Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) Historic Maxwell Street Neighborhood Walking Tour.
The CAF tour will be available on Sunday, August 23, 1998
The tour focuses on extant buildings and historic sites within the neighborhood of the historic Maxwell Street Market. These buildings and sites mark the location of entrepreneurial individuals and businesses which have become nationally known, commercially and culturally. On the tour, one can see the early residence of Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, the turn-of-the-century Nabisco facility, and the site of early Little Walter blues recordings. One can also taste the famous Maxwell Street polish sausage, at historic Jim's Red Hots hotdog stand.
The tour will be offered at 11:00 a.m. and will last approximately two hours.
Meeting place: SW corner of Newberry Street and Roosevelt Rd. (Roosevelt Rd., one block west of Halsted). CAF cost is $5.00.
For more information, please call Chicago Architecture Foundation Tours, (312) 922-3432. This tour is being given by a UIC Graduate Student: Lori Louise Grove <lgrove2@uic.edu>,
The Chicago Architecture Foundation is dedicated to advancing public interest and education in architecture and design. CAF pursues this mission through a comprehensive program of tours, exhibitions, lectures, and special events, all designed to enhance the public's awareness and appreciation of Chicago's outstanding architectural legacy.
Tours by arrangement almost anytime can be made available by contacting the Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition, Ph: 312-341-3696; FAX: 312-341-3680; Email<mar@interaccess.com>
Click here for a virtual tour of Maxwell Street.
Tours During 1998 Chicago Blues Festival
Sunday, June 7 (10AM and Noon). Free tours of the old Maxwell Street area starting at the White Place Grill, northeast corner of Roosevelt and Canal. Visit the area where many Chicago Blues legends started playing when they first came to Chicago in the 1940s. Learn about he Jewish, Mexican, and Mississippi cultures that called Maxwell Street home. The spirits of blues legends still fill the air there and the scent of fried onions never smelled better.
During the entire festival, have lunch at Original Jim's Hot Dog Stand and visit Heritage Bluesbus Music next door. Visit this corner and catch up on news from Mississippi. Original Jim's is at northwest corner of South Halsted and Maxwell Street, about two miles Southwest from Grant Park. Jim's is a landmark Chicago institution and is at the heart of the old Maxwell Street area. Many Blues legends dined on their polish sausages and got electricity there for their amps. Across the street was where Little Walter and Jimmy Rogers first got recorded in Chicago and was where the John Lee Hooker played in the movie, Blues Brothers. Reverend Johnson runs Heritage Bluesbus Music and it contains a mini Maxwell Street Museum in progress. He owned the famous blue Bluesbus that sold records and tapes in the old market.
Maxwell Street Tour, Special Event Taking Place During National Preservation Week, May 10-16, 1998
The Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition will provide historic tours of the Maxwell Street neighborhood every day at 12:00 noon. The tours will meet at Jim's Red Hots (World Famous Hot Dog Stand) at 1320 S. Halsted, on the northwest corner of Maxwell and Halsted Streets. Grab a bite and have a tour! Tours are free and no reservations are necessary.
Also, The Chicago Historical Society (CHS) will offer daily tours of "Rooting, Uprooting: The West Side, A History of the Nearwest and Garfield Park." The exhibit features the multi-cultural history of Chicago's west side and the immigrant neighborhood of Maxwell Street and Hull House. Tours are free with admission to CHS, and times vary daily. Please call (312) 642-4600 for information. (Mondays are free days at CHS!)
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Sunday, April 26, 1998. Rally III National Conference on Heritage Development and Cultural Tourism Tour of the new market and the old Maxwell Street area. This tour opens the Conference. Meet at 9 a.m. outside in front of the Ramada Congress Hotel at 520 South Michigan. For more information call Professor Steve Balkin, 773-549-2545
Part I. We will meet in front of the Ramada Congress Hotel at 9:00AM and, as a group, using public transportation and walking, visit the New Maxwell Street Market, a multi-cultural outdoor market with over 400 vendors. You will have a genuine grassroots ethnic shopping and food experience like no other. Says Anna Castillo of the New York Times, "A brief visit on Sunday morning may be one of the best ways to get a true sense of what Chicago was and is. And who knows? You may end up getting a good deal on an antique trunk, say, or perhaps something funky to liven up a new studio, like a 1950s first remote-control console television model."
If the weather is good we will get to hear blues musicians playing in the street. You are welcome to sit in, sing, dance, or just clap your hands.
Part II: At 11:00AM, we will meet at the White Palace Grill (Canal and Roosevelt Road) and walk a half mile west to the old Maxwell Street area. Included will be a visit to
1. the St. Francis of Assisi Church, Chicago's oldest Spanish-speaking Catholic Church (the parishioners recently saved their church by occupying it and living in it to stop the demolition).
2. Halsted Street, where you can still buy a zoot suit, see where Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg lived, buy blues tapes from Reverend John Johnson at Heritage Blues Bus Music, eat an original Jim's Maxwell Street (fried onion soaked) polish sausage, buy a pencil from Judge Hightower, and get "hustled" to buy socks, perfume, and t-shirts from various traditional street vendors.
3. Maxwell Street where you can meet street visionary and environmentalist Tyner White, see the first commercial building of the NABISCO Corporation, buildings by famous German-Jewish architects, the location of the Johnny Dollar Blues Stage, the famed Cheat You Fair sign, a location where the movie Blues Brothers was filmed, and the location where early pioneers of the Chicago Blues sound (e.g. Muddy Waters, Little Walter Jacobs, Jimmy Rogers, Robert Nighthawk, Jimmie Lee Robinson) lived and played when they first came to Chicago. If they are in town, Jimmie Lee Robinson, and Larry Goldberg (Benny Goodman's cousin) will meet and talk to you.
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This conference is run by the National Center for Heritage Development and supported by the American Association of Museums, American Express Foundation, American Planning Association, National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources, and Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission.
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