South Chicago Does Green in a Big Way

Lots of communities and individuals talk about "being green," but few can show as much actual green activity as the former steel mill community of South Chicago, which in May will host 80 green-oriented events from habitat restoration and urban farming to tours, youth programs, cycling events and health activities. It's a structured month-long calendar put together by community organizations involved in the South Chicago Green Summit. That's a now-annual event that grew out of the local strategy to turn the "steel town into green town."

And so it shouldn't be a surprise that one of the leaders of all this activity, Claretian Associates Executive Director Angela Hurlock, was honored as one of Chicago Magazine's 2010 Green Awards. Hurlock lives in one of the energy-conserving and solar-electricity-generating houses that Claretian builds, and she leads a broad range of community-building programs that, alongside the green strategies, will help South Chicago reconnect to the mainstream economy after many years as a depressed post-steel neighborhood.

Congrats to Angela Hurlock and her colleagues. On the video, her segment runs from 3:20 to 6:00.

Chicago magazine's 2010 Green Awards from Chicago magazine on Vimeo.

Sold-Out Neighborhood Tours Deliver the Goods

It seemed like a good idea, that neighborhood groups should get involved in the Burnham Centennial's Bold Plans Big Dreams program and put on tours of their often-unseen communities.

And it was. On Saturday, May 16, six neighborhoods led sold-out bus and walking tours in South Chicago, Bronzeville, Pilsen, Albany Park, Auburn Gresham and West Ridge. Reports are flowing in and it appears that both participants and tour guides had a ball. Here's some of the commentary:

Indian snacks -- Dorothie Shah reports that the West Ridge tour spent more than an hour in small groups, walking into shops along Devon Avenue and chatting with the owners or sales clerks. They sampled jalebis and other snacks at Royal Sweets, met the owner of the Sahil Sari shop and talked with Mafat Patel, founder of the Patel retail and wholesale food empire.

Pilsen culture – Tour leader Alex Morales focused on the neighborhood's history of activism and organizing but also pointed out the local attractions, and considered it a sign of success that people wished there had been time to get inside the National Museum of Mexican Art and spend some time shopping and eating on 18th Street. He wants them coming back (and spending money when they do).

Bronzeville development – This tour attracted guests from Canada, the south suburbs, the University of Chicago and the Field Museum, and "all were amazed by the amount and quality of development" in the area, says Bernita Johnson Gabriel of Quad Communities Development Corp. Even better, "all said they would recommend the tour to others."

South Chicago discoveries – The way Jackie Samuel tells it, visitors to the former steel mill district were absolutely charmed by the tour guides and the unexpected sites along the way, including the spectacular view from St. Michael's Church, the local gardens and the big ore walls at the former U.S. Steel site.

It wasn't obvious to Samuel and others, when the training and hard work of developing these tours got started a few months ago, just what the benefits might be, especially since most of these neighborhoods have a lot of rough edges and unfinished business.

The first training session, in fact, was on a day when three youth were gunned downed in broad daylight in South Chicago. "I left the meeting so happy and then this senseless act of violence just hit our hearts so deeply," Samuel recounts. "I questioned if we were doing the right thing by showcasing the community. (But) I realized that so much hard work has been put in place over the past 10 years that I could not let a group of thugs steal our communities' thunder. When we started doing the research it clearly pointed out that we have a story to tell, with all of our lumps and bumps."

Download brochures and maps for each tour here.

Photos are of the Pilsen and West Ridge practice tours, by Vince Michael.

USX Redevelopment "Slowly Getting Under Way"

Despite the stalled economy, plans are afoot to transform the former site of U.S. Steel into a thriving, eco-friendly neighborhood. My friend and former colleague Mick Dumke has a post up over at Clout City with great photos of the site. They include some shots of the mighty ore walls that once stored the raw materials for steel through the winter, when the lake froze and ships couldn't bring new supplies.

It's a great, if unintended, promo for the Great Chicago Places and Spaces tour of the area taking place on May 16. Advance registration is open now, and they reserve a few spots for day-of registration. If you're interested, click the link to sign up ASAP. They often sell out-so you might have to show up early to get lucky day-of.

Southeast Chicago Featured in Chicago Wilderness Magazine

The just-published spring issue of Chicago Wilderness Magazine is devoted to an exploration of the Calumet region, the bottom of Lake Michigan. The Calumet region stretches from South Chicago all the way to Mt. Baldy, a migrating sand dune just west of Michigan City, Indiana.

It fascinates me that the same region where you can find 24 different species of orchids--compared to just four in Hawaii--is also the same region where 60 square miles are covered in slag from the days of steel. The Calumet River's Indiana Harbor still tests above the "probable effect threshold" for 28 different toxic chemicals and minerals. Yet at the same time, volunteers counted over 2250 different species in nearby Eggers Woods, Powderhorn Lake and Wolf Lake during the Calumet BioBlitz.

Southeast Chicago resident Joann Podkul leads the Calumet Stewardship Initiative, featured in the issue's "Tales of Restoration" section for training locals to become stewards of the conservation sites in the area.

It's great background reading, and even better if you're interested in coming to the Great Chicago Places & Spaces tour of South Chicago on May 16. For more information, click here.

Tours: Daniel Burnham Would Be Pleased

Six real-life neighborhoods will be on display May 16 during the Great Chicago Places and Spaces Festival, which is branching out this year to feature more than the usual tours of central-city architecture and hotspots. As part of the Burnham Plan Centennial, tour buses will be heading to Bronzeville, South Chicago, Auburn Gresham, Pilsen, Albany Park and the Indian shopping strip on Devon Avenue in West Ridge.

Mr. Burnham would be pleased, because the changes in these places reflect a less-quoted section of that "make no little plans" statement that we hear so often.

"Make big plans," he continued, "aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency."

I've seen that ever-growing insistency in most of the New Communities Program neighborhoods, where the noble, logical diagrams laid out in their quality-of-life plans keep rising up in the conversations. Insistently. As in "if we want to be great, or just survive, we've got to do this and that." And think big, too, which is another Burnham dictum.

Six neighborhood groups have been preparing the tours with help from the Burnham Centennial team and professional tour consultants, and the stories are shaping up nicely. The Bold Plans Big Dreams Community Showcase Tours will start from downtown, with details to come at Explore Chicago. Here's the lineup:

Albany Park: Chicago's Gateway to the World, will highlight that neighborhood's rich multi-ethnic base, its bungalow belts and retail assets, and its culture, nature and movement. Hosted by the North River Commission.

Bronzeville: Civil War to Civil Rights and Beyond, will trace back to the beginnings of Chicago's African-American experience, show off many historic sites, and preview the "second urban renaissance in the capitol of Black America." Hosted by Quad Communities Development Corporation

Pilsen: A Healthy, Vibrant and Well-Organized Community will focus on that neighborhood's long history in labor activism and organizing, with a focus on the work done by Mexican-American community organizations since the 1980s. Hosted by The Resurrection Project.

South Chicago: From Pollution to Solution will show how the formerly gritty steel town is transforming itself into a "green" community of affordable energy, efficient houses, organic gardens and talented artists. Hosted by Claretian Associates.

Auburn Gresham: A Classic Chicago Community will show off the bungalows and two-flats and 79th Street commercial district that have attracted and supported generations of families. Hosted by Greater Auburn-Gresham Development Corporation.

West Ridge: Gateway to India in Chicago will feature walking tours of the Devon Avenue retail strip, complete with visits to sari shops, video stores and snack shops that attract Indian and Pakistani visitors from across the Midwest (and plenty of locals, too). Hosted by the Indo-American Heritage Museum.

The tours will be repeated during the summer, so check with the host organizations if you can't make the May 16 event.

South Chicago photo above by Eric Young Smith for Chicago Neighborhood News Bureau.

Getting Around on a Trolley Bus

A lot of neighborhoods talk about creating a "circulator" transit service that brings people from their homes or workplaces into the shopping district. South Chicago Chamber of Commerce has done it.

Every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (with a break from 2:30 to 3:30), one of those buses-that-look-like-trollies runs a route in the old Steel City from 106th and Torrence up to 83rd Street via the Commercial Avenue shopping district, with stops conveniently located next to small businesses, from Exquisite Flowers to Mexico Auto Repair.

Rides are free until March 1, and then will cost just a quarter by way of a ticket booklet that can be bought from participating merchants. The chamber is financing the $138,000 project with funds from the local Special Service Area (a district that taxes property owners and uses the funds for needed services). The goal, says chamber executive director Neil Bosanko, is to keep retail dollars in the community.

Other neighborhoods will be interested in how things work out.

Read more on the Claretian web site. Below, a Google MyMaps shows the route.


View Larger Map

New year, new web sites. Is this important?

With millions of web sites covering every imaginable topic, is it a big deal when a few new ones are added to the pile? When the sites cover neighborhoods or community issues – and provide information that isn't available elsewhere – well, yeah, that is very important.

So I was excited in late 2008 as new web sites brought visibility and news from four different community-oriented sources.

Greater Humboldt Park Community of Wellness – This consortium coordinates and promotes a jammed calendar of events, exercise classes, health fairs and meetings that promote healthier lifestyles and preventive health care. Administrative assistant Maria Ramirez got the site started and coordinator Katie Ediger took it from there. Though Katie had never edited a site before she did a great job figuring out a logical way to present information and avoid double- and triple-clicking to get to something good. With help from consortium members and executive director Juana Ballesteros, Katie hopes to build out the site with plenty of new content.

Claretian Associates – The NCP lead agency in South Chicago had a decent web site already but it was tedious to update with news stories, photos and calendar items, which meant, of course, that some updates never got done. Like the Community of Wellness team, Claretian took advantage of the Grassroots web template developed by Webitects Inc. for the New Communities Program. Associate director Kate Graham put the site together and didn't forget to promote it. On Decemer 16, just before the Christmas lull, she sent out an e-newsletter with multiple links into the site. Traffic spiked that day with 54 visits, not bad for a brand-new site.

Keep Our Homes – Providing information to people facing the risk of foreclosure is the intent of Keep Our Homes, a partnership of Greater Southwest Development Corporation (GSDC), Southwest Organizing Project and Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago. GSDC executive director Jim Capraro put this site together using the open-source Joomla platform. A self-proclaimed "computer geek" as well as prominent community development leader, Jim has launched a side venture called CDwebsites.net to help more community groups take advantage of this powerful and low-cost way to build web sites.

Valerie Denney Communications – Valerie Denney has been helping community groups and nonprofits tell their stories for more than 20 years; now her newly revised web site gives a deeper look into her client base and methods. I learned about this site the old-fashioned way; a simple and classy New Year's card arrived via U.S. Postal Service (!) and suggested I take a look. And I did.

So, yes, it's important to have a web presence, to organize the material well, and to promote the site to your potential readers. Happy New Year!

Note to Transition Team: Hire Local to Weatherize

While scientists are celebrating one of their own getting the top spot at the U.S. Department of Energy, folks in Chicago are thinking about how Obama's promise to promote weatherization could benefit neighborhoods.

Late last week I spoke with Angela Hurlock of Claretian Associates, who wanted to know how to suggest to Team Obama while they're thinking globally about reducing energy use, they might want to start acting locally by training a corps of neighbors to help neighbors weatherize those 1 million homes a year.

Angela and many of her friends and neighbors in South Chicago are very interested in "green-collar" jobs and promoting energy efficiency and sustainability around the neighborhood. Recently, more than 30 neighbors came together to learn about LEED certification for homes and neighborhoods. They want to know how to make their existing homes greener, especially by reducing water and energy use.

Watch for an upcoming story on the New Communities Program web site about what they're learning.

Art shows indicate neighborhood strengths

From the evidence at archaeological sites and art museums around the world, one might conclude that arts and culture are outgrowths of strong and healthy societies: that it takes a thriving and culturally advanced community to foster a high level of creative output among its residents.

If that is true, some Chicago neighborhoods might be stronger than traditional economic and social measures suggest. The arts are thriving across the South and West Sides, and this weekend the evidence will be on display in South Chicago, East Garfield Park, Little Village and Pilsen.

It's all part of the citywide Chicago Artists Month, but what impresses me is how individuals and organizations in neighborhoods have very consciously cultivated and promoted and participated in the creation of art by local residents -- and in public gatherings that honor that creative work.

So my hat is off to the organizers of these events:

Garfield Park: Alpha Bruton alerted me to this exhibition, part of the Phantom Gallery series.

EXAMINING THE STATE OF OUR ENVIRONMENT
INSTALLATION ARTISTS EXPLORE BY BUILDING SITE SPECIFIC INSTALLATIONS:
Fred Owens, Helen Jones Myers, Vivian Vissar, Jamin Jadda, Gabriel Patti, Kat Silverstein, Nancy Zook, Students from Chicago Christian Academy, Loveitta Simpkins, Dewitt Quayim

Garfield Park Market Place (just north of the Garfield Park Conservatory on Central Park Avenue)
Friday, Oct. 17, 2008, noon to 8 p.m. Reception 5 to 8 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 18 and 19, noon to 5 p.m.
Learn more at westsidearts-chicago.blogspot.com

South Chicago: Claretian Associates is promoting a whole series of events including a gallery in their own office space, a knitting workshop at Villa Guadalupe, cartooning for kids and a performance by the 63rd Street Drummers.

Friday, October 17
Knitting Basics by Marisa Arevalo of Studio KOI
Villa Guadalupe
3201 E. 91st Street
6:15pm - 7:15pm
Participants must bring their own supplies or project.

Saturday, October 18 Saturday, October 18
Sweetest Day for Artists, Performers, and Musicians by The 63rd Street Drummers with Ms. Yakiri, Flo Mills, and Artist Friends Pilgrim Baptist Church 3235 E. 91st Street 2pm - 4pm

For the full schedule, go here: http://www.claretianassociates.org/ChicagoArtistsMonth08.htm

Little Village Arts Fest:

Villarte, an emerging arts coalition in Little Village, organized two days of free art exhibits, performances and workshops that kick off Friday night, October 17, from 6 to 10 p.m. in the Second Federal Savings parking lot at 25th Place and Pulaski. Get the official map and program at Catedral Cafe (2500 S. Christiana) or download it here.

Pilsen Open Studios:
Bigger than ever, this Saturday and Sunday event features dozens of artists and locations throughout the neighborhood (see map below by Salvador Jimenez). Many of the artists will be at the kickoff from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17, at Prospectus Art Gallery, 1220 W. 18th Street.

By any measure, that's a pretty convincing display of cultural strength, don't you think?

Coverage of neighborhood news? Not so bad

Trainee Larry Smith leads a tour at Growing Home's open house on June 28. Photo by Patrick Barry.

Was a time, when I was a boy delivering the afternoon daily Chicago American, that our fair city had four big daily newspapers and half a dozen smaller ones covering ethnic groups and suburban regions. On top of that were dozens of weeklies covering the neighborhoods, or in the case of the Lerner papers, twice weekly. So it's no wonder that today's lament about weak coverage of the neighborhoods is so often heard.

But wait. From what I've been seeing lately, the growth of new-media outlets is changing the game, and since they can be updated often at much lower cost than print vehicles, we might even be seeing more news than before. Some of the grist comes from community groups, some from journalism students, but even the old media are in on the act.

All that's by way of prelude to this little roundup:

At Chicago Talks, Columbia College journalism student Brian Patrick Roach tells how students on the Southeast Side interviewed retired steelworkers to capture their stories from the mills. On the same site, Bryce Wolfe provides an update on the Bloomingdale Trail, which when built will provide a three-mile elevated bike and pedestrian path bisecting the Humboldt Park and Logan Square neighborhoods. Land is being acquired alongside the trail to provide mini-parks and access ramps.

At a new site called windycitizen.com, formerly the Chicago Methods Reporter put out by students at Medill, there's an in-depth piece by Elizabeth Riley featuring the defense of a certain block in Auburn Gresham. Riley has done a few stories down there, according to local host Ernie Sanders, carving out something like a beat.

Not bad, but stick with me. At Greater Auburn-Gresham Development Corporation's site, you can learn how three South Side restaurants, BJ's Market, Lagniappe and Soul Vegetarian, made out at the Taste of Chicago. You'll get hungry just reading the story. Go east to the NCP Woodlawn site and find out about a planned health fair and kidney screening, "another example of how a small but determined group leverages relationships to promote health education and provide access to health services."

While the new media are definitely adding depth to our reading choices, the old is still in the game. This morning's Tribune had a good piece about how Oji Eggleston and Earnest Gates organized a basketball league at Crane High School, offering mentoring alongside ball-handling tips.

And in today's Crain's Chicago Business? There's a short piece on Growing Home's executive director Harry Rhodes. That's the group that runs the Wood Street Urban Farm in Englewood, which is adding two more mini-farms nearby and constructing a small building for training, office space and a produce stand.

In my book, that's a pretty solid list of stories about action in the neighborhoods.

YMCA promotes itself, and families pour in

U.S. Steel's mighty South Works in the South Chicago neighborhood once employed 20,000 people, but the mill has been shuttered since the 1980s, which means "old residents moved out, new people moved in and neighbors no longer knew each other," according to South Chicago's recently published quality-of-life plan. That's one reason the plan calls for creation of "free and regular teen-specific and family-friendly activities," a message that the South Chicago YMCA has taken quite seriously.

In December, the Y partnered with the New Communities Program lead agency, Claretian Associates, to kick off implementation of the plan with a free family day including food, Santa Claus and plenty of activities.

Four hundred fifty people turned out.

Shelly Butler, the Y's director, followed it up with a creative schedule of programs to acquaint newcomers with the Y's facilities, and the families kept on coming. They must have liked what they found there, because by Feb. 5 the South Chicago YMCA, at 3039 East 91st Street, had 212 new memberships, nearly tripling Butler's goal of 75. She said it was the highest number of new memberships in the local association.

What's the secret? Good promotion, including the video below, good partnerships to spread the word within the community, and most of all good programming, like the following lined up in February:

Parents Night Out, Feb. 8, when parents can leave their 7- to 15-year-olds at the Y for $5, or $8 if they aren't members. On the two school holidays February 12 and 18, the Y is offering "No School, Chill at the Pool," for kids at that tricky middle age of 10 to 15. Free for members, $5 for non-members. And on Feb. 22 there's a Family Swim Night, again free for members. For more details or to learn about membership, call the Y at 773-721-9100.

Here's the video, made by Jackie Samuel at Claretian Associates.