For immediate release: (8/25/98)
Contact: Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition, Steve Balkin, 312-341-3696
A protest rally and Blues Jam will take place Saturday, August 29, 1998, from Noon to 3 p.m., at the corner of Maxwell and Halsted Streets to fight the Roosevelt-Union TIF. The protest will feature speakers from community organizations, installation of a Maxwell Street memorial sculpture garden, a prayer from Blues Bus owner Reverend John Johnson, an address by Illinois Senate candidate Marc Loveless, and an old fashioned Blues Jam, perhaps the last blues that will ever be played on Maxwell Street.
Jimmie Lee Robinson, who played with Moody Jones and Little Walter on Maxwell Street, will be there to perform his "Maxwell Street Teardown Blues". Rock Island Blues star Ellis Kell will sing his "Muddy's Tears On Maxwell Street". Maxwell Street veteran Al Harris and his 6 Pack Band will be singing with the Joe B Super Star Blues Band. Guest Judy Noa, a protégé of Junior Wells, will be singing and playing harmonica. Robert Osborn of New Orleans will also play harp . Also appearing: will be Johnny Too Tough, who played with Elmore James, Howlin Wolf, and Muddy Waters on Maxwell Street in the late 1940's and early 1950s and, if the weather is not too hot, 76 year old Johnnie May Dunson(one of Chicago Blues' few female drummers), who played and wrote songs for Jimmy Reed, will come out of retirement to sing on the street where she played in her early years.
The protest is against the Roosevelt-Union TIF (Tax Increment Financing) which threatens to destroy Maxwell Street old historic buildings and thriving businesses. 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, Polish Sausage stands, and street vendors who made Maxwell Street world famous.
Dan Marmer, a UIC graduate student in geography says, "Much of 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. 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 community. Mesirow-Stein will be using tax revenues to subsidize its upscale town houses, a windfall for them, and, at the same time, exclude existing businesses in the neighborhood from the new campustown. This not about using a TIF for development; it is about using a TIF for displacement. Further, this TIF drains money from the Board of Education, the Park District, and the City Colleges. If Mesirow-Stein were really interested in development they would do historic preservation in the area and apply for Federal Tax Credits, instead they suck money from our local taxes."
Similar areas, like the Fulton and Randolph Street markets, and East Pilsen are currently witnessing strong development without a TIF designation. A recent study by UIC's Center for Urban Economic Development(E. Ali, T. Lohrentz, and R. Weber, 1998) concluded that property values in the Pilsen area are more effected by proximity to the Lake and the Loop than to TIFs. Professor Balkin comments, "The Maxwell street area is closer to the Lake and the Loop than Pilsen. So why have a TIF there? It gives Mesirow-Stein power of eminent domain to take anybody's property and demolish it, and they don't have to show a public purpose for taking it. There is no local control."
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. Wednesday, Sept. 2, 8:00 AM, Prayer vigil before the UI Board of Trustees Meeting, Chicago Illini Union 828 South Wolcott St..
2 . Thursday, Sept. 3, 8:30AM. Hear Jimmie Lee Robinson address before the UI Board of Trustees. He will sing his "Maxwell Street Teardown Blues in hopes it may soften their hearts.
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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