back (of the) yards

Morgan at 47th Street, Back of the Yards, 3-19-2006.
http://www.thespicehouse.com/product/product_Back-of-the-Yards-Garlic-Pepper-Butchers-Rub-.php "We gave this rub the name "Back-of-the-Yards" in honor of the area of Chicago south of 39th Street, between Halsted and Western Avenues. This part of the city has a proud history as home to many hard-working immigrants who found work in the meat industry and who became the backbone of Chicago."

NE corner of Morgan at 49th Street, 3-19-2006.
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/01/29/Books/Revisting_the_shamble.shtml "It was an elemental odor, raw and crude; it was rich, almost rancid, sensual, and strong. There were some who drank it in as if it were an intoxicant; there were others who put their handkerchiefs to their faces. The new emigrants were still tasting it, lost in wonder, when suddenly the car came to a halt, and the door was flung open, and a voice shouted - 'Stockyards!'"

back of the lot

5409 S. Ashland, 3-21-2006.

do they serve pina coladas?

SW corner of 47th Street at Marshfield, 3-22-2006.

1714 W. 47th Street, 3-23-2006.
Amazingly, the timeless kitsch classic "Escape (the Pina Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes has now appeared in the soundtracks of five films, starting with The General's Daughter (1999), Shrek (2000), The Sweetest Thing (2002), American Splendor (2003), and Bewitched (2005).

border security along the western border line

42nd Street viaduct at the western border of Fuller Park turned into a cul-de-sac to prevent traffic into Canaryville, 3-24-06.

432 W. 42nd Street in Canaryville, the first house west of the viaduct border which divides Fuller Park & Canaryville, 3-24-06.

312-314 W. 42nd Street in Fuller Park, a half block east of western border viaduct, 3-24-2006.
*This duplex is owned by CHA. When it was inspected on 11-1-1999, it was cited 30 violations.

Now exiting Fuller Park Community Area via Garfield Blvd. at the Chicago & Western Indiana Railroad viaduct, 3-24-2006.

Isn't it Grand?

SW corner of Champlain at 48th Street in Grand Boulevard (Community Area 38), 3-30-2006.

4720 & 4714 S. Wabash, in Grand Boulevard Community Area, 3-30-2006.

***4720 S. Wabash was sold for $145k on 4-19-2001. The property changed hands just 5 months later (a week after 9/11) for $270k. It was sold again in less than 2 ˝ years (by the bank as a result of default?) for $165K on 1-16-2004. Just five months later (6-1-2004) it was sold once again - this time for $325k!

4300 block of South Champlain, 3-30-2006.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/537.html "Once a place of wealth and grandeur, Grand Boulevard has been more accurately characterized in the latter decades of the twentieth century by physical deterioration, poverty, unemployment, and public housing."

SE corner of Prairie at 42nd Street, 4-6-2006.

4507 S. Indiana, 4-6-2006.

room & boarded

Vacated Ida B. Wells public housing along the 3800 block of South King Drive in Bronzeville, 4-14-2006.

"The racial segregation embodied in these developments was in compliance with federal policy (the "Neighborhood Composition Rule"), which required that the tenants of a housing development be of the same race as the people of the area in which it was located."

SW corner of 44th and St. Lawrence in Bronzeville, 4-14-2006.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/253.html "When Congress passed the Housing Act of 1949, which provided substantial funding for public housing, CHA was ready with a map of proposed sites for projects to be built on open land throughout the city, but the city council rejected this map altogether. White aldermen rejected plans for public housing in their wards. CHA's policy thereafter was to build family housing only in black residential areas or adjacent to existing projects. This rejection explains the concentration of public housing in the city center on the South and West Sides."

mart art

Closed and out of business at the NE corner of 61st Street and MLK Drive, 4-18-2006.

I'm lovin' it?

Former McDonald's location at NE corner of 51st Street at Wentworth (east of the Ryan) with the last of the Robert Taylor Homes standing in the background, 4-23-2006.

http://cbs2chicago.com/medillnewsservice/local_story_104145016.html "They all await word on exactly when they will be able to move into the redeveloped communities that will ultimately fill the now-vacant land between the Dan Ryan Expressway and State Street."

Pull, man

NW corner of 113th and St. Lawrence in Pullman (Community Area 50), 4-28-2006.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1030.html "Once the most famous planned community in America, the oldest part of Pullman is notable for its role in American labor and planning history."

Dedicated in August, 2002 as the future site of A. Phillip Randolph Cultural Complex, Pullman Porter Museum, North Pullman Cultural and Tech Center, and the African-American Fire Fighters Museum of Chicago at the SW corner of 108th Street and Champlain in Pullman, 4-28-2006.

http://www.jlarch.net/projects/inst_pullmanstation.html

http://www.pullman-museum.org/

bunga-low

Top to bottom: 8912 - 8908 - 8904 - 8900 South Harper in Calumet Heights (Community Area 48), 5-5-2006.

THIS is Avalon Park (aka Pennytown)

NW corner of Harper at 81st Street in Avalon Park (Community Area 45), 5-6-2006.

"…the area became known as Pennytown for a general store owner named Penny who sold homemade popcorn balls."

http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/parks.detail/object_id/555e4013-5fef-4db6-aa28-d04f31fd4090.cfm "…pays homage to the English Isle of Avalon, believed to be the burial place of legendary King Arthur."

1264 E. 85th Street, Avalon Park, 5-6-2006.

8346 S. Kimbark, Avalon Park, 5-6-2006.

North side of 78th at Woodlawn in Avalon Park (with the Skyway beyond the trees), 5-6-2006.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/97.html "Avalon Park was so swampy during most of the nineteenth century that the few houses located there had to be perched on stilts to avoid flooding and infestation. The main natural features were Mud Lake and Stony Island."

http://my.brandeis.edu/news/item?news_item_id=104210&show_release_date=1 "Avalon Park is 97 percent black and had a median household income of $44,344 in the 2000 census. Last year, the average single-family home that sold in the South Side neighborhood went for $136,000, Chicago Realtors Association sales data shows.
Across the city, in the Northwest Side Portage Park neighborhood, the median income is nearly identical to that in Avalon Park, but the neighborhood is 70 percent non-Hispanic white. The average house there sold for $308,000 last year -- even though the neighborhood had twice as many reported crimes as Avalon Park, according to Chicago Police Department statistics."

block club watch

NW corner of Harper at 88th Street in Calumet Heights (Community Area 48), 5-5-2006.

"No Outlet" at west end of 1300 block of East 89th Street along the New York, Chicago, and St. Louis railroad in Calumet Heights, 5-5-2006.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/200.html "The swampy Calumet Heights region remained largely unoccupied throughout much of the nineteenth century… In 1881, the New York, Chicago & St. Louis railroad built rail yards at the area's western border, and a small settlement began to develop nearby."

party lot

City of Chicago parking lot at east end of 55th Street at Lake Shore Drive, 5-13-2006.

following Leopold and Loeb

East of where the street grid quits (east of Avenue J at approximately 118th Street) in Hegewisch, 5-15-2006.

Marshland just to the north of 118th (approximately), 5-15-2006.

Dirt path close to the Indiana//Illinois state line and near the former Penn Railroad, 5-15-2006.

Ditch along the Penn Railroad, 5-15-2006.

http://chicago.urban-history.org/evt/evt02/evt0200.shtml "…and the little neighbor boy crumpled in a heap at their feet, rolled here and there about the south side until 'heavy dusk.' Then it was swung southward, to the bleak marshland which Nathan Leopold knew step by step from having studied bird life there." Source: The Chicago Daily News, 31 May 1924

"Two police officers dredging the water near the scene where Bobby Franks was dumped," 1924 (Library of Congress)

Curtis Locke