Bruce Iglauer <exec@allig.com> Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997
Dear Sir,
As president and founder of Alligator Records, Chicago (and the world's) largest and most active contemporary blues record label, I want to add my voice to the many that have been raised concerning the future of the remaining sections of the Maxwell Street Market.
I am a blues pilgrim; I came to Chicago 27 years ago because this is the World Capital of the Blues. At that time, all the live blues performed were in the South and West Side clubs and in the Maxwell Street Market.
I spent many happy Sunday mornings there listening to some of the best Chicago talent. I know that literally thousands of blues fans from all over the world consider the Maxwell Street Market to be a vital Chicago landmark. Of course, beyond its musical heritage, the Maxwell Street Market represents an absolutely unique piece of Chicago history--a multi-ethnic 19th century open air market that survived for over 100 years. This is not only a blues cultural site, this is a vital site in the history of our city. Other cities would enshrine such an area and make it into a major tourist attraction.
As blues has become one of the most marketable of Chicago's features (witness the 500,000+ attendance at the world's largest blues festival), more and more people have come to this city to explore its musical heritage. The development of a museum/cultural site open to tourists would benefit the whole city, not just the university.
I know that the "old" Maxwell Street Market will never be revived. However, to pave over a vital part of Chicago's musical and cultural history is to do a disservice to our city. For the university to be a party to this is ironic--the history of the market is, in every sense, part of the basic education that anyone who studies Chicago should know about.
I urge you to consider the various proposals for the preservation of the Maxwell Street Market as an historic site, employing the existing buildings as cultural museums and incorporating the kinds of live music performance that have made this area a shrine for blues fans worldwide.
I have devoted my entire adult life to recording (and thereby preserving) Chicago's and America's unique cultural heritage. I hope you will devote some time to this kind of preservation.
Sincerely,
Bruce Iglauer
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