by Carolyn Eastwood
Lake Claremont Press, Email: LakeClarPr@aol.com; ph: 773-583-7800; fax: 773-583-7877
February 2002; Price: $17.95; ISBN: 1-893121-09-7; includes 111 historic photos and a regional map
Carolyn Eastwood is an adjunct professor of anthropology in the School of Policy Studies at Roosevelt University and at the College of DuPage in Glenn Ellyn, IL. She received a Ph.D. in Public Policy Analysis from the University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Urban Planning. She was also a member of the Maxwell Street Market Coalition, fighting for preservation of this famous historic area.
Near West Side Stories: Struggles For Community in Chicago's Maxwell Street Neighborhood is a current and ongoing story of unequal power in Chicago. In this book four individuals of immigrant (and migrant) families in Chicago's port-of-entry Near West Side tell stories of their struggles to save their neighborhood and the century-old Maxwell Street Market that was at its core. All four of these people have spent crucial portions of their lives within this neighborhood and are ordinary citizens; but they are extraordinary in their impact and influence.
Urban renewal took several drastic forms in this particular neighborhood, and the cumulative effect was catastrophic in altering the community's nature. Through these stories there is a sense of the insufficient resources of information, funds, time, and clout that these low income people possess when they fight to save their community from destruction as it is targeted for urban redevelopment, expressways, and church closings.
Near West Side Stories not only brings the story of this community strife up to date, but it gives a voice to the common people who are routinely discounted or ignored. We see, in the details of these four lives, why slaying that dragon or overcoming the obstacles installed by those with power is just so nearly impossible. We also learn, through these lifetime experiences, how interwoven were the lives of these different ethnic and racial group members in this neighborhood.
"You could be St. George and you couldn't slay that dragon." --Florence Scala
Meet Four Extraordinary Ordinary People...
Harold Fox, born in the Jewish ghetto in 1910, had three different relatives with shops on Maxwell Street. His experiences bridge the transition as the Jewish immigrants moved out of the neighborhood and businessmen stayed on. As a flamboyant clothing designer (he created the zoot suit), and as a musician, he had world-wide celebrity contacts who were his clients and came to his store.
Florence Scala has rich memories of her childhood in the Italian sector of the neighborhood. Her account of Hull House is an insider's view, from her first introduction as a child until, as a young adult she began to question its elitist tendencies. From this ordinary background emerges the woman who is still known for the fight she led against Mayor Richard J. Daley when he selected her neighborhood for destruction to acquire land for a university.
Nate Duncan, an African-American whose family was part of the Great Migration, spent his after-school time working in a matzo factory and in a deli on Maxwell Street owned by a Jewish couple. Later he bought the deli and, until its destruction due to university expansion in the nineties, it was a mixed ethnic gathering place for people from all over the city. His account of growing up in the Black Bottom is a new look at a little-known part of Chicago.
Hilda Portillo relates how she came from Mexico to Chicago as a teenager and St. Francis of Assisi became her community and her home. The years of moral support throughout her personal traumas provided Hilda with the faith and will to fight to save St. Francis from demolition when the Archdiocese decided to close the church. Her story also makes clear the more subtle aspects of prejudice as it is directed against Latino immigrants to Chicago.
To place an order, contact Lake Claremont Press, 4650 N. Rockwell St., Chicago, IL 60625; 773-583-7800; fax 773-583-7877. Orders placed now will receive a special introductory price 1 FOR $16, 2 FOR $30, 3 FOR $42, 4 FOR $52. TAX & SHIPPING INCLUDED.
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