Albany Park Austin Beverly Bucktown Englewood Garfield Park/ Off The Street Club Humboldt Park Hyde Park Lincoln Park/DePaul Pilsen/Little Village Rogers Park
CONFIDENCE NEVER SOUNDED SO GOOD
Confidence. Teamwork. Community.
Every September we put out a collection of neighborhood bests to celebrate South Side gems and pay homage to the sites that structure our everyday lives. Help us put together this year’s list by telling us about a place, event, or that you love in your thing th neighborhood.
Enroll your child in one of our after-school Neighborhood Choirs and we’ll teach them so much more than how to carry a tune. We’ll teach them how to carry themselves as the future leaders they are.
Sign up today. ccchoir.org/join
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IN CHICAGO IN THIS
SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent nonprofit newsprint magazine written for and about neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago. We publish in-depth coverage of the arts and issues of public interest alongside oral histories, poetry, fiction, interviews, and artwork from local photographers and illustrators. The South Side Weekly is dedicated to supporting cultural and civic engagement on the South Side and to providing educational opportunities for developing journalists, writers, and artists. Volume 6, Issue 34 Editor-in-Chief Adam Przybyl Managing Editors Sam Joyce Sam Stecklow Deputy Editor Jasmine Mithani Senior Editors Julia Aizuss, Christian Belanger, Mari Cohen, Emeline Posner, Olivia Stovicek Politics Editor Jim Daley Education Editor Ashvini Kartik-Narayan, Michelle Anderson Music Editor Atavia Reed Stage & Screen Editor Nicole Bond Visual Arts Editor Rod Sawyer Nature Editor Sam Joyce Food & Land Editor AV Benford Contributing Editors Mira Chauhan, Joshua Falk, Carly Graf, Ian Hodgson, Maple Joy, Rachel Schastok, Robin Vaughan, Jocelyn Vega, Tammy Xu, Jade Yan Data Editor Jasmine Mithani Radio Exec. Producer Erisa Apantaku Social Media Editors Grace Asiegbu, Arabella Breck, Maya Holt Director of Fact Checking: Tammy Xu Fact Checkers: Abigail Bazin, Susan Chun, Sam Joyce, Elizabeth Winkler Visuals Editor Lizzie Smith Deputy Visuals Editors Siena Fite, Mell Montezuma, Sofie Lie Photo Editor Keeley Parenteau Staff Photographers: milo bosh, Jason Schumer Staff Illustrators: Siena Fite, Natalie Gonzalez, Katherine Hill Interim Layout Editor J. Michael Eugenio Deputy Layout Editor Haley Tweedell Webmaster Managing Director
Pat Sier Jason Schumer
The Weekly is produced by an all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring. Over the summer we publish every other week. Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to:
A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors
South Shore Nature Sanctuary Still Alive Recently, Ald. Leslie Hairston offered a bizarre assessment of the South Shore Nature Sanctuary. Environmentalists have advocated against the proposal for a Tiger Woodsdesigned golf course in South Shore, which would replace part of the sanctuary with a fairway. While some of the sanctuary would remain, it would no longer include any lakefront, and any visitors would have to constantly keep an eye out for poorly hit golf balls. According to Hairston, however, there’s nothing there to destroy: the sanctuary is “actually all dead. And it’s been dead for some years.” This would be a dubious claim in January, but in summer it defies all reason. Any visitor can see thousands of flowers scattered across the prairies and woodlands that make up the sanctuary. The land teems with human life as well: just last Saturday, it played host to Monarch Festival, celebrating the monarch butterflies that call the lakefront home. Both animals and people are able to enjoy the sanctuary because of the hard work of volunteers at monthly stewardship days, defying Hairston’s claim that the sanctuary is “all dead” because “there was nobody to maintain it.” Hairston clearly hasn’t been to the sanctuary in a while. She should visit. Seeing that the sanctuary is very much alive might encourage her to think about a plan for the golf courses that doesn’t require sacrificing Chicago’s most beautiful lakefront park. “Ban”ville Correctional Center Several months ago, Lee Gaines reported for Illinois Newsroom that hundreds of books were removed from the library at Danville Correctional Center. At the time, Illinois Department of Corrections director John Baldwin claimed that the books had not been appropriately reviewed and were removed once this was discovered. But last week Peter Nickeas uncovered for the Chicago Tribune that the real motivation for the removal was concern over “racial” content in the books. In response to these concerns, Danville not only removed hundreds of books, but also canceled all classes offered by the Education Justice Project, a program that offers college courses to incarcerated students. A memo from an assistant warden also called out materials related to “Diversity and Inclusion” as a cause for concern. It is hard to imagine how the forbidden books, such as Visiting Day, could truly meet the criteria for rejection. In what world can officers claim with a straight face that a children’s book about a young girl who visits her father in prison “advocates or encourages violence, hatred, or group disruption” or “encourages or instructs in the commission of criminal activity”? The EJP program was later reinstated, and the books were eventually returned after reporting on the removal, but no changes to policy or process have been made. We hope that some combination of politicians, activists, and citizens can force Danville to fix its review policy and start maintaining a I Buy Records!! list of approved publications as is required by statute. Or better yet, if prisons cannot obey Cash for your records. Jazz, basic laws, perhaps we should simply abolish Punk, Blues, Soul, Rock, them altogether. Reggae, 33's and 45's.
South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773) 234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly.com
Cover Illustration by Valerie von Rubio
All genre's considered. Get cash instead of letting your records collect dust!! Call or text Tony at 773-372-6643
ISSUE river reflections
Libby Hill’s history of the Chicago River is detailed and thorough, but doesn’t quite land its punch. max budovitch..................................4 sunflower city
“All of this is in service to beauty” nikki roberts.....................................6 allow strangers to create your oxygen
“What I’ve learned in these last three to four years will help me in whatever field I pursue.” maple joy............................................8 bleh the buddah
“The public space is ours, so let’s put our art on it” evan dye...........................................10 independent political organization powers up in burke’s ward
The IPO wants to provide an alternative route for residents to connect with city services. jim daley..........................................11
OUR WEBSITE S ON SOUTHSIDEWEEKLY.COM SSW Radio soundcloud.com/south-side-weekly-radio Email Edition southsideweekly.com/email Support the Weekly southsideweekly.com/donate Join the Weekly southsideweekly.com/contribute AUGUST 21, 2019 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3
NATURE
River Reflections
Celebrating the natural and unnatural waterway at the heart of the city BY MAX BUDOVITCH
SOFIE LIE
T
he bridge was ahead in the darkness, its true extent impossible to gauge. We moved past the riverside mountains of gravel and sand and scrap metal at a brisk clip, but the gentle hull of the boat made no wake on the placid water, and the crowd on deck was lost in a wedding dance. Get out there and see how low it is, the man in charge told me. The skyline, glowing over the stern, hit my eyes as I stepped onto the upper deck. The view ahead remained murky. He mulled over my report, tapping a finger on a spoke of the chest-high wooden wheel. We’ll inch up to it, and you’ll take another look, he said with the confidence of the owner’s son. None of us—captain and crew in the employ of a downtown tour boat company— had ever sailed this far up the winding 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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reaches of the Chicago River. Never during the day, and never at night. The bridge drew closer, visible only as a lattice of darkness where its rusting girders scuttled the city’s light. Two, maybe three inches to spare, I yelled over the music. The bridge slowly bent back the first of the boat’s flexible antennae as the small crew, about sixty passengers and several tons of steel slipped effortlessly upstream. More than ten years after passing under that bridge, I can still smell the river’s heavy odor and feel the relief that came as we laughed and sailed onward, watching the tree branches reach closer from the banks and realizing that we should turn back while we still could. Places instill lessons that shape us. For those who have spent time on it, the Chicago River’s wisdom continues to find new applications.
Recently, environmentalist and educator Libby Hill’s 2000 book, The Chicago River: A Natural and Unnatural History, was republished with several new chapters. They cover the Chicago Riverwalk, the Asian carp crisis, the disinfection of the river, and the restoration of its habitats. But the imagination is stirred, memories are unearthed, and childhood lessons are recalled largely during the first, older half of the book, which describes the river’s origins. After the last glacial retreat, Lake Michigan filled with water and then leveled out at somewhere near its current depth. (What is now the Loop was under several stories of water as recently as 14,000 years ago.) Trees sprouted on the stretch of land between the river and the lake, and prairie took hold to the west. A slight ridge in the landscape, running between what is now
Leavitt Street and Albany Avenue, was all that separated the Five Lakes from the Father of Waters. While civic lore teaches that engineers breached this divide in 1900 by rolling the river uphill, the actual history was never so clear. In a passage that reintroduces us to the Lower West Side, Hill tells how Mud Lake, the boggy division between the lakes and the Mississippi that stretched west from Little Village, flowed both ways depending on the wind. When Mud Lake swelled with rain, a canoe could make it from one watershed to the other without running aground. Hill’s clarification, so casually relayed, puts one of Chicago’s sacred truths at delightful risk. The reader feels let in on a huge secret when they realize that, while the river flowed towards the lake before it was reversed, it did so just barely, and in its upper reaches not always.
NATURE
The writer Nelson Algren spent much of his life within several blocks of the Chicago River. But the opening of his Chicago: City on the Make, paints a coastal-prairie picture of “moving waters as far as the eye could follow” and “a sea of grass as far as the wind might reach.” Hill’s portrait is different: one of a city defined by its river, not just while explorers still thought China lay beyond Montreal, but also once railroads eclipsed boats and after telecommuting eclipsed the need to transport anything at all. Her’s is an alternative to Algren’s classic setting, and inspires a search for the few stories that use the river, rather than the lake or prairie, to reveal our city’s emotional truths. A night scene in Stuart Dybek’s “Blight” takes place on a railroad bridge, from which a band of youths push their defunct car into the river, only to realize that they left a saxophone in the trunk. But this is one of the waterway’s rare appearances in a tradition dominated by skyscrapers and shacks, lakefront and prairie. Hill’s narrative points to this imbalance, and leaves us looking for material to tip the scales. Another sacred truth is that of the “founding father”—both his identity and his purpose. In the popular imagination, the first explorers who paddled up the Chicago River and trudged through its swamps embodied the raw self-reliance that made Chicago’s lonely fur traders, land speculators, bankers, gangsters, and politicians rich. In 1847, however, Hill tells us that 20,000 people from eighteen states met at the frontier town of Chicago to demand that the federal government fund local infrastructure. Hill includes photographs of weekenders in Sunday rowboats that dwarf the teeny river, reminding us that this waterway was no Hudson, Delaware, or Potomac, and needed all the outside help it could get if it was ever to host a great city. Without the support and guarantees of government, the city would never have grown beyond a few cabins, and the boastful frontiersmen would never have been able to boast so much. There are other surprises. Hill cautions against the clever idea of monetizing Asian carp by catching them for food, lest someone decide that aiding their spread into the lakes would be profitable. Her descriptions of a tunnel wide enough to swallow a small house, running for dozens of miles deep below Chicago, awakens a curiosity as to what else we don’t know about the city below our feet. When a rainstorm overburdens Chicago’s network of sewers and drainage pipes, this
While the river flowed towards the lake before it was reversed, it did so just barely, and in its upper reaches not always.
expectation for the unexpected. You never know when several tons of steel, which sit motionless for six months, might suddenly rise into the sky and mess up your day. The Chicago River is not just an engineering feat or environmental cause. It’s an emotional truth filled with shipwrecked saxophones and ads for new condos. Hill reminds us that it deserves our attention. ¬
“Deep Tunnel” siphons off billions of gallons of excess water and stores it until treatment plants catch up. Next time it thunders, think before you turn on the faucet. At the very beginning, Hill tells us that the river’s story is a “microcosm of the uneasy relation between nature and civilization.” It is a generalization, but the reader might be willing to defer judgement, as broad inquiries with groundbreaking results seem to be a Chicago specialty. Think of William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis, in which he debunks the idea that the city existed in opposition to nature, using the futures market for grain, which helped build the Loop, as an example. But as the book wears on, piling interesting fact upon acronym upon subheading, it starts to feel like the narrative will never land its punch. Not even Hill’s occasional craftiness—“no longer would dilution be the only solution to pollution”— can lighten the otherwise plodding prose. Hill occasionally hints at alternate theories to her “microcosm,” but these offer no more than a sentence of respite before the narrative plunges back into hydrological blow-byblows. “Individuals make a difference,” she tells us. “Someone needs to stand up for nature,” she quotes from a public meeting. How many times have we heard this and agreed? The reader reaches the last paragraph of the book still waiting for a clear resolution. Hill’s parting passage tells us (unhelpfully) that a “river is a continuum over space and time,” before abruptly concluding that “humans and rivers are interdependent.” A reader might respond with a generalization in kind: good books are always part of a larger conversation. The sources a writer draws from, the words she uses, the arguments she makes, and the truths she embraces do not stand alone, but rather respond to past voices and shape those of the future. In what conversation does Hill take part? The Chicago River was actually written piecemeal by Hill’s friends and colleagues— fellow environmentalists and educators—
Libby Hill, The Chicago River: A Natural and Unnatural History. $24.50. Southern Illinois University Press. 328 pages
who handed over chapters that she edited with a common voice. The text is filled with detail, the kind of stuff that could launch a thousand term papers. But if you live south of 87th Street, you’ll have less to work with because, as Hill notes, that is the approximate dividing line between water flowing into the Chicago River and water flowing towards the Calumet River system, to which she devotes less attention. By virtue of geography, the book spends most of its time on the North Side and even in the suburbs, following the River’s branches as far as Waukegan. The book’s limitations come into focus when Hill invites the reader to admire the river’s transformation from industrial dumping ground to urban amenity. Behold, Marina City, once “a vision for attractive residential living.” But as you stand on the riverwalk admiring the corncob towers, there’s no mention of their infamous developer, the policies he helped craft, the problems he helped create, and the implications of the vision Marina City still represents. Charles Swibel built the towers as a self-contained, luxury “city” within the actual 1960s urban-crisis Chicago. This, in the midst of his tenure as the head of the Chicago Housing Authority and promoter of urban policies that compelled him to make Marina City a fortress. From the French trappers to Fort Dearborn to Cholera to Swibel, Hill’s river is a city-maker, whose banks hint at where Chicago is headed. Are Lincoln Yards and the 78— the largest of a new generation of inward-facing megadevelopments—part of the city we want the river to build? But Hill did not set out to cover this ground, and seems to place the onus on the reader to apply the book’s raw facts to their own projects—whether that be volunteering, doing more research, or writing reviews. Which brings me back to the bridge. That heavy river smell hits me whenever I’m asked to join in doing something I know we better not do. Other places on the river, where the bridges actually open to let boats safely through, instill in Chicagoans an
Max Budovitch is a contributor to the Weekly. He last wrote about developers and the future of Woodlawn.
LOCALLY OWNED AND OPERATED.
AUGUST 21, 2019 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5
NATURE
Sunflower City
NIKKI ROBERTS
An acre of beauty in Washington Park BY NIKKI ROBERTS
T
he area around the Garfield Green Line station looks like a typical Chicago neighborhood scene. A busy divided street separates the station from the new Washington Park outpost of Peach’s, a Bronzeville mainstay, while the blocks immediately west of the station are filled with residential apartment buildings, fast food joints, and liquor stores. To the east lies the expanse of Washington Park, but it’s not the only place to find a bit of nature in this urban landscape. Just one block north of the station’s Park & Ride lot lies something most Chicago residents won’t find in their neighborhood: an entire acre of shining, golden sunflowers known as Sunflower City. Sunflower City, a non-profit organization founded by Rob McHugh, is on its third growing season at an otherwisevacant lot at the intersection of East 54th Street and South Prairie Avenue. While McHugh only planted on about one-tenth of the lot in 2017, he managed to fill the entire acre with sunflowers last year, and repeated the feat again this summer. As McHugh leads me through the acre of sunflower-spotted land, he’s careful to point out each creature and different type of sunflower we pass by. Gray and brown grasshoppers hop around some vibrant yellow blooms—McHugh explains that this variety is called ‘Lemon Queen’— 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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while monarch butterflies and bumblebees lazily drift among giants that stand over six feet tall. A pair of pale yellow birds chase each other through the field of east-facing sunflowers which, McHugh loudly explains over the roar of the passing “L” Green Line train, are heliotropic: they face the sun once they bloom, and continue to face east until they die as autumn approaches. While McHugh does not consider himself a gardener, he wasn’t new to planting sunflowers when he began this project three years ago. Back in 2012, McHugh and other researchers planted sunflowers on a small empty lot in Kenwood, at 43rd and Greenwood, to investigate the healing properties of sunflowers planted in urban soils, which are often degraded and heavily contaminated with lead. His team hoped that sunflowers, which thrive in rugged soil, would pull out the lead and allow these vacant lots to be used for growing food. In the meantime, they hoped the products of the flowers, such as their seeds and oil, could be used as alternatives to fossil fuels and made into plastics. “If you can take that seed oil and make fuel and there’s no lead in it, then you’re not releasing lead in the atmosphere,” said McHugh. In addition to pulling lead out of the soil, the amount of lead present in the sunflower seed is dramatically less than the
original amount of lead in the soil, meaning seeds that are turned into biofuel released less lead into the environment than they pull out of it. However, what impacted McHugh the most was not his research findings, but the community’s response to the sunflowers. “The research and growing oilseed became secondary. What was happening was the response from the neighborhood,” said McHugh. “I had two little kids, six years old, who’d come out all the time. They’d move bricks around and help clean up and I’d go buy them things from the store.... When the flowers bloomed and their heads turned— that’s when you harvest—we were taking the flowers down and a group of teenagers walked by saying ‘Hey, don’t take the flowers down!’ One young woman said, ‘They’re beautiful, you’ve got to come back.’ Some older people in the neighborhood came over and said, ‘We’d really like to see you come back,’ and that’s what clicked.” Four years after planting sunflowers in Kenwood, McHugh sold all of his research equipment and went back to school at Northeastern University to pursue his master’s in environmental science. However, his desire to continue planting sunflowers never left. After making connections with a few community organizations, McHugh met a friend of a friend who had an acre
of land on the South Side, which would eventually become Sunflower City. “This kind of work is not new, but [we must] do it on a bigger and bigger scale. We have 4,000 to 5,000 vacant acres of land in the city; we’re just mowing it. We can put it into service again for beauty, but also for clean energy development, expanding the scope of urban agriculture, getting people more involved. I had limited gardening skills, but this is a way to incrementally invite people into urban agriculture. Chicago has the rare opportunity to be the leader in urban agriculture, in my opinion,” said McHugh. But, while urban agriculture is important, McHugh believes that the primary purpose of Sunflower City is to cultivate a form of natural beauty in an urban landscape. “All of this is in service to beauty. If I look at something and find it to be beautiful and it’s in my neighborhood, then that belongs to me. No one can take that away from me,” said McHugh. “If you have this external beauty to connect with, what does this do with your internal beauty? If you can connect with your own inner beauty, what is that… self-discovery? Do I then get to reconnect to my own self-worth?” McHugh remains uncertain about the extent to which his sunflowers can positively
NATURE
Gray and brown grasshoppers hop around some vibrant yellow blooms—McHugh explains that this variety is called ‘Lemon Queen’—while Monarch butterflies and bumblebees lazily drift among giants that stand over six feet tall.
NIKKI ROBERTS
affect both residents and commuters in Washington Park, but he is dedicated to planting each summer until he figures it out. However, planting sunflowers isn’t free, and much of Sunflower City’s budget comes out of McHugh’s own pocket. With the exception of one small grant, McHugh relies on help from friends and volunteers to continue planting. However, there is an alternative to relying on grants and donors. While
McHugh is hesitant to sell the sunflowers, he acknowledges that cutting and selling sunflower bouquets would help him raise the funds for next summer. “I could cut this field and start selling bouquets. But the best time to cut a sunflower is when it’s barely opened. If I cut the sunflower when it’s barely opened, then I’ve erased the most important part of this project,” said McHugh. “As long as I have a field to do it, I’ll figure out how to get
enough money to plant it and weed it.” Selling the sunflowers before their peak bloom is McHugh’s last resort. However, that doesn’t mean he’s opposed to visitors cutting a flower or two for themselves when they visit Sunflower City. If you’d like to observe the Washington Park sunflower field for yourself, McHugh estimates the field will be in bloom for another two to three weeks. Sunflower City is located at 5345 S. Prairie Ave. ¬
Nikki Roberts is a senior journalism student at DePaul University. She writes about underground Chicago music and feminist pop culture, and enjoys reading hyper-local reporting on Chicago and its neighborhoods.
AUGUST 21, 2019 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7
LIT
SURVIVAL GUIDE By Stella R., grade nine, from I Will Hold You Like a Bible
Allow Strangers to Create Your Oxygen
826CHI
A delivery service from 826Chi sends student writing, selected by students, around the city BY MAPLE JOY
M
ichaela Bailey, a Chicago Public Schools student, first learned about 826CHI in eighth grade, when she participated in a workshop that taught students how to write young adult dystopian fiction. That same year, Bailey took another film critique workshop, which solidified her decision to continue with the organization’s programs. This April, Bailey was selected by 826Chi to pick the first piece for the launch of the Student Writing Delivery Service. Once a month, subscribers receive a piece of writing, curated by an 826Chi student, to their email or physical address. “The service is just a way to make sure the people who participate in our community are able to see what our students are doing in case they can’t [get] every publication 826 puts out,” said Bailey. Founded in 2005, 826CHI is a nonprofit creative writing organization “dedicated to amplifying the voice of Chicago youth.” Teachers and volunteers want students to feel empowered and believe in the strength of their writing. The organization works with schools and students who come from fifty wards across the city of Chicago. 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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“We write with 3,500 Chicago Public Schools students each year in over 111 schools,'' said Kendra Curry-Khanna, 826CHI’s executive director. 826CHI helps students create thousands of pieces of writing which are shared on their website and can be found in books sold at local bookstores across the city, and at all Chicago Public Library locations. Rather than adults curating the pieces for the delivery service, students choose which piece will be featured each month. The authors of selected pieces could range from second-graders to high school students. Bailey chose a piece which was written by her friend. “I curated the piece that was sent to all the recipients and I was interviewed for the first prototype sent out,” said Bailey. Here, the Weekly presents that piece, written by Stella R. Bailey chose this piece because it resonated with her when she was a freshman in high school. “Specifically the way she captures the average [C]hicago student's connection to the CTA and uses it to transition to handling the emotional trials of adolescence really stuck with me,” Bailey said.
(1) when your friends become stops on the CTA let earbuds take their place learn the lyrics so that when you pass childhood’s second homes you’ll have something to say when the games you played in alleyways steal the words from your vocabulary rewrite your definition of “OK” to be something less like “content” and more like “persisting” (2) you don’t need to be either you’re allowed to cry but survival means pretending so learn to be an actor to force your features slack as soon as they turn to look at you let them think that the moisture crisscrossing capillaries on cheekbones is a trick of the light standing in spots of sunshine disguises the dark it doesn’t hurt to try and it just might chase some of the midnight from your mind next step; swallowing sorrows this is the greatest hurt though i’ve learned to bare it after years of “overreacting” i’ve forgotten the line that separates these pains: physical and emotional i promise you it’s not perpetual (3) quiet places are not supposed to be lonely be alone with a backdrop of bodies like trees, allow strangers to create your oxygen remember you need air to breath (4) be unafraid to exhale suspending worries until the next breeze shifts undress in front of a mirror watch the rise and fall of stomach and shoulders —soldiers that fight each day so that you may (5) live day by day listen when your head and heart are haphazardly happy to do or be or see loving something is almost like loving yourself (x) these are your instructions written between missteps and heartbreaks through burning red cheeks and tentative contentment written for a past and future and present for when you are dragged ‘round a ticking clock and find yourself alone on the other side this is a survival guide
JUSTICE
LIT
826CHI currently offers five different programs that students and their schools may apply for or join. After-School Tutoring and Writing allows students to receive individualized help with their homework. They are also able to sharpen their skills with daily creative writing activities. On weekday mornings throughout the school year, Chicago Public Schools classes are invited on field trips to the lab for creative writing experiences. “Each of our six different field trip experiences is designed to be project-based, collaborative, playful, empowering, imaginative, and to encourage students to share their ideas in their own unique voices,” said Gaby FeBland, communications coordinator at 826CHI. 826CHI collaborates with after-school programs and community organizations to create workshops that incorporate writing and another area of study, such as music, activism or zinemaking. The organization’s education team will head into classrooms and community centers to work directly with students—supporting teachers’ existing curricula and collaborating on new ideas. Bailey is currently a communications intern and a student of the Teen Writers Studio, another program hosted by 826CHI. “Teen Writers Studio is a group of high school students who are interested in literature and art and meet every other Monday to discuss them along with current events. And every meeting we write poems or short stories or responses to our discussion,” said Bailey. As a communications intern, Bailey has learned a lot about development and hopes to participate as a production assistant for 826CHI’s fifteenth Anniversary. While 826CHI helps students aspire and dream, they don’t train each student to be “the next MFA in writing” said CurryKhanna, but they do teach that writing can be used across any area of discipline. “I don’t know for sure what I want to study in college yet, but I know that what I’ve learned in these last three to four years will help me in whatever field I pursue,” said Bailey. “Communication is really the anchor for so many things that students will encounter in their lives,” Curry-Khanna said. “One of our values and goals as an organization is to share our students' perspectives, opinions, experiences, stories far and wide across the city.” ¬
Stella R. is a fourteen-year-old amateur writer and professional procrastinator. In addition to writing, Stella spends her free time reading, sailing, playing ultimate Frisbee, and watching Netflix with her family and their fat Boston terrier. ¬ Interested in helping out? You can volunteer with 826Chi and help out with afterschool tutoring, supporting students with writing projects during thematic field trips, or even becoming a store ambassador. Fill out an application online and reach out to volunteers@826chi.org with any questions. Student Writing Delivery Services, $5/month for email inbox, $15 for physical delivery, $40/ month for physical delivery and an advance copy of an 826Chi student publication. Maple Joy is a contributor to the Weekly. Maple is from Cleveland but has lived in the Chicago area for over six years. She is obsessed with Chicago food. In her spare time, you can find her biking on one of the Chicago trails or hanging out at a Chicago event or festival.
Saturday classes start Sept. 21st! Apply Today! Location 750 E. 40th St., Chicago
info@projectsyncere.org | 773-982-8261
www.projectSYNCERE.org/e-cademy
C H I C A G O D E PA R T M E N T O F AV I AT I O N
COMMUNITY CAREER FAIR August 28 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
KENNEDY-KING COLLEGE
740 W. 63rd St., Building U Chicago, IL 60621
I Buy Records!! Cash for your records. Jazz, Punk, Blues, Soul, Rock, Reggae, 33's and 45's. All genre's considered. Get cash instead of letting your records collect dust!!
BUILDING A BETTER WORKFORCE Register Online for the Career Fair: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2JJKHPC
Call or text Tony at 773-372-6643 AUGUST 21, 2019 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9
VISUAL ARTS
Bleh the Buddha
Bleh the Buddha is one of Chicago’s most unique emerging artists. With his art, he not only connects with his fans and people on the street, but is also able to validate his own existence. EVAN DYE
A Southwest Side artist makes his mark on Chicago
BY EVAN DYE
I
t’s hard to imagine a Chicago without street art. So many of us take for granted the creativity and risks sticker artists, writers, and muralists take for the sake of self-expression and adding character to the city. Some people across Chicago — especially in our local government—see street art as vandalism, but rarely consider the deeper meaning it bears for the artists themselves. Street art isn’t just graffiti: it’s a place to reclaim space and share ideas. Bleh the Buddha is a sticker artist native to the Southwest Side of Chicago. He’s known for his character, “The Punk Buddha.” Even though he’s only twentyone years old, Bleh has already spent the past seven years developing his personal style through multiple artistic mediums. Bleh uses his art to comment on society and people, and to express his own emotions and experiences as a young man navigating Chicago and the world. He refers to his street art as “public enhancement.” “The public space is ours, so let’s put our art on it,” said Bleh when we first met in the 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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fall of 2018. Bleh first created his trademark character “The Punk Buddha” while in high school. He was fascinated with juxtaposing the aggressive nature of punk against Buddhism’s peacefulness. Since then, he has used “The Punk Buddha” as a storyteller to confront race, social norms, and mental health. Some of his most famous pieces are his CTA ads and posters. He marked priority seating for people with social anxiety, reminded customers to not blink or breathe on trains, and even made his own CocaCola ads and Orange Line maps. Although these quirky pieces have landed him in jail for a night and with a hefty fine, he proved that he’s not afraid to try new things and take risks doing what he loves. Bleh finds the powerful influence advertising and media have on groupthink and behavior especially interesting. In that vein he has created some propaganda style works, both supporting and opposing “The Punk Buddha,” all in response to the various
ways street artists and people of color alike are portrayed in America. Bleh said, “People deny this little Buddha thing without seeing past the surface level. Fear is controlling them and they refuse to understand the symbol. They’d rather just deny the existence of this guy, like we don’t want him, he’s corrupting our streets.” Although Bleh the artist likes to distinguish himself from “Bleh the Punk Buddha,” he uses both his art and the character to express emotions, experiences, and his relationship with depression. He says, “I guess in a sense it’s good… I can relate to the average person who possibly thinks of Bleh as this higher being, but it’s like no, we all bleed the same.”
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lthough he may be well-known for his stickers and ads, Bleh has been diving into other art mediums over the past year. He has custom-painted jackets for friends, as well as his own clothes and shoes. He has collaborated with Overboard Cruisers, drawn comics with his friends,
and plans to make zines and plastic Punk Buddha keychains. And when it comes to his street art, you can spot wooden Buddha heads in addition to his stickers. Bleh the Buddha is one of Chicago’s most unique emerging artists. He is observant of the world around us. He is not afraid to try new things or fall down after a big jump. With his art, he not only connects with his fans and people on the street, but is also able to validate his own existence. “It’s like that one voice we still have,” Bleh said. “It’s a place where I can be myself in a way.” ¬ Evan Dye is starting her senior year as a Journalism major at DePaul University. When she's not riding her bike Diego, she's snapping pictures of graffiti across Chicago. Evan is fascinated with people and likes to write about their unique perspective, as well as interesting events happening in the city.
POLITICS
Independent Political Organization Powers Up in Burke’s Ward Members say 14th Ward Alderman Ed Burke is inept, corrupt, and out of touch
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esidents of the 14th Ward have formed a new political group that they hope can challenge longtime Alderman Ed Burke, whom the organizers see as corrupt and unresponsive to the community’s needs. Members of the 14th Ward Independent Progressive Organization say Burke’s office has repeatedly failed to make good on promises to fulfill residents’ requests for basic city services and refused to answer their calls. In January, federal prosecutors charged Burke, the city’s longest-serving alderman, with extorting the owners of an Archer Heights Burger King franchise. Mayor Lori Lightfoot, whose anti-corruption campaign received a boost after the charges against Burke—who had ties to many of the other mayoral candidates—were announced, has repeatedly called for Burke to resign; he has refused. The new IPO hopes to build the kind of independent political partnerships and voter base that could sweep him out of office once and for all. (Burke’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment by the time of publication.) Independent Political Organizations have scored victories in city council races where formerly powerful aldermen retired in scandal. In 2018, Danny Solís, who was the 25th Ward alderman for over twenty years, announced his retirement after taping conversations with Burke on behalf of federal investigators. In the five-way race that ensued, former Pilsen Alliance executive director Byron SigchoLopez won largely with the help of that organization. And when Ricardo Muñoz announced he was retiring in 2018 after
MELL MONTEZUMA
BY JIM DALEY
more than twenty-five years as alderman, the 22nd Ward Independent Political Organization—one of the city’s oldest—was instrumental in electing Michael Rodríguez, the organization’s former president, to the seat. Should Burke resign, the 14th Ward IPO could be positioned to do the same. The IPO’s inaugural meeting included educators, organizers, community members, activists, students, and political hopefuls. Two candidates for Illinois’s Third Congressional District, which bisects the 14th Ward, also attended: Abe Matthew, a partner at Matthew & Drnovsek Law, and Marie Newman, who came within three points of defeating incumbent Dan Lipinski in 2018. Jose Torrez, one of the IPO’s organizers, is also a one-time political hopeful; he ran against Burke in the 2019 aldermanic election before dropping out to endorse Tanya Patiño, who was also backed by U.S. Representative Jesús “Chuy” García. (Burke beat Patiño with fifty-four percent of the vote.) Torrez, a thirty-three-year-old City Colleges student adviser, said García, who has served as 22nd Ward Alderman, state senator, and county commissioner, and has waged a public electoral battle against the Burke family for the last two election cycles, has been a political mentor to him since he was young. “I grew up in the 22nd Ward Organization,” Torrez said. At eighteen, he said, García walked him around his precinct and taught him how to knock on doors to get out the vote. Torrez said his campaign for alderman underscored the importance of building independent political power to counter the vestiges of the once-invincible Democratic
Machine—particularly in the 14th Ward, where Burke is not only alderman but also oversees the ward’s still-formidable Democratic organization, which can be counted on to turn out votes during even the toughest of election cycles. “There’s no community-based political organization who rivals that,” Torrez said. “And so when I [ran for] alderman, one of the biggest hurdles we ran into was building a peoplepower organization that could help get our message out, establish new connections with members in the ward…and be able to rebuild a coalition of progressives on the Southwest Side.” The 14th Ward IPO could fulfill that sort of mission, he said, eventually throwing its support behind candidates in multiple political offices. Asked whether he plans to run for office again, Torrez said he would “continue to consider” doing so. In the near-term, the IPO’s focus is on helping residents connect with city services, which they claim Burke has been unwilling or incapable of doing. Torrez said the federal extortion charges have made Burke, who IPO members described as reluctant to help connect residents with city services in the past, downright unable to do so. “With all the corruption scandal that’s going on, [Burke] has lost a lot of his ability to do that,” Torrez said. He also said Burke only agrees to meet with community members who voted for him. “We think that is wrong, and that needs to change,” he said, adding that the IPO wants to provide an alternative route for residents to connect with city services. At the meeting, members adopted bylaws and agreed on dues before giving
the floor to Allison Tingwall, the principal of Curie High School. Tingwall described the state of disrepair of Curie’s athletic field, which she said is desperately in need of renovation. The field serves not just the school but the community; on weekends, amateur soccer leagues play there. According to Tingwall, the school cannot host many games there because of the field’s condition. Assistant principal Brad Gill said that when he was coaching the sophomore football team a few years ago, another team nearly forfeited rather than play on the field. Jasmin Patiño (no relation to Tanya), a parent of a Curie student, said she has asked Burke’s office for help with the field for two years; she said he initially promised to help, but ultimately did nothing, and began ducking her calls. Despite being the city’s largest non-selective-enrollment school—and the third largest overall—Curie felt “forgotten,” Tingwall said. The IPO agreed to make the field a key part of its organizing efforts. The organizers also discussed partnering with the Southwest Collective in a voter registration drive ahead of the 2020 elections, with a goal of registering about 1,000 new voters. “I want people to get involved,” Torrez said. “Anyone who feels underrepresented, anyone who feels they have not been heard by the alderman, any business that feels they have been extorted, or any individual who just wants to voice their concern, we’re here to listen and we’re here to help you.” ¬ Jim Daley is the Weekly’s politics editor.
AUGUST 21, 2019 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11
EVENTS
BULLETIN The #BreathingRoom Series 5-Year Anniversary Celebration The Breathing Room Space, 1434 W. 51st St. Friday, August 23, 5pm–9pm. Free. letusbreathecollective.com In 2014, the #LetUsBreatheCollective formed to bring supplies to protestors who were mobilizing in response to the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Since then, they have organized resistance to prisons and police in Chicago and elsewhere, including a protest camp outside of Homan Square, the CPD’s notorious “black site,” and the monthly #BreathingRoom series, an open mic and “political consciousness incubator.” Breathe life into your own political consciousness by joining the collective in their celebration of five years of creative resistance, featuring workshops, performances, and teach-ins. ( Jim Daley)
Fahrenheit Chicago Festival 3: Bronzeville Is Burning DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Pl. Sunday, August 25, 1pm–7pm. Free; VIP tickets $20. bit.ly/ChiFahren3 Billed as a “party with a purpose,” the third-annual Fahrenheit Chicago Festival continues its tradition of centering the experiences and “rich community assets” of Chicago’s Black and Latinx LGBTQ community. This year’s festival brings speakers, DJs, and public officials (the latter are promised to “walk the runway” and will hold a meet-and-greet), and will culminate in a dance party tribute to the late, great, Frankie Knuckles. ( Jim Daley)
Southeast Side Labor Day Parade Parade Route runs along S. Ewing Ave. from E. 112th St. to E. 100th St. at Calumet Park. Saturday, August 31, noon–1pm. Free. chicagolaborparade.com Chicago’s Southeast Side was once home to behemoth ironworks and steel mills; while the mills have long since shuttered their doors, the area’s labor connections still run deep. In 1959, the neighborhood’s first Labor Day Parade stepped off, and the tradition continued until the 1990s. 12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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In 2015, 10th Ward alderwoman Susan Sadlowski Garza restarted the parade with an emphasis on the contributions made by working-class people. This year’s parade will “celebrate union pride, solidarity, and community togetherness.” ( Jim Daley)
Bridgeport’s Biggest Garage Sale
Mexican Independence Day, the festival brings family-friendly event includes local and regional musicians, food from neighborhood restaurants, and carnival rides. On Sunday, the 26th Street Mexican Independence Day Parade route finishes at the Festival. ¡Viva México! ( Jim Daley)
79th Street Renaissance Festival
Saint Mary of Perpetual Help Church, 1039 W. 32nd Pl. Saturday, September 7, 9am– 6pm. Free. bit.ly/StMarySale
79th Street between Racine and Loomis Ave. Saturday, September 7 and Sunday, September 8, 10am-7pm. Free. bit.ly/70RenFest
Dozens of vendors will be selling everything from antiques to zippers at a sale that (credibly) claims to be the neighborhood’s largest. The sale, which benefits the 137-year-old church’s preservation fund, features a two-dollar jewelry table, one-dollar deals, and a 5pm “Power Hour” during which shoppers can fill as many bags as they can carry for just two dollars each. ( Jim Daley)
There’s still time for one last street festival before summer ends. Celebrate South Side small businesses and enjoy music, games, and food while you shop. Organizers promise “literally something for everyone” with performances that include blues, hiphop and modern dance. ( Jim Daley)
Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook Release Party The Hideout Inn, 1354 W. Wabansia Ave. Wednesday, September 11, 5:30pm–8pm. Free. bit.ly/GuideRelease Belt Publishing promises that, unlike most neighborhood guidebooks, theirs is “determined not to tell you where to go or what to do, eat, or buy in our fair city.” A promise to guide the reader away from the well-beaten path of retail consumption is intriguing. And it’s fitting that the release party will be at the Hideout, a venerable music venue and dive bar that is itself is tucked away in an industrial corridor— and is currently fighting back against a developer’s plan to surround the bar with a new commercial development. Guidebook editor Martha Byrne and several contributors will read from the book, copies of which will be on sale. Chef Abra Behrens and Floriole Bakery will provide complimentary treats. ( Jim Daley)
Festival de La Villita 4400 W. 26th Street. Friday, September 6 at 5pm through Sunday, September 8 at 11pm. Free. bit.ly/FiestasPatriasChi La Villita—Little Village—is home to what may be the largest annual celebration of Mexican culture and heritage in the Midwest. Timed to coincide with
VISUAL ARTS Amid Kinship Arts + Public Life, 301 E. Garfield Blvd. Through August 30. Open Wednesday–Friday, noon–6pm. Free. (773) 702-2787. bit.ly/amid-kinship From oil paintings to a 3D animation framed by an actual window frame, “Amid Kinship” exhibits the diverse body of work created by the Washington Park Arts Incubator’s 2019 resident artists, Amina Ross, Brandon Breaux, and Jarvis Boyland. The flyer for the show describes it as a meditation “on relationships, everyday divinity, and transformative spaces”—but visit the gallery to form your own opinion. (Christopher Good)
Studio Sundays at Maxwell Street Market Maxwell Street Market, 800 S. Desplaines St. Sunday, September 1 (and select Sundays after that), 10am–2pm. (312) 745-4676. Calendar at maxwellstreetmarket.us In partnership with Yollocalli and the National Museum of Mexican Art, Maxwell Street Market is hosting free arts and crafts programs for creative children. Forthcoming events include Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations in September, a zine-making workshop in October, and Dia de Los Muertos in November. (Christopher Good)
Domina Domi Okay Gallery, 2215 S. Union #406. Saturdays, noon–6pm (or by appointment). Closing reception Friday, September 20, 6pm–9pm. bit.ly/domina-domi “Domina Domi” (Latin for “Mistress of the House”), a solo show by the Chicago artist Bobbi Meier, marks the first exhibition at this newly opened Pilsen gallery. Expect soft sculpture in various textures (think wool and Gore-Tex) and a fondness for Pepto-Bismol pink. (Christopher Good)
Go Down Moses Museum of Contemporary Photography, 600 S. Michigan Ave. Through September 29. Daily 10am–5pm, except for Thursdays (10am–8pm), and Sundays (noon–5pm). (312) 663-5554. mocp.org/exhibitions Though this installation at the MOCP marks his debut as a curator, Teju Cole has spent the past decade working with images across an arresting body of poems, novels, and photo essays. In “Go Down Moses,” named for the negro spiritual “beloved by Harriet Tubman and generations since,” Cole seeks to conjure a “visual tone poem of contemporary America.” (Christopher Good)
Envisioning Justice Sullivan Galleries, SAIC. August 6 through October 12. Tuesday–Saturday, 11am–6pm. Free. (312) 422-5580. envisioningjustice.org “What happens when you center the voices of those most directly affected by the criminal legal system to reimagine justice using the arts and humanities?” For two years, the Envisioning Justice initiative has sought to do exactly that. This installation documents this mission with artwork and ephemera from incarcerated artists. (Christopher Good)
MUSIC Friday Evening House Music at CTA/95th Street Red Line CTA Red Line 95th St. Station, W 95th Street. Every Friday until Labor Day. 4pm7pm. Free. bit.ly/CTAHouseMusic Every Friday from now through Labor Day, stop by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) 95th Street Station’s North
EVENTS
Terminal for live house music beats from DJ Duane Powell. Brought to the public by Theaster Gates, a professor at the University of Chicago, the exhibit titled “An Extended Song of our People,” is meant to bring liveliness to commuters as they head to and fro while offering a new experience to travelers. (Atavia Reed)
that spans over five city blocks, beginning with 26th street, and boasts over 30,000 attendees. Stop by this year’s event for a taste of the community’s local cuisine and sounds from DJs and bands. (Atavia Reed)
The Forty-first Annual Chicago Jazz Festival
Washington Park, 5100 S. Cottage Grove Ave. Friday, August 30 to Monday, September 2, Friday 1pm-10pm, Saturday-Monday 10am10pm. Prefestival tickets $15, $20 at the gate, $10 for seniors, $5 for children. bit.ly/AfricanArtFestival2019
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St. Thursday, August 29, 12pm–4:30pm. Millennium Park, 201 E. Randolph St. Thursday, August 29, 6:30pm–9pm & Friday, August 30 to Sunday, September 1, 11am– 9pm. Free. bit.ly/AnnualChicagoJazzFestival For its 41st year, the Chicago Jazz Festival returns to bring soul and spirit back to summertime Chi. Local and world renowned artists will hit the stage for live musical performances from day until dark. All ages are welcome to the family-fun event known for showcasing the best jazz acts in the city. (Atavia Reed)
PearlFest 2019 39th Street Beach, 1199 E. Oakwood Blvd. Saturday, August 24 & Sunday, August 25, 1pm-10pm. Free for General Admission, $125 for VIP Experience. bit.ly/PearlFest2019 In honor of its 25th anniversary, Little Black Pearl, a space that offers a safe environment for Chicago’s youth to creatively express themselves, has partnered with the Chicago Park District’s “Night Out in the Parks” series. This free and family-friendly live experience will offer musical entertainment, food, fun and activities for all. Grammy Award-winning artist Robert Glasper and acclaimed vocalist Lizz Wright are only a few of the headliners for this two-day long community gathering. (Atavia Reed)
Villapalooza! 2019 Little Village, Chicago. Saturday, August 24 & Sunday, August 25, 12pm–1am. Free. bit.ly/Villapalooza2019 Since 2011, Villapallooza has provided a safe space for members of the Little Village community to join for a daylong event of music, art, food, and culture. Local and international artists all unite for an event
Thirtieth Annual African Festival of the Arts
Watch Washington Park come to life at the thirtieth annual African Festival of the Arts. Each year during Labor Day weekend, attendees are welcome to travel back in time with interactive games, music, and art that reflects the African culture. Family and friends are welcome to attend, rain or shine. (Atavia Reed)
Fall on the Green 2019 Village of Oak Lawn, Friday, September 6 to Sunday, Sept. 8, 6pm-8pm. Free. bit.ly/FallOnGreen2019 The annual Fall on the Green festival is back for its twenty-fourth year of family fun. Folk bands, classic rock artists and Motown bands all plan to hit the stage for the celebrations’ third annual Battle of the Bands while trivia games are hosted in nearby tents. Seniors can enjoy a game of bingo at the Senior tent with coffee in hand and youngins can zipline away all while a colorful track of a myriad of artists play in the background. (Atavia Reed)
STAGE & SCREEN Movies in the Parks: Exit Zero Steelworkers Park, 3100 E. 87th St. Tuesday, August 27, 8pm–10pm. Free. bit.ly/ ChicagoOnscreen Join the Chicago Park District for a free screening of Exit Zero: An Industrial Family Story. The documentary, based on Christine Walley’s memoir about growing up on the East Side while the steel mills closed, uses found footage and family movies to tell the story of deindustrialization in Southeast Chicago. It is being shown on the former site of U.S. Steel’s South Works, now Steelworkers
Park. (Sam Joyce)
Natural Encounters: Nature & Dance Indian Ridge Marsh, 11740 S. Torrence Ave. Saturday, September 7, 10am-12pm; and Hegewisch Marsh, 13000 S. Torrence Ave. Saturday, September 21, 4pm-6pm. Free. chicagodancemakers.org/natural-encounters The Chicago Dancemakers Forum has partnered with the Nature Conservancy on a series of events that pair dance performances with opportunities for ecological stewardship and exploration. The first event, “Dances for this Land,” will focus on the story of land remediation at Indian Ridge Marsh, while the second, “Birds, Bugs and Tap,” will highlight the bird calls and insect sounds of Hegewisch Marsh through a tap performance. (Sam Joyce)
Black Girls Can Fly - AUDITIONS Black Girls Can Fly, the musical troupe born out of a play about the Black aviatrix and Chicagoan Bessie Coleman, is beginning a new project about Ida B. Wells. Writer/director Sydney Chatman is seeking Black women and girl actors and dancers ages eight to sixty-eight for a new play about Wells, the legendary Chicago journalist who advocated for Black women's rights in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Space is limited (up to fifteen actors). Email blackgirlscanfly@gmail.com for details. (Erisa Apantaku)
Chicago South Side Film Festival Various locations. September 27 through October 6. For details visit southsidefilmfest.org Be part of the third annual celebration of film, filmmakers and film-goers hailing from the South Side at the Chicago South Side Film Festival. Many of the events are free and ticketed events start at $15. Venues include: Studio Movie Grill, Stage 18 Chicago, IIT Campus and Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery. Kicking off the festival on Friday, September 27 will be a tribute to thirty-five years of House Music by filmmaker Jesse Saunders. The festivities continue with a Screenplay Pitch Competition to connect indie filmmakers with industry professionals, on September 28. The festival offers workshops, a
director’s master class, discussions, and red carpet events, plus ten days of screenings, including a collection of short films dedicated to Women Behind The Lens and other titles to include: Mirrors and Cooked: Death By Zip Code by festival founder Michelle Kennedy, Showbiz Kids, Black and Privileged—The Remix. Be sure to watch the festival website for updates and additional venue announcements. (Nicole Bond)
Peacebook Festival LaFollette Park, 1333 N. Laramie Ave. Friday, September 13, 6pm. Saturday September 14, 1pm. Douglas Park, 1401 S. Sacramento Drive. Friday, September 20, 6pm. Saturday, September 21, 1pm. Hamilton Park, 513 W. 72nd St. Friday, September 27, 6pm. Saturday, September 28, 1pm. Free. collaboraction.org/peacebook Award-winning political theater company Collaboraction and the Chicago Park District present the fourth annual production of short plays, dance and spoken word performances devoted to peace and peacemaking efforts throughout the city. Each Saturday performance begins at noon—an hour before the show starts—with a community meal and peace panel discussion, and concludes with crucial conversations for sharing and unpacking issues triggered by the performances. Families and all ages are welcome, keeping in mind that some topics presented on stage can be heavy, as the routes toward peace often are. Featured artists, activists contributors include: Kasey Foster, J. Nicole Brooks, M.A.D.D. Rhythms, Reginald Edmund, Carla Stillwell, GiGi Tonye,Tarnynon Onumonu, Nambi E. Kelly, Patrese D. McClain, Sir Taylor, Anthony Moseley and Dr. Marcus Robinson. (Nicole Bond)
King Hedley II Court Theater, 5535 S. Ellis Avenue. September 12 - October 13. Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays 7:30pm. Saturdays and Sundays, 2pm and 7:30pm. Tickets start at $38. Visit courttheater.org or call the box office at (773) 753-4472 Resident Artist Ron OJ Parson directs August Wilson’s ninth of the ten plays in his American Century Cycle, and the eighth one produced as part of Court AUGUST 21, 2019 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13
EVENTS
Theater’s commitment to producing all ten. King Hedley II will transport audiences back to the 1980s for an intimate view into the dynamics at play when a family member returns home after seven years in prison. (Nicole Bond)
FOOD & LAND Taste of Pulaski Corner of Pulaski and Archer, 5000 S Archer Ave. Saturday & Sunday, September 21 & 22, 12pm–10pm. Free. tasteofpulaski.com/festinfo According to its website, over 20,000 Chicagoans attended Taste of Pulaski last summer. Organized by the Taste of Pulaski and Inner City Culture—the same folks responsible for the Pilsen Taco Fest—the festival takes place over two days. Featuring authentic foods, live Cumbia, Tamborazo, and Banda, South Side Chicago DJs, local business supporting the community, and fun and games for the whole family. (AV Benford)
¡Buen Provecho! Taste of Pilsen Plaza Tenochtitlan, 1800 S. Blue Island Ave, Tuesday, September 24, 5pm–8:30pm. $20 in advance/ $25 for late purchase. bit.ly/ProvechoPilsen The tenth annual ¡Buen Provecho! Taste of Pilsen will sample over twenty-five local restaurants, bars, cafes, and bakeries including Birreria Reyes de Ocotlan, known for their goat dishes, and Paulette's Public Market, a newcomer that features dishes by 26-year-old chef Amanda Torres. All proceeds benefit the Economic Strategies Development Corporation (ESDC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to community and economic development in the Pilsen neighborhood. Tickets may be purchased by visiting www.esdcpilsen.org or in person at ESDC’s community office, located at 1843 South Carpenter St. between 9am3pm Monday - Friday. Questions? (312) 733 - 2287 (AV Benford)
Closed Loop Forum Plant Chicago Classroom at The Plant, 1400 W 46th St. Saturday, September 28, 10am– 3pm. $10. bit.ly/ClosedLoopTix Back for a second year, the Closed Loop Forum focuses on discussions around the 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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circular economy, a regenerative approach achieved through long-lasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse, remanufacturing, refurbishing, and recycling. Hosted by Plant Chicago, the Closed Loop Forum brings together people to help define what the circular economy is and different ways communities and businesses are implementing and benefiting from it. Panels about the current status and trends of the larger reuse economy, and businesses putting circularity into practice, will be followed by break out sessions to workshop and implement ideas. The event will conclude with a poster and networking session in the Whiner Beer taproom. (AV Benford)
World Dumpling Fest Navy Pier Polk Brothers Park, 600 E Grand Ave. Sunday September 29th, 1-7:30pm. General Admission Free. bit.ly/WorldDumpling World Dumpling Fest is a collaborative event organized by the Chicago Cultural Alliance, a group of forty cultural heritage museums and centers in Chicago. “Experience diverse cultures through performance, art, and DUMPLINGS! Every culture has a dumpling and here you can taste them all! Dumplings are served from neighborhood-based ethnic restaurants in and around Chicago.” World Dumpling Fest joins together with World Music Festival at Navy Pier’s Polk Brothers Park. (AV Benford)
Jerk, Seafood, & Vegan Fest Park 540, Enter at 2400 S. State St. Saturday and Sunday September 7-8, 12-9:30pm. $5 in advance, $10 at the gate. bit.ly/JerkVegan Back for its third year, the Jerk, Seafood, & Vegan Fest is a family food festival, with music, arts, crafts, games and more in Chicago’s South Loop. The festival celebrates the taste of Jamaica’s most popular cuisine, Jerk. It will also highlight seafood with an international twist, plus vegan, vegetable barbeques and other bites for both the meat and non-meat eaters. The entertainment stage(s) will feature a variety of music including Pop, Reggae, Rock, Blues, Latin, Jazz, Soca, R&B, Gospel, Spoken Word, African, other World Music and International dancers. (AV Benford)
The Great American Lobster Fest
Openings
Navy Pier, 600 E Grand Ave. Friday, August 30–Sunday, September 1. General Admission Free, $44 for the Lobster Meal Experience, $119 for VIP. americanlobsterfest.com/tickets-chicago/
WOODLAWN— The Green Living Room On Saturday, August 31st, from 12-4, The Green Living Room will hold its Launch Weekend Celebration. Billing this event as a “Hard Hat Happening”, aka a soft opening, this is a coffee house that is thematically positioning itself to be at the forefront of “ The New Dawn In Woodlawn”. The Green Living Room will provide space for workforce development, small business support, a performance stage, a green home decor & apothecary, and award-winning chef Cliff Rome’s Grab N' Go Commissary. The official opening is set for September and the finished space will feature a Michelle Museum dedicated to favorite first lady Michelle Obama. 643133 S. Cottage Grove Ave. (AV Benford)
Got lobster? The Great American Lobster Fest is reportedly the Midwest's largest lobster and seafood festival. Enjoy live lobster flown in fresh from the East Coast courtesy of the official seafood provider, Lobster Gram, live music performances, family-friendly games and activities, unique arts/craft shopping, land food options, and cold beverages. (AV Benford)
The Chicago Crawfish Classic 5311 South Lake Park Avenue. Sunday, September 8, 11pm–9pm. General Admission Free; presale starts at $40 for admission to crawfish areas. bit.ly/ChiCrawClassic Organized with the support of the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce, The Chicago Crawfish Classic’s Inaugural Block Party promises an all-you-can-eat experience from eight different local seafood restaurants and caterers. Visitors and locals alike will find common ground here as they groove together to some of the finest Brass musicians around. Twist, pinch and devour piles of mouthwatering crawfish and fixings. (AV Benford)
The Chicago Rare and Wild Beer Fest The Field Museum. 1400 South Lake Shore Drive. Saturday, October 5, 2019 7pm–11pm. General Admission ($50) will go from 8pm to 11pm and VIP Admission ($65) will include an added hour starting at 7pm. bit.ly/ChiWildBeer Calling all true beer fans for a one-ofa-kind beer festival: The Chicago Beer Fest returns to The Field Museum. The events organizer, Drink Eat Play, pledges over sixty breweries who will bring their rare, barrel aged, funky, sour and ofteninaccessible beers for one of a kind beer fest for true connoisseurs. Tickets will not be sold at the door. Attendees will receive fifty taster vouchers as well as access throughout the museum. Admission will not include food, which will be sold separately. (AV Benford)
McKINLEY PARK — Butterdough Opening this past July, Butterdough, which was five years in the making, is the brainchild of brothers Uva and Lalo Leon. The cafe offers the typical fare, freshly made coffee drinks, pastries, and sandwiches-but here they are all created from scratch ingredients. While the menu changes daily, constant staples include plain, almond, and chocolate croissants, plus special items like the popular vegan horchata. 3452 S. Western Ave. Closed Mondays. TuesdayFriday 5am-3pm. Saturday and Sunday 7am-4pm. (AV Benford) SOUTH LOOP — LIPS Billed as the “ultimate in drag dining,” LIPS is a mini-chain of drag concept restaurants with locations in New York City, San Diego, Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta. Touted as their most opulent location yet, the venue will feature jeweled mirrors, four eight-foot crystal chandeliers and sconces, pink-leopard-tufted walls, velvet curtains, an embellished stage, stateof-the-art club lighting and an onstage throne fit for queens and divas alike. Local queens Mimi Marks, Mz. Ruff N’ Stuff, and Angel LeBare will host a grand opening weekend starting Friday, August 23, 2229 S. Michigan Ave. (AV Benford)
EVENTS
NATURE Stewardship Opportunities Indian Ridge Marsh, 11600 S. Torrence Ave. Saturday, September 7, 10am–12pm. bit.ly/IRMStewardship Big Marsh Park, 11599 S. Stony Island Ave. Saturday, September 14, 10am–1pm. bit.ly/BMStewardship Beaubien Woods, 950 E. 134th St. Wednesday, September 18, 9:30am–12pm. bit.ly/BWStewardship 12th St. Beach, 1200 S. Linn White Dr. Wednesday, September 11, 11:30am–1:30pm. bit.ly/12thStewardship 63rd St. Beach, 6300 S. Lake Shore Dr. Saturday, September 21, 10am–12pm. bit.ly/63rdStewardship Ping Tom Park, 1700 S. Wentworth Ave. Saturday, September 14, 10am–12pm. bit.ly/PTStewardship Want to get your hands dirty? There’s plenty of opportunities to get involved in environmental stewardship. Depending on the park and the season, volunteers may be cleaning up the site, collecting native plant seeds, removing invasive species, or planting native plants. Make sure to dress for working outdoors: long pants, closed-toe shoes, and a hat if it’s sunny. (Sam Joyce)
Garfield Park Goats Garfield Park Conservatory, 300 N. Central Park Ave. 11am–7pm, August 21; 10am–4pm, August 22-23. Free. garfieldconservatory.org The Garfield Park Conservatory is best known for its remarkable collection of plants, but this summer, they’ve added something a little more lively: goats. The goats, visiting from GlennArt Farm in Austin, help control weeds at the conservatory during the summer. Stop by and see them in action! (Sam Joyce)
Washington Park Queer Pool Party Washington Park, 5531 S. King Dr. Saturday, August 24, 1pm–4pm. Free. Register at: chicagoparkdistrict.com/events/queer-poolparty-washington
from across the city. The pool party, free and open to youths ages 13-17, will feature DJs, food, and games. (Sam Joyce)
River Revival Ping Tom Memorial Park, 1700 S. Wentworth Ave. Saturday, September 7, 9am–5pm. Free. chicagoriver.org Friends of the Chicago River will celebrate their 40th anniversary this year with their third annual Big Jump into the river. Besides the jump, the festival will include fishing, food trucks, music, and a chance to see live river animals. REI will be offering 40% off kayak rentals during the event. (Sam Joyce)
McKinley Park Air Quality Monitoring National Latino Education Institute, 2011 W. Pershing Rd. Saturday, September 7, 9:30am– 1:30pm. Free. RSVP: bit.ly/McKinleyAQ Join the Environmental Law & Policy Center to learn more about their air quality monitoring program. Next, take a walk through McKinley Park and use their handheld air quality monitors to measure air quality in different parts of the neighborhood. Light breakfast and lunch included, but space is limited, so RSVP to reserve your spot. (Sam Joyce)
Chicago Audubon Bird Walks Wooded Island: Museum of Science and Industry East Parking Lot. Saturdays, 8am–11am. bit.ly/JPBirdWalk McKinley Park: Farmers Market. Sunday, September 8, 9am–11:30am. bit.ly/MKPBirdWalk Contact Pat Durkin for more: pat.durkin@comcast.net. Free. Join the Chicago Audubon Society for bird walks through Jackson and McKinley Parks. Learn how to identify birds, while observing birds as they build their nests and raise their chicks. You do not need to be a member of Chicago Audubon to participate. Walks in Jackson Park are held weekly through December, while the McKinley Park walk is the last of the season. (Sam Joyce)
As part of the youth-led “Queering the Parks” initiative, the Chicago Park District is hosting a series of events that focus on creating safe public spaces for LGBT teens AUGUST 21, 2019 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15 The 61st Street Farmers Market is a program of the Experimental Station, with the support of:
Chapin May Foundation