Chicago's signature eatery Original Jim's Hot Dog Stand, inventor of the Maxwell Street Polish, is shut down by Mayor Daley and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) after being in business for almost 90 years. The last Polish will be sold on Monday, July 30 at 10AM..

Original Jim's has been in the same building since 1914 started by an aunt of Jim Stefanovich. Then in 1939 it was taken over by the nephew. It was Jim Stefanovich (now deceased), an immigrant from Yugoslavia, who invented the Maxwell Street Polish Sausage. The Stefanoivch family still runs the hot dog stand and uses a family recipe blended by their butcher supplier. Original Jim's is an icon of Chicago, housed in the same location it has always been, in the historic pre-Chicago-Fire building at the northwest corner of Halsted and Maxwell Street. Blues musicians such as Hound Dog Taylor and others would get their electricity from Original Jim's and play in the alley behind it. That hot dog stand is written about in songs, poetry, and novels and is in several movies.

Steve Balkin, Vice President of the Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition comments, "This is screw deal by UIC and Mayor Daley. I hope everyone who ever wants to get an authentic Maxwell Polish and can't -- I hope they remember Mayor Daley as the man who caused this culinary and cultural tragedy to occur. I hope everyone for whom Original Jim's is an important eating and meeting place, will call Mayor Daley to tell him to stop this destruction and that if he does not stop this destruction, you will remember this come reelection time. Thanks to Daley, Chicago will always be Third City because he disrespects its own indigenous culture. We lost the Busy Bee, Gold Coast Dogs, and now Original Jim's. Chicago might just as well be renamed as Starbucks, Illinois or maybe Steinville or just Anyplace, USA."

Balkin says further, "This was a royal screw job. A deal was made with the Original Jim's Stand and UIC and the City for the hot dog stand to temporally move to a trailer for two years at O'Brien and Union, without business interruption. Then, after two years, it was suppose to move to a permanent location somewhere in the new Campustown area. But the temporary location has been on hold, held up by the City of Chicago Department of City Planning and UIC red tape. There is no rational reason why UIC and Daley can not let Original Jim's stay for three more months in its present location until its temporary stand is in place. Everyone in the real estate business knows that location is important. When a business changes location and also has business interruption, it can be deadly. If they are jerking them around at this point, what is going to happen in two years. I think UIC and Mayor Daley want Original Jim's to fail and just disappear off the face of the earth. Daley made a fuss when Frango mints left town. But he is the one who is destroying Chicago's other signature food."

Balkin concludes, "This kind of UIC and City activity is code for what, in the 1960's, people called, "Negro Removal". The new UIC dorm, across from Original Jim's, is opening next month. It seems to me that UIC administrators and Daley want Original Jim's gone by then because they are afraid that the new white female students at the dorm will be frightened off by the working class people of color who frequent the hot dog stand. They are sadly mistaken. This is presently a low crime area. That hot dog stand brought people of all races and classes there. Particularly frequent customers were law enforcement personnel from the Chicago Police Department, Cook County Sheriffs Office, and police from the nearby medical centers. Who will answer to the parents of those dorm students when they are raped or robbed because of the lack of legitimate human activity out on the streets. Because of the pedestrian activity there now, I feel safe. But it will be scary when Jim's is gone and there is no one around to act as eyes on the street. UIC and Daley are making bad urban policy and putting our children at risk."

For more information about Maxwell Street and the Call for a Boycott of UIC's new dorm and University Village, visit the website <www.openair.org/maxwell/preserve.html>.

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