EAST SIDE & SOUTH CHICAGO Compiled by Weekly Staff
PHOTO BY MARC MONAGHAN
F
ew Chicagoans seem to know the East Side exists. In fact, it's so common for new friends to confess unfamiliarity with the neighborhood that East Siders have turned it into an inside joke. The conversation presents three common questions: “Is that still Chicago?” “Isn't the lake east?” “Oh, so you're from Indiana?” To which we answer: “Yes.” “Yes, but farther.” And, well, “No.” Tucked away on the city’s far southeast side, East Side is nestled between the Calumet River and the Indiana border, and endearingly dubbed "alphabet land" by locals. Chicagoans shake their heads at the neighborhood's street signs named by an unorthodox arrangement of letters. There's no "Avenue A." It starts at "Avenue B," runs to "Avenue H," skips "I," and picks back up at "J." Home of orange hot sauce, an M60 battle tank dedicated to the region’s contribution during wartime, originally installed in 1979, and Eggers Grove, a 240acre woodland and wetland preserve with a trail and picnic areas, the area is well worth exploring. But how accessible is it? Although the recently redesigned 95th Street Red Line Terminal is integral to South Side residents, it doesn't reach the far Southeast Side. The disconnect forces residents to take multiple buses and allocate hours of travel time to get anywhere.
This predominantly Latinx but diverse working-class community welcomed my family when we escaped the Bosnian War in the mid-90s. At the time, my parents had no idea we had resettled in Chicago’s largest industrial corridor. It would be at least twenty years before we'd learn the health hazards of local environmental pollutants like petcoke, the fine powder produced as a byproduct of the oil refining process. But despite—or thanks to—its history of disinvestment and environmental racism, the Southeast Side is a bastion of resistance and community care. The Southeast Environmental Task Force has worked to promote environmental education, pollution prevention, and sustainable development here since 1989. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Southeast Side organizers and residents held a thirty-day hunger strike protesting the relocation of the General Iron metal recycling plant from Lincoln Park, one of the city’s most affluent and majority-white neighborhoods, to one of the city’s most environmentally discriminated against and poor. Creative enclaves have emerged across the Southeast Side over the last decade as artists found power in expressing their thoughts and their neighborhood pride. Multidisciplinary artist Runsy, Roman Villareal (founder of Under the Bridge Studio, an artspace in the shadow of the Skyway), designer David Gonzalez, and filmmaker Steven J. Walsh are among a few locals whose work uplifts our spirits. SEPTEMBER 16, 2021 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 37
