WEST SIDE Housing and History Set Promise of Revival for City’S ‘Best Side’
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Chicago Neighborhoods 2015: Assets, Plans and Trends – A project of The Chicago Community Trust WEST SIDE Housing and history set promise of revival for city’s ‘best side’ “The West Side is the Best Side,” say residents of this vast collection of neighborhoods, comparing their home to the South Side communities where African Americans have also lived for many years. The West Side, indeed, has just as storied a history, hosting one of the city’s first African-American communities back in the 1850s, along Lake and Kinzie Streets, and it remains an important and politically powerful part of Chicago and the region. Source: Calculations by Institute for Today’s West Side is home to 229,000 Housing Studies at DePaul University using people in five distinct neighborhoods, 2010 Decennial Census. from East and West Garfield Park to North Lawndale, Austin, and Humboldt Park. The planning district is predominantly African American except for a few diverse enclaves in Austin and the Latino portions of Humboldt Park. Well located along transit lines and railroads, the West Side was built up early in Chicago’s history, with developers erecting thousands of cottages, two-flats, and large apartment buildings to house workers from nearby factories and downtown businesses. Massive job centers, including metal fabricators, candy companies, appliance makers, and the 10,000-job Sears Roebuck complex, provided paychecks for generations of families, who in turn supported busy shopping districts on Madison Street, Chicago Avenue, North Avenue, Roosevelt Road, and Ogden Avenue. The West Side was never a rich community – though it had pockets of larger, fancier homes – but it was a solid, working-class area, four miles deep and four wide, that was home after World War II to more than 400,000 Chicagoans. Economic and racial change Those post-war years marked the beginning of a major shift on the West Side as industrial companies began moving to the suburbs or out of state, making low-skill employment less available. After decades of hard use, the housing stock was deteriorating, and larger units were cut into “kitchenettes” to provide additional low-cost housing. In the 1950s, construction of the Eisenhower Expressway (I-290) cut a block-wide ditch across the West Side, displacing thousands and separating neighborhoods. Then, starting in the 1950s, the destructive pattern of white flight further transformed the neighborhoods. The black West Side was created by a mass exodus of white WEST SIDE OVER TIME households, moving east to west, block by block, as real estate 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 brokers fanned the flames – “panic peddling” – so that departing Population 395,501 335,696 277,073 269,031 229,317 families would sell at a low price. As African-Americans moved in, paying inflated prices, the blocks became 100 percent black, Share of population in poverty 20.5% 31.7% 34.8% 31% 33.4% and the selling moved on. In the Jewish community of North Percent owner-occupied/renter occupied Lawndale in the 1950s, the African American population grew 35/65 32/68 35/65 37/63 34/66 from 13,000 to 113,000. East Garfield Park started turning in the Sources: Calculations by Institute for Housing Studies mid-1950s and was 98 percent African American by 1970. West at DePaul University using U.S. Census data from US2010 Project at Brown University. Garfield Park shifted from 84 percent white to 97 percent black in the 1970s. Austin and Humboldt Park changed last, the wave moving west and north despite vigorous efforts by community groups and churches to create stable, mixed neighborhoods. When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 5, 1968, two years after King lived briefly in North Lawndale to protest housing discrimination, the West Side reacted with riots and fires, destroying much of the 16th Street retail strip where King had lived and many buildings on Roosevelt Road and Madison Street. The emptiness and poverty of today’s West Side is often attributed to the Chicago Neighborhoods 2015 Summary of Assets – West Side – February 2015 – Page 2 riots, but that is a half truth. The thousands of vacant lots resulted from decades of disinvestment before and after 1968. Changes in the job market and weak schools kept earning power low, which hurt local shopping districts. And as wealthier residents moved out, the share of population living in poverty grew to 33 percent, making the West Side among the poorest districts in Chicago. Building new communities Some of the West Side’s current assets predate the racial turnover, in particular the thousands of historic structures that remain valuable today. But many were developed as the incoming African- American residents created wholly new communities from scratch. Block clubs were formed, churches established, family and geographic roots tapped to establish new networks. Larger community organizations and leaders emerged, including Nancy Jefferson and the Midwest Community Council, Belle Whaley of Operation Brotherhood in North Lawndale, Gale Cincotta and the Organization for a Better Austin, Jacqueline Reed of the Westside Health Authority, and José López of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center. It was on the West Side that some of Chicago’s earliest and strongest nonprofit development corporations were formed: Bethel New Life, Inc., which used church-based organizing and sweat equity to rebuild parts of West Garfield Park and the St. Anne’s hospital complex in North Austin; Lawndale Christian Development Corp., which set up shop across from the church on Ogden Avenue and rebuilt hundreds of units of housing; and People’s Redevelopment and Investment Effort (PRIDE) in Austin, which bought and rehabbed corner apartment buildings to stabilize fragile blocks. Mt. Sinai Hospital pioneered the concept of a committed, community-based health services provider, and numerous social service and employment-related agencies served and continue to serve local residents. On today’s West Side, there are many areas of strength and potential: Historic structures – The West Side is rich with distinctive architecture and building styles. North Lawndale has stately greystone two-flats, East Garfield has brick cottages with arched entryways, and classic bungalows stretch across parts of Humboldt Park and Austin. Stunning structures include the mosaic-bedecked Laramie Bank building at Chicago and Laramie, the Chicago Neighborhoods 2015 Summary of Assets – West Side – February 2015 – Page 3 Pioneer Bank building at North Avenue and Pulaski Road, the Guyon Hotel and Midwest Athletic Club in West Garfield Park, and various massive synagogue buildings in North Lawndale, including the landmark Anshe Sholom on Independence Boulevard. Parks – Three of Chicago’s flagship parks – Douglas, Garfield, and Humboldt – provide recreational and natural opportunities and are connected by the city’s boulevard system. Columbus Park and its golf course are in South Austin. The Garfield Park Conservatory is just completing a three-year, $15 million renovation to repair roofs damaged in a 2011 hailstorm. Transportation – The West Side is linked to EMPLOYMENT – WEST SIDE downtown and suburban job centers by the Top six employment sectors (# jobs) 2005 2011 CTA’s Green, Blue, and Pink Lines, as well Health Care and Social Assistance 8,264 8,212 as bus routes, Metra lines, and the Manufacturing 10,090 6,401 Eisenhower Expressway (I-290). CTA Retail Trade 3,724 4,528 Admin, Support, Waste Mgmt, Remediation 7,550 2,563 ridership has grown at most West Side Wholesale Trade 3,765 2,512 stations. Construction 2,943 2,162 Total # private-sector jobs in district 51,662 37,254 Employment – The West Side supports 37,000 local jobs, including 8,200 in health District Citywide care and social assistance and 6,400 in Unemployment rate 2012 21.1% 12.9% Sources: Calculations by Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University manufacturing. More than 5,000 of these using Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics data (top sectors) and 2012 Five-Year American Community Survey (unemployment). jobs are held by district residents. CTA Green, Pink, and Blue Line Ridership (weekday boardings, year-end averages, 2009 and 2013) Green Line Lake Street California Kedzie Conservatory Pulaski Cicero Laramie Central Austin 2009 1,069 1,330 846 1,811 1,450 1,343 2,421 2,090 2013 1,094 1,600 901 1,916 1,413 1,410 2,304 1,989 Pink Line Blue Line Forest Park Branch Central Kedzie- California Kedzie Pulaski Kostner Cicero Pulaski Cicero Austin Park Homan 2009 1,182 860 1,039 1,041 416 1,127 1,734 1,478 1,176 1,859 2013 1,459 1,088 1,303 1,221 497 1,321 2,250 1,874 1,397 2,103 Chicago Neighborhoods 2015 Summary of Assets – West Side – February 2015 – Page 4 Source: Chicago Transit Authority Annual Ridership Reports. These core assets have supported new investments such as George Westinghouse College Prep, a $69 million selective enrollment high school on Franklin Boulevard; Breakthrough Urban Ministries’ new $20 million Multiplex, at 3211 W. Carroll, which includes a preschool, gymnasium, health clinic, and café; Lawndale Christian Health Center’s new Health and Fitness Center on Ogden Avenue, which includes medical facilities, a conference center, and restaurant; and the Galewood Yards conversion of former rail land to a 14-screen AMC Showplace theater complex. The neighborhoods Each neighborhood has its own history and characteristics, so they are described separately here, followed by discussion of shared challenges and opportunities. Austin remains the strongest of the West Side neighborhoods with hundreds of blocks of intact, well-maintained housing. Brick bungalows, two-flats, and large apartment buildings make Austin a desirable place to live for both owners and renters; the community’s 34 percent homeownership rate is the highest in the district.