THE PUBLIC NEWSROOM Once a week, City Bureau and the South Side Weekly turn our Woodlawn office into an open space where journalists and the public can gather to discuss local issues, share resources and knowledge, and learn to report and investigate stories. We bring in guest speakers and host hands-on workshops on things like how to use the Freedom of Information Act to obtain government records, how to find and analyze public data, and how to tell your own audio/video stories. For working journalists, the public newsroom is a place to find and shape stories in direct conversation with readers. For the public, the newsroom is a front-row seat into how journalism gets made, and a chance to impact the way your community is covered in the media. The #PublicNewsroom is always free and always open to the public.
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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS Thursday, April 20 4pm–8pm Public Newsroom is open 6pm Workshop: CPD in Chicago Public Schools Led by Yana Kunichoff, the Mikva Challenge, and VOYCE Public Newsroom hours will be at our office in the Experimental Station; the workshop will be held at Public Narrative, 33 E. Congress Pkwy. Thursday, April 27 4pm–8pm Public Newsroom is open 6pm Event: 90 Days, 90 Voices—Telling Immigrants’ Stories Led by Sarah Conway, Alex Hernendez, and Nissa Rhee Thursday, May 4 4pm–8pm Public Newsroom is open 6pm Screening: Another Life—a docupoetry series on trauma and mental health Led by The TRiiBE CITYBUREAU.ORG/PUBLICNEWSROOM THE EXPERIMENTAL STATION 6100 S. BLACKSTONE AVE
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 4, Issue 26 Editor-in-Chief Hafsa Razi Managing Editors Julia Aizuss, Andrew Koski Director of Staff Support Baci Weiler Deputy Editor Olivia Stovicek Senior Editor Emeline Posner Politics Editor Adia Robinson Music Editor Austin Brown Stage & Screen Editor Nicole Bond Visual Arts Editor Roderick Sawyer Editors-at-Large Maha Ahmed, Christian Belanger, Jake Bittle, Mari Cohen, Jonathan Hogeback, Ellie Mejía Contributing Editors Maddie Anderson, Maria Babich, Mira Chauhan, Bridget Newsham, Adam Przybyl, Carrie Smith, Sam Stecklow, Margaret Tazioli, Yunhan Wen Video Editor Lucia Ahrensdorf Radio Producers Andrew Koski, Lewis Page Social Media Editors Emily Lipstein, Bridget Newsham, Sam Stecklow Visuals Editor Ellen Hao Deputy Visuals Editor Jasmin Liang Photography Editor Jason Schumer Layout Editor Baci Weiler Staff Writers: Sara Cohen, Christopher Good, Rachel Kim, Michal Kranz, Anne Li, Zoe Makoul, Michael Wasney, Kylie Zane Fact Checkers: Eleanore Catolico, Sam Joyce, Rachel Kim, Adam Przybyl, Hafsa Razi, Carrie Smith, Tiffany Wang, Baci Weiler Staff Photographers: Denise Naim, Jason Schumer, Luke Sironski-White Staff Illustrators: Zelda Galewsky, Natalie Gonzalez, Courtney Kendrick, Turtel Onli, Raziel Puma, Lizzie Smith Data Visualization: Jasmine Mithani Webmaster
Sofia Wyetzner
Publisher
Harry Backlund
The paper 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:
IN CHICAGO
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
IN THIS ISSUE
“South Shore’s Most Prolific Evictor” The Reader has dubbed South Shore the “eviction capital” of Chicago—and rightly so. According to an investigation by Maya Dukmasova, published on Monday, South Shore’s zip code saw eight times as many evictions last year as the citywide average. South Shore’s housing market is disproportionately dominated by rentals, making it especially vulnerable to a high eviction rate. But that’s not the only factor—in South Shore, rents are on the rise, while nearly two-thirds of residents have to spend more than thirty percent of their monthly income on rent. Furthermore, upcoming projects like the Obama library and the Tiger Woods golf course in nearby Jackson Park make South Shore a target for developers with scant concern for existing residents. South Shore’s most prolific evictor is Pangea Properties, which, as its name might suggest, appears to be making a bid to “[buy] up the South Side,” one lawyer says— acquiring, renovating, and renting properties at a rapid-fire rate. Pangea, whose investors include Governor Bruce Rauner, filed to evict tenants in one out of every eight properties it owns; the company filed over 1,000 cases in Chicagoland last year, and it owns 8,000 units. It’s a chilling vision—a “rehabbed” South Shore, devoid of its long-term residents, and subject to the home and community instabilities that absence is proven to invite.
when a door closes
CHA Update: PBS Edition In January, the Weekly published an investigation into the CHA’s failure to redevelop public hous-ing in Bronzeville after demolishing much of it in the early 2000s. The investigation found that the CHA is nearly a decade behind its timeline for the Plan for Transformation, which promised the construction or renovation of 25,000 units of housing. Last week, the Weekly published an update to this investigation, reviewing the CHA’s 2016 annual report to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and its 2017 plan. The update found that by the end of this year, two years will have passed since there was new redevelopment construction on the State Street Corri-dor. On April 12, the same day this update was published, CHA CEO Eugene Jones appeared on Chicago Tonight to discuss the overdue Plan for Transformation and, apparently, to celebrate his upcoming two-year anniversary on the job. Said celebration started off with a sentiment with which the Weekly can sympathize: “I can’t understand why it didn’t happen,” said Jones, whose time at the CHA overlaps little with the sordid history of the Plan for Transformation. He went on, however, to more puzzling statements: though so far behind on the Plan by 1,874 units, Jones seemed optimistic about reaching the 25,000-unit mark, saying “by the end of this year we will’ve reached that plateau.” Regardless of the fact that the CHA’s 2017 plan only calls for 1,596 units, to be de-livered this year through redevelopment, acquisition, and project-based vouchers, Jones said by 2018 to 2019, “We’re not going to be doing 25,000 [anymore], we’re going to be doing something that is representative of building back great neighborhoods in this city.” A little later: “Well, we’re helping people now.” A little later, again: by the end of this year, rather than the notorious hun-dreds of millions of dollars in liquid reserves, “we’ll have zero”—not counting the “about $110 million” the CHA is required to have as three months of operating reserve. (The Weekly investiga-tion noted this number is $117 million and terms it not required but “HUDallowed.”) At one point, Jones says, “I think by now, the year 2017, we’ve seen what’s been working.” It remains to be seen what Jones has seen.
“Man, you [Queen of Peace] girls are bossy but that’s all right.” isabelle lim.....................................10
Being Black and Catholic is not an oxymoron. sonya alexander...............................4 is safe passage safe from budget cuts?
There are lingering concerns about the program’s effectiveness, stability, and payment of its workers. rachel kim........................................5 beyond the ‘l’
Heavy rail lines like the “L” have become so expensive to build in the US that their construction has ground almost to a halt. daniel kay hertz..............................7 the last hail
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APRIL 19, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3
FAITH
When a Door Closes
JENNA JOHNSON
The shuttering of St. Columbanus School marks the decline of Black Catholic populations in Chicago BY SONYA ALEXANDER
F
or everything there is a season— innocence, adolescence, first love. One major life experience, though, is not temporary, but changes along with the seasons of life: learning. A solid grammar school education can set a solid foundation for life. For many years, St. Columbanus School served that role in the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Park Manor, providing a culturally rich, warm environment, as well as an academically rigorous one. According to St. Columbanus alumna Leslie Cain-Cauley, who graduated with the class of 1980, what made St. Columbanus special was that it was a family; parents were friends with each other outside of the school and supported the teachers, and the students had pride in the school. In 2015, however, St. Columbanus had to close its doors and merge with St. Dorothy School due to low enrollment. The merged 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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schools became the Augustus Tolton Catholic Academy, which has a STREAM curriculum (Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Arts, Math). The new school not only marks the end of an era in this community, but points to the variety of changes in the Catholic community as a whole—economic, educational, and social. The merger is far from an anomaly in Chicago’s financially-strapped Roman Catholic community. The Archdiocese of Chicago, which includes not just the city but also suburbs, has the largest Catholic school system in the U.S., and in 2015, there were nine closures and two other mergers in addition to St. Columbanus’s. There were three closures in 2016, and two more have been announced for the end of 2017. For the past decade, the Archdiocese of Chicago has been steadily making budget cuts. There have been several drivers of these financial
difficulties. Not only has the archdiocese been significantly affected by the Catholic sexual abuse scandal, paying over $140 million to settle victims’ claims, but it is also facing a precipitous decline in church attendance; according to Crain’s Chicago, Mass attendance in the archdiocese dropped a hefty twenty-six percent from 1995 to 2015. Many factors play a role in these trends. The anemic number of priests in or entering the priesthood and great number of Catholics migrating to the suburbs (primarily an instance of white flight) have hurt the urban Catholic community and caused the numbers to plummet. Unfamiliar as the concept may seem, being Black and Catholic is not an oxymoron. While Black Catholics are a small community, with only 800 parishes predominantly Black out of almost 21,000 Catholic parishes in the U.S., they are a
strong and united one. During the Great Migration, when many African-Americans migrated from the South to urban environments in the North and West, the number of Black Catholics skyrocketed. Matthew J. Cressler, assistant professor of religious studies at the College of Charleston, notes in his lecture “Black Catholics: From the Great Migration to Black Power” that the Black Catholic community grew by 208 percent nationwide and by a whopping 400 percent in the Midwest from 1940 to 1970. By 1970, the Windy City had “more Black Catholics than Washington, D.C. or New Orleans.” Now, though, they make up just three percent of the Catholic population in Chicago. Even of the nearly ten thousand Black students currently enrolled in Chicago Catholic schools, the majority (nearly seventy-eight percent) are not themselves Catholic, unlike students of other races.
POLITICS
Why, then, has the Black Catholic community declined? The ongoing legacy of white flight may help provide an answer. The movement of whites en masse from cities to suburbs in order to escape the influx of minorities may have begun as early as the 1920s, according to the Washington Post. On one hand, the Black community overall in Chicago and other urban areas at first became more stable because of white flight, with an increase of home ownership, according to a paper from 2013 in the Journal of Urban Economics. More properties became available, and getting credit and loans became more accessible. But on the other hand, this outmigration had an overall negative effect on Catholic populations in Chicago, including in Black communities. The population of the Archdiocese of Chicago, which covers Cook and Lake Counties, shifted from seventy-seven percent living in the city in 1950 to forty-six percent in 2010, while the population in the Cook County suburbs grew in that time from nineteen to fortytwo percent. And when these white Catholic families left the city, they took their finances with them, causing many parishes to struggle economically—including predominantly Black ones. This movement to the suburbs in recent years especially, and the resulting redistribution or loss of resources, has been a factor in the Archdiocese’s severe budgets cuts since 2012—a year they were operating in the red by $40 million. Other changes also affected parishes’ finances, including the decrease in women becoming nuns. Their role as Catholic school teachers was filled by laypeople, who cost more to employ. Beverly Carroll, the founding director for the Secretariat of African-American Catholics, told the National Catholic Reporter in 1998 that there hasn’t been a “mass exodus” of Black Catholics from the Catholic community—but even then she recognized that there had been a steady decline due to systemic racism and parishioners feeling like their needs weren’t being met. As one of the parishes that was ultimately affected by all these factors, St. Columbanus had to close its school to form the Augustus Tolton Catholic Academy. Though St. Columbanus was in the thick of things in the neighborhood, at 71st Street and Calumet Avenue, it had a small-town, family feel, and when it closed, its traditions and history went with it. An essential element to the formula of excellence St. Columbanus School had for
the last forty-five years was Principal Sandra E. Wilson. Ask anyone who’s dealt with St. Columbanus, or “St. C.” as it is affectionately called, and they will know who Mrs. Wilson is. She first attended St. Columbanus Church when she went to a Midnight Mass in 1959, and she was so impressed with the ceremony and religion that she converted to Catholicism in 1960. She has been associated with St. Columbanus ever since; in 1976, she became the school’s first principal who was an African-American layperson. When asked what her biggest takeaway is after working in the field for so long, Wilson said, “I’ve always felt guided by God. The reward of this field is to have a positive impact on a young person’s life, and I feel I’ve done that.” Though the closing of St. C is the end of an era, Augustus Tolton Catholic Academy signals a new season in not only the Black Catholic community in Chicago, but in the Catholic community as a whole. While there has been a decadeslong decline in Catholic school enrollment numbers, new Archdiocesan superintendent Jim Rigg expects a change in the near future. He told the Sun-Times that he’s ready to overhaul the largest Catholic school system in the country with a “strategic plan” that “represents growth and expansion and optimism.” Its five focuses are financial vitality, academic excellence, leadership, governance, and Catholic identity—all of which are emphasized in the information on Tolton’s website, particularly its mission statement. Cain-Cauley, the 1980 alumna, has two sons who graduated from Augustus Tolton, and she thinks the difference between this reincarnation and St. Columbanus is that Tolton Academy lacks “unity.” The parents stick to their own cliques, she said, and there’s an “us vs. them” mentality between the parents of students from the two schools. Academically, however, the school is well-equipped to prepare students for today’s high-tech world—Tolton is the first Catholic elementary school in Chicago to incorporate a STREAM curriculum. Wilson herself sees Tolton’s curriculum as an exciting new direction for the school and a source of hope—an opinion she’s formed firsthand, by volunteering at the school for the past year and a half. The closing of St. Columbanus may be the end of an era of community vitality and sense of family, but the opening of Augustus Tolton Catholic Academy is the renewal of the school’s original spirit and academic direction. ¬
Is Safe Passage Safe from Budget Cuts?
Despite successes, patchwork funding leaves a CPS program’s future uncertain BY RACHEL KIM
W
hen Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced in 2013 the closing of nearly fifty Chicago public schools, he attempted to address the concerns regarding student safety by calling for the expansion of the Safe Passage program. First launched in 2009, Safe Passage is a combination of programs that harnessed community involvement to ensure the safety of students traveling to and from school. The program enacts stronger punishments for the possession of guns, ammunition, and other dangerous weapons in designated Safe Passage routes and school safety zones. These routes linked closed schools and the “welcoming” schools that students were redirected into in 2013; the school safety zones cover 1,000 feet around any school and public park within the area. However, in the eight years since Safe Passage’s birth, and the nearly four years since the 2013 closings, there are lingering concerns about the program’s effectiveness, stability, and payment of its workers. The program was founded after Derrion Albert, a sixteen-year-old student, was beaten to death while walking home from Fenger Academy High School in Roseland. After Albert’s death, former Attorney General Eric Holder and then-Secretary of Education Arne Duncan came to Chicago to address the issue of violence around schools, and the Safe Passage program began with the help of federal stimulus money. The initial program focused its efforts on training around six hundred Safe Passage workers, who would line each route while wearing distinctive neon green vests. When the program was expanded in 2013
in response to the closings, the program also called for demolishing nearby vacant buildings, trimming trees, removing graffiti, and repairing streetlights that lay along Safe Passage routes. Initially, some questioned whether the heavy adult and police presence near the schools would be healthy for the students or whether the program would only relocate the violence instead of alleviating it. According to a 2013 press release by CPS, the Safe Passage program has led to a twenty percent decline in crime around schools protected by the Safe Passage program, a twenty-seven percent decline in incidents among students, and a seven percent increase in attendance from 2011-2013 in high schools with the Safe Passage program—markers of success certainly, but not necessarily addressing those initial concerns. The program also was not cheap, even in 2013—an additional $7.7 million in investment after the school closings brought the total cost to $16 million a year; in comparison, CPS predicted that the schools closings would save around $43 million a year in operating costs, though some have challenged this claim. In 2014, the program was expanded again after a $10 million bonus from the state of Illinois, which allowed the program to serve another twenty-seven schools, hire six hundred more Safe Passage workers (for a total of 1,900), and implement forty new Safe Passage routes (for a total of 133). And in September of 2016, CPS added two more Safe Passage routes around Dyett School of the Arts and Al Raby High School. The Safe Passage program now supports 142 schools and 75,000 students. APRIL 19, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5
POLITICS
ELLEN HAO
Safe Passage vendors, which are community organizations (such as the Ark of St. Sabina and Teamwork Englewood) that are responsible for the on-the-ground enforcement of Safe Passage routes, are also tasked with the hiring of the Safe Passage workers. Safe Passage workers are mostly members of the neighborhoods in which they serve, stand along routes in order to ensure the students’ safety, and, if needed, deescalate conflicts that may occur. After being trained and armed with their cellphones, Safe Passage workers work five hours a day (often split into some hours in the morning and some in the afternoon), five days a week, and are paid $10.50 an hour. The Safe Passage program has seen issues in worker turnover, even during its first week in 2009. According to CBS Chicago, half of Roseland’s Safe Passage workers quit in the first week, leaving a route completely unmanned on 119th and State Street the next Tuesday morning. According 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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to Bob Jackson, the supervisor of Nehemiah Roseland Ceasefire (a Safe Passage vendor), the organization lost thirteen out of its twenty-six members the second day of the school year. While Jackson attributed the high turnover to the hot weather, other supervisors said that many of the workers also found full-time, and better-paying, work elsewhere. Even this school year, school officials from Shoesmith Elementary complained late last November that the school had not had Safe Passage workers since early the 2014-2015 school year, when they had three workers on duty, according to the Hyde Park Herald. At the meeting, CPS representative Gregory Sain said that the district plans to reinstate the program by December 2016 with workers from the Leave No Veteran Behind organization, whose members also work in Kenwood Academy High School’s Safe Passage program. According to a spokesperson from CPS, the program has
since been restored. The district is still working out some other kinks as well, such as worker compensation. On July 1, 2016, the city of Chicago raised its minimum wage to $10.50 an hour, and plans to continue raising the minimum wage for the next two years. This July, the minimum wage for non-tipped employees will be $11, and $13 by the end of 2019. However, in the beginning of the 2016-2017 school year, Chicago Public Schools did not provide the same fifty-cent raise for its Safe Passage workers. Attributing the non-raise to the district’s budget problems and claiming that Safe Passage workers were exempt from citywide raises, the district was plagued with numerous wage complaints and accusations of unreliable minimum wage enforcement. According to the Chicago Reporter, city officials included within the minimum wage ordinance certain exceptions in state laws that allowed for “certain younger workers…other teens under nineteen, and student workers
at public colleges and universities; disabled workers, workers in transitional employment programs, such as those for the homeless and former-inmates; new employees in their first ninety days on the job; workers for certain small businesses and other groups” to be excluded from the minimum wage increase. However, according to the Chicago Reporter, once the publication began questioning CPS’s decision to not pay Safe Passage workers minimum wage, CPS claimed that “it would cover the wage increase, as well as back pay, to its crossing guards.” A spokesperson from CPS confirmed to the Weekly that Safe Passage workers were notified of the wage increase to $10.50 an hour on January 25 of this year, and that the district would continue to increase workers’ wages in step with the city’s minimum wage increases. Samekh Masden, the Safe Passage/ Assistant Program Coordinator and Human Resources Director at Black United Fund Illinois (a Safe Passage vendor), says that their Safe Passage workers are now being paid the minimum $10.50 an hour, and are also receiving back pay compensation for the wages that they weren’t being given while being excluded in the city-wide raise. While a fifty-cent wage increase may seem small, it adds up in the long run—fifty extra dollars per month means a lot to Safe Passage workers striving for better wages. The Safe Passage program continues to garner widespread support from political leaders, CPS officials, and community organizations. CPS’s 2017 fiscal year budget reported that over the past five fiscal years “there have been no major incidents involving students on Safe Passage routes during the program’s operational hours.” Accordingly, the 2017 budget further provided for twentytwo community-based vendors to hire 1,200 workers for the 2016-2017 school year. Still, it is worth questioning how CPS will continue to guarantee steady increases in minimum wage for the expanding number of Safe Passage workers when it continues to be riddled with budgetary issues—the most pressing of which threatens to close all CPS schools three weeks early this year. Another federal stimulus or state “bonus” is unlikely to come. If CPS remains saddled with debt and continues to make drastic cuts in its budget, the existence of the Safe Passage program itself will also come into question—despite its effectiveness, the support it receives from the community, and its necessity. ¬
TRANSPORTATION
Beyond the ‘L’ A proposal for South Side public transit BY DANIEL KAY HERTZ
T
he Red Line’s 95th Street station in Roseland is indisputably the transit capital of the South Side. Some 12,000 people tap their Ventra cards to ride the Red Line at 95th every weekday—and another 8,000 people transfer to one of the dozen CTA bus routes that meet outside the station. Take the “L” forty minutes north, and you’re at the North Side’s busiest transit hub: the Fullerton station in Lincoln Park, which the Red Line shares with the Brown Line and rush-hour Purple Line Express. Close to 16,000 riders get on a train at Fullerton each weekday, with a little more than 2,000 transferring to one of the two CTA buses that serve the station. In the end, 95th and Fullerton see roughly the same number of CTA trips every day. But the similarities mostly end when you leave the station. Step out of 95th, and you’re on a fourlane viaduct over a ten-lane highway. The Fullerton station, by contrast, drops you off on a busy sidewalk between a Whole Foods and an art museum. On 95th Street, a handful of shops are interspersed with parking lots and houses, as well as a neighborhood park. The next closest business districts, on Halsted and Cottage Grove, are a mile away. On Fullerton, the grocery store and art museum give way to three- and four-story apartment buildings, more businesses, a medical research center, and two major shopping streets within a five-minute walk. You can use 95th to get to Chicago State University, but it’ll take a half-mile walk or a bus ride. But you can walk from the Fullerton station to DePaul University’s main campus without even crossing the street. All these differences add up to a very different experience for transit riders at each of these stations—and they mean that the stations function differently in their respective communities. These differences, it turns out, are in some ways representative of
the broader contrasts in how public transit and the built environment interact north and south of the Loop. The longstanding conventional wisdom that the North Side is better served by public transit has in some ways become even more relevant in recent years. As developers and businesses on the North Side are increasingly citing the demand for good urban transit in locating their investments, many South Side neighborhoods, with or without “L” service, have struggled to attract similar investments. But access to transit on the South Side, just like anywhere else, is about more than
populations—about 1.1 million each. (For the purposes of this article, the “South Side” is all the community areas below the South Branch of the Chicago River or the Stevenson Expressway. The “North Side” is all the community areas above about North Avenue, plus West Town.) They are also served by nearly identical lengths of “L” tracks. The Orange Line and the southern branches of the Red and Green Lines combine to roughly 29.6 miles; the Brown Line and the northern branches of the Red and Blue Lines combine to about 29.4. But those numbers mask profound differences in coverage. Why? Because the
Achieving a more accessible South Side is less a question of replicating the North Side’s version of transit success than of finding another version tailored to its own circumstances. lines and dots on a map. Patterns of land use, employment, and existing infrastructure all change the way that people are able to use a given transit service—and mean that achieving a more accessible South Side is less a question of replicating the North Side’s version of transit success than of finding another version tailored to its own circumstances. Density and destinations Two unlikely coincidences: The South and North Sides have almost identical
South Side is much less dense: with the same population, it takes up almost twice as much land as the North Side, meaning that lines of the same length leave a larger proportion of its area uncovered. (Why is it so much less dense? That’s a complicated question, but there are at least three big reasons: the higher number of industrial zones; the large number of neighborhoods, especially on the Southwest and Far South Sides, that were built after World War II as single-family home districts without many apartments; and a legacy of widespread government demolition of dense
Black housing, especially in the Bronzeville area, first in the urban renewal era and then as part of the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation.) One way to think of that density difference is to look at what’s around a particular pair of stations, such as the 95th and Fullerton stations. But numbers are also helpful. On average, a square mile within walking distance of an “L” station on the South Side has about 15,000 residents. That’s actually denser than the city as a whole, but it’s barely more than half of the 29,000 residents per square mile in North Side communities served by the “L.” And when it comes to employment—which is in some ways an even more important kind of density—South Side “L” stations have just one job within walking distance for every three at the average North Side station. Why is that a problem? Because public transit works when it’s convenient—ideally, within walking distance—to both your starting point and your destination. But on the South Side, partly because of land use patterns, the “L” usually isn’t. North of the Loop, fifty-six percent of people, and sixtyone percent of jobs, are within half a mile of an “L” station. But on the South Side, those numbers are just twenty-two percent of people and twenty-one percent of jobs. It’s not just the land use. South Siders’ destinations don’t always look like those of North Siders’. North Side neighborhoods— particularly ones closer to the Loop with good access to the “L”—have attracted large numbers of downtown workers over the last several decades. Though the South and North Sides have similar populations, the North Side has over fifty percent more people who work in the central city. Meanwhile, the South Side has a much larger proportion of children and the elderly, whose daily travel may revolve more around neighborhood destinations like shops, clinics, or schools. All of this means that South Siders are probably less likely to be heading towards APRIL 19, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7
downtown on any given trip than North Siders. And since the radial “L” system has been designed from the beginning to get people to and from the Loop, this means the “L” is useful for a smaller proportion of South Siders’ trips. Making Transit Work for the South Side Faced with this set of challenges, advocates and policymakers theoretically have two basic options: Encourage more housing, shops, and jobs near existing transit; and expand the rapid transit network. Both strategies are worth pursuing—but they’re also both likely to be slow and difficult. So far, “transit-oriented development” in Chicago has mostly referred to marketdriven residential developments near the “L” on the North Side. But directing new housing, jobs, and other resources to existing transit infrastructure on the South Side, as well, would be an important step in bringing Chicagoans closer to accessible transportation services. Even in places without much marketrate construction, affordable housing developers can make an effort to connect their homes to transit, as with a new mixeduse building at Cottage Grove and 63rd, next to the Green Line. And the city’s community development efforts—from attracting new businesses and employers to locating new libraries or other city services—should also be located with an eye to transit accessibility. But Chicago is a mature city, not a boomtown. Except for the hottest parts of downtown, few neighborhoods can expect to dramatically change their built environment overnight, or even in the course of a decade. Moreover, while neighbors might be interested in filling in the empty lots in their local shopping district with some new storefronts and apartments, most people don’t want to see really dramatic change in the scale of their community. And what about building new “L” lines? As anyone in Roseland waiting for the Red Line to reach 130th Street could tell you, heavy rail expansions are painfully slow, expensive propositions. Nor is it just the far South Side that’s been kept on hold: downtown business groups have been clamoring for a new Loop circulator line for half a century, and Manhattan’s Second Avenue Subway only made its way to the Upper East Side at the beginning of this January—ninety-eight years after it was first 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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proposed. The sad reality is that heavy rail lines like the “L” have become so expensive to build in the US that their construction has ground almost to a halt. The South Side’s relatively dispersed population also means that there’s no one or two lines that would revolutionize “L” access—a truly massive expansion would be needed. And unfortunately, there’s no sign that that kind of investment is coming from the city, state, or federal government any time soon. So, while the city should jump at the opportunity to expand the “L” where and when it can, we shouldn’t expect those maps over the train doors to change too dramatically. But fortunately, it doesn’t need to. The sleeping giant Metra’s commuter rail lines sprawl out from downtown in all directions. But the South Side lines hold special potential. For one, they cover many of the areas farthest from the “L”: the south lakefront through Hyde Park and into South Shore and South Chicago; the Far South Side areas targeted for the Red Line extension, including Roseland and Pullman; Morgan Park and Beverly; and Far Southwest Side neighborhoods like Auburn Gresham and Ashburn. Second, unlike many Metra lines that have to manage both freight and passenger trains, the main South Side lines don’t have any other services that interfere with transit operations. And finally, in many places, South Side Metra lines already have stations every half mile—just like most “L” services. That all adds up to the bones of a much bigger rapid transit system than South Siders currently enjoy. The only difference between, say, the Metra Electric along the south lakefront and the Red Line is that Red Line trains come more frequently, and accept CTA farecards and transfers. Send a train down the Metra tracks every ten to fifteen minutes and install turnstiles that take Ventra (or give conductors handheld readers), and you’ve effectively created a new “L” line without laying a single foot of new track. This proposal has been around for decades. Activists usually focus on the lakefront Metra Electric, but the plan could also apply to other South Side branches. With a little imagination—and inspiration from cities like London and Paris, which already use their regional commuter rails as a kind of show-up-and-go subway service,
or Toronto, which plans to upgrade its system along similar lines—the South Side could dramatically expand its rail network without the exorbitant costs of building from scratch. That’s an opportunity most cities could only dream of. To be more like other “global cities,” the South Side (and Chicago as a whole) needs better buses Still, ‘”L”-like Metra service would be a ways away even if our elected officials began working on it today. Although it would revolutionize South Side access to the central city, it wouldn’t serve most other neighborhood-to-neighborhood trips. This brings us to what is probably the most important—and certainly the fastest—way to improve transit on the South Side. Though the clanging elevated tracks get all the glamor, on any given day more people all over Chicago take a CTA bus than ride the “L”. And on the South Side— precisely because of its lower population and job densities, and non-downtown destinations—reliance on bus service is particularly important. While just over half
of North Side transit commuters use the “L” for the longest part of their trip, the figure for South Side commuters is fully twothirds. And to a greater extent than on the North Side, even when South Siders head to an “L” station, they often take a bus to get there. America’s particular history of urban disinvestment means that many people think public transit buses must provide substandard, inconvenient service that the well-off would never use by choice. But you don’t have to go far to see that’s not true. Along parts of the north lakefront—some of the city’s wealthiest zip codes—as many as forty percent of commuters take the bus to work, more than drive or take the “L.” On the South Side, relatively affluent areas like Hyde Park also have higher-than-average bus ridership. That’s because people will usually use whatever is the fastest, most convenient way to get somewhere—and between places like Lakeview or Hyde Park and downtown, that often means CTA’s lakefront express buses. That principle extends beyond Chicago, too. Members of the city’s business elite may think that an airport express train will make
TRANSPORTATION
DATA VISUALIZATION BY DANIEL KAY HERTZ
us more of a “global city,” but even in many of those cities, buses rule: London’s famous double-deckers aren’t just pretty, they also carry more daily passengers than the Tube. It’s well within our ability to make the CTA’s crosstown bus routes similarly convenient. In cities where transit does well, civic leaders work from the belief that the most equitable, sustainable, and spaceefficient forms of transportation ought to be prioritized. Bringing that attitude to Chicago would mean speeding up buses by allowing people to pay at both the front and back doors (or, even better, before the bus arrives at all), creating bus lanes, and making sure buses come on a regular, frequent schedule. An added bonus would be even more clean, bright bus shelters that provide seating, protect riders from the elements, and give information about arrival times.
The CTA has made some progress over the last several years, creating bus lanes in the Loop and in South Shore, and adding bus tracker screens to many shelters, but much more can be done with support from elected officials. Nearly everyone in Chicago, including on the South Side, lives within quick walking distance to a bus stop. The best practices that make buses a top-tier transportation resource in other global cities are just as available here—and using them will be crucial in making the South Side more accessible. A More Accessible Chicago Chicago is a city with a long, sordid history of using geography as a weapon. Segregation—between neighborhoods, sides of the city, the city and the suburbs—has
been used to privilege some people over others, and to keep resources like jobs, schools, and other amenities away from the unwelcome: often low-income people and people of color. The generations of transportation and development policy that treated people without cars as an afterthought, or elements to be actively discouraged, are simply another part of the weaponization of geography. It created a two-tiered transportation system that forced even many of those living in poverty to spend thousands of dollars to buy and maintain a car, or lose hours a day on increasingly disinvested transit services. Those who are physically unable to drive were left out no matter their financial situation. Returning to a transportation policy that prioritizes the lowest-cost, most accessible forms of transportation obviously
won’t erase Chicago’s deep inequalities. But it’s an important part of the path to a better city. In a big-picture sense, reinvesting in public transit reverses a profound kind of privatization of the city’s streets, and sends the message that the public sphere— the resources that are truly available to everyone—can be just as good, and as dignified, as the resources only available to those who can pay. But more prosaically, a more accessible South Side, and a more accessible Chicago, means that when you want to go somewhere, you can do so faster, cheaper, and more comfortably. It means that more jobs, more grocery stores, and more parks and museums are a reasonable distance from your home. It means a more humane city, in ways big and small. Envisioning what accessibility might look like on the South Side is, hopefully, one modest step towards that kind of city. ¬ APRIL 19, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9
The Last Hail Closing Queen of Peace High School BY ISABELLE LIM
T
he popular image of a private all-girls Catholic high school usually evokes ideas of strict nuns, enforced uniformity, and fierce standards of discipline rather than notions of female empowerment. And yet at Queen of Peace High School, many alumnae, students, and even staff members would insist that progressive ideas were the foundation of the school. Again and again, the women I spoke to used the words “feminist” and “voice” to describe the fifty-five-year-old all-girls high school located on a fifteen-acre tract of land in Burbank, Illinois, a few blocks west of the Ford City Mall in West Lawn. “What they teach us when we go to Queen of Peace is that you have a voice. You have a voice for yourself and for the people who can’t be heard,” said Mary Kate Love, a member of the Class of 2007 who at one point worked as a recruiter for the high school. Since February, Love has been raising her voice as part of a concerned chorus in the aftermath of the school’s surprising and, for many, devastating announcement—come the end of the current school year in June, Queen of Peace will be shuttering its doors for good, bringing to a close one of the last bastions of an all-girls Catholic education on the South Side and Southland. The decision, confirmed and announced on January 24, took those who had deep affection for the school by surprise. Current students and alumnae were understandably upset at the prospect of the closure— the school was the place some alumnae envisioned their daughters one day attending. In the following days’ news coverage, what emerged was the familiar story of imminent closure—an all-girls Catholic school past its heyday, plagued by falling enrollment and financial difficulties, and forced, finally, to make the difficult decision. It wasn’t an unprecedented trajectory. Similar closures have happened on the South Side to a number of Catholic elementary schools, but also to all-girls Catholic high schools similar to Queen of Peace. In 2013 and 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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2014, Maria High School and Mt. Assisi Academy, located in Chicago Lawn and southwest suburban Lemont, respectively, had announced their closures in much the same fashion. In a twist of bitter prophecy, Queen of Peace High School had been one of the schools that had accepted transfer students during those closures. Now, it is, ostensibly, looking for other Catholic institutions to do the same. In the months since the announcement, the high school has released multiple statements offering reasons for the closure and laying out a transition plan for current students. Several family and alumnae meetings have also been held at the school in an attempt to further explain the decision and the community’s way forward. For some, however, questions about the decision to close still linger, as does anger, expressed in vigorous online debate since the announcement. “A Catholic feminist high school” Five miles north of the Illinois border in Grant County, Wisconsin, is the spiritual and intellectual ground zero of Queen of Peace—the motherhouse of the Sinsinawa Dominicans, the congregation of sisters and nuns who have been the sponsors of Queen of Peace since its inception and were its first teachers. The Dominican tradition remains the spiritual backbone of the school until now, and is the root of its tradition as a “Catholic feminist high school,” in the words of Class of 2004 alumna Annette Alvarado. Sister Janet Welsh knows this tradition well; she was one of the first women to set foot in the Queen of Peace building as part of its inaugural graduating class in 1966, and is also the only alumna to have joined and graduated into the order. In her office at Dominican University’s McGreal Center in west suburban River Forest, Welsh talked me through the Dominican tradition of education and the founding of
Queen of Peace High School. As one of the earliest members of the school and a trained historian, Welsh’s grasp on both narratives is extensive. “At that time, there was in the popular mind the idea that women, their constitution, was too tender to study any of the hard sciences. They would have a nervous breakdown or they wouldn’t be able to become pregnant,” she said, laughing. Those popular beliefs inspired Father Samuel Mazzuchelli, the nineteenth century priest who founded the Sinsinawa Dominicans, to create St. Clara Academy, an all-girls institution that paved the way for more all-girls educational institutions, leading all the way to Queen of Peace. “When Queen of Peace opened up, almost all of us from St. Sabina [Academy] went and applied. We took the test. But they could only take four hundred,” Welsh recalled. “I remembered how I was so happy that I had gotten in, but also how some of my friends were put on a waiting list. They went to Longwood [Academy, then known as Academy of Our Lady] in the end, but it was kind of sad that they weren’t going to share in this new adventure of going to a brand new school.” That was 1962. In September of that year, Queen of Peace officially opened with a class of four hundred freshman girls, a faculty of fourteen, and a curriculum that included religion, mathematics, Latin, and home economics. It was operating out of a wing of the neighboring all-boys school at the time, St. Laurence, as the women waited for the construction of their own school building to be completed. In 1963, with double the students, Queen of Peace moved into the building that continues to house it to this day. In an entry on the school found in the Archdiocese of Chicago Institutional History, the state of the high school two years later was decidedly robust: “In September of 1965 there were 65 faculty members: 44 Sisters, 21 lay teachers. The school population was 1,579. In
EDUCATION
LIZZIE SMITH
December of that same year the certificate of full state accreditation arrived. Queen of Peace had come of age.” This picture of institutional health, and enormous enrollment, is a stark contrast to the school’s current state, with a mere 288 students. And yet, Welsh insists that while enrollment and funding have waned across the years, the school maintained its unabashed tradition of female empowerment. When asked why she had chosen an all-girls education—particularly one at a school as nascent as 1960s-era Queen of Peace—Welsh explained it was there that students “had the leadership opportunities.” “Unfortunately, back in the sixties, if you were in a coed school, most of that would have been relegated to the young men and maybe a woman might be the secretary,” she said. “This is the age where feminism nationally [was] just beginning to stir the souls of women in the United States. [With] an all-girls education, you were told you were talented, intelligent. You could do
anything if you had the skills and ability.” It’s a sentiment that’s echoed by alumnae from subsequent graduating classes extending into the twenty-first century—that an all-girls education was instrumental in making them stronger and more independent, and that its growing scarcity was a loss. Alvarado, who described the school as feminist, recalls her time there and how it had “promoted that concept of sisterhood” for her. “I’m one of four girls [in my family] and it created a level of woman power. Like, you’re a woman and you’re capable of anything. And that was amazing. I noticed how much of it impacted my education when I went to college. I noticed that I wasn’t afraid to speak up in class,” she said, adding, “I’m still friends with some of the St. Laurence alumni and they said about [Queen of Peace students], ‘Man, you girls are bossy, but that’s all right.’” Despite the appreciation for an all-girls education from Queen of Peace students, a cursory look at all-girls high school
options on the South Side and Southland reveals its consistent decline in availability. After the closing of Queen of Peace in June, two options for an all-girls Catholic high school remain on the South Side: Mother McCauley High School in Mount Greenwood, and Our Lady of Tepeyac High School in Little Village. Regionwide, the number improves by just one: Trinity High School in River Forest. For current Queen of Peace students looking for a similar allgirls environment, their choices are few and far between. For example, both Trinity High and Our Lady of Tepeyac——some fifteen and nine miles north of Queen of Peace, respectively—would be a transportation headache for most students. Pulling from all parts of the City Many alumnae remember not only Queen of Peace’s female-centric environment, but its atmosphere of diversity and inclusivity—both economically and racially. The sentiment is perhaps
counterintuitive given the price of tuition at the school ($10,500 a year), and the long, continuing history of segregation in the South and Southwest Side neighborhoods and suburbs where many of Queen of Peace’s students live. It’s difficult not to think of nearby Mt. Greenwood where just last year, a local coed Catholic high school suspended several students for sending racist text messages about protesters demonstrating against police brutality after the killing of Joshua Beal, a black man, by an off-duty police officer in the neighborhood. And yet, Queen of Peace is remembered fondly by its alumnae as a contrasting stronghold of diverse representation—a school that, not bound to a particular parish, drew students from across the city of Chicago and its suburbs. For alumnae, the brand of acceptance found in the school is unsurprising. It was in Queen of Peace, after all, that Catholic Schools Opposing Racism (COR), a coalition of Catholic schools, was founded in 1999. COR organized collaborations APRIL 19, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11
EDUCATION
among schools to introduce anti-racism and diversity programming in the Catholic school system. Under the auspices of thenprincipal Patty Nolan-Fitzgerald, who was also a charter member of the Cardinal’s Anti-Racism Task Force, diversity and social justice education became a more formalized part of the Queen of Peace experience. Rebecca Hacker, a graduate of the class of 2008, recalls full-day workshops that took place in the school gymnasium where issues of race were tackled head-on. “They would have girls up there asking in certain ways what were ‘race facts,’ or [bringing up] things that you wouldn’t talk about everyday because it might make somebody nervous,” she said, adding that discussion would include topics like skin color and colorism. “For me, I remember the school being really diverse,” recalled Alvarado, who commuted daily from Little Village to the school when she was attending. “It was a good experience that got me exposed to a lot of other cultures, lots of other faiths. They had this one amazing class where we had field trips to different places of worship. It was the first time I went to a mosque, first time I went to a synagogue.” Most of the alumnae approximated the school population when they attended as being majority white, including many first-generation Polish immigrants, with significant populations of Hispanic and African-American students. Data from the state board of education shows that the school’s population in 2016 was fifty-two percent white, thirty-five percent Hispanic, and nine percent African-American. What former students of Queen of Peace also mentioned, however, was the strong working- and middle-class background of the student body, regardless of ethnicity. “I think the impression you get when you think all-girls, Catholic school is like, rich girl. And that wasn’t the case. I mean, we were all middle-class girls from all different parts of the city of Chicago,” said Love about her cohort. The school was and is by and large dominated by students from working-class to middle-class backgrounds, a demographic detail that bears out in the percentage of current students receiving financial aid—sixty percent—and that would turn out to be pivotal in explaining the subsequent fall in enrollment as the years went by. Alvarado, who received financial aid as
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a student at Queen of Peace from the years 2001 to 2004, recalls how the school had been particularly generous at a time when finances were strained in her family. She remembers tuition being priced at “four to five thousand” per year at the time, nearly half as much as the $10,500 it is today. The rising cost of tuition soon became evident, however, when it came time for her two youngest sisters to choose a high school. By then, Queen of Peace had ceased to be an option because tuition had become unaffordable. “We just couldn’t do it anymore. Changes had to be made so that the youngest two, even though they wanted to go to Queen of Peace...it wasn’t an option
reasons for the decision: an unsustainable financial deficit, and falling enrollment. As mentioned, about sixty percent of the students at Queen of Peace receive some form of financial aid to offset the annual tuition, which, O’Malley points out, is already below the true cost to educate a student. The real cost of educating a Queen of Peace student per year is in fact $15,500. The $10,500 charged to students, if all of them paid the full price, meant a $5,000 gap per student that the school was struggling to bridge. O’Malley stated that the figure that would have been required annually to “continue to ensure a quality education” for students was “more than $1 million above-
“I’ll tell you right now that more [Catholic schools] are going to close in the next five years. It’s just going to be a matter of who.” —Mary Kate Love, member of the Queen of Peace Class of 2007
anymore,” she said. Costs were rising at Queen of Peace, and for some families, beginning to take a toll on their ability to send their daughters to the school. According to the Archdiocese of Chicago Institutional History, in the eighties, the prognosis for Queen of Peace remained decidedly positive: “In light of the school’s continuing vitality, its stable membership, its innovative curricular and co-curricular programs, and its solid commitment to a Gospel-centered educational process, Queen of Peace in 1981 remains a viable, secondary school alternative to public education for the South Side of Chicago and its neighboring communities.” What tipped the scales? A Perfect Storm In a statement released after the announcement of the school’s closure, President Anne O’Malley pointed to two
and-beyond tuition.” “The gap” is not a phenomenon unique to Queen of Peace. “If you talk to anyone who works in private Catholic schools, they talk about the gap, and how tuition might be $5,000 but it actually costs $7,500 to educate these kids,” said Angela Gazdziak, a former alumna of the school who also worked on fundraising as an employee of the Archdiocese of Chicago at two Catholic schools. In these cases, aggressive fundraising and sources of financing external to tuition, like sponsorship, make up the gap. This method keeps private Catholic schools afloat, but just barely. In the period from 1984 to 2004, the Office of Catholic Schools (OCS) under the Archdiocese of Chicago recorded 148 school closures. More have followed in a seeming epidemic of private Catholic schools teetering on the precipice of closure, of which Queen of Peace is but just one of the cases. For the Burbank high school however,
their trajectory of falling enrollment was exacerbated at each turn by a multitude of factors: an aging demographic in the neighborhood, the closure of a number of “feeder” elementary schools that supplied the bulk of Queen of Peace’s student population, a controversial 2006 ouster of then-principal Patty Nolan-Fitzgerald, the 2008 financial crisis that severely impacted families’ ability to afford a private education, and the increasing competition from charter schools in the area. All worsened the already worrying enrollment at the school, and inadvertently raised costs for each student as the same operational costs now had to be paid out of fewer student tuitions, further driving down enrollment in a vicious cycle. Sister Colleen Settles, a councilor of the Sinsinawa Dominican congregation and part of the corporate body that approved the decision to close the school, told me that the Board of Directors had been aware of the state of falling enrollment and financials several years before it became dire. They had been working on a five-year strategic plan to turn the school around. The 2014 introduction of a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)-centered curriculum, which included courses in engineering and biomedical science, for instance, had been part of that plan to make the school more attractive to prospective students. “We were in, I think, year three of that strategic plan and knew that it was not producing the results that we had hoped for. That’s why they went to the STEM or STEAM program, which included the Arts, and [changed] the curriculum, in order to attract the students who would make the school more viable. But that wasn’t working,” Settles said. “We knew that if we kept the school open any longer, it would totally take away our ability to help the girls transition to other schools through scholarships,” she said of the decision to close. “We wanted to have enough reserves to be able to give the scholarships that would help them go to their next school.” And that’s what the school is focusing on now: a transition plan. For the 288 students who currently attend Queen of Peace, all will be headed to other institutions after this year, either to college for graduating seniors, or other high schools, with most of the students, according to O’Malley,
EVENTS
BULLETIN choosing to transfer to schools within the Catholic school system. In February, the allmale St. Laurence High School next door announced plans to become coed and accept current Queen of Peace students in fall 2017, and other girls in fall 2018. For the faculty and staff, some of whom have been at the high school for decades, attempts are underway to prepare them for retirement if they choose, or to support them in new teaching positions in other schools. “People are doing their best to support education, particularly Catholic education, but you can see around us that there have been over forty schools that have closed since 2000,” said O’Malley. “So I don’t believe anyone’s blowing the market and saying that if you come and help us, we will stay open. We know the percentage of our population that gives back to Queen of Peace and they’re very generous, [but] that percentage could not turn it around. It’s statistics.” The Catholic school system continues to face closures across the city. For alumni of Catholic schools like Love, an adequate response to the situation seems urgently lacking. “I’ll tell you right now that more [schools] are going to close in the next five years,” Love said. “It’s just going to be a matter of who.” “I’d love to see an integrated response to what’s happening with our school system in general. Because [the Catholic school system has its] problems, but CPS does too,” Love said, referencing the public school system that in some cases has emerged to replace closed down Catholic schools, occupying those same school buildings. For her, the loss of Queen of Peace is not just a personal blow, but is implicated in the larger issue of what she sees as narrowing educational options for students, where the void left by closed down Catholic schools is left either vacant, or filled by vulnerable public school options, struggling with their own state and local financial troubles. “The education system in Illinois is prime for a shakeup,” she said. “So what’s a sustainable solution look like for the state of Illinois? I don’t know, but I know that there’s got to be an answer.” As Queen of Peace prepares to shut its doors, the latest in a wave of Catholic school closures, the questions linger: What now for the Catholic school system? And, who next? ¬
ChiTeen Lit Fest Harold Washington Library Center, 401 S. Plymouth Ct. Friday, April 21, 6pm–10pm; and Columbia College Chicago, 1104 S. Wabash Ave., Saturday, April 22, 10am–6:30pm. Free. Register at bit.ly/chiteen. chiteenlitfest.org Join us at the ChiTeen Lit Fest created for teens, by teens, and featuring guest headliners such as Nate Marshall and Tara Mahadevan. Friday night there will be a kickoff party with food, music, dancing, and performances, and on Saturday, meet other like-minded teens and engage in featured programs and workshops. (Roderick Sawyer)
Dominic Pacyga’s Slaughterhouse Bridgeport Art Center, 1200 W. 35th St. Friday, April 21, 7pm–10pm. Free. (773) 3761982 chicagomaritimemuseum.org The Chicago Maritime Museum—located inside of the Bridgeport Art Center—will host Chicago historian Dominic Pacyga to speak about his 2015 book, Slaughterhouse. If the event’s lack of admission fee weren’t encouragement enough, other galleries sharing the Bridgeport Art Center space will be open to the public as well. (Michael Wasney)
National Vegetarian Museum Avalon Library, 8148 S. Stony Island Ave. Saturday, April 22, 10am–noon. vegmuse.org Vegan and Cook County Department of Public Health Chief Operating Officer Dr. Terry Mason will give a lecture entitled “Why Veganism?” at the National Vegetarian Museum exhibit, which has been traveling Chicagoland since February. Attendees can learn about vegetarianism’s roots, pardon the pun, as well as what it’s blossoming into. Most importantly, there will be (vegan, one presumes) snacks. ( Joseph S. Pete)
Prom Party with a Purpose Ogden Park, 6500 S. Racine Ave. Saturday, April 22, 10am–3pm. (312) 747-6722. bit.ly/ PromWithPurpose The Domestic Violence Subcommittee of the Englewood Police District is hosting their annual charity event to provide free
formal attire for teenagers going to prom. The committee collected donations of shoes, accessories, and formal clothing from the community. This event aims to help give every teenager the opportunity to enjoy a classic rite of passage in high school. (Mira Chauhan)
Advocacy Training South Side Metropolitan Community Church, 4610 S. Prairie Ave. Thursday, April 20, 6:30pm– 8:30pm. (312) 427-4830. Register at bit.ly/ SSadvocacy Join the Community Renewal Society as they prepare for their Day of Faith at the Capitol, where South Side residents will take their concerns straight to Springfield. This training will brief participants on the legislation facing elected officials this year, and will teach participants how to set up and run meetings with them. (Adia Robinson)
VISUAL ARTS Homer to Vonnegut: A Print Odyssey (Part 1) Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Thursday, April 20, 5:30pm–7:30pm. Free. RSVP online. (773) 702-0200. smartmuseum.uchicago.edu The Smart Museum and National Veterans Art Museum team up for a two-part program about returning home from war to civilian life throughout the ages. Visitors get a tour, lecture, and printmaking workshop about soldiers’ transition home. ( Joseph S. Pete)
Start: Gallery Opening Reception Start: Gallery, 1520 S. Harper Ct. Thursday, April 20, 6pm–8pm. Free. Reserve a seat by emailing thomasmeerschwam@gmail.com. facebook.com/StartGalleryChicago The new Hyde Park-based Start: Gallery hosts the opening reception for a new exhibit, featuring the work of three local artists who explore what it means to develop a “signature style” outside of academic contexts. A conversation with the artists will take place May 5. (Hafsa Razi)
El Carrito National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St. Friday, April 21, 1pm–3pm. Free. (312) 738–1503. nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org Discover and engage with artist William Estrada’s handmade mobile street art cart. This is one of a series of programs as a part of the Memoria Presente: An Artistic Journey exhibition, featuring artists working in the Chicago area. The exhibition will continue through August 13. (Mira Chauhan)
PUBLIC SCHOOL Open House Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave. Friday, April 21, 4pm–6pm. Free. (773) 3245520. hydeparkart.org Hyde Park Art Center continues its PUBLIC SCHOOL exhibition on art and instruction with an open house. Come for an exploration of the PUBLIC SCHOOL space, a discussion with Brazilian artist and educator Bianca Bernardo, and a hands-on workshop led by carpentry collective Project Fielding on building political resistance— literally. (Hafsa Razi)
A Craft Affair: Mother’s Day Edition Lacuna Artist Lofts, 2150 S. Canalport Ave. Sunday, April 23, noon–5pm. Free. RSVP at bit.ly/CraftAffair A combination of twenty businesses and independent artists will have stations at the craft fair on Saturday to display their creations. While live music plays throughout the afternoon. Lacuna Artists Lofts will also be letting people tour the five-floor building, which features a variety of new murals and curated spaces. (Mira Chauhan)
Lesley Jackson: Walking with Rilke 4th Ward Project Space, 5338 S. Kimbark Ave. Saturdays, 1pm–5pm, through Saturday, May 6, or by appointment. Free. (773) 203-2991. 4wps.org Multimedia artist Lesley Jackson uses objects like gathered leaves, a rubber band, and tree bark to evoke the “romantic struggle with mortality” of the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke at this month-long exhibition in Hyde Park. ( Jake Bittle) APRIL 19, 2017 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13
EVENTS
BURN353 Elephant Room Gallery, 704 S. Wabash Ave. Saturdays, 11am–5pm, through April 29, or by appointment. (312) 361-0281. elephantroomgallery.com This solo exhibition by artist BURN353, a graffiti and mixed media artist from downstate Illinois, looks back on a childhood spent spray-painting freight trains and watching hip-hop films, and showcases pieces from his extensive painting and design work. ( Jake Bittle)
Closing Reception: Aspects of the Whole Studio Oh!, 1837 S. Halsted St. Through April 27. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, 1pm–6pm, or by appointment. Free. (773) 474-1070. art-studio-oh.com “Aspects of the Whole,” curated by Studio Oh!’s Lisa Stefaniak, uses grid patterns to cut through and segment the work of four photographers and artists (Adam Lofbomm, Otto Rascon, Robert Tolchin, and Stefaniak herself ), breaking down images and putting them back together in strange and captivating ways. (Hafsa Razi)
Intercessions: Art as Intervention and Prayer Rootwork Gallery, 645 W. 18th St. Through May 21; see website for performance schedule. (917) 821-3050. facebook.com/rootworkgallery “Intercessions” brings together visual and performance art to contemplate “the body and the spirit; the sacred and the profane.” The opening reception features the work of painter, sculptor, and performance artist Maya Amina, as well as percussion and mixed media artist Xristian Espinoza. (Hafsa Razi)
MUSIC
Bob Mould & Allen Epley Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. Friday, April 21. Doors 7pm, show 8pm. $36-$56. 17+. (312) 526-3851. thaliahallchicago.com Indie rock veteran Bob Mould brings his latest album, Patch the Sky, to Thalia Hall— and, he says, it’s the “darkest one” yet. He’s joined by Allen Epley, of The Life and Times and the Chicago BlueManGroup. (Hafsa Razi)
Incantations Dance Party: Black & Brown Babes/Sunset Society
Reggies Rock Club, 2105 S State St. Thursday, April 20, 6:30pm. $15-$20. (312) 949-0120. reggieslive.com Maxo has been hitting the rap game hard with icy, confrontational lyrics and a ¬ APRIL 19, 2017
Place Lab and Black Cinema House’s year-long film series continues with Ava DuVernay’s 2008 documentary on the Good Life hip-hop scene in South Central LA, a group of collectives that included DuVernay herself. “It was perfect,” recalls one artist in the film—to dig deeper, a discussion will follow with Tayyib Smith, founder of the Institute of Hip-Hop Entrepreneurship, and music journalist Briahna Gatlin. ( Julia Aizuss.)
Karaoke for Kidneys Mercy Hospital, 2525 S. Michigan Ave. Saturday, April 29, 4pm–10pm. $50 suggested donation. lisa@morethanyourkidneys.org morethanyourkidneys.weebly.com
Come dance with some “Black & Brown Babes” at this monthly dance party “residency” for people of color at the Stony Island Arts Bank’s Archive House. Featuring the music of local artists and DJs, curated by DJ Duane Powell and Coultrain. (Hafsa Razi)
Darvece Monson—who founded the 501(c) (3) More Than Your Kidneys—is partnering with Mercy Hospital to host Karaoke for Kidneys, the first of what will hopefully be an annual event, commemorating the legacy of Takiya Holmes. After being killed by a stray bullet in February at the age of eleven, Holmes’s organs were donated to six people, including one kidney to her cousin, Monson. Proceeds will go to supporting patients and family members affected by CKD/ESRD/ dialysis/kidney transplantation. (Michael Wasney)
Hip to the Vibe
2017 Crystal Ball Fundraiser
The Dojo (message on Facebook for address). Saturday, April 22, 7 pm–1am. $5 donation. facebook.com/thedojochi
Chicago Art Department, 1932 S. Halsted. Saturday, May 13, 7pm–11pm. $25-$1000. (312) 725-4223. chicagoartdepartment.org
Check out an eclectic cadre of artists and musicians at Hip to the Vibe this weekend, and presumably you’ll be just that. The Dojo will be featuring artists (Steef, Calie Ramone, Eva Azenaro Acero) and musicians (Chessmasters, Fury, BLXCK, Malci, Mykele Deville, a DJ set by Sasha NoDisco). The gallery will open at 7pm, with music starting at 8pm. (Mira Chauhan)
Plan ahead to spend part of Mother’s Day weekend immersed in art, performance, and workshops, celebrating motherhood and feminine identity, as part of the CAD’s second annual Crystal Ball Fundraiser, which is expected to sell out quickly. This year’s honoree is visual artist Amanda Williams, who hails from Auburn Gresham. (Nicole Bond)
Archive House, 6918 S. Dorchester Ave. Friday, April 21, 6:30pm–10pm. Free. (312) 8575561. facebook.com/blackandbrownbabes
Never the Milk & Honey
STAGE & SCREEN Moving Images, Making Cities Film Series: This is the Life
Maxo Kream
14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
steadfast commitment to street narrative. Come check out the Houston native live at Reggies and enjoy one of the best Texas has to offer. (Roderick Sawyer)
Stony Island Arts Bank, 6760 S. Stony Island Ave. Wednesday, April 26, 6:30pm–9:30pm. RSVP online. Free. (312) 857-5561. rebuildfoundation.org
The Greenhouse Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave. Friday, April 14–Sunday, May 28. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, 8pm; Sundays, 3pm. $21$37. (773) 609-4714. mpaact.org It is written that there is a land of milk and honey, promised as respite for the faithful when the world ends. Explore what happens as covenants and faith are broken when the world doesn’t end as expected, in Joseph Jefferson Award winner Shepsu Aakhu’s
newest play, directed by South Shore native Carla Stillwell. (Nicole Bond)
An Evening with Dick Gregory The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Sunday, April 23. Doors 6:30pm, show 7:30pm. $20–$60. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com Dick Gregory is such a legend that little needs to be said. Over his half-century career, he’s been a bestselling author, a television star, a civil rights activist, an official enemy of Nixon, and one of Comedy Central’s Top 100 Stand-Up Comedians of All Time. Dedry Jones of the Music Experience hosts Gregory, who’s been one of the most outspoken critics of discrimination since he ascended to the national stage in the 1960s. ( Joseph S. Pete)
A Poet, A Novelist, and An Essayist Walk into a Bar Lagunitas Brewing Company, 2607 W. 17th St. Monday, April 24, 6pm–8:30pm. Limited student tickets $15, otherwise $45. 21+. guildcomplex.org Poet Nate Marshall, novelist Christine Sneed, and essayist Barrie Jean Borich read original works all including the word “beer,” in keeping with the brewery theme, at the Guild Literary Complex Annual Benefit. Food, a cash bar, a photo booth, and a literary trivia station are among the offerings. (Nicole Bond)
NAJWA Dance Corps: Masks DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Pl. Saturday, April 29, 7pm–9:30pm. $15-$25. (773) 727-1773. najwadancecorps.org African dance and ceremonial masks combine in Najwa’s annual spring concert showcasing the dynamics of masks and maskmaking through the ages, whether as cultural ritual or as a retreat from personal truths. (Nicole Bond)
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