MAXWELL STREET’S BLUES
CHICAGO DISTRICT THAT SAW THE BIRTH OF ELECTRIC BLUES IS ONCE AGAIN EXCLUDED FROM THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES; DESTRUCTION OF AREA BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO CONTINUES APACE
By Michael Dixon <msdixon@adelphia.net>
Last year, the Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition won the Blues Foundation’s "Keeping the Blues Alive" Award for Achievement in Historical Preservation, but the only prize that mattered – getting Maxwell Street listed in The National Park Service’s Register of Historic Places – eluded them. Despite the best efforts of the Coalition and an outpouring of worldwide support from the blues community, the Keeper of the National Register, Carol Shull, decided against the listing of Maxwell Street. In her letter to Illinois State Historic Preservation Officer, William Wheeler, dated August 25, 2000, Shull readily conceded the historical significance of the nominated area, but declined to add it to the Register because the "… proposed district has suffered so much change since its period of historic significance that it does not meet National Register Criteria …" Shull made reference to her earlier opinion, rendered in 1994 when the Maxwell Street area was first unsuccessfully nominated for inclusion in the National Register, stating that the area "… lacked the historic integrity required for listing through a combination of demolition, neglect, and alteration." But like beauty, the preservationist concept of "integrity" is subjective and lies in the eye of the beholder. In this instance, a review of the record raises some serious questions about the integrity of the preservation process itself, as well as concerns about the tactics of city government and other key players in this drama, such as the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and the Illinois State Preservation Agency.
In his 1977 book, "Maxwell Street: Survival in a Bazaar,’ Ira Berkow presents the history of Maxwell Street, primarily through the stories and reminiscences of the area’s inhabitants. For anyone interested in Maxwell Street, the out-of-print book is worth seeking out through interlibrary loan. The book captures the microcosm of the street, its open-air market, and the surrounding ghetto, and documents the changes the area went through, and wrought, as it hosted successive waves of immigrants seeking to improve their lives. An initial influx of two million Eastern European Jewish expatriates, fleeing persecution, settled in Chicago between 1880 and 1924. A second wave, during the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s, were people of African-American descent, who migrated from the Deep South, bringing with them Delta and country blues. On Maxwell Street, and in clubs on the South and West side, this music would pick up the electrical clangor of the city and be transformed into Chicago blues.
"And This is Free," a 1964 documentary by Mike Shea also gives a compelling picture of the Maxwell Street Market and the musicians who played there. Performances recorded during the filming showed up on two recent CD releases, "Live From Maxwell Street 1964" by Robert Nighthawk (Bullseye Blues, 2000), and the V.A. compilation "And This Is Maxwell Street" (RoosterBlues, 2000). Both albums give a feel for the vitality of the music that could be heard at the Market.
The Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition officially incorporated in 1997, but its roots go back several years before that. In 1989, UIC released a Master Plan for its South Campus expansion, which showed that the Maxwell Street market area was targeted for destruction. Lori Grove, a scientific illustrator at the Field Museum of Natural History, who serves as member of the Coalition’s Board of Directors, lived near the neighborhood in 1990. She recalls: "I observed the slow clearance of buildings. That was before there was public talk of moving the market, and the market was still going strong along Maxwell Street and the streets around it. Seeing the buildings being demolished raised my concern, because they bordered a very historic activity and the buildings are what created the streetscape that defined the whole market area."
Others interested in the cultural, economic, or architectural significance of the area began to take notice as well, including Eliot Zashin, the Director of a nearby Hillel. Spurred by their concerns about the fate of Maxwell Street, Grove and Zashin organized a colloquium, held in 1993 on the UIC campus, aimed not only at raising public consciousness, but also at influencing UIC to consider the historic importance of the area in their development plans. While the former goal was realized, the university was unmoved. So, Grove and Zashin decided to pursue having the area listed in the National Register as a way of protecting it.
The National Register of Historic Places is maintained by the National Park Service. Typically, when a site is nominated for listing, there is a State review, after which the nomination is forwarded to the federal level for a final decision by the Keeper of the National Register. In Illinois, the state agency responsible for reviewing and forwarding nominations is the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. The Agency’s State Historic Preservation Officer or SHPO (rhymes with "hippo) is aided in his task of evaluating sites by the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council, an appointed volunteer citizen board comprised of historians, architectural historians, archaeologists and others with expertise and interest in preservation.
The 1994 nomination focused on the importance of the Maxwell Street area as an entry point for immigrants to the Chicago melting pot, and as the site of the free public market and bazaar that gave many new immigrants an economic foothold in our country. The Maxwell Street blues connection was noted, but was not a major focus of the nomination.
There were some hopeful signs that the nomination might be accepted. First, the nomination was reviewed by a staff member of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, Ann V. Swallow. She prepared a preliminary opinion memorandum, sent to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Deputy Commissioner of the City’s Landmarks Division, which stated that the area met the criteria for listing in the Register. The memorandum read in part, "The district constitutes the only contiguous grouping of buildings remaining from the historic commercial and residential neighborhood contiguous to, and associated with the important Maxwell Street Market. It retains sufficient integrity of location, setting, feeling, association, and materials from the period of significance (emphasis added)." – (memo dated March 9, 1994 from Ann V. Swallow, Survey and National Register Coordinator, Illinois Historic Preservation Agency). Further, after reviewing the nomination, the Sites Advisory Committee voted unanimously in favor of the proposed listing.
But it seemed that UIC and their allies in City Government knew that listing would jeopardize the UIC development plans, and acted accordingly. In April of 1994, the Chicago City Council approved a UIC application to amend the Zoning Ordinance to allow the development to proceed. The zoning change was the effective abolishment of the Maxwell Street Market, since the area was no longer zoned for that type of activity. In early September, the public market, now ironically dubbed "The New Maxwell Street Market," was moved to another area of the city. This was a blow to the pro-Maxwell Street forces. In the words of Lori Grove, "That really hurt the nomination because the market activity was part of the historical fabric which supported the nomination."
The SHPO, a man named William Wheeler, did his part to doom the listing effort. He received the unanimous nomination from his Sites Advisory Committee in early June of 1994, but took no action on it. Grove and Zashin made appeals for action on the nomination, first to him, and then to the Keeper of the National Register, who as of October of 1994 was the recently-appointed Carol Shull. Finally, over five months after he had received the nomination and under pressure from the Keeper, Wheeler forwarded the nomination papers to the National Register office with an "ought not to be listed" recommendation. In a letter dated November 16, 1994, Wheeler directly contradicted his own staff preliminary opinion, cited above, and wrote: "It is my opinion that this proposed historic district not be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. My recommendation is based on the lack of integrity possessed by this area, especially integrity of setting, design, and materials (emphasis added)." Later in his letter, he talked about, "…unusual public support for listing this property…," apparently referring to a high level of public comment in favor of the listing. However, he basically dismissed this support, opining that, "I believe that the support has been driven by a desire to save that market itself, which was moved by the City of Chicago in early September." The city’s deft maneuvering in moving the market had worked, giving Wheeler the ammunition he needed to dismiss the nomination, and public support for it, as a misguided effort to influence public policy.
Another outrageous twist was added shortly thereafter, when it became apparent that Wheeler’s agency had been collaborating with UIC all along. At its November 18, 1994 meeting, the UIC Board of Directors was asked to approve a memorandum of understanding between the University and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. A document pertaining to that agreement states in part: "The University of Illinois has been negotiating with the Illinois Historical (sic) Preservation Agency, an agency of the State of Illinois, in an effort to reach an agreement which will allow the University to continue with its expansion plans south of Roosevelt Road consistent with the University’s Master Plan. After lengthy negotiations with the Illinois Historical (sic) Preservation Agency, an agreement has been reached providing that if the University takes certain actions, the state will recommend against creation of an historic district to the Keeper of the National Register." Of course, it was moot at this point, since SHPO Wheeler had already written his letter of non-recommendation, and Shull would rubber-stamp his opinion before the end of the year.
And what was it that UIC had to give in order to get the support of Wheeler’s agency? Not much! UIC agreed to file an application to have a single building on Maxwell Street listed in the National Register; and if, and only if, the funds were available, create a 400 square foot memorial in that building to the Maxwell Street Market area. The building was eventually listed, but to date it houses no memorial. UIC also agreed to document all the remaining buildings in the proposed historic district, after which they were free to "…proceed with the demolition of any buildings it owns or may subsequently acquire." They have lived up to their promise to demolish more buildings.
Later, it came to light that the Preservation Agency’s Board of Trustees included members whose spouses had contracts with UIC to assist in developing the area. In a letter dated May 1, 2000 to their fellow trustees, two of these trustees came up with the rather laughable argument that this could not be construed as a conflict of interest because trustees are not "… authorized to deal with National Register issues." Apparently, no one had explained to them that the Statutes establishing the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (ILCS 3405 and 3410) state that the Director of Historic Preservation and, by extension, the SHPO serve at the pleasure of the Board of Trustees, giving them the power of dismissal.
When the 1994 decision came down, there were 78 historic buildings in the proposed district. Over the next few years, UIC demolished ten additional historic buildings. Meanwhile, the preservation forces continued their efforts to save the area. Coalition President Chuck Cowdery, a writer of business copy, and author of the book, "Blues Legends," brought his love and knowledge of blues to the Coalition. Vice-President Steve Balkin, a Roosevelt University Professor of Economics with an interest in the type of entry-level entrepreneurship practiced in the Maxwell Street Market, shared this love of the blues. Both Balkin and Cowdery developed websites, which helped publicize the destruction of the historic area, and generated support from outside the Chicago area, particularly with regard to the important Maxwell Street blues connection.
Parallels between Maxwell Street and Memphis’s Beale Street seem relevant. A section of Beale Street was one of the very first sites listed in the National Register. The National Register provides the following brief online description of the Beale Street site: "This district (2 blocks from 2nd to 4th St.) is recognized for its importance in the development and influence of the "blues," a unique Black contribution to American music. This popular musical style was born on a Beale Street lined with saloons, gambling halls, and theaters. William Christopher Handy (1878-1958), a preeminent figure in the establishment of composed blues, wrote ‘Memphis Blues’."
Judith Johnson, who runs Memphis Heritage, a private non-profit preservation agency, has been a linchpin in the efforts to preserve what is left of Beale Street. Johnson helped stave off a late ‘80s effort by developers to de-list Beale Street from the National Register. She continues to review proposed alteration and development in the area, under a contract with the City of Memphis.
Johnson toured the Maxwell Street area several years ago. She recently offered this take on the situation: "The problem for Maxwell Street is that it was prevented from being listed back when it still had quite a bit of integrity. When I was up there in 1995, and I first met Steve (Balkin), it was still in pretty good shape and deserved to be listed in the National Register. Since that time, they (referring to UIC) have vacated more of the shops and knocked down more of the buildings. It gets harder to make a case when you don’t have an intact building stock."
Buoyed by the positive response they received from both within and outside the community, the Coalition decided to make another run last year at listing the Maxwell Street area, this time with increased emphasis on the area’s importance to the development of electric blues. UIC played real hardball this time out. They accelerated the rate of demolition, and to Coalition members it seemed that they targeted buildings with the most historic significance. Over the course of several months, nine more buildings were torn down, including three on one black Friday afternoon last August.
Earlier in the week, the Coalition had succeeded in getting a Federal Judge to issue a Temporary Restraining Order on any additional demolition in the area because of concerns that Federal funds were being used in the destruction of historic properties, specifically prohibited under the National Preservation Act. The hope was that the order would stay in effect until after the Keeper had made a decision on the current nomination. The judge apparently decided that the use of federal funds had not been proven, and lifted the Order. Within a few hours, three more buildings were gone.
In any case, UIC had no real worries. In the interim between the two nominations, it had demolished 25% of the historic buildings in the proposed district. Undoubtedly, this assured SHPO Wheeler that the site did indeed lack the necessary integrity to warrant listing, though he again had to ignore a unanimous recommendation to list from his Sites Advisory Committee.
The loss was another bitter pill to swallow. As Grove put it: "When we failed at getting Maxwell Street listed in the National Register, it hit us all so very hard. We had hoped that it was going to be different this time because of the blues component. A lot of blues people came forward to speak about the history and the national significance of the area."
Cowdery reflected: "I don’t think the institutionalization of historic preservation has served historic preservation very well. Historic Preservation Agencies as arms of state and other governmental entities really operate more in the interests of the anti-preservation forces. Their mandate and mission is not pure preservation; it’s accommodation. Their paychecks are signed by the governor, who is getting big campaign contributions from the developers. They are serving multiple masters."
The spirit of Maxwell Street lives on, but it is maddening that the destruction of the area continues. The efforts to preserve Maxwell Street have netted some concessions from UIC, in that they seem to be now saying they will not demolish several historic buildings on one side of Halsted Street, near its intersection with Maxwell Street. They also have a plan to disassemble and re-erect a dozen or so building façades, but that part is small consolation. As Cowdery puts it: "If you start accepting façade-ism as preservation, all you’re ever going to get is façade-ism. This plan is flawed even for a façade plan because it takes most of the façades out of their original context. Only a couple will be re-erected at their original location. All the others are being taken from other parts of the area and put into places where they weren’t before."
Still, as limited and unsatisfying as these concessions are, it is clear that even less of the area would remain were it not for the efforts of the Coalition and its supporters. The ongoing involvement of the blues community to save what’s left of the area remains vitally important. More information about this is available at the two Coalition websites: http://www.maxwellstreet.org and www.openair.org/maxwell/preserve.
Michael Dixon would like to thank Jimmie Lee Robinson and Studebaker John Grimaldi for sharing their recollections of Maxwell Street. Robinson, who is 70, undertook an 81-day Save Maxwell Street hunger strike, which began on August 20 and ended on November 8, 2000. During his fast, the 6’2’’ man went from 185 to 145 lbs.
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