Maxwell Street was and can again be a living historic neighborhood. It can be integrated into the UIC campus. UIC and its private developer partners got everything they wanted but in doing so they bombed out almost all the life and guts from this area.

Saving these last slivers of remnants will be an asset for the neighborhood and for Chicago. A little more can and should be saved.

This can happen but only if UIC stops its final neighborhood annihilation. There still are some significant parts of Maxwell Street remaining but they are awaiting demolition by the UIC wrecking ball.

UIC has agreed to save only 8 buildings and 13 facades but no people; no businesses; no old signs, no preservation of the interiors, and no Blues. UIC is saving just empty building shells and facades to be remade into retail stores like the Gap, Kinkos and Starbucks. And none of these 21 items (8 buildings and 13 facades) are on any historic register so they can be torn down at a later time. The 8 buildings are on the East Side of Halsted Street and the 13 facades are to be pasted on a parking structure on the south side of Maxwell Street. We want these 8 building shells and 13 facades put on the Chicago Register of Historic Places.

In addition we have10 demands. We want:

1. To save five additional buildings and the people, life, and culture presently in them. These five buildings include Paul and Bill's Tailor Shop 719 W. Maxwell (still in business), two churches (St. Francis and Gesthemene Baptist -- still holding services), a residence of artists and environmentalists 716 W. Maxwell Street, and a former butcher shop 717 W. Maxwell Street.

2. Reverend John Johnson to be allowed to park his historic blue Blues Bus on Maxwell Street to sell Blues tapes and records.

3. Especially to save the building of the Gestheme Baptist Church which was the old Romanian Synagogue.

4. The Juketown Community Blues bandstand to be rebuilt along with the Maxwell Street Wall of Fame. (Both were torn down by UIC in 2000.)

5. Street vendors to be allowed to return but now to be licensed and regulated.

6. 20% of housing in the new University Village Housing Complex to be made affordable for people whose income is no more than 30% of median income of Chicago. We demand this so some people displaced from the neighborhood can return to it.

7. Parking access and street reconfiguration for the historic St. Francis of Assisi Church and that all changes be approved by the Church Preservation Committee.

8. Use of three of the buildings for a Maxwell Street Museum focusing on immigration to Chicago, and the German, Irish, Bohemian, Eastern European Jewish, African-American, Blues, and Mexican history of the area.

9. The two temporary hot dogs at Union and Roosevelt to be made permanent fixtures of the area.

10. The 13th Street Community Gardens to remain -- not to be demolished.

On most Sundays in good weather, legendary blues musicians still came to play on Maxwell Street. They can and will come back if only something authentic of the neighborhood can remain.

Saving this heritage will be a gift for the future, for our descendents to learn who they are and where they came from.

We urge people to contact Governor George Ryan, Mayor Daley, and University of Illinois Board of Trustees Chair Gerald Shea to demand that they force the University of Illinois to halt any more destruction in the Maxwell Street neighborhood.

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For more information about Maxwell Street see <http://www.openair.org/maxwell/preserve.html> and <http://www.maxwellstreet.org>.

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