getting killed and getting shot “You can’t even walk or sit in front of your house or go to a store The death of Ruiz Hernandez marked the 20th homicide of the extended Fourth of July weekend Despite a lack of support from the 22nd Ward developer IDI Logistics is moving forward with demolishing a dozen century-old industrial buildings in North Lawndale An industrial real estate developer will present a proposal for a speculative logistics hub for North Lawndale to the Chicago Plan Commission this week for approval which comes from Atlanta-based IDI Logistics single-story warehouse with 26 loading docks on a 15-acre site along Ogden Avenue between Pulaski and Keeler avenues.  It’s the kind of development that quickly sprouted throughout the suburbs and near major transportation hubs during the pandemic-induced supply chain breakdown. Chicago, like other major metros, experienced a full-blown industrial boom where it seemed like there was unlimited demand for warehouses and logistics centers at the time the South and West sides of Chicago have witnessed a dramatic uptick in these developments a series of century-old manufacturing buildings that have been identified as historically significant by preservationists would have to be wiped out to make room for the new development There are also health and environmental concerns about the mass demolition of existing buildings and an influx of truck traffic and diesel exhaust near residential areas after the new logistics hub is opened there is uncertainty about the number — and quality — of jobs that would ultimately result from the development And here’s the other rub: 22nd Ward Alderperson Michael Rodriguez has told the community that he doesn’t support the proposal as-is And in the hours leading up to the May 16 Plan Commission meeting Alderperson Rodriguez sent a letter to Chairperson Laura Flores signaling that he wouldn’t support the plan for a logistics facility Regardless of the alderperson’s position and messaging to community members with the demolition of 12 buildings located on Ogden Roughly 50 people attended a meeting on May 13 to hear IDI Logistics execs and a panel of city officials and contractors discuss the demolition timeline and procedures But the meeting quickly turned into a rebuke of the proposal and of the process and also raised a number of questions While the developer is seeking to move forward with demolition of the 12 structures as of right now community members questioned why they would proceed with a tear-down without having a formal agreement and Commission-approved plan for a new development in place How many jobs will the logistics center actually create And what happens to the site if nothing is ever built There’s also a legal twist that could further complicate plans for the development At the heart of the investors’ proposed benefit for the community is the promise of jobs: demolition jobs during the tear-down construction jobs when erecting the new building and then permanent jobs once tenants move into the space Alderperson Rodriguez told Chicago that in an ideal scenario career-oriented employment there for working class people in the field of manufacturing.” IDI Logistics told residents that there could eventually be 120 to 150 permanent jobs located in their facility; however this proposal is for speculative development without tenants currently lined up and IDI said it’s difficult to predict the final outcome and number of permanent jobs Residents predicted that the permanent jobs would be similar to those typically found in other warehouses or logistics centers not the skilled manufacturing jobs the alderperson said the community hoped to see there were jobs and businesses in the Ogden and Keeler buildings up until recently When asked how many tenant businesses were previously based in the buildings during the meeting vice president for development with IDI Logistics said that IDI didn’t have that information so it’s unclear if IDI’s development will provide a net gain or loss in jobs a member of the IDI Logistics development team declined to comment on this story.) One of those previous tenants was Crystal Portillo was located on the second floor of the old Western Felt Works at 4117 W Portillo said that when she first signed the lease for the space at the beginning of 2022 she had hoped to be there for several years “I sunk thousands of dollars into that place,” she said the owner flagged me down while I’m rushing off to work and asked me to sign an estoppel — I didn’t even know what that was Portillo is one of many contractors whose work is tied to the Cinespace campus in the neighboring South Lawndale community — a major economic driver and anchor of Chicago’s television and film industry who owns an older industrial building in Little Village said that there is a big need for space for tenants like Portillo The Starz show Power Book IV: Force is largely filmed in Houlihan’s building on Troy Street “There’s almost unlimited demand right now in my experience for this kind of flex space,” he said “The building I just completed on the other side of the neighborhood has a waiting list out the door for small businesses and artists and I’ve had no trouble whatsoever revitalizing the building almost identical to [the North Lawndale buildings] But there may also be plenty of demand for the type of development IDI Logistics is proposing said an industrial broker who has no role in the North Lawndale development but agreed to speak to Chicago anonymously The broker also noted challenges to leasing upper levels in older buildings to contemporary industrial users particularly when there is only a single freight elevator servicing the building While Chicago has lost businesses to the suburbs or outside of Cook County many commercial businesses still need new industrial space within city limits where they can keep employees in the city While demolition has not yet started, remediation efforts of the site have already begun, city officials told residents. However, residents and observers reported seeing what appeared to be demolition prep work in recent weeks Windows had been nearly entirely removed at 2309 S leaving the sprawling structure open to the elements Alderperson Rodriguez told Chicago that he contacted the proper channels upon receiving complaints and “had inspectors on the site within an hour,” but there has yet to be any fencing or other forms of containment installed at the site as workers were performing remediation and prep work resident Norvetta Landon filed a suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County seeking an injunction on the demolition of the buildings Landon highlighted the historic significance of the buildings raised concerns about environmental contamination from demolition and argued that the demolition of these buildings could negatively affect the overall quality of life for North Lawndale residents.  She included background research and summaries of the buildings prepared by Preservation Chicago, which earlier this year added the old industrial corridor to its list of most endangered buildings in the city Legacy industrial users such as Turner Manufacturing and Western Felt Works had been originally based out of these structures and the buildings have ties to notable Chicago architects who designed the London Guarantee Building and the original Chicago Mercantile Exchange Building On the same day that Landon filed the demolition injunction request she also filed another suit against IDI Logistic that was focused on a community benefit agreement Landon claimed that IDI Logistics had made a verbal agreement to provide $250,000 to non-profit Harmony International Development in exchange for a Class 6b tax incentive which IDI indicated was “critical for the project to proceed” in a correspondence attached to the complaint IDI Logistics had initially offered to provide funds toward the construction of a dog park or community garden but indicated that any contribution to a community benefit would have to be in their proposal IDI said that it would be open to providing $130,000 to local non-profits or businesses in lieu of a new park but also noted that any agreement would have to be complete with a detailed plan for distribution and be approved by the city Alderperson Rodriguez told Chicago that IDI Logistics did indeed agree to provide a higher level of support than the original $130,000 it earmarked for a community benefit He also said that Landon is one of 12 members of the advisory council for the development and that any grant or funds that IDI agrees to provide to the community would be spread out among several organizations and businesses the disagreement over the community benefit is another reason why he is unable to support the proposal at this time While there remains speculation about jobs lost and gained residents at Monday’s meeting said it’s likely that the logistics center would lead to a drastic uptick in truck traffic and diesel emissions in an area already witnessing significant heavy vehicle traffic.  And Wasserman is concerned that time is running out for community input or engagement “I think this is a classic example of where the neighborhood has two days between the presentation on a demolition — not even on the project — and when this is going to be voted on in front of the Chicago Plan Commission with little to no power to stop it,” she said “It speaks to who has the power and who the system is built to benefit and it is not built to benefit the community.” Lifelong North Lawndale resident Rochelle Jackson said that she had only found out about the proposal in the last few weeks and felt that the outreach process was not robust enough In addition to concerns about truck traffic and a negligible gain in jobs Jackson is worried about what could become of the immediate area if the old manufacturing buildings are torn down and the stretch of Ogden is left as one giant empty site — one that people might use as an illegal dumping ground creating blight and potentially hindering future investment in the area According to local real estate data portal Chicago Cityscape there are nearly 2,800 vacant sites — specifically properties without any buildings — in North Lawndale alone.  “North Lawndale is very rich in history and rich in land,” Jackson said “They’re redeveloping it to make money and that’s it They don’t care about the people who live here They only care about how much money is going to be made.” Houlihan also warned of what could become if the buildings are left vacant “An empty building is a doomed building,” he said “They already created this abandonment without having any plans approved or an agreement from the community It’s their prerogative to remove the businesses and jobs from these buildings regardless of what the neighborhood wants.” A worst case scenario would be the opposite of investment for North Lawndale the entire effort would have only led to further disinvestment and displacement “They think they can go into a community with a double-digit unemployment rate and clear an entire district of employment Tags: Chicago magazine newsletters have you covered A teen boy was found shot to death Thursday in Ashburn on the Southwest Side in the 7500 block of South Lawndale Avenue Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said He suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the scene 2024At least five people were injured in a Lawndale car crash at South California Avenue and West Congress Parkway Wednesday Chicago fire officials said.CHICAGO (WLS) -- Five people were taken to hospitals following a serious crash Wednesday afternoon on Chicago's West Side The crash happened at South California Avenue and West Congress Parkway A Chicago Fire Department spokesperson said two people were in fair to serious condition Chopper 7 was over the scene as one person appeared to be taken from the scene in handcuffs SEE ALSO | Motorcyclist dies after hitting school bus in Joliet, sheriff says Police have not said what led to the crash No further information was immediately available Northbrook Police Officer Angelo Wells on patrol June 5 Wells was shot in the leg while responding to a domestic disturbance Aug in South Lawndale while on duty for the Chicago Police Department “I am God!” the big man screamed out the window of an apartment in the 1300 block of South Lawndale Avenue What the Chicago Police Department calls a “domestic disturbance.” A particularly dangerous situation for police to walk into accounting for nearly a quarter of the murders in Chicago and his partner had just come off a call and were leaving the 10th District station “Why don’t you come down and talk to us?” Wells called up framing the 33-year-old man in his flashlight beam “Are you guys going to come up and help me?” a woman yelled from somewhere inside the apartment A Chicago Fire Department ambulance arrived Wells walked over to brief the paramedics on the situation Wells had previously been exposed to gunfire six times The seventh proved unlucky — as he ran for cover one bullet entered his right thigh and shattered his femur Making him one of the 2,587 Chicagoans shot but not killed that year — including 10 police officers — and changing the direction of his life About 25 miles and a world away from the 10th District lies the leafy suburb of Northbrook where the police department is holding 5:30 p.m The events of the past 24 hours — a beautiful early June day in 2024 — are reviewed A man who thought people were following him committed himself to a mental hospital “After the incident happened I had to figure out what my purpose was,” he said “I had to reevaluate a lot of things with my life Because they were old enough at that time to realize what happened to me thinking something was going to happen to me in agony — “it felt like someone set me on fire” he said — into a squad car that backed up toward the ambulance Surgeons picked pieces of his cell phone out of his leg — the round pierced his phone in the pocket of his cargo pants — and put in a steel rod that went from his hip to his knee They left in the 9mm slug — too close to nerves and blood vessels to risk removing “The day after the surgery they gave me a walker and said We gotta get you on your feet and get your muscles going again,’” Wells remembered but I wasn’t meeting those goals,” he said And this happened to me.’ I was traumatized.” Other days he would watch TV or sit on the front porch Officer Angelo Wells stops a vehicle with one headlight while on patrol in Northbrook while on duty for the Chicago Police Department going through nearly a near of physical therapy but ultimately opted to work in the northern suburb A recent opening on the Northbrook police drew 40 applications from Chicago cops Two days shy of the year anniversary of the shooting “Knowing that the last time I put on the uniform He wondered whether he belonged here anymore but I do have a relationship with God,” Wells said Show me a sign.’ My very first call back to work was the same place I got shot Everybody that was working that day showed up “What are the odds of that happening?” he asked Let’s see if I can be the police somewhere else and actually enjoy it.” he joined the Northbrook Police Department “That’s all I’ve got,” says Northbrook Police Department Chief Chris Kennedy himself a former Chicago cop — 29 years on the force rising to Deputy Chief of Counterterrorism and Special Ops What’s the difference between policing in Chicago and Northbrook But the biggest change is the focus on service it’s on to the next special event downtown “It’s a different way of policing,” agreed Wells you do the preliminary investigation and hand it over Northbrook Police Officer Angelo Wells chats with Chief Christopher Kennedy after roll call at the Northbrook Police Department on June 5 used to serve in the Chicago Police Department they are among eight former CPD officers working in the northern suburb Kennedy has been in Northbrook for three years — in that time where 80 cops were shot at the year Wells took a round Kennedy compares that to when he was in the 11th District on the West Side “I remember times where there was a shooting on every beat Eight former CPD officers now work in Northbrook, which recently had 40 Chicago officers apply for one vacant position. Many other suburbs include former CPD officers on their forces Wells grabs his gear and heads out to a marked Dodge SUV His car automatically scans any license plate that comes into view “My goal is to be a proactive police officer,” he says He does a lot of traffic stops — expired stickers But tends to let motorists off with a warning if their records are clean He has zero regrets about leaving the city Wells is the only Black cop on the 65-officer department “Even though everything nowadays is all about race I haven’t had an encounter” from either the public or his colleagues and I was called every name in the book,” he said Would he ever consider going back to the CPD Northbrook Police Officer Angelo Wells waves to a child in the back seat after stopping a vehicle for speeding A call comes in — two men approached the door of a house on Oak Avenue Wells and a trio of other officers talk to Corey and Trevor — at least that’s what they say their names are They are representatives of Blue Raven Solar “I’m not doing anything wrong.” One officer explains that They counter that they are not collecting money They talk for 20 minutes while cicadas whir I step away to quiz the two Blue Raven employees They say they felt “intimidated” by the officers “I definitely felt respected by him,” says one The One Lawndale movement aims to unite what train tracks divide: North Lawndale and Little Village which cut a bend sinister across the Southwest Side of Chicago form the most enduring ethnic barrier in this segregated city the tracks separate the neighborhoods of North Lawndale who moved to Little Village from Mexico when she was 13 only crossed the tracks to catch the “L” at Pulaski “I would rush across the dividing line and go back home,” Ramirez remembers “It was just kind of understood you didn’t go there it looked more disheveled — a lot of vacant lots and she would talk about how they would block out the cafeteria because they had gang fights that were racially motivated.” The two sides of the tracks were once united in name — North and South Lawndale — but in the 1960s when Black Chicagoans began replacing Jewish residents on the North Side boosters on the South Side disassociated themselves from the newcomers by rechristening their neighborhood Little Village a name that evoked “the kind of peasant hamlet that many…Bohemian and Polish immigrant-stock neighbors remembered or imagined as their place of origin in the old country,” wrote A.K (It remains South Lawndale on the city’s community areas map.) “It’s always been the dividing line, even before the communities were separated in name,” says Charles Buckhanan, who has lived all his 62 years in North Lawndale, and is involved with Boxing Out Negativity North Lawndale has lost three quarters of its population since 1960 and they’ve made 26th Street a bustling and colorful thoroughfare of taquerias and street vendors In the parking lot of Kingdom Culture International Ministries There have been efforts at cross-tracks unity when a new high school opened at 31st and Kostner Ricardo Munoz helped make sure it was named Little Village Lawndale High A mural at now-closed Paderewski Elementary depicts Black and Latino pupils studying together to make the two sides of the tracks realize their common problems were greater than their differences when downtown Chicago was looted during the protests over George Floyd’s murder gang members from North Lawndale stole 90 pairs of shoes from a Korean-owned store in Little Village Latin Kings stood guard outside businesses on 26th Street to make sure the looting didn’t spread in their neighborhood using bats and bricks to attack cars driven by Black people a Black mother and son were pulled from a car Community organizations in both neighborhoods brokered an end to the violence, then organized peace marches under the banner of “One Lawndale.” In one marchers from North Lawndale and Little Village set out from their own neighborhoods who works as a community organizer with El Foro Del Pueblo “Some of us have definitely started that consciousness about needing to collaborate.” an organization called Brown Folks for Black Lives raised money to buy toiletries and food for people afraid to leave home to shop Ramirez participates in a Mutual Aid Pop-Up at Ogden and Pulaski and diapers to those in need from both neighborhoods hosted get-togethers in which young people from both sides of the tracks designed a “One Lawndale” t-shirt: it included the Little Village Arch and the original Sears headquarters exchanging information,” says Kemonte Johnson and has also attended inter-neighborhood boxing matches at the Shedd Park Fieldhouse with “a guy named Garcia.” The George Floyd disturbances were “a tipping point,” says Pastor Philip Jackson of Firehouse Church that’s when the One Lawndale movement accelerated.” a non-denominational church at 27th and Lawndale says his church has held several joint services with congregations from the other side of the tracks (Nueva Vida is across the street from a “Lawndale Unido” mural which depicts Black and Latino basketball players and a woman holding a sign reading “BLACK AND BROWN UNITED.”)  “I feel like there’s been a community between the pastors,” Medina says they’ve tried to be more intentional about getting the churches together.” Churches from both neighborhoods participated in marches to protest the killing of Adam Toledo a Latino teenager shot by Chicago police — an incident that demonstrated that police violence affects both Black and Latino communities “I think we just share in the pain of being minorities trying to strengthen each other,” Medina says Boxing Out Negativity sponsored a Street Love Ride that began in North Lawndale and ended in Little Village “It’s a night ride,” says Olatunji Oboi Reed of the Equiticity Racial Equity Movement both for the people on the ride and the people watching We certainly had a strong Latinx representation.” The Burlington Northern Railroad will always be there but activists on both sides hope it will become less of a barrier Latino residents have been moving north of the tracks “We’re bridging that divide between both spaces,” Ramirez says “There’s violence and oppression on both sides The One Lawndale movement gained a lot of traction after what happened last year There’s always been the intention to unite the communities Tags: Free Spirit Media provides teens and young adults on Chicago\u2019s West and South sides with a comprehensive foundation in media literacy and hands-on media production experience. Free Spirit Media runs in-school arts education, after school and summer digital media programs, and advanced creative workforce development programs. Learn more about what we do here We will be launching a new website very soon! To stay up to date on our latest programs and events, please visit our Linktree at linktr.ee/freespiritmedia The famous “Bienvenidos” arch in Little Village but sometimes it  feels like a sundown town.   I moved to Little Village on a whim because my last apartment was sold to new owners I’ve come to love that I can almost travel anywhere easily a flower shop right down the street from my house garnished with a huge “coffee” sign My favorite sound is the rooster two doors down that cock-a-doodle’s its voice on my deck when I tan in the summer.  but my friends constantly recount stories of being profiled as gangbangers I usually receive a scowl after nodding hello to the people on my block And let’s not forget countless eyerolls when I hear the n-word walking down the street from people who don’t look like me.  I find it ironic that I feel targeted in a place whose history is one of displacement I’m sure with Little Village’s history and Chicago’s notorious segregation Before Little Village was an established neighborhood, it was once used by indigenous peoples to connect across the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes. Of course, by 1833, the United States coercive and manipulative ways displaced the people of the land. it was annexed as Lawndale from Cicero township two business owners sacrificed their business to build an affluent neighborhood for the Anglo-Saxon.  By the 20th century, Lawndale was made up of Czech, Bohemian, and Eastern European immigrants. Then during the 50s and 60s, African Americans began to move into North Lawndale, and that rattled the neighborhood. Wanting to distinguish themselves from the growing African American community in North Lawndale, the Eastern Europeans renamed the “South Lawndale” area “Little Village.”  Here comes the ‘70s and White flight plagued Little Village’s existence Latinx people  were being pushed out of Pilsen due to the development of UIC and as a result the Eastern European population moved to Berwyn and Cicero landing them better housing and more employment opportunities.  By the 1980s, Latinos made up 47 percent of the population. And in 1991, the famous landmark arch “Bienvenidos a Little Village” was installed. Now Little Village is 84 percent Latino.   where I like to window shop featuring the huge “coffee” sign It’s beautiful that there is a community of Mexican Americans and immigrants that made a home for themselves after being displaced from another I can’t ignore the way I’m made to feel when existing in these communities My intentions are not to diminish the communal enclaves they have built for themselves I simply want to highlight the intra-segregation that takes place within the neighborhoods of our already highly segregated city I recount the fear of all my male friends and the unfriendliness that slaps me in the face when trying to greet my neighbors I feel like an outsider in my own neighborhood But why should I feel like that in a place I call home?  I blame de jure and de facto segregation.  Chicago is one of the most segregated cities in this country and it was purposefully set up this way This painful notion has trickled down to our neighborhoods and into our behavior.  I find it ironic that a community whose history reeks of displacement would violently project those same behaviors onto another.  we can’t ignore the trauma and pain that lingers once smacked with racist and discriminatory rhetoric I also think about my own community and how we view other people of color I cringe at family’s and friends’ racist jokes about Latinix people I shudder at their scapegoat: Latinx people don’t like Black people I am not writing to point fingers or cast blame on any person of color I simply want to highlight the issues that exist within our groups in order for us to heal these tensions White supremacy affects us all so it helps for us all to work towards a united front WHO ARE WE? Free Spirit Media partners with young creators ages 11-25 and primarily from the West and South sides of Chicago to develop and amplify their unique and critical voices through storytelling and media arts We do this through our holistic programming which focuses on community-building skill-sharing and career and education pathways that support young people to envision and build their futures within the media industry and beyond USA • (312) 550-4561• info@freespiritmedia.org Copyright © 2023, Free Spirit Media. All rights reserved. All work presented on this site was created by Free Spirit Media and its employed Artists unless otherwise cited.•Privacy Policy Site by Bria Royal•Submit a suggestion partners with local organizations and offers education and resources on health and wellness and insurance "Community health and wellness is important because traditionally you think of health care as just being the medical care you receive when we know it goes well beyond that," Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois President Steve Hamman says a Division of Health Care Service Corporation an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association File is in portable document format (PDF). To view this file, you may need to install a PDF reader program. Most PDF readers are a free download. One option is Adobe® Reader® which has a built-in screen reader. Other Adobe accessibility tools and information can be downloaded at http://access.adobe.com This new site may be offered by a vendor or an independent third party The site may also contain non-Medicare related information some sites may require you to agree to their terms of use and privacy policy Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois recently invited members of Chicago's South Lawndale community to a Welcome Fall Fest at the site of a new Blue Door Neighborhood CenterSM. The 9,000-square-foot facility is scheduled to open at 2551 W. Cermak Road by the end of 2020 "Our Blue Door centers are designed as community hubs where people can learn connect and focus on their whole-person health," BCBSIL President Steve Hamman said at the event The western edge of Chicago — including the North and South Lawndale Archer Heights and Brighton Park neighborhoods — experiences up to 32% higher concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) air pollution compared to the rest of the city a new Northwestern University study has found In the new study, researchers developed a process to systematically identify areas of agreement and disagreement among three individual state-of-the-art air-quality datasets: satellite observations, a simulation developed at Northwestern and sensors from Microsoft Research’s Project Eclipse Although one or two datasets identified multiple areas as NO2 hotspots all three datasets consistently flagged Chicago’s West Side as having elevated NO2 pollution Hispanic and Latinx residents compared to the rest of the city highlighting the disproportionate pollution and health burdens shouldered by these communities The study was published today in Environmental Research Letters “The three tools that we explored sometimes identified different areas of elevated pollution from one another,” said Northwestern’s Anastasia Montgomery “That doesn’t necessarily mean the tools are not working It could be that they are looking at different things in areas where we found agreement between the datasets we have greater confidence that NO2 pollution is significantly high The three different tools we used all pointed to the West Side as an area where pollution is significantly elevated relative to the Chicago average.” “High spatial resolution air quality data has the potential to reveal inequitable exposure to pollution by identifying localized hotspots,” said Northwestern’s Daniel Horton and government officials can develop more targeted policies By combining and improving tools to identify these hotspots we can ensure that mitigation efforts serve the most affected communities.” Horton is an assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, where he leads the Climate Change Research Group the researchers compared how each dataset quantified NO2 A byproduct of fossil-fuel combustion engines Chronic exposure to these fumes can lead to bronchitis which is linked to childhood asthma and other respiratory health issues Each tool in the study used a different method to gather data Microsoft Research’s Project Eclipse collected real-time air-quality data by deploying 100 low-cost sensors throughout Chicago Previously developed in Horton’s laboratory the Northwestern simulation combines emissions data with weather and chemical transport models to create neighborhood estimates of air quality And the satellite tool takes a snapshot of Earth’s atmosphere once per day “Satellite tools are sensitive to different wavelengths of light,” Montgomery explained “Nitrogen dioxide absorbs light at certain wavelengths so satellite snapshots can reveal different levels of nitrogen dioxide concentrations across space.” Because air pollution changes across seasons the researchers looked at air quality data in February and August they pinpointed neighborhoods with high agreement (meaning all tools agree) medium agreement (two tools agree) and low agreement (consensus among none of the tools) regarding NO2 hotspots Three different datasets flagged Chicago’s West Side as having elevated nitrogen dioxide pollution All tools consistently identified the city’s West Side as a hotspot in both August and February the estimated 501,000 people who live and work within this hotspot experience NO2 concentrations that are 16 to 32% higher than the city-wide average Data from satellites and Microsoft Research’s sensors also pinpointed an adjoining hotspot just a bit north of the consensus hotspot Humboldt Park and West Garfield Park neighborhoods “Our model does not simulate significantly high pollution concentrations here but observations show otherwise,” Montgomery said “Because the model simulations don’t agree with two observational datasets it suggests that our model has limitations Perhaps we need to adjust the model physics or the underlying emission estimates.” Another area of medium agreement occurred along highways While satellite data and the Northwestern simulation uncovered high NO2 along highways “We think that’s because most highways in Chicago are typically above street level,” Montgomery said so they didn’t capture the elevated interstate corridors well.” Even though the tools might disagree on hotspots the causes behind the hotspots are certain All areas with high or medium agreement are considered heavily trafficked and moderately to highly industrialized “Tools like those we used in this study can be used as complementary components for monitoring a city to show where targeted inventions are most needed,” Montgomery said “We can look at the zoning there and who is being affected Policies could be implemented to incentivize engine idling restrictions building standards or the purchase of electric vehicles.” news@northwestern.edu Get the latest news delivered to your inbox South Side Weekly When the story of segregation in Chicago is told Roosevelt signed the National Housing Act of 1934 low interest rates and longer repayment periods that made home ownership possible for more low-income families But Black communities were intentionally excluded from these benefits in places like Chicago where the national Home Owners’ Loan Corporation told banks and mortgage lenders to refuse to insure mortgages in Black neighborhoods—a process known as redlining—and supported restrictive covenants legal clauses on deeds that blocked Black and non-white immigrants from moving in But Chicago’s continued segregation rests not only on policy but on the physical barriers that enforce dividing lines to this day The idea to separate people by race or class has persisted and has seeped into this city’s built environment and bridges are key gateways to understanding the story of segregation in Chicago’s past and present and creative writing that follow illustrate those barriers around the South and West sides The City of Chicago began the construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway in 1961 a project that cost more than $282 million to build—an estimated nearly $2.6 billion in today’s dollars the Dan Ryan and other highways were built to provide primarily white residents from newly built suburbs with fast and easy auto access to the Loop and back home those expressways reinforced existing boundaries between communities Though many Americans might see displacement as an inevitability Glover points to how many European highways don’t cut through cities Though spatial segregation exists in Europe in its own ways “If you want to actually get into [a European] city,” Glover said “you have to take a local road or use transit.” Black residents were more affected by property loss than their white counterparts as a result of the Dan Ryan being built in 1961–1962 Photo credit: Esther Ikoro for the South Side Weekly The City used eminent domain—the right of the government to seize private property for public benefit—to demolish homes and businesses to make way for the new expressway Some of the displaced residents had already been forced to move once because of the construction of housing projects such as Stateway Gardens and the Robert Taylor Homes In order to understand the physical barriers that segregate Chicago they must be traced back to when Black people first moved to Chicago in large numbers The Great Migration—the mass movement of Black Americans from southern states to cities in the North and West—spanned approximately 1916 through 1970 An estimated six million Black people traveled in hopes of finding work and safety from racial violence The city’s Black population more than doubled and since Black Americans were allowed to occupy only certain areas and choose from limited resources the few neighborhoods where Black folks were welcomed were soon overcrowded The “Black Belt” was the name coined for the miles-long stretch of neighborhoods on the South Side that were poor It started near 12th Street and eventually stretched as far south as 79th Street between Wentworth and Cottage Grove avenues White Chicagoans on the South Side who couldn’t afford to leave these areas would incite riots and as the Black population began to integrate Black families would sometimes need police escorts to ensure they were not victims of violence and provocation by irate whites At least twelve percent of Chicago is made up of industrial corridors areas designated by the City for concentrating manufacturing and other industrial activity There are twenty-six industrial corridors in the city and these have boundaries that coordinate with railroads said her community has been “targeted” by the City for industrial development; it includes the largest industrial corridor in Chicago segregation can be seen through the City’s persistence in moving industrial companies to Far South Side neighborhoods such as South Deering and Hegewisch persistence she describes as “deliberate planning.” It isn’t just the General Iron metal scrapping company “It’s interesting to see…all the industry being literally pushed across the bridges.” Vance Guerra’s intuition isn’t far off the mark and Discriminatory Zoning,” published in the American Economic Journal in 2016 found evidence that industrial-use zoning was “disproportionately allocated to neighborhoods populated by ethnic and racial minorities.” Sign up to get the Weekly Digest delivered to your inbox While bridges may appear to be purely utilitarian Vance Guerra went on to say she believes bridges around the Southeast Side act as barriers that segregate communities from one another the reason she and others founded Bridges//Puentes was to bridge the divide between residents from all over the Southeast Side: South Chicago She points out that these bridges form markers between neighborhoods Many of these bridges are at times not even in service such as the 106th Street Bridge over the Calumet River in East Side as well as the 100th Street Bridge in South Chicago: “People who live in South Deering can’t even get to the east side of the East Side,” she said These difficulties are compounded by the community’s lack of access to public transit Vance Guerra said the 26 South Shore Express bus runs north in the morning from 4:14 AM to 3 PM and south from 1:15 PM to 10:33 PM during weekdays The bus begins picking people up at 103rd Street and Stony Island Avenue making it difficult for people to get outside the Southeast Side industrial fortress when not commuting to and from work This bus route also leaves out the industry-heavy neighborhoods such as South Deering and communities bordering Indiana Currently the only bus that connects people downtown from the far Southeast Side is the 30 South Chicago bus which doesn’t go past the 69th Street Red Line stop When members of Bridges//Puentes were working on vaccine outreach in South Deering Vance Guerra said it was difficult to get around even by foot The houses are overshadowed by all the industry,” she said They had to plan around the limited bus transportation The Little Village neighborhood on Chicago’s Southwest Side is a historic industrial and immigrant community similar to the Southeast Side The area is divided by the Burlington Northern railroad tracks which have historically separated Little Village and North Lawndale dividing one community of color from another Jewish residents lived in what is now North Lawndale separated by the railroad tracks from Poles living in what is now Little Village; as North Lawndale gained more Black residents these two neighborhoods were one community area called Lawndale but as Black residents moved into North Lawndale Racial tensions between these communities are not new who works at New Life Ministries Church in Little Village But after the killing of George Floyd in 2020 and the racial tensions that followed community leaders sought to make significant efforts to bridge the divide between the current Mexican and Black communities Alvarado remembers that on the Sunday following the murder of Floyd Little Village saw break-ins on their commercial street and gang members from the neighborhood “[taking] looters out and [taking] control of the main vein on 26th Street in Little Village And it just became like a human barricade.” community leaders from Little Village and North Lawndale took steps to bring about unity between Black and Mexican residents and change the narrative that was dominating Chicago news the narrative that Latino residents were protecting their community from Black “looters” was painful and it was a distraction from systematic issues that create divides between people in the first place “I think the best distraction…is to create beef between two communities or beef between That was when the One Lawndale movement was forged Community leaders brought together twenty to thirty local youth from North Lawndale and La Villita who had already been involved in their communities to some capacity—such as through a school program—to start a brand-new conversation about ways to unpack the divisions Alvarado said this was done through peace circles and a focus group The youth group talked about the “differences,” “beauties,” and “similarities” that both neighborhoods share They talked about why they don’t like and even feared going to each other’s neighborhoods One Lawndale also invited the muralist Sam Kirk to paint a mural at 27th and Lawndale—with the guidance of local youth who have been involved in the peace circles—in hopes of “breaking that segregation within the communities of Little Village and North Lawndale.” Other residents also painted the words “One Lawndale” close to the viaduct near Cermak and Kedzie He said these murals are a “visual reminder of what our intentions are Vance Guerra views the train tracks in South Chicago as creating a similar division between the Black and the Mexican communities The tracks are located on her block on Baltimore Avenue which consist of more than 300 affordable housing units with mostly Black renters When Vance Guerra was distributing toys from a Bridges//Puentes toy drive she also noticed a cul-de-sac cutting through on 89th Street and Burley Avenue The apartments are fenced in and cannot be accessed from the east via Baltimore Avenue tenants can do so only through Burley Avenue was founded roughly twenty-five years before the start of the Great Migration The university’s campus has been on the South Side ever since this proximity threatened the whiteness and elitism perpetuated by the institution and its campus Like many other inhabitants of the white communities near the borders of the Black Belt the university consistently created and upheld racist structures and social systems to maintain barriers between itself and its Black neighbors the University of Chicago began major expansion efforts and twenty new buildings were constructed between 1926 and 1931 a university report explicitly suggested the school acquire land to “serve as a buffer” between the campus and the predominantly Black neighborhoods that surround it framing those efforts as an attempt to combat “forces of deterioration.” A strip between 60th and 61st streets—directly south of Midway Plaisance mile-long Midway Plaisance is connected to Washington Park at its west and Jackson Park at its east Glover said it encourages segregation: “I think that the way that it functions now definitely….it has a way of reinforcing the segregation between Hyde Park and Woodlawn It’s not programmed in a way that makes people of color feel welcome in that space The park was built and designed in 1871 by Frederick Law Olmsted and used for the entertainment section of the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 The Midway creates a border between the University of Chicago and the majority-Black neighborhoods to its south these neighborhoods are overpoliced and lack resources relative to Hyde Park to the north In the decades since the University of Chicago first described the land near the Midway as a “buffer,” it has continued to exert significant influence over real estate in the area But that deliberate separation was only one aspect of its varied efforts to shape the neighborhood around it which increased over the course of the Great Migration began to decline,” the university stated in a brief history as told by their news office the University became a major sponsor of an urban renewal effort for Hyde Park,” —the demolition and redevelopment of areas deemed “blighted.” That meant pushing poor The university had already financially supported racially restrictive covenants in the area in part by subsidizing their defense in legal battles that attempted to keep out Black residents It played a major role in the urban renewal plans that demolished more than 190 acres of buildings and displaced 30,000 people Even after the Black population began to integrate further east of Cottage Grove there was a small portion of the area between 51st and 60th streets that remained mostly white in the decades that followed along with houses and apartments that lined the lakefront gave the well-off and white residents who remained in the area beautiful views of Lake Michigan and access to the beach In maps of the Black population in the area in 1930 and 1960 from a Virginia Tech exhibit on redlining the thick black line that curves furthest east represents railways that were formerly owned by the Illinois Central Railroad and are now operated by Metra create physical barriers that are clear markers of segregation The 51st/53rd Street Metra station that services Hyde Park sits atop a viaduct that sections off some of the aforementioned area that was the last to be annexed by integration this viaduct and train track serve as a clear divide between the more expensive lakefront homes and the rest of the neighborhood while Hyde Park as a whole has remained nearly fifty percent white in the midst of the majority Black communities surrounding the area Hyde Park is considered one of Chicago’s most diverse neighborhoods there have been natural boundaries,” said Ben Austen author of High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing The University of Chicago Police Department is not restricted to those boundaries the university police patrol borders extend south from 37th to 64th streets and east from Jean-Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive to Cottage Grove Avenue The university recently increased both campus police as well as Chicago Police Department vehicles and foot patrol Beverly is considered one of Chicago’s most diverse neighborhoods Beverly was one of the first Chicago neighborhoods to build cul-de-sacs which very clearly divided it from surrounding Black neighborhoods the City built eleven concrete cul-de-sacs and diverters in the area north of 95th Street with restricted car access and only three points of entry: 91st Street and Western Avenue; 95th and Leavitt; and 95th and Damen Avenue despite their prominence as a marker of segregation are not the only kind of barrier in Beverly The same Metra route that separates Auburn Gresham from Beverly curves along Longwood Drive Though Morgan Park is interconnected with Beverly in some ways such as housing the Chicago police station that services Beverly and Mount Greenwood its demographic varies greatly from those of its neighbors Morgan Park is more than sixty percent Black Its local high school is more than ninety-nine percent students of color with ninety-seven percent of those students being Black just two miles up the same street from her sister’s school in Morgan Park Although the distance was roughly ten minutes they noticed clear differences between the two neighborhood schools Her sister graduated with a 4.995 grade point average and was not the valedictorian she was fifth in her graduating class – and had a higher GPA than the valedictorian of Chima’s class in Mount Greenwood her sister’s school lacked air conditioning in August while Chima’s majority-white school had gently used textbooks My dad says he couldn’t even sell ice cream where we live now when he first came to this country To own a home in a place you were once barred from must be an uphill battle When I felt othered in classrooms where I was the only Black child Some of the most expensive houses in Chicago are in Beverly The structure of the neighborhood acts as a semi-permeable cell wall Am I supposed to believe that this is all coincidental That maybe the Metra stations and tracks aren’t facets of division Maybe the cul-de-sacs that round out blocks aren’t to ensure that the “others” cannot simply cross a street to reach this place Maybe the hills the houses sit on aren’t to separate and elevate the well-off away from the scurrying of the South Side There are places I could walk to when I was younger that I cannot reach now that I drive There is no greater motif for the gradual realization that I was living within a hedge planted to keep the “wild things” from sneaking in There is a curve that rounds out the edge of Beverly’s finest houses on Longwood as the neighborhood dissolves into the Dan Ryan Woods A few steps shy of this curve is a Metra train stop Another similar road curves parallel to that one in the opposite direction and the space between the two pathways is so tiny it can be crossed in just a few steps it takes ten minutes to go from one to the other; there is a tiny piece of concrete that you cannot drive over Since Beverly has mastered one-way streets and dead ends Why are these two bends in the road so close and yet so far apart The distance between the two is racial and economic with a roughly fifty-eight percent white population and a median income of close to $100,000 a year a neighborhood that is more than ninety-eight percent Black with a median household income of around $34,000 a year the day I realized the magnitude of that tiny piece of concrete How could I call a neighborhood home if it always found a way to tell my skin-folk that they could play in the front yard Alma Campos is the Weekly’s immigration editor Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s community organizing editor Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" View More View More I am an immigrant like many of our community residents I came to the States after a few years in the international field I actually first came to know La Villita in 2005 when I was hired as the Director of Community Schools at Enlace That was the first time I had visited La Villita I was completely taken by it from the beginning I loved the sense of community that you get when you’re in the neighborhood It reminded me so much of many towns in Latin America I immediately felt at home with everybody speaking Spanish It’s a very dynamic and vibrant neighborhood When you drive through 26th Street that’s what you feel that you’re in a community where people know you People are interested in their neighbors as human beings I have lived in Little Village for ten of the twelve years that I have lived in the States Katya Nuques is the executive director of Enlace Chicago, the lead agency in Little Village for the New Communities Program, a citywide initiative that seeks to improve the quality of life in sixteen Chicago neighborhoods, in partnership with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and with support from the MacArthur Foundation we’re very focused on the well-being of the community residents I believe in inspiring community residents and staff so they do the best that they can and they reach their goals that’s the best way to improve a neighborhood More than half of our staff are community residents we use a lot of data to plan and decide on initiatives that target certain issues I see a lot of patterns that a regular community resident would not our graduation rate at the La Villita High School is eighty-six percent If you compare it to the first class of 2011 when it was sixty-nine percent These are things I wouldn’t know if I didn’t have to pay attention What have I experienced as a community resident that I wouldn’t experience only as a professional in the nonprofit field I see the sense of unity that exists among neighbors Collective work is our reality in La Villita; it is something we learn and it’s a reflection of the sense of unity among community residents I do believe people are resilient and feel a sense of unity in the struggle Throughout the history of the neighborhood People fought for the schools built in the 1990s to address overcrowding in the schools Because of the large community of undocumented people we feel we have to be there for each other regardless of immigration status we want the neighborhood to keep its natural vibrancy We want it to continue to be home to immigrant families we always want immigrants to feel at home in La Villita We want the community to keep being affordable 26th Street Mexican Independence Day Parade Little Village has observed Mexico’s Independence Day in September with a lively parade down 26th Street from Albany to Kostner Avenue If you can peel your eyes away from the impeccably styled mariachi bands you’ll notice the crowd of spectators is unique in its own right Of the 80,000 people living in Little Village not counting the families that come from all throughout the city to celebrate—and they make their mark at this parade all generations turn out for the festivities family-centric vibe not common among massive groups The hundreds of babies perched on shoulders may obstruct the view but the parade-goers are so pleasant that they’ll likely have no problem making space for you when the parade ends at the Fiestas Patrias festival there’s a community-wide party with more live music 26th Street Mexican Independence Day Parade, 26th St. from Albany Ave. to Kostner Ave. Second Sunday of September, noon–3pm. littlevillagechamber.org Best All-Ages Dance Troupe In a small classroom of the True Value Boys and Girls Club at 25th Street and Sacramento Avenue about a dozen elementary school girls await the start of rehearsal twirling their blue practice skirts and clacking their dance shoes on the tiles he channels their restless energy into synchronized turns and shouts; the room suddenly fills with color Mario danced with the famous Ballet Folklórico de Amalia Hernandez in Mexico City When he came to Little Village thirty-five years ago “he felt like he was missing something,” said Mario’s daughter Cindy Mario formed his own folkloric dance group and named it Xochitl an Aztec word sometimes translated as “queen of flowers.” There are many folkloric dance groups across the South Side but Ballet Folklórico Xochitl is literally the group for all ages but on whoever knows the steps to a particular song The group pulls music and dances from both the Aztec tradition and from across the states of Mexico They dance wherever they’re invited—at hotels and most recently at Little Village’s 26th Street Mexican Independence Day Parade in early September New Life Community Church, 2657 S. Lawndale Ave. and Boys and Girls Club True Value, 2950 W. 25th St. Monday, 5:30pm–7pm and Saturday, 9am–11am at New Life; Wednesday, 5:30pm–6:30 pm and Friday, 5:30pm–7pm at Boys and Girls Club. $25 per month. (773) 726-4852 or (773) 289-8469. balletfolkloricoxochitl.org Best Industrial Complex Turned Soccer Field Though less than three years old, La Villita Park has quite a past. The park’s grounds once housed a roofing product factory that infiltrated the soil, causing cancer-linked materials as recently as the late 1980s. After the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) fought for the space to become a park La Villita—named by community consensus after the neighborhood’s commonly used Spanish nickname—now boasts the largest EPA Superfund-to-park conversion to have taken place in a major U.S This twenty-two-acre oasis offers soccer and softball fields and a huge playground—but the soccer fields are the park’s hottest commodities Groups can rent a field at $75/hour for kids and $150/hour for adults while basketball courts and softball fields go for about a fifth of those prices The Park District also offers some free programs for kids during the summer at La Villita Post-soccer game, check out LVEJO’s community garden, Semillas de Justicia (Seeds of Justice) Little Village residents have claimed this 1.5-acre space once a dumping ground for leftover oil barrels Semillas de Justicia also hosts educational workshops It was one of LVEJO’s earlier victories in transforming hazardous “brownfields” into bustling green space; the journey from garden to park testifies to the power of community organizing La Villita Park. 2800 S. Sacramento Ave. 6am–11pm. (312) 745-4801. chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks/la-villita-park Best Quinceañera Magazine A girl’s fifteenth birthday is a rite of passage calling for an elaborate celebration in Mexican culture So it only makes sense that La Villita has a magazine devoted entirely to the quinceañera Alborada is the name of both the dress boutique located at 26th Street and Central Park Avenue and the magazine it runs for teenage girls hoping for a fairytale party the boutique’s magazine is essentially an encyclopedic inspiration board for the detail-oriented party planner—good enough to convince any teenage girl to use analog over Pinterest or Instagram This homegrown operation is complete with cover girls who are selected from the magazine’s fans for those whose quinceañera dreams include modeling aspirations Alborada, 3544 W. 26th St. Monday–Saturday, 11am–6pm; Sunday, 11am–5pm. (773) 277-0601. alboradamagazine.com Support community journalism by donating to South Side Weekly A Penn State professor argues that urban America’s comeback owes much to the confluence and contributions of Latin American immigrants In his new book Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City Sandoval-Strausz challenges the narrative that the white professionals who began returning to cities in the 1990s and 2000s are responsible for the modern urban renaissance he credits immigrants from Latin America who arrived in the 1970s when cities were desperately in need of repopulation Sandoval-Strausz’s book looks closely at how Latinos rescued two neighborhoods: Oak Cliff in Dallas and Little Village in Chicago which he got to know when he was a graduate student at the University of Chicago from 1994 to 2001 Sandoval-Strausz is currently an associate professor of history at Penn State University Why was it so important that Latinos and Latino immigrants began emigrating to cities in the 1970s and how did that set the stage for where we are today Roughly 1970 might have been close to the very bottom of the urban crisis because it was right after the series of urban riots in places like Newark and Detroit Many people saw those as a signal that the slow decline of the American city [happening] since about 1950 had picked up speed There were a lot of shopkeepers and business owners who said “That’s really the last straw.” You see the departure of American-born people There were a lot of urban specialists who said “It may be that the era of the big American city has come and gone.” In Chicago the Tribune ran an article [series] a few years later called “City on the Brink” which said “Things may never get better here.” That was when the city most needed a new infusion of residents Why did you choose Little Village as one of the two main neighborhoods you study in this book I went to graduate school at the University of Chicago and I was really familiar with it Probably the better reason is that Chicago is the number-one urban history and urban studies city in the United States It’s where the Chicago school of sociology was born it’s where just a huge number of very influential studies have been done everything from Heat Wave [by Eric Klinenberg second edition published 2015] to Great American City [by Robert J It’s just a perfect laboratory to look at things It’s also the second-biggest center of Mexican population in the United States There’s a diaspora of more than a million ethnic Mexicans and of course there are large numbers of Puerto Ricans so it really is a big center of Latino culture and how and why did he rename the neighborhood from South Lawndale to Little Village Richard Dolejs was a real estate agent and president of the chamber of commerce in the neighborhood which at the time was called South Lawndale South Lawndale had started losing population as early as 1920 The 1924 National Origins Act slashed immigration from Central and Eastern Europe and that’s where a lot of immigrants to the neighborhood had come from It was a very strongly Polish and Bohemian neighborhood It was also the scene of very gradual deindustrialization The housing there was fairly old and crowded Dolejs sees that his neighborhood was shrinking even faster than before because a lot of Chicagoans did not want to have any black neighbors and they would even resort to violence to keep them out He thought that a better approach was to take a positive angle to it “Let’s rename South Lawndale to Little Village,” to refer to its Central European origins and also — this was the discriminatory part — make sure people don’t confuse it with North Lawndale which was a neighborhood that had gone from overwhelmingly white to overwhelmingly black in about ten years He decides to pursue Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals as new neighbors He didn’t think his fellow residents of Little Village were going to accept black people as neighbors This was directed at figuring out who might come in to revitalize and repopulate the neighborhood How did the ethnic composition of Little Village change So the overall number of people in the neighborhood does not change between 1960 and 1970 but a lot of non-Hispanic whites move out [and] a lot of Latinos move in it’s about 85 percent Mexican American and 11 or 12 percent African American What would Little Village look like if Mexicans hadn’t moved in We can start with the example of North Lawndale North Lawndale lost much of its African American population because after 1968 they have better opportunity to buy houses in the suburbs The [Fair] Housing Act criminalizes discrimination because so many people were moving out of North Lawndale a lot of the property owners could not rent or sell their houses a lot of them just deliberately burned the houses down for the insurance money there was no loss of housing units — exactly the same number for decade after decade There were thousands upon thousands of houses that would have ended up burned out If 25 million Latinos and Latinas had not come to American cities you’d see a lot more parts of Chicago that look like Detroit or Gary or Youngstown and railroad stations that are like ghost towns Another part of your argument is that we shouldn’t give all the credit to the return of white professionals for the rebirth of cities Number one is Latino immigrants began to come to neighborhoods three or more decades before that back-to-the-city I think the other thing to remember is that yuppies and the creative class could not return to the city without a lot of the labor from food-picking and meatpacking to cooking Tags: , Top issues, according to people we interviewed Chicago’s 24th Ward is regarded as an important place in Black Chicago history. In the 1960s, its present-day borders served as the stomping grounds for many Black liberation leaders. In 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. chose an apartment on 15th Street and Hamlin Avenue in North Lawndale as the base to launch the northern campaign of the Civil Rights Movement, in which he planned to expose discriminatory real-estate practices such as redlining and panic peddling. Same time, North Lawndale is also a place reeling from decades-long tension with systemic racism and police. In July 1966, uprisings broke out after police arrested a Black man for opening a fire hydrant; over the course of two days, more than 200 people were arrested, 30 people were injured and two Black people killed by stray bullets from shootouts between police and snipers.  In 24th Ward, incumbent Ald. Monique Scott has sights on retaining her seat; one that Mayor Lori Lightfoot appointed her to in July 2022 after her brother, former Ald. Michael Scott Jr., retired. Lightfoot went on to appoint Scott Jr. to the Chicago Board of Education, which his father served as president under Mayor Richard M. Daley. Scott Jr. also took on a cushy job at Cinescape Studios as its head of industry and community relations. Prior to July, Scott Jr. had held the seat since 2015.  There are now seven people challenging his sister for the aldermanic seat.  For our West Side wards profile series, The TRiiBE interviewed three people who are part of the 24th Ward. There is hope that things will turn around economically for the 24th Ward — and there is straightforward pride in the residents. Neighborhood you grew up in: North Lawndale Neighborhood you live in: South Lawndale/Little Village Occupation: Owner of Principle Barbers and visual artist Do you know who your alderperson is? “Yes, it’s Monique Scott. I don’t know her personally, though; her brother has come to my shop a couple times. My shop has been open technically for four-and-a-half years; with COVID, it’s been like two-and-a-half years.” Since you’ve grown up in that ward, you’ve seen a lot of changes, right? “I have, but not enough. I’ve seen Ogden Avenue [the street where Principle Barbers is] change but not enough in the community.” What do you like about working in the 24th Ward? “I like the people and the community connections. More than the buildings, it’s the people.” What do you dislike about working in the 24th Ward? “The obvious things, right? There is crime, poverty — and no one invests in the community. It seems like the city and state ignore the community. The ward needs funding and resources.” What do you wish your alderperson would do to improve your ward?  Are you going to vote in the 2023 municipal election? If not, what would motivate you to vote? I do plan on voting. Do you know who you plan on voting for? Yes and no;  it’s a wait-and-see thing right now. Now, for mayor, I know who I’m voting for; that’s an easy one. Neighborhood you live in: North Lawndale. “I live two blocks from my store. My father and grandfather lived there, too. I’ve been there for over 30 years.” Occupation: Owner of Barney’s New Life Health Foods; founder of 1990s house-music label Dance Mania and former owner of Barney’s Records & Variety. Do you know who your alderperson is? “It was Michael Scott but now it’s his sister.” What do you like about living and working in the 24th Ward? “I like the people; they’re genuine, to me. I like being able to bring the service to the community. People like [that] there’s a health-food store in the community, and we treat people like they should be treated. What do you dislike about living and working in the 24th Ward? “I wish we had more Black-owned businesses in the ward.” What do you wish your alderperson would do to improve the 24th Ward? “I do want more Black-owned businesses but I’m not that involved in politics so I don’t know what could be done. The only time we ventured into the political field was with state Rep. Lakesia Collins, with a back-to-school event we were involved in; we worked with her to help give out free lunches.” Are you going to vote in the 2023 municipal election? If not, what would motivate you to vote? “I definitely plan on voting.” Do you have an idea of who you’re going to vote for? I kind of have an idea about who I’m voting for mayor, but I don’t want to say who right now. Neighborhood you go to church in: North Lawndale, Kingdom Culture International Ministries Do you know who your alderperson is? “Yes; Ald. Monique Scott.” What do you think your alderperson has done for you and your ward? “Through my personal interactions with her, I see she’s done pretty well, especially since she’s only been here a few months. She’s been getting into the community; I’ve had a couple meetings with her. She’s been talking about bringing more businesses back.” Riot Fest: “You know about Riot Fest? I know some of the locals don’t like it because they feel it brings a lot of traffic. But I believe it’s good because it brings money and jobs.”  What do you like about living and working in the 24th Ward? “I could be biased because I grew up here. I went to Anton Dvorak [School of Excellence] on 16th and Central Park, and I grew up on 18th and Central Park. I like that there are different cultures coming to the ward that are gentrifying the neighborhood.” What do you dislike about living and working in the 24th Ward? “Again, this might be me being biased because I love this area so much, but this area needs to bring businesses back. I hated to see some of them go. I think we need to trend toward bringing more grocery stores and other businesses back.” Are you going to vote in the 2023 municipal election? “I have an idea who I’m going to vote for in the ward that I live in. I kind of have an idea who I’m going to vote for mayor, too.” Subscribe to The TRiiBE Weekly to receive top stories and movement calls-to-action delivered straight to your inbox. The TRiiBE is a media company that is reshaping the narrative of Black Chicago in pursuit of truth and liberation. Copyright © 2025 The TRiiBE. All Rights Reserved. X A preschool classroom at John T. Pirie Fine Arts and Academic Center in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood. Chatham is one of 28 neighborhoods where Chicago will expand universal pre-kindergarten next school year. (Cassie Walker Burke) and South Lawndale will see the biggest preschool investment next fall according to a new report that offers the best window so far into the city’s timeline for building a universal pre-kindergarten system Chicago will spend $24.4 million to open 135 new pre-kindergarten classrooms next year, part of outgoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to make pre-K free for four-year-olds across the city by 2021 The $175 million rollout will span four years with 28 South and West side neighborhoods offering the program next school year until every community in the city offers free pre-K options by 2021-22 Find the full pre-K “roadmap” report as well as a list of neighborhoods and schools getting new classrooms next year below The city’s universal pre-K program will largely be concentrated in neighborhood schools — a source of contention with community providers and small business owners who offer publicly funded preschool programs The city plans to offset the loss in business by helping community providers build out programs for younger children — babies and 3-year-olds — and has included $50 million in incentives to help spur their creation.  Even as universal pre-K gets up and running families still have other options through the schools depending on where they live and whether they have the means to pay tuition City officials have said they hope to simplify the process of applying to preschool A recent report from the inspector general for the Chicago Board of Education criticized oversight of the district’s tuition-based programs saying that Chicago missed out on nearly $2 million in payments because of fraud and mismanagement Chicago Public Schools has pledged reforms The district will also make an effort to “right size” the program by closing classrooms in neighborhoods where there is an oversupply including East and West Garfield Park and North Lawndale some schools will gain classrooms while others will lose them to adjust for population changes universal pre-K classrooms will extend to 35 neighborhoods the program will reach some of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods Here’s the list of 28 communities and schools where the city says it will add universal pre-K classrooms in the fall :   The district said it will also open several preschool classrooms in Belmont-Cragin and Irving Park but that low-income families will be considered first there until the universal pre-K rollout is fully implemented in those neighborhoods You can read the city’s full pre-K “roadmap” report below CHALKBEAT IS A CIVIC NEWS COMPANY NEWSROOM ©2025 2022A Chicago shooting in North Lawndale Tuesday night injured four people according to the Chicago Fire Department.CHICAGO (WLS) -- Chicago fire officials said four people were shot in North Lawndale Tuesday night the shooting happened at South Lawndale and Roosevelt CFD said a woman was shot in the neck and was taken to Mt Sinai Hospital in critical condition; a man was shot in the shoulder and taken to Mt Sinai Hospital in serious condition; another man was shot in the leg and took himself to Mt Sinai; and a woman was shot in the chest and took herself to Mt CFD did not have condition information for the two victims who self-transported to the hospital Chicago police have not yet commented on the shooting The circumstances of the shooting were not immediately known It is not known if anyone is currently in custody The disparate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on North and South Side neighborhoods has been well documented over the past year our COVID-19 tracker has been updated hourly with data from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office to visualize where in Chicago the virus has hit hard “In order to better understand the public health of our city and to properly advocate for just allocation of care and resources we must see clearly the way illness and mortality appear along geographic and racial lines of disparity and all solutions must be based on racial and economic justice.” The ripple effects of COVID stretch into every aspect of public health we looked at the secondary public health impacts of the pandemic on three neighborhoods shown to have a disproportionate number of COVID deaths per capita: Little Village These three stories look only at access to non-COVID health care and emphasize (again) that while the pandemic may have pulled back the veil on the longstanding structural inequalities that keep parts of Chicago under resourced it’s going to take more than short-lived city initiatives to right those wrongs This story was reported in partnership with the Metro Media Lab a project of the Medill School at Northwestern University she grew up playing on the swings in Limas Park and running around on the grass But her younger siblings don’t do the same “It’s no longer a park in our eyes,” she said “My little sisters and my little brothers have never swung on the swings the way that I did It’s definitely the closest community space around but it’s absolutely not a community space.” On the corner of Trumbull and 24th Street, the park is small, sandwiched between buildings and less than half an acre in size. Over the past year, the Chicago Police Department reported twelve incidents of crime on just that one block the majority of them involving battery and/or handgun charges Amador’s backyard has become the street’s makeshift park instead The neighborhood children come regularly to play behind Amador’s house in the temporary respite offered by the “Park of Trumbull.” With just one percent of the neighborhood constituting open space according to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning La Villita has the lowest amount of green space per capita in the city of Chicago this lack of access to green space became especially acute over the past year as parks became a critical resource for meeting safely with others getting out of the house and engaging in what little in-person interaction was possible during the pandemic La Villita was hit especially hard during the pandemic with some of the highest infection and death rates in the city Gang violence, high crime rates, air pollution, and tensions with police mean even the small amount of green space that exists in La Villita is not always safely usable. In the first five months of 2021, there were seventy-two shootings in Chicago’s 10th District which includes La Villita and North Lawndale up forty-seven percent from the same period last year Already strained relations with police came to a head in March when CPD officer Eric Stillman shot and killed thirteen-year-old Adam Toledo—seven blocks away from Limas Park have grown even more distrustful of police I always felt like they wouldn’t be vulnerable until they started looking like big men looking a little bit scarier,” Amador said “What happened with Adam made me realize it doesn’t really matter what age they are.” The report noted that Chicago’s white youth were the least likely to experience a decrease in time spent outside compared to youth of color Jadhira Sanchez, senior director of community health at Enlace Chicago said that while access to green space became more important than ever for mental health during the pandemic concerns about violence and safety outside have parents keeping their children and family members indoors “Our parents don’t want to let their kids out of their sight because they don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said “They don’t know when the next [shooting] is going to be or when there’s going to be a drive-by It feels like we’re incarcerating our youth like you’re in jail in your own home.” For Modesto Dagante, a small plot of land along Troy Street is a place of solace after work. On hot evenings in late May, he heads to the community garden Semillas de Justicia and waters his rows of tomatoes and cucumbers just beginning to push up through the dirt in neat rows each marked with a sign bearing the name of its gardener the 1.5-acre community garden — now home to fruits vegetables and flowers — was a bare plot of land that released a strong oil smell whenever it rained or got hot They soon discovered that oil barrels were being deposited just below the surface The Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) spearheaded a campaign to redevelop the brownfield site resulting in a much needed gathering area for the neighborhood LVEJO views the fight for environmental justice as encompassing a range of interconnected systemic issues many of their campaigns target the pollution and industry that puts residents at greater risk of disease from simply breathing the air Local residents played a key role in forcing the closure of the Crawford Generating Station in 2012 and in demanding accountability from the city after the coal plant was demolished last year coating the neighborhood in plumes of toxic dust in the midst of the pandemic LVEJO has forced city leaders to give them a seat at the table as planning decisions are made about the city’s future They relentlessly oppose proposals that would increase local air pollution and make being outside even riskier while also advocating for more green space LVEJO Executive Director Kim Wasserman emphasized that the importance of green space in La Villita goes beyond coping with the pandemic “We have a relationship with land as Mexicans and Mexican Americans,” Wasserman said “I think it’s important for folks to understand that you can’t keep people from these spaces They’re going to lose their minds if you keep them from touching the Earth.” The lack of green space was exacerbated as area parks shut down during the pandemic it’s the product of a fifteen-year fight by LVEJO to convert the once toxic industrial grounds into a place for residents to skate When La Villita Park closed at the beginning of the pandemic residents lost their biggest green space—and one of the only other than Piotrowski Park on 31st Street and pocket parks like Limas erred on the side of caution and decided to close Semillas de Justicia temporarily Ruiz said the decision was hard on the community “It impacted [people] a lot because this was like their escape to destress and come out here and have a spot other than just work and home,” Ruiz said What can we still do to see each other?’ The need was still there.” The scarcity of green space in the community—and the lack of coherent city-wide guidance on safe use of parks during the pandemic—meant it was essentially up to local groups like the La Villita Park Advisory Council and LVEJO to create COVID-19 guidelines for both the garden and La Villita Park The organization worked quickly to educate residents and facilitate a safe reopening “We recognized that so many people were going to the park because they needed to get out of their houses,” Wasserman said “Sheltering in place is hard in our community where there are six to eight people in people’s homes.” The lack of green space means La Villita residents also have limited access to organized outdoor activities and group sports These team-building opportunities are crucial to mental health and development New Life Centers of Chicagoland offers sports programming and mentorship for youth in Little Village and surrounding areas whose parents helped with outreach to the community through Little Village’s New Life Community Church helps run their newly created soccer program After years playing and traveling with a professional soccer club in the Costa Rican Second Division “The first week we had one kid show up for my soccer practice,” he said These kids in Little Village have so much potential Some of them are better than guys I played with at a professional level but there’s just no resources for them.” the sports program is more than just soccer practice foster hope and give youth with little access to outdoor recreation a place to grow “No one said it was going to be easy to stay home for months,” he said We want kids to know that we’re here for them and we’re interested in what they want and desire.” wants to see the youth thrive and wants to help however she can She is working as an administrative coordinator at New Life Centers’ Pan de Vida food pantry and says she celebrates the small victories but knows there’s more work to be done on both the ground and policy levels “Little differences we’re making are bringing generational changes and we see that with our young people rising up and being leaders in our community,” she said is her way of being part of the effort to improve living conditions for years to come Me and my child in the future should not be inhaling [industrial emissions] just being outside Courtney Kueppers and Yvonne Krumrey contributed to this story Ester Wells is a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism specializing in video and broadcast journalism She received her bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science at Northwestern in 2021 She is now working as a reporting fellow at Politico Marie Mendoza is a Chicago-based audio producer She’s a graduate of Northwestern University where she got her start in radio at WNUR 89.3 FM The 165-acre Little Village East TIF is a densely populated mix of residential Located within the South Lawndale community the district is intended to redevelop outdated and obsolete properties with new uses that conform to modern standards It's also designed to provide opportunities for property assembly and environmental remediation efforts that reinforce the area's business viability Funds are also intended to support improvements at area schools to assist with the development and expansion of job training and day care programs for area residents and workers and to reinforce buffer areas between residential and industrial land uses Developers presented their plans for three developments in the Ogden Avenue corridor in North Lawndale to the local community Sited within the Department of Planning and Development’s Invest South/West Ogden Avenue corridor the projects are planned for three separate sites.   Lawndale Redefined is a $31.4 million project by GRE Ventures the project consists of a five-story mixed-income residential building an arts and technology center that will be operated by City Colleges of Chicago the venture will produce 60 apartments as well as three for-sale townhomes that will be intended to be prototypes for future infill development The retail and commercial spaces are expected to host a dine-in restaurant at the corner of W An outdoor courtyard will offer space for the community with a splash pad The developers are working to secure financing through IDHA and finalize the funding package by the end of the year They are aiming to begin construction in Q1 2023 Originally a submission to the North Lawndale Invest South/West RFP the Ogden Hotel project is being led by Proxima Management After they were not selected for the RFP site the development team worked with DPD to select a new site in the area to build the planned hotel.  The original plan called for an eight-story building with approximately 200 hotel rooms with ground floor retail and restaurant space The project would incorporate 220 parking spots and feature a rooftop bar the project will be very similar to the RFP proposal the revised project will adjust to the new site which will end up in a massing that would be potentially mirrored The property is currently made up of four parcels The team is working to acquire the parcels as they move forward with the project Developed by East Lake Management and Grace at Jerusalem CDC Grace Manor is an affordable housing development at 3401 W the property is currently a parking lot for the local 10th District police station.  Planned to hold 65 affordable housing units and ground floor retail space the six-story building will deliver 46 apartments marketed at 60% AMI including 22 one-beds and 24 two-bed configurations The remaining 19 rentals will be fulfilled under the CHA RAD program offering 9 one-beds and 10 two-bedroom units Tenant amenities will include a fitness center 18 car parking spaces and a bike room will also be provided Approved by the Chicago Plan Commission in January 2022 the development team expects to wrap up final city approvals this spring and secure financing over the summer Construction is expected to begin this fall the alderman indicated that there are more projects coming down the pipeline for North Lawndale and the Invest South/West corridor Lawndale Christian Development Corporation is planning an all-affordable development while the North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council is reportedly in the efforts of getting a grocery store to open along the W Many residents of the North Lawndale community area don’t call it that. To them, it’s simply Lawndale, the neighborhood’s original name Blanche Killingsworth is a product of Lawndale. She came to the neighborhood from the South in 1962 and has lived there ever since. She currently serves as the chair of the North Lawndale Historical and Cultural Society “Cornelius Coffey North Lawndale.” Killingsworth chuckled we’ve got a little history going on that I intend to tell the world about the 87,000 white residents in Lawndale in 1950 dropped to less than 11,000 by 1960 while the Black population grew from 13,000 to more than 113,000 the city enacted a municipal ordinance called Fast Track to raze vacant buildings buildings in Lawndale “became magnets for the wrecking ball.” Fast Track was supposed to improve neighborhoods by demolishing compromised structures and reducing the spaces where sex work and drug use might take place but instead left communities like Lawndale with piles of rubble and hundreds of vacant lots 1,355 vacant lots, to be exact, according to the Chicago Data Portal While structural disinvestment played a significant role in the story of Lawndale so did social movements and community-led neighborhood transformation Lawndale was where Martin Luther King Jr. lived with his family in 1966 to draw attention to the desperate need for housing reform and an end to discriminatory housing practices in Chicago Lawndale was where the Contract Buyers League organized and fought against contract selling renegotiating hundreds of contracts for its members in the late 1960s and 1970s Lawndale was where Gerald and Lorean Earles started the Slum Busters to highlight the beauty of their neighborhood organizing volunteers to clean up vacant lots and till the soil next to train tracks Killingsworth hopes that Chicagoans who don’t live in Lawndale spend time getting to know her neighborhood and where it’s going—because we are moving.” It is in that spirit that the Weekly has included North Lawndale—more commonly associated with the West Side—in its annual Best of the South Side issue for the first time this year Neighborhood Captain Martha Bayne is the managing editor of the Weekly The imposing-if-eclectic structure at the corner of Douglas Boulevard and Millard Avenue has served as a sanctuary to all comers for almost a century. Stone Temple Missionary Baptist Church, designated a landmark in 2016 was established in 1926 as a synagogue by Romanian Jews fleeing persecution Lawndale’s Jewish community left for the suburbs the building was bought in 1954 by Georgia-born Reverend James Marcellus Stone and given over to the Baptist church as a haven for Black migrants from the South doing the same speaking from the pulpit under the glow of stained-glass Stars of David that endure today because the doors [to white churches] were closed because Mayor Daley said and was here frequently,” said Reshorna Fitzpatrick; she’s married to Stone’s grandson and as a couple they serve as the current pastors “We don’t want there to be a lack in our community We don’t want there to be a lack in the lives of people Wherever we can be our brother’s keeper that’s what we’re really here for.” The church is currently working with the Goodman Theater to facilitate a seven-week storytelling workshop for anyone in the community who wants to participate the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” Reshorna said Stone Temple is the distribution site for a free weekly outdoor soup giveaway called “Soup for the Soul she hopes to see storytelling on the garden stage and flowers blooming in a new lot across the street where the church is in the process of installing a cut flower farm and stand called “Love Blooms.” It’s another amenity North Lawndale lacks and another way Stone Temple is working to fill the gap Stone Temple Missionary Baptist Church, 3622 W. Douglas Blvd. (773) 762–0013 or (773) 762-0900. stonetemplechurch.org. Soup for the Soul happens Mondays from 4-6pm through March 31, 2021; for more or to support the project see gofundme.com/f/nlsoupforthesoul. Best Long-Running Arts Retreat and Community Group Looking for ways to be not only involved in your community The Chicago Urban Art Retreat Center (CUARC) puts North Lawndale residents first by offering them a platform to share their creativity volunteer-based organization that has been offering arts and cultural programming to residents of North Lawndale since 1991 it has created different ways to bring local artists and the community together by offering a safe retreat center where residents can participate in creative workshops CUARC has incorporated the North Lawndale community into their projects such as with the North Lawndale Heritage Quilt project where the theme was the Black heritage of North Lawndale This community art project consisted of hosting workshops in creating a quilt square with paper several other workshops were held at Sacred Heart Home a facility for adults with mental and physical health issues Residents there created portraits of Black Americans that were later included in the quilt where community members are invited to make any form of art CUARC also encourages participants to examine social justice issues and other issues of concern (The center has made it part of their mission to “be a voice for the voiceless animals that endure cruelty worldwide.”) CUARC supports North Lawndale youth through its Youth Solutions Program which encourages nonviolence and peace through art and discussion programs This program has hosted events such as peace walks where both children and adults are invited on a short walk promoting peace and happiness An exciting upcoming project CUARC is currently working on is their Tubman-Kahlo Resource Center Named in honor of Harriet Tubman and Frida Kahlo to be built on a currently vacant lot at 1957-59 South Kedzie Avenue a referral office that will offer social services to residents CUARC plans to have this resource center up and running by late 2021 or early 2022 The Real Chi: Free Spirit Media’s Community Newsroom) Chicago Urban Art Retreat Center, 1957 S. Spaulding Ave. (773) 542-9126. urbanartretreat.com Best Neighborhood Cultivators of Green Space North Lawndale residents have done tremendous work restoring vacant lots into gardens for more than twenty-five years Over fifty community gardens now dot the neighborhood all serving a shared purpose beyond beautification: fostering cultural connection Each community garden boasts unique features representing the history and pride of its predominantly Black community The North Lawndale Greening Committee (NLGC) crafted this focus with support and input from the community and city From the kinds of vegetable beds to the artwork bordering the space the Slum Busters Garden on the 1900 block of South Trumbull Avenue had been thriving since 1986 created by Gerald and Lorean Earles as part of a campaign to have neighborhood potholes and sidewalks repaired by the city Their efforts attracted helping hands from both inside and outside the community throughout the years the garden features flower and vegetable beds and hand-painted signs Slum Busters Garden was conferred a Daily Point of Light Award the garden was featured in the movie To Sir with Love inspired other neighborhood renovation and redevelopment projects including the formation of NLGC and the creation of a local farmer’s market a nonprofit urban land trust that works with community gardens throughout the city It now includes nine raised beds for food production They have become gathering spaces for storytelling NLGC also runs a paid summer youth program for teenagers to learn gardening skills to keep cultivating crops during the season For more information on community gardens and gardening in North Lawndale, visit the North Lawndale Greening Committee’s website at nlgreeningcommittee.org a former educator at Village Leadership Academy had no idea her 2017 fifth graders would create a path forward to dismantling a long legacy of white supremacy the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners made the historic decision to rename Douglas Park in honor of slavery abolitionist Frederick Douglass and his wife “No one anticipated the persistence and the follow-through that these young people were going to have in getting the job done,” Jones said the 173-acre park formerly known as “Douglas” has been beloved by the North Lawndale community as a place for kids to play and for families to gather But it became clear to the students that the park’s original name best known today for his pre-Civil War debates with Abraham Lincoln in which he refused to condemn slavery was hurtful to Black Chicagoans who call North Lawndale home Village Leadership Academy is a private K-8 school in the South Loop with a social justice focus “That’s what we wanted—for people to see the damage of white supremacy and our country’s racist past,” said Jennifer Pagán a former VLA educator who took the lead on the grassroots campaign in 2018 after Jones The students initially wanted to rename the park after Rekia Boyd a young Black woman killed near the park by off-duty Chicago Police Detective Dante Servin in 2012 but later decided to re-focus their campaign in honor of Anna and Frederick Douglass for their efforts in the abolition of slavery and expansion of freedoms for Black Americans the historic pair symbolize the passions and struggles of Black Americans in their plight to fight for a more equal future “To say that when you step foot on these grounds this is named after two people who fought for our liberation but there is a mental shift there when you know that history and you know what it means that sows the seeds which spread more knowledge,” Jones said These are the same conversations needed to start further empowering Black youth The renaming of the park is a step forward in that direction and comes at a time when the nation has slowly begun to wake up to its history and ties with white supremacists took it upon themselves to add extra “S”’s to the Park District signage.) discouragement and the lack of attention from people in power is no new story for the Black community and other people of color said Pagán: “This moment definitely was taken advantage of and the students should have been listened to years ago but I was glad that they were able to see the fullness of the campaign and able to seal the victory.”  In an impassioned speech celebrating the park’s renaming, Chyla Lockhart, one of the students recently honored with the Friends of the Park Parktivist Award included advice to young kids inspired to follow in the footsteps of their own work for social justice:“You are powerful Get the support of your peers and work together even if it’s hard.” (Danyella Wilder) Douglass Park, W. Roosevelt Rd. to W. 19th St. between S. Albany Ave. and S. California Ave. (773) 762-2842. chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facilities/park-no-218-previously-douglas-stephen-park Louise Harper, better known as “Momma Lue,” has been working at New Pine Valley Restaurant since 1962, when she was sixteen, after she moved to Chicago from Mississippi. At age seventy-seven, during her retirement party this September she could say it was the only employer she ever had She served meals to generations of Lawndale locals as well as global icons Momma Lue has been serving some Lawndale neighbors since their childhood and provided others with their first jobs she purchased the business from the original owners who were entering retirement—selling her house to be able to do so Momma Lue is retiring and passing the restaurant along to new owners It’s unlikely that longtime customers will notice any major changes to the restaurant which feels like stepping through a time machine The original jukebox from the 1960s still operates with the same songs and the cheeseburgers still cost only $1.35 One thing that’s changed is the cost of an egg sandwich—which has gone up from $2.25 in the 1960s to a ghastly three dollars in 2020 In a video produced by Free Spirit Media in 2019 Momma Lue said she’s kept her prices low “for the kids—for the North Lawndale kids They didn’t have enough money!” The neighborhood looked much different when New Pine Valley opened; the area changed demographically a great deal beginning in the 1950s as Black families like Momma Lue’s moved up from the South and Lawndale’s white residents fled in racist panic The 1968 riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr led to shuttered businesses and municipal disinvestment; more than fifty years later the neighborhood still has few restaurants or other small businesses King moved to Lawndale in 1966 to protest unfair housing practices and spread his civil rights movement north reminds residents of the storied history that North Lawndale still holds Art West Chicago is on a mission to promote arts and culture by and for the Black community Covering Austin and Garfield Park as well as Lawndale Art West created the popular Art West Gallery Tour as a showcase for local creatives and in October of 2020 they opened a gallery space of their own The goal is to offer West Siders resources that would’ve otherwise required leaving the neighborhood and to push back against the image of the West Side as a cultural desert “We’ve seen Art West addressing that by providing events or networking opportunities so that we can figure out how to build an ecosystem for the creatives that live here specifically but also the residents that live on the West Side too,” said Alexie Young Young, who also manages the MLK Exhibit Center at 1558 South Hamlin Avenue is a West Side artist herself; her paintings were featured at Art West’s opening gallery show The opening of the gallery has created new opportunities for Art West to become a creative anchor for the West Side and create a safe space for artists to connect with each other “Artists who are looking for a network of creatives that they can get connected with,” said Young And it’s not just about visual art: Art West supports all forms of creativity to help build each other’s brands,” said Young Art West is currently activating virtual programming on Instagram and Facebook and has already held online events such as a virtual freedom festival a seven-day live-streamed music event that included networking opportunities “We had some high-level production and were able to feature over twenty music artists every single day They performed live at some of the local spaces and all of those performances were streamed online,” said Young of the event Other events included virtual gallery tours of community-based artists, creative panels, and workshops such as one on how to make a DIY sugar scrub taught by the owner of Ivy Care a North Lawndale-based maker of skin care products Young said in all she does she’s guided by the question “How do we live Art West Gallery, 750 S. California Ave. artwestchicago.com Lawndale residents are often already disconnected from the rest of the city and even from what their own neighborhood has to offer The pandemic lockdown has isolated some even further Bike riding is one of the few group activities deemed low-risk for a pandemic and North Lawndale saw a lot of it this summer The Street Love Ride brought together hundreds of West Side cyclists of varying expertise allowing neighbors a chance to show their community pride as well as safely mingle with their neighbors at the end of a tense and socially distanced summer The pandemic shutdown also led to a surge in used bike buying and renting, so much so that at times this summer bikes were hard to come by in Chicago. But Marcus Thorne, executive director of operations for the Young Men’s Educational Network wanted to make sure his neighbors still had access to wheels This fall he started a “bike library,” where Lawndale residents can borrow bikes free of charge or have their existing bikes repaired based in a repurposed shipping container at 13th and Pulaski and bike repair tutorials from folks at Working Bikes and Equiticity Pulaski Rd.; to arrange to borrow bikes for a group or solo ride call (773) 522-9636 Sitting right next to the Central Park Pink line CTA station Farm on Ogden is fronted by a retail shop offering onsite and locally grown produce and fantastic to-go sandwiches and salads for lunch This Chicago Botanic Garden project is in partnership with Lawndale Christian Health Center The old bow-truss building that houses the farm is also a learning center with a flexible layout for classroom and meeting spaces usually held on Saturdays and for discounted rates for nearby residents but when they return will offer the chance to see the aquaponics farm where workers and volunteers raise fish and recycle the water to grow produce Part of the partnership with Lawndale Christian is a “Veggie RX” program in which patients receive a “prescription” for veggie packages and can participate in cooking classes as well part of an innovative initiative promoting healthy eating known as “food as medicine.”   The Farm on Ogden is also home to the offices of Windy City Harvest (WCH), which runs seventeen farms on eight acres throughout the city. For over a decade, WCH has offered workshops, classes, and certificate programs in urban agriculture, as well as workforce development, offering paid employment through a youth farm corps and an apprenticeship program through City Colleges of Chicago it’s still possible to get a glimpse of the aquarium action inside: hang out on the sidewalk and peer through the windows and you can watch the tilapia swimming in the tanks Farm on Ogden, 3555 S. Ogden Ave. Fresh Market open Thursday, noon–6pm; and Friday–Saturday, 11am-5pm. (847) 835-6807. chicagobotanic.org/urbanagriculture/farm_on_ogden but I was born and raised in Chicago on the west side on Douglass Blvd off 13th Place) and later transferred to Julia C Lathrop on Christiana before moving to the south side That ward bought so much joy to us kids at Halloween and Christmas time putting on special shows at Central Park Theatre with cartoons and prize drawings from small toys to wagon and bikes We all left with a net bag full of candies and fruit They even had fleets of Willet school buses take us to Riverview one summer and teachers that would not give up on us at Lathrop and Lawson I hope to give back what I’ve learned to the kids of Lawndale I bet some of them would get a kick out of launching a model rocket 🙂 is a neighborhood that comes with many a mythology from the first port of call for many immigrants from Mexico and Central America to the oft-mentioned economic powerhouse that is 26th Street with its blocks and blocks of quinceañera dress stores and botanicos We interviewed some Chicagoans who call Little Village home about what makes the neighborhood tick and it’s been my community of choice over that length of time people go to and from work twenty-four hours a day which means that we have a strong social network where people look out for each other There’s a lot of interaction on the street continuously I’m proud of the community’s history fighting for its schools We had a really bad overcrowding problem during the eighties and nineties that was addressed with the construction of five new schools in Little Village The fight for the high school that culminated in a hunger strike is a test of the community’s resolve to improve educational outcomes The neighborhood continues to be the microcosm of Chicago’s Latino immigrant community The neighborhood certainly has many challenges but knowing there are hard-working people with lots of integrity has made my time there well worth the experience we moved to 23rd and Marshall Boulevard in Little Village What I remember was that the boulevards were kind of a dust bowl When you drive down now they are very beautiful but at that point the city wasn’t doing much to maintain those green spaces and little by little people began to take better care of the green space…My parents are still there on the boulevard I remember spending a lot of time playing with my cousins in the street having a block party on our block every summer At that time there was this different generation of young people that weren’t listening to the same music as others more of the alternative kids…Now I work in Little Village My friends used to just skate in the plaza wherever they could Young people are feeling it’s okay to grow up the way you want to grow up I describe Little Village as sort of a throwback neighborhood where you can walk to your corner store and buy a gallon of milk and the neighbors know each other You’ve got a big commercial strip—you can get pretty much anything on 26th Street There are some issues that weigh on people “You guys in Little Village are really all about your hood,” and I say we kind of are.” I understand some people from my generation being like “I want to raise my kid somewhere safer.” But we grew up here The white columns and delicate filigree decorations of Maria Saucedo Scholastic Academy stretch across an entire city block in the dense immigrant neighborhood even more so when the elementary school’s more than 1300 students spill out of its doors to cover Marshall Boulevard’s expanse of lawn with their pounding feet and dragging school bags But what you won’t be able to tell from the building’s exterior is the school’s recent history spearheading the movement against standardized testing on the Southwest Side when Chicago Public Schools announced that as part of its move towards the Common Core educational standards mandated by the Department of Education CPS would be phasing out a test called the Illinois Standard Achievement Test (ISAT) and none of the scores would be used in evaluations that year What CPS came up against was a wave of city-wide opposition with its home in a few key groups and schools The call for a boycott of the test was led by More Than a Score a community organizing group that encouraged parents to opt their children out of taking the test And with an opposition to over-testing a long-standing position of the Chicago Teachers Union teachers at a few schools jumped in as well was one of the more vocal voices in the boycott “Over the years the amount of testing has increased tenfold The average elementary school student takes eighteen or nineteen tests a year,” said Chambers who was one of the original members of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators in the CTU meant that her students were particularly susceptible to the ills caused by testing Lower school scores could mean fewer resources at a school already ailing from its low tax base “Tests are being used to rank and sort our schools and teachers,” Chambers said Not to mention that they up valuable teaching time CPS announced they would only be testing a small proportion of students on the PARCC another test being phased out because of changing national education standards Chambers sees it as a win—“we’ve started seeing movement.” She also notes that the Little Village neighborhood isn’t a stranger to social justice movements around education—a group of parents held a nineteen-day hunger strike in 2001 to push for the opening of a high school to relieve their children from overcrowding in the neighborhood schools the Little Village Social Justice High School sits on the other side of the neighborhood “Little Village is a very strong Latino neighborhood,” said Chambers “and a lot of parents really speak up for the needs of the black and brown children in the community.” Best Storefront Taqueria in Little Village What can be said about La Chaparrita that hasn’t already been said by Serious Eats La Chaparrita is simply one of the best taco places in Chicago but even better is their taco tripa suave—soft and chewy If you haven’t had La Chaparrita’s tripe tacos which fills what is probably my second favorite taco Their cecina is exactly what you want: beefy They also have pot-roast tacos that glisten with fat I recently saw sweet meats at the now-shuttered Nightwood for $15—La Chaparrita has them in taco form for $2.50 but at the western border of Cook County Jail the fifty cars parked on Sacramento had their windows down The same Vocalo broadcast flowed from every radio fading in and out as you walked past: a two-hour set that cut B.B King’s 1970 jailhouse performance with modern interviews a handful white—mirrored the jail’s demographic makeup “PARK” was an art installation from 96 Acres a series of artistic interventions around the jail that SAIC professor Maria Gaspar started in 2012; the “PARK” intervention was conceived by artist Landon Brown and an animated short projected on the walls of the jail building “It’s a jail that houses 100,000 people in a year Heading west on 26th Street under the arch it’s easy to get distracted by the razzle-dazzle lights beaming off the furniture stores and podiatrist signs which sits just one block west of the neighborhood’s quintessential public symbol You may think you’ve been to La MichoaKana but chances are you’ve actually been to La Michoacana one of the more than eight thousand chain stores that span across the border and are loosely overseen by one family but you’ll find all the paleteria staples here: paletas of strawberries and cream Work up an appetite by looking at the eclectic combinations of food (Oreo with a cherry on top anyone?) rendered in giant stickers all along the walls Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon The best of Chicago straight to your inbox We help you navigate a myriad of possibilities Sign up for our newsletter for the best of the city By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of 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Chicago Located in the back of Moreno’s Liquors—which has sold hard-to-find tequila and mezcal in Little Village for more than 40 years—this lofty speakeasy leans into its locale with a robust selection of agave-focused cocktails spiked with ingredients like ancho chile and jamaica plus an impressive draft beer list to boot Slide into high-backed booths in the bar’s historic interior or grab seats at the patio and soak up the sunshine.  Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon! twitterinstagrampinterestspotifyAbout us Contact us Time Out magazine CHICAGO – Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois (BCBSIL) has signed a lease to open a Blue Door Neighborhood CenterSM (BDNC) in South Lawndale’s Little Village community on Chicago’s West Side The aim of the center is to help improve the health and wellness of residents as well as support the overall development of opportunities for those living outside of downtown Chicago  The center will become BCBSIL’s third Blue Door Neighborhood Center The first center opened in April 2019 in Pullman and a second center is expected to open this summer in Morgan Park “We’re expanding our reach on a hyperlocal level to meet people where they are,” said Steve Hamman president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois we’re working to address issues that directly impact the health and wellness of all residents – not just our members We’re looking to improve public health in a way that reflects our longstanding commitment to our local communities.” Rendering of the Blue Door Neighborhood Center expected to open this fall at 2551 W The first Blue Door Neighborhood Center, in Pullman will celebrate its first anniversary on April 27 the center has had nearly 3,500 unique visitors – many of them drawn in by the programming such as Zumba  “The reception from the community has been phenomenal,” said Laron Taylor director of the Blue Door Neighborhood Center “Our model is to learn and adapt and we use the feedback from our visitors to introduce programs and services that are most impactful for the people we serve to customize our offerings to meet the needs of the community.” BCBSIL’s West Side center will be about 9,000 square feet at 2551 W By Philip Langdon Now comes A.K. Sandoval-Strausz to chronicle a migration four times as large: the movement, between roughly 1960 and 2010, of 25 million people from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean to large swaths of the United States. In Barrio America (Basic Books), Sandoval-Strausz, director of Latina/o Studies at Pennsylvania State University offers a deeply researched account of the impact Latinos have had on American cities.  people of Spanish or Latin American origin were a tiny portion of the U.S populace: only 4 million of the 151 million people counted by the 1950 census bore Spanish surnames Ocasio-Cortez—newly or recently prominent in the nation’s public life Latinos have grown to 55 million from fewer than 6 million in the 1960s People of Latin American background make up more than a quarter of the population in 12 of America’s 25 largest cities goes a long way toward explaining why many U.S cities are better off than they were 40 or 50 years ago.  analysts have given too much of the credit for urban revival to the “creative class” and “the lifestyle preferences of high-earning professionals.” Overlooked has been “the indispensable role played by Latina and Latino migrants and immigrants who had started to repopulate and revive declining neighborhoods at least two decades before the ‘back-to-the-city’ movement became a significant trend among prosperous and mostly white Anglo professionals.”  far outnumbered the educated professionals trekking to cities: “Moreover the big-city lives of urban professionals would have been impossible without the kinds of work performed by Latinos and Latinas in key sectors of the urban economy from home construction and building maintenance to restaurant food preparation and child care.” Sandoval-Strausz’s book is subtitled How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City Whether he’s right about Latinos being the chief source of urban rejuvenation is something I’ll get to later let’s look at how the Latin migration came about: As late as the 1940s two-thirds of the people in Latin America lived in small towns and villages Theirs was a rudimentary existence that became even more precarious when elites in countries such as Mexico unleashed policies aimed at modernizing the economy.  successive Mexican governments spent decades using the power of the state to foster industrial growth,” writes Sandoval-Strausz Investment was steered toward the building of factories To keep food prices low for the growing ranks of industrial workers the government imposed price controls on basic agricultural products.  attuned more to machinery than to human labor Small farmers found it hard to support themselves Sandoval-Strausz writes: “The countryside was impoverished and increasingly abandoned as millions of Mexican peasants reacted in the only reasonable way: by seeking work in the growing cities.”  setbacks to the modernization campaign reverberated through the economy nearly a third of Mexicans were suffering malnutrition; the death rate among children climbed to more than 350,000 a year it’s no wonder millions of Mexicans moved north there also were spurts of migration to the U.S The cities on the receiving end of the exodus were White families were relocating to the suburbs a move that undercut the cities’ vitality but opened up a stock of houses and apartments that working-class Latinos could squeeze into This is the point at which Barrio America becomes fascinating how the Mexican influx reenergized two big-city neighborhoods that were teetering on the edge of decline.  One of those was South Lawndale, a predominantly Czech area on the Southwest Side of Chicago. The other was Oakcliff The crux of Sandoval-Strausz’s thesis: “[T]he millions of Mexicans and other Latin Americans who migrated to the United States showed up when the nation’s cities needed them most.”  a 4.4-square-mile area five miles out from the Loop had reached its peak—84,000 inhabitants—in 1920 and then dwindled for four straight decades: down 9% in the 1920s and Hungarians moved from South Lawndale’s bungalows three-flat buildings to Chicago’s western suburbs.  The first Mexican-Americans arrived in South Lawndale in the late 1950s driven there mainly by displacement as Chicago authorities knocked down part of the Near West Side to build a University of Illinois campus they got the cold shoulder from the white ethnics “Families would call police if we played at the kiddie park,” one woman recalled many white Americans had trouble categorizing Latinos they’d had trouble categorizing dark-complected Italian immigrants But if they were seen as just another ethnic group many ethnic whites viewed migrants from Mexico as the latest addition to America’s array of nationalities.  The big fear in South Lawndale in the 1950s and 1960s was not Mexican Americans but African Americans who until the midcentury had largely been confined to the overcrowded South Side South Lawndale residents were apprehensive about the changes taking place in neighboring North Lawndale Once home to a quarter of Chicago’s Jewish population North Lawndale rapidly turned over when barriers to black movement in the city began to fall North Lawndale entered the 1950s 87% white and ended the decade 91% African American.  Unscrupulous real estate agents accelerated the white exodus through scare tactics and often charged incoming blacks premium prices for North Lawndale’s decades-old houses Redlining prevented most African Americans from obtaining standard mortgages; they had to settle for weak contracts allowing the lender to take back the property if the owner missed a payment In pursuit of a secure (nonblack) future, leaders in South Lawndale decided to welcome, rather than to resist, Mexican Americans. Richard Dolejs a local real estate broker who was third-generation Czech American he and other South Lawndale notables campaigned to give South Lawndale a new name: Little Village which was meant to suggest a quaint European hamlet The aim of the new moniker was to separate South Lawndale from North Lawndale in the public’s mind “This is to assure the white community that we aren’t part of the black community,” a local woman explained Dolejs helped newcomers of Mexican lineage organize a parade down West 26th Street celebrating Mexican Independence Day He supplied a Cadillac convertible festooned with Mexican and U.S drew a new group of customers to the neighborhood’s main commercial thoroughfare Dolejs hired bilingual agents at his real estate firm and lobbied the Czech American managers of the neighborhood’s savings and loan associations to grant mortgages to Mexican Americans thus acquired a long-term financial stake in the place where they lived the flow of newcomers consisted mainly of people born in Mexico Little Village’s population swelled to 75,000 and by 2000 it reached 91,000 and was overwhelmingly Latino Incomes lagged far below those of the metropolitan area, but because Little Village had so many residents, and because they were doing much of their shopping close by, corner stores inherited from the Bohemians remained viable. Vacant storefronts on West 26th Street boasted new businesses A 2-mile stretch of that street became the city’s second-highest-grossing retail corridor surpassed only by the posh North Michigan Avenue are known for offering “such a variety of goods and services—from basic food shopping to restaurants and bars from housewares and gifts to clothing and footwear from basic personal services like hairstyling to professional providers like lawyers and physicians—that [people] could attend to virtually all their needs within the community.” By the turn of the 21st century and many of them traveled to 26th Street to buy cowboy boots quinceañera dresses—fancy outfits for girls’ 15th-birthday parties—and other merchandise Sociologist Eric Klinenberg, in his 2002 book Heat Wave and low crime rate with helping residents stay in touch with one another and know where to turn in an emergency Klinenberg noted that when a 1995 heat wave killed hundreds of elderly Chicagoans (most of them isolated in their sweltering apartments) Social ties kept the elderly out of danger When I studied Little Village for my 2017 book, Within Walking Distance one thing that perplexed me was the plethora of tall black fences defending the front yards yet there were fences of imitation wrought iron nearly everywhere Sandoval-Strausz explains that protected but visible front yards are common in Mexican American neighborhoods He maintains that this configuration “fosters strong social ties.”  “People spent time in front of their homes creating social scenes along sidewalks and streets,” he observes “Children played safely in the enclosed area of the front yard where they were supervised by parents and grandparents The adults could chat with friends and neighbors creating an expectation of conviviality on the block as people strolled down the street.… This social atmosphere in turn kept the public spaces of the neighborhood consistently occupied.” The protected front yard is sometimes called “la yarda.”  In Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect “Cities of concentrated immigration are some of the safest places around.” In Little Village one exception to that generalization is street gangs a subject that Sandoval-Strausz doesn’t address who claim the eastern half of Little Village as their turf and the Two Six Nation (named for 26th Street) bullets from their guns sometimes ending the lives of bystanders.  The danger comes from a number of their sons or grandsons who are recruited into gangs at an early age churches and nonprofit groups have launched athletic programs At a playground outside Ortiz de Dominguez Elementary School, I talked with Rob Casteñada a civic-minded man who started a program that enticed families to build kites and join in other activities aimed at bringing healthy activity to land where they’d been preyed on by gang members Casteñada now heads a nonprofit organization called Beyond the Ball which uses sports to teach boys about personal and community responsibility and help them resist gang life The corner of South Lawndale Avenue and 31st Street has been reclaimed for normal community life “How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City,” may be misinterpreted Latinos certainly contributed to urban vitality who were bringing distressed places back from the brink Since the passage of the Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 Immigrants from Asia are a chief reason for New York City’s spectacular turnaround over the last 40 years. In her 2017 book, The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back Hymowitz tells about development of a 150,000-population Chinatown in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn are “the largest and fastest-growing of the borough’s proliferating non-European immigrant groups.” As of 2016 Census identified 5.1 million Chinese Americans as living in the U.S more people of Mexican ancestry were heading south Whatever the exact mix of reasons—the Great Recession or a desire by immigrants to reunite their families in the old country—“the era of large-scale Mexican migration had basically run its course,” Sandoval-Strausz acknowledges.  the biggest source of new immigrants was India The number of people of Indian origin in the U.S rose from 12,000 in 1960 to 2.4 million by 2015 according to the Migration Policy Institute Sandoval-Strausz recognizes that Asian Americans have been “exceptionally important to local economies and cultures.” He just doesn’t say much about them If I were tracing the urban resurgence in the U.S. I’d emphasize more factors than Sandoval-Strausz does One logical starting point is the emergence of a forceful historic preservation movement in the 1960s and 1970s Distressed by the orgy of destruction during the urban renewal era preservationists set about persuading Americans that well-crafted old buildings and pedestrian-scale neighborhoods ought to be saved In the early 1960s, Everett Ortner and others rediscovered the Victorian brownstones of Park Slope Brooklyn; started meticulously restoring them; and launched the Brownstone Revival Committee a grassroots group that fueled interest in neighborhood rehabilitation and improvement in many cities Mounting enthusiasm for old architecture and traditional city-building laid the foundation for the New Urbanism movement in the 1980s and 1990s.  Sandoval-Strausz thinks the lionization of the creative class has caused people to skip over the contributions of Latinos But there’s a simpler explanation for why Hispanics received so little credit for urban revival: Most Latinos settled in working-class neighborhoods that had always been off the elite radar; these plainer neighborhoods were less endowed with amenities such as Olmsted parks and designated-historic architecture What they possessed were houses and apartments that immigrants on tight budgets could afford.  and the disappearance of tens of thousands of industrial jobs since the 1950 has put a crimp on residents’ earning power Yet Latinos have made the neighborhood better than they found it.  At other sites, community gardens were created by LVEJO and the forceful community organization Enlace Chicago they educated residents about health and nutrition and they gave women a place to obtain free low-key assistance with domestic or psychological problems while tending to tasks in the garden “We try to respond to mental health needs through informal social gathering spaces because it’s really taboo to see a therapist,” explained Enlace community organizer Simone Alexander considering how many residents depended on transit to reach jobs at downtown hotels and restaurants including the prominent political leader Jesus “Chuy” Garcia opposed discontinuation of Chicago Transit Authority rail service along the neighborhood’s northern edge Neighborhood insistence on rail transit culminated in the establishment of the Pink Line which connected Little Village to downtown and other points “Now you can get to the lake in 30 minutes instead of two hours,” said LVEJO leader Kim Wasserman “When I graduated from eighth grade in 1979 my math class was in a hallway,” Alderman Muñoz told me it was still in a hallway,” said the alderman who represented Little Village from 1993 to 2019 but when a critically needed high school was repeatedly delayed the Little Village penchant for protest and organizing kicked in again Fifteen Mexican and Mexican-American mothers and grandmothers pitched tents on the empty school site and began a hunger strike remaining there—they called the encampment “Camp Cesar Chavez”—until officials responded The result was construction of a 1,600-person school made up of four autonomous academies each small enough to create strong bonds between teachers and students.  Two coal-burning power plants—one in Little Village the other in nearby Pilsen—aggravated problems such as asthma so LVEJO and other groups insisted they be shut down Protesters wore gas masks during Day of the Dead marches and carried out other demonstrations ending Chicago’s dubious distinction as the only major U.S city having two coal-fired plants operating within its borders.  Mexican-Americans have made Little Village a better place than it was before their arrival All of which supports Sandoval-Strausz’s point that “a group of people who earned modest incomes and were socially marginalized and sometimes undocumented managed to redeem so much of metropolitan America.”  Little Village’s population has declined from 91,000 to under 75,000 Though many cities are more vital now than they were a few decades ago no city is secured forever against the forces of decay shuts the door on immigration or keeps it open Philip Langdon was senior editor at New Urban News/Better Cities & Towns for ten years His most recent book is Within Walking Distance (Island Press) Get smart and engaging news and commentary from architecture and design’s leading minds a Not-For-Profit website dedicated to reconnecting architecture and design to the public.