Open Streets Is Back, but New York Ups the Ante

Remember Sunday Parkways, that experiment last fall that closed down Chicago boulevards to cars and opened them up to thousands of cyclists, pedestrians and skaters? It's back. Renamed Open Streets, it will take place this year on Saturday, August 1, across 7.5 miles of wide-open roads through five communities: Logan Square, Humboldt Park, East Garfield Park, North Lawndale and Little Village.

Like last year, neighborhood groups and others will sponsor activities along the route, from exercise stations to dance and music performances. I rode one of last year's two Sunday-morning events and it was a blast, so much fun that complete strangers spent a lot of time greeting each other and talking.

Still, I had to grumble this morning when I read in the New York Times that that other city will shut down 6.9 miles of Manhattan for THREE Saturday-morning events and sponsor DOZENS of additional "Weekend Walks" in the boroughs. This is the same city that has put benches and chairs and bike paths on a traffic-free Broadway, changing completely the atmosphere (literally) on that once-chaotic street.

So let's get out there and have fun on August 1 in Chicago, and then figure out what it takes to catch up to other cities (Quito, Ecuador; Bogotá, Colombia; Guadalajara, Mexico; Portland, Oregon) that are making us look bad.

Local jobs? Check local web sites

Jobs are scarce, but they do exist.

There are plenty of interesting positions posted on npo.net, but what's interesting to me is how jobs in certain types of work, or certain neighborhoods, are being advertised via niche web sites.

The Greater Humboldt Park Community of Wellness is spreading the word about open positions for a bike shop manager, a couple of research jobs and a community liaison position with the Active Transportation Alliance.

Claretian Associates is promoting jobs at the soon-to-open Victory Centre of South Chicago, an assisted living facility with 112 apartments. Available positions include nurses, CNAs, office manager, receptionist, food service staff, maintenance staff, community life manager, among others.

Youth from all over Chicago could connect to summer jobs via the notice by Logan Square Neighborhood Assn. about jobs through the Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Park District, After School Matters and the Department of Family and Support Services.

A few more jobs are on the New Communities Program site, including one for an Elev8 school program director.

It would be interesting to know how well these listings are working for the employers. If you have information, please pass it along in a comment.

Strolling and rolling on Sunday morning

A family enjoys the car-free boulevard. Photos by Gordon Walek.

Chicago launched Sunday Parkways this morning and thousands came out on their bikes and on foot to enjoy traffic-free boulevards in Logan Square, Humboldt Park and East Garfield Park.

I've been viewing videos about these ciclovia events in other cities and they seem to be a transformative opportunity for our city. Imagine thousands of people, including many families with young children, strolling and rolling down the streets and stopping to chat with others -- all in a big-city environment. It feels good.

And it happened this morning in Chicago for the first time. When I arrived at the Humboldt Park Boat House, a techno beat was booming from loudspeakers and two dozen people -- including many children -- were following three instructors doing a kick-boxing exercise. Others stood around straddling their bikes or chatting with each other. Smiling.

"I'm elated right now," said Miguel Morales of Community Organizing for Obesity Prevention in Humboldt Park, who helped organize the activities. The Greater Humboldt Park Community of Wellness had sponsored two earlier En Movimiento events in the park this summer, but this worked even better because it brought so many people to the park, he said.

Farther south I ran into Rishona Taylor of the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance. She was happy that the second event, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Oct. 26, will cover the same East Garfield territory but run south this time through North Lawndale and Little Village. See the route here. "I learned a few things," she said, "like next time we're going to cluster the activities a bit more" because the crowds prompt even more people to stop and participate.

A story in this morning's Tribune quotes the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation's Adolfo Hernandez, who says that if this year's events are a success we may do more of them next year. Let's make sure our political leaders and neighborhood organizations realize that we want these events and we want them more often -- every week or at least twice a month during the warm months, so that they become a routine for many thousands of Chicagoans.

Do you have photos or video of Sunday Parkways? Please share it with others by joining the new chispacechicago.ning.com site and posting there (or linking via YouTube or Flickr). Thanks.

'En Movimiento': Neighborhoods get active

We've given some attention here to the basketball leagues and boxing gym that provide safe, positive hangout time for kids in the neighborhoods, but there's something bigger going on that involves adults as well: an emphasis on exercise and healthy lifestyles that includes walking, biking, even martial arts.

There's good reason, of course. Studies by the Sinai Urban Health Institute and others show that low-income and minority neighborhoods are particularly hard hit by obesity, asthma, diabetes and heart disease. Local residents and organizations are responding with a variety of programs. Here's a sampling:

• Humboldt Park In Motion (download poster here) will combine tai chi, basketball, bike riding, steel drum music and something called muévete ("move yourself") from noon to 4 p.m. on July 20 and August 10 at Humboldt Park, sponsored by the Greater Humboldt Park Community of Wellness.
• The "WalkForce" in East Garfield Park gets together on Mondays through Wednesdays for healthy walking, with a goal of simulating a walk all the way to the New York Botanical Garden. A personal trainer is available for consultation on Thursdays. Learn more from Rishona Taylor at the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance, 773-638-1766, x17.
  
• Students at Reavis School in Bronzeville are participating in the vigorous practice of capoeira, a form of martial arts and dance that incorporates some history along with fitness training. It's part of Reavis's Integrated Services in Schools (ISS) summer program; read Richard Muhammad's story here. Photo below by Eric Young Smith.
  
• Another ISS school, Marquette Elementary in Chicago Lawn, has partnered up with Healthy Chicago Lawn and Girls in the Game for exercise programs and has even gotten some moms involved.
  

There's more out there, including bike programs and walking clubs that I'd like to learn more about. Please provide stories of your own in the comments below.

What do bikes have to do with it?

Photo by Amadi Jordan-Walker

Daley Plaza was transformed by a sea of bicyclists last Friday morning as early morning commuters converged at Washington and Dearborn for the culmination of Bike to Work Week.

So what does that have to do with community development? More than you might think.

1. The biggest cheers from the crowd, when awards were being announced, were for Alex Wilson, the co-founder of West Town Bikes. Alex and Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation started the very successful BickerBikes program that puts tools in the hands of local youth and teaches them how to fix up broken bikes and then ride them around town. It's a great program that continues to broaden horizons for kids in Humboldt Park and other neighborhoods.
2. Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail was represented in one of the booths by its new executive director Julia Kim, who spoke enthusiastically about that group's efforts to transform an abandoned above-grade rail line into a unique east-west biking and walking trail. The trail will run between two park-short neighborhoods, Humboldt Park and Logan Square, and land is being assembled at various access points to provide mini-parks with ramps up to the trail. This will be huge for Chicago and those neighborhoods when it gets built.
3. Neighborhood organizations and the city will launch Sunday Parkways in October, shutting off automobile traffic on boulevards through five neighborhoods (Logan Square, Humboldt Park, East Garfield, North Lawndale and Little Village) to encourage residents and families to get outside for healthy activities. This idea has been very popular in several Latin American countries and has strong support from local community development corporations including Bickerdike and the Logan Square Neighborhood Assn.

One of the awards went to LISC/Chicago's executive director Andy Mooney, in recognition of LISC's support of these efforts. In his short speech, Mayor Daley pointed out that biking, walking and public transit are all essential elements of making Chicago a more vibrant and livable city. Local residents have the same idea, as they've outlined numerous projects along those lines in the New Communties Program quality-of-life plans, from walking clubs for health to "walking schoolbuses" for safe passage to school, to new CTA and Metra rail stations, to more biking and athletic programs for youth.

What do bikes have to do with it? Plenty.

Teens spread the word about school health clinics

Little Village/Lawndale High School opened its health clinic last fall, to much fanfare. Getting there was quite a job and took many partners, from CITGO to Alivio Medical Center to the Little Village Community Development Corporation.

One of the side benefits of the organizing last year to prepare for the clinic is that LVCDC organizer Christina Bronsing got to know two Little Village/Lawndale students who wanted to learn more about health and make a difference. Lupe Alvarez and Eric Cerda both joined the Illinois Coalition for School Health Centers' Youth Advisory Board and lobbied in Springfield last year for more money to support clinics like theirs.

"My dad has diabetes. ... I started getting interested in health problems," Lupe told me. She wants to become a nurse and has learned more about health conditions from serving on the youth board. Through their activities, "we were able to discuss what we really thought with adults."

Eric joined the youth board to grow as a leader. "If I helped people learn more about the health center, it would probably be good experience for me. It would be a good way to showcase my leadership skills," he said. So far, his strategy has worked out just as he planned--he introduced the clinic to hundreds of people at its grand opening in October.

Both Eric and Lupe are also getting a chance to hone their media skills. They're part of a youth team developing a call-in show for CAN-TV that will teach more teens how they can get a school-based health center in their neighborhood. The show will air on CAN-TV Channel 21 on February 26 at 3:30 p.m. The call-in number is 312-738-1060.

For more on how the Little Village/Lawndale school health clinic is being received by students and teachers, see this story on the New Communities Program web site.