Subscribe: 
Chicago had perfect convertible weather yesterday, and Joe Zekas and I took full advantage of it. We jumped in Val’s old Miata around lunchtime, cruised down the Dan Ryan Expressway to 63rd Street, and shot driving tours of several South Side neighborhoods.
In this first video, we take 63rd Street east to Cottage Grove Avenue in Woodlawn, a neighborhood that is seeing new construction in fits and starts, but whose landscape is still pocked with full blocks of empty lots and boarded-up buildings. (Grab a snack and buckle in — this video’s a long one.)
Related posts:
{ 20 comments }
From what I understand those large swaths of vacant land are where bars and lounges used to reside. Apparently they were such a nuisance to the community that when they were shuttered, everything was raised.
But I’m sure you already knew that.
The Woodlawn Wonder,
There were jazz clubs and bars along that stretch of 63rd at one time, but I don’t think they fell the way you suggest. And certainly there weren’t nearly enough clubs to account for the more than a mile of mostly vacant land along 63rd St.
Woodlawn had a lengthy history of arson in the 60s and 70s, and many buildings were looted and destroyed during the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King.
When Hollywood came to 63rd Street.
Rent the unfortunately named movie,”Monkey Hustle” for some great scenes of Woodlawn in the 70’s and downtown. When I saw the movie, based on Lee Bey’s post, I was surprised how relatively thriving that section of 63rd was well into the 70’s. The movie is available at NetFlix.
My limited understanding of the riots following the murder of Dr. King is that the south side was largely “unrioted”. I like to make up new words.
The vast majority of the rioting occurred along a corridor on the west side from Roosevelt Road on the south to Chicago Avenue on the north.
Brief paragraphs on the riots in Chicago.
At one point before the “mallzation” of America and “white flight” Woodlawn’s 63rd Street and further south Michigan Avenue in Roseland were the main shopping areas for the south side of Chicago. I’m too young and pasty to have shopped in Woodlawn, but Roseland had a similar feel to it.
Being that I posted two links my comment needs to be freed from “moderation”.
I promise the links are not commercial in nature and don’t feature porn. I leave that to elected member of the Republican party.
IrishPirate,
See this Tribune article, for starters:
“Throughout the weekend, police in the Lawndale and Austin neighborhoods on the West Side and in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side rushed from emergency call to emergency call as mobs of men, women and children moved from store to store, breaking plate-glass windows and taking what they found.”
Lee Bey, who is an authoritative source, is talking about 63rd St east of Cottage Grove while our drive was largely west of Cottage Grove.
Joe,
I didn’t say there was no rioting on the South Side after King’s murder. Just relatively less.
The Encyclopedia of Chicago seems to back up that assertion. I could post a link, but like Sarah Palin I don’t think I need to prove anything. I just assert and that makes it FACT and if you don’t like it you are an UnAmerican dog who comes from the UnAmerica America.
The Woodlawn Organization proudly claim that their influence limited the rioting during that time. If that’s true that may be there only real accomplishment.
Seriously, my limited understanding is that a large swath of the west side burned in a matter of days while Woodlawn and other parts of the south side burned in a much sloooooooooower pattern. One or two buildings at a time over a period of years. Ultimately the outcome is similar. Vast areas of vacant lots.
I don’t really have many memories of Woodlawn. Father McFriendly tried to recruit me to go to Mt. Carmel, but I stayed further south.
On a more serious note if you want to see some great footage of Chicago from the 60’s and 70’s rent the aforementioned “Monkey Hustle” or “Medium Cool” which deals with the democratic convention riots and has great shots of downtown and Uptown.
IrishPirate,
Your understanding is basically the same as mine. The west side certainly saw far more devastation in a much shorter period of time.
I wouldn’t take TWO at its word for anything. I’d be more inclined to believe the assertion of some that Jeff Fort’s protection rackets and the terror Fort inspired kept more businesses intact than any other factor.
Whatever the causes, and whenever, the state in which 63rd St has languished over these many years is a source of shame to Chicago.
Razing ‘L’ Would Hurt Woodlawn
I know that the focus of this piece isn’t the L, but I’d like to raise a question about whether or not razing the L east of Cottage Grove was a mistake as far as redevelopment along E. 63rd Street.
I think the low density nonsense that was pushed along E 63rd after the L came down is tragic. So yes I am saying that the demo of the L all the way to Dorchester was a mistake. 63rd is a high density commercial corridor, and pretending it isn’t is damaging to long term reinvestment efforts.
Low density thinking seems to have resulted in zero density. Can’t imagine how razing a transit line is ever a good idea in Chicago. Seems especially misguided in a low-income neighborhood where public transit is a lifeline.
Taking out a one mile stretch of EL from Cottage Grove to Stony Island was criminally stupid. That might be understating the case.
I seem to recall talk of the darkness and noise caused by the EL as being some horrible negative with no redeeming benefits.
I guess it’s also a negative for all the hoods from Armitage to the City border with Evanston.
There should be an EL line running roughly parallel to the lakefront from South Shore to downtown. It could be done and would be a great boon to housing development and business.
In the roughly 50 year history of “The Woodlawn Organization” this was possibly their worst moment in a series of “worst moments”.
I still don’t understand why Bishop Brazier opposed having the EL there. Perhaps he felt that a revitalized EL line might bring development that his organization couldn’t control or benefit from.
If that portion of that neighborhood has lost 80 percent of its population in 50 years perhaps it’s time for a change in thinking.
There are some single family homes closer to Brazier’s church. I almost wonder how they’re doing as far as sales.
Anecdotally; my dad was trapped downtown in the 60s during the riot era (not sure when exactly) and couldn’t get a bus or train back to Hyde Park and cabs refused due to “riots” going on there. He called up my mother who told him that there was nothing going on. I suspect a lot of it was perception in the whiter areas of town.
63rd Street was reasonably busy and relatively dense up until the mid-80s at least, I’d say (if not exactly prosperous). I think Daley has pushed a lot of demolition that hasn’t really been necessary. I still remember the big ballrooms that used to be on Cottage and King drive back them. It had a much more urban feeling than it does now. There used to be mid-rises at 63rd and the IC tracks along with several potentially useful hotels along Stony Island, but all that’s gone now.
I have to go with IrishPirate & SheridanB on this one. I remember taking the line (which was called the Howard-Jackson Park line at the time) all the way to the end when I was a college freshman. At that time it terminated at University Avenue. I was on my way to Promontory Point and probably thought it would be a shorter walk than it was. I think I had an out-of-date AAA map which showed the el ending at Stony Island. I recall 63rd St. being much more intact than what is shown on this video. There were certainly plenty of empty lots west of Washington Park, but 63rd St. wasn’t nearly this desolate. At the same time, this was 20 years ago so my memory could be a little fuzzy.
I think you all are missing the larger point:
The south side of Chicago is more or less a hell-hole not worth caring about.
The most recent evidence of that is just how much the planned Metropolis development in Bronzeville was butchered into what could be best described as a worthless strip center. This is especially disappointing because a lot of us were excited about a fairly well-designed, neighborhood-defining development going up in a part of town that showed faint glimmers of hope for the future.
Well, that’s down the drain. When you allow such trash (new renderings posted by Spyguy at Skyscraperpage) to get built, its your way of saying “we give up on this place” The city cannot gain any headway in that part of town, and frankly I’m not patient (or young) enough to wait another half century for a neighborhood worth caring about to eventually emerge down there.
Give up and move on.
tup,
You’re on a roll recently. First Dearborn Park should be torn down. Next the entire south side of Chicago is not worth caring about. The place where more than a million people live – “not worth caring about.”
Well, I DO care about the south side of Chicago.
The problem is, it’s hard to care about something that continues to yield disappointment after disappointment. From your tours down there I have sensed the same tone from you.
Dearborn Park is a different story–I neither think it has potential nor do I care about it, I really find it to be obnoxiously devoid of merit as a development. But lets not get back into that..
I live on the street you drove down with speedbumps (Ellis). The interesting thing about the empty lots on Ellis is that they are owned by people who live on the block. They are just holding the properties and taking just enough care of them instead of fencing and manicuring as needed. Also a majority of the lots are 63rd east of cottage are owned by a church. Anybody know why one would hold onto empty lots for so long?
It’s been a common dodge in Chicago to warehouse property off the tax rolls by transferring title to a church. Odds are there’s a real owner behind the nominal owner.
Isn’t that the church that got the el torn down? I think that there’s even more there than just warehousing the lots. Wouldn’t that be interesting if they were holding the lots for somebody….
Comments on this entry are closed.