May 25, 2001
Photos of the people of the old Maxwell Street neighborhood taken in April and May 2001 by Steve Balkin <mar@topicbox.com>, Professor of Economics at Roosevelt University and Vice President of the Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition.
We hope students moving into the new University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) dorms, people moving into their new University Village townhouses, faculty, staff, and trustees of the University of Illinois, and Mayor Daley see what they will be needlessly destroying in the old Maxwell Street neighborhood.
As Congressman Danny Davis said, "Change is an inevitable part of the historic process but destruction is not."
We have repeatedly asked UIC faculty, administrators, and trustees, to take a walking tour of the old Maxwell Street area. They have always refused. They are like fighter pilots who abstractly drop bombs on people but do not want to directly see the human faces they have killed or maimed.
I attended a day long meeting with UIC and City officials at a UIC building two blocks away from Maxwell Street. Coalition members asked that everyone have lunch on Maxwell Street to see the environment and people we were devising plans for. UIC and the City people refused. They only wanted to work with maps and drawings in the abstract rather than plan with real people in mind.
The good news is that not everything is destroyed yet. There is still a chance to save these remnants: an authentic cultural and historic space, a living museum of our immigrant and Blues past. I have learned, at the neighborhood's St. Francis of Assisi Church and in East Garfield Park, that there is no such thing as a done deal. If there is enough protest, ordinary people can sometimes win. People must protest vigorously to UIC Chancellor Manning <manning@uic.edu> and to Mayor Daley <MayorDaley@cityofchicago.org>.
UIC's faculty is especially disappointing because they know better but refuse to speak out. Under the mask of humanism, they are silent accomplices, divorcing themselves from all moral responsibility. Part of external costs of this project is the bad lessons it teaches students:
and
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I frequently am asked, "what's left in the old Maxwell Street neighborhood?" There are 30 whole historic buildings, admittedly rundown (by slumlord UIC) but fixable and rehabable. There are about a half dozen businesses including two hot dog stands and two while-you-wait tailor shops that have been in the same family across generations, street vendors, artists, shoppers, Blues musicians, and Blues fans. Even at this late date, this area is architecturally, historically, and culturally a treasure to be appreciated and preserved (and fixed up). But judge for yourself. Look into the faces of the people of Maxwell Street.
Flower boxes, Millenium parks, strip malls, and suburban style developments do not make a city great. Great cities come from positive human relations, diversity, cultural understanding, authenticity, vibrant pedestrian/public activity, class integration, and historic preservation. All that can still be had at Maxwell Street.
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The photos below are about contemporary life in the Maxwell Street neighborhood but most focus on Blues. The area is important for more than just Blues but it is its greatest cultural contribution to Chicago and it's Chicago's greatest contribution to the world. Music gives us a sense of identity. It tells us who we are. It is the language of the soul. Blues, the secular music of slave descendents, is central to the identity of Chicago. What will history say? To distance ourselves from Blues and destroy its sacred places, annihilating the physical evidence of its existence denies our humanity and tarnishes us for all time.
Please do not let Chancellor Manning, the UI Board of Trustees, and Mayor Daley tear us apart.
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For more information about Maxwell Street come to our 48 Hour Blues Marathon June 8, 9, 10 and visit <www.openair.org/maxwell/preserve.html> or <www.maxwellstreet.org>.
Sweet 15 girl walking from Church (22K) and stopping by Original Jim's for a celebratory Polish Sausage (22K)
Blues singer and dancer Regina, doing a Billie Holiday tune. (9K)
Johnnie Mae Dunson singing, accompanied by Jimmie Lee Robinson (25K). Irma 'Sugar Baby' Minzie is looking on.
Part of the crowd for Jimmie Lee Robinson's Blues birthday celebration (23K).
Joe Patterson with Bobby Davis, backing up Mr. H (34K).
Street artist painting Blues musicians Mike Lipsey, Bobby Davis, and Mr. H. (24K)
Baseball Player eating at Jim's Original Hot Dog Stand (14K)
A couple of Blues fans from the neighborhood (16K)
Bluesman Bobby 'Top Hat' Davis with his coat hanger microphone holder (13K)
A street vendor playing harmonica, jamming on the street. Mr. H is in the background. (19K)
A family eating Polish sausages and fries, across from Jim's Original.(19K)
Woman eating French fries, across from Jim's Original (17K)
A couple of neighborhood children waiting for their hot dogs. (14K)
Smiling cook at Maxwell Express Hot Dog Stand (10K)
Henry visiting where Henry's Variety Store was and checking out the Blues music. (14K)
A couple of neighborhood kids coming to listen to Bobby Davis and Neil Rose.(16K)
Paul and Bill's Tailor Shop (10K)
Blues musician and street vendor Rasheed, sitting on the fire hydrant and eating a Polish Sausage. (16K)
Reverend John Johnson (right) in front of his new Blues Bus with a Blues fan. (19K)
The owner of Paul and Bill's Tailor Shop, leaving for home. (12K)
Bluesman T.K. McGee holding a flyer. (18K). The flyer is for an upcoming June 9 Blues revue with Maxwell Street legends Johnnie Mae Dunson and Dancin Perkins, at Kelly's Barn Yard Inn.
The tour comes to the corner of Maxwell and Halsted to experience some live Blues. (19K)
Reverend Johnson sitting by at his Blues Bus parked in an empty lot on Halsted (28K). He was shortly thereafter threatened with arrest and told to leave. Click here to read more about it.
Blues fan Carolyn Alexander dancing with Bubba Tucker (18K). Bluesmen Bobby Davis and Al Harris in the background.
Billy D. playing drums (16K).
Southern gentleman coming to hear Blues (22K).
Blues fans with their baby (18K).
Blues fan couple sitting on the sidewalk (12K).
Bluesman and folk artist Frank 'Little Sonny' Scott Jr. showing some posters (17K).
Littlest Bluesman with pacifier in mouth (23K). Bluesman Roger Connelly is in the background.
Lajune from Macon Georgia playing/singing country Blues (9K).
Clarence 'Little Scotty' Scott and Blues violinist Ruby Harris (12K).
High school student with father coming to learn about the Blues (18K).
Blues singer Bobby Too Tough from New Orleans (11K). He knew Louis Armstrong.
Street artist Tyner White with handmade tool, holding it in his mouth (23K).
Bluesman James Washington in his van (15K) and playing on the street. (22K).
For more photos of Maxwell Street, see Images of old Maxwell Street: photos, video, and audio.
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