For immediate release: (8/19/98)
Contact: Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition, Steve Balkin, 312-341-3696
The public is invited to an old fashioned Maxwell Street Blues Jam at the New Maxwell Street Market, Sunday, August 23, 1998, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The jam will feature Al Harris and his 6 Pack Band and the Joe B Super Star Blues Band. It will take place at the southern part of the new market along Canal Street.
The purpose of the jam is raise awareness about the importance of Chicago blues and to fight the Roosevelt-Union TIF (Tax Increment Financing), which threatens to destroy the old Maxwell Street area. Historic buildings, world-famous cultural landmarks, and thriving businesses could all fall victim to the wrecking ball if this TIF is approved by the City of Chicago. Says Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition member Bill Lavicka, "Allowing the TIF and letting UIC violate the plan to save the 36 old buildings, it agreed to, would lead to complete destruction there. In April and May, we met with the City Dept. of Planning, its consultant architects, Howard Decker and John Vinci, and UIC. We were called the Ad-Hoc Maxwell Street Committee and there was consensus. Now UIC reneges."
The University of Illinois at Chicago and the Mesirow-Stein development team are seeking this TIF in order to proceed with their vision of a gentrified campus community--to the exclusion of the shopkeepers, blues musicians, and Polish Sausage vendors who made Maxwell Street world famous. The TIF money will be used to buy out existing businesses and demolish their historic buildings. The land will remain vacant for some time until UIC can appropriate money from the State to build new commercial structures. This type of practice is often referred to as "landbanking" and "slumlording." In effect, they are using enormous sums of taxpayers money to replace current businesses -- some dating back over 80 years -- with new businesses that they choose. All of this despite the willingness of existing merchants to become part of the new "campustown".
Steven Balkin, Professor of Economics at Roosevelt University says, "Private developers and existing business owners are ready to renovate their structures. A group of Jewish UIC students are attempting to utilize a vacant historic building to develop cooperative student housing. These initiatives could proceed immediately if UIC would only allow free market economics in the original location of Chicago's most famous marketplace. Instead, UIC seems intent on demolishing historic Maxwell Street and constructing a centrally-planned and controlled student community. Sadly, there is no money yet available for the new buildings. Even sadder, UIC has thwarted private attempts to redevelop historic structures at no cost to the taxpayer."
The Roosevelt-Union TIF will remove millions of dollars in future tax revenues from properties that would naturally develop on their own. Similar areas, like the Fulton and Randolph Street markets, are currently witnessing numerous loft rehabs without a TIF designation. The 40 or so remaining historic buildings in the Maxwell Street area could foreseeably be rehabilitated by private developers. The nearby vacant land will surely attract new home buyers by virtue of its proximity to downtown-all without mortgaging funds from our schools, parks, and city colleges.
The wrecking ball looms over this neighborhood that helped transform penniless immigrants into prosperous Americans. The backdrop of Chicago's legendary blues tradition is slowly disappearing. The smell of the world renown Maxwell Street Polish Sausage is dissipating. Approval of the Roosevelt-Union TIF will set forth funding to demolish these remaining fragments of our shared heritage.
"To destroy this is cultural disrespect," says Al Harris one of the Blues musicians for the Jam. "I got my start there. I loved playing there. It made me who I am. Not everyone can go to bars. That was where poor and ordinary people came to appreciate the blues. They treated me like a star. I appreciated them and they appreciated me. That's history and tradition they will be tearing down."
Also come to these other events:
1. Saturday, August 29, Blues Jam and demonstration. Noon, corner of Maxwell and Halsted Streets.Blues great Jimmie Lee Robinson will perform his "Maxwell Street Teardown Blues" and Blues star Ellis Kell will sing his "Muddy's Tears On Maxwell Street". And there will be a big jam session.
2. Wednesday, Sept. 2, 8:00 AM, Prayer vigil before the UI Board of Trustees Meeting, Chicago Illini Union 828 South Wolcott St.
3. Tuesday, Sept. 8, 1:30 PM, TIF Hearing, Community Development Commission, 2nd Floor, City Hall, 121 N. LaSalle St.
4. Saturday, Sept. 19, Noon, Maxwell Street Heritage Festival, Maxwell Street east of Halsted, featuring art, music, community pride.
For more information about the fight to preserve Maxwell Street and prevent its destruction by the University of Illinois at Chicago, visit the website <www.openair.org/maxwell/preserve.html>.
Also read about this issue in the Delta Snake Daily Blues.
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return to Preserve Maxwell Street