Clara Kirk’s West Englewood United Organization had begun with two feet firmly planted in the community, and maintained a good reputation across Chicago. Yet the very force that propelled the organization from its founding—its neighborhood spirit—may have been its downfall.
As families are forced out, Englewood comes to terms with a neighbor intent on expanding its rail yard operations.
Like much of Bronzeville, 51st Street is at a kind of crossroads. Many neighbors perceive things as having vaguely gotten better, but exactly what is going into the gradual changes of “the strip” is not obvious.
“This neighborhood has changed drastically,” says one Chatham resident, “and I am not happy about it.” Many other residents, she insists, feel the same way. “They’re really pissed off about what’s going on here. We are not happy.”
Urban Village might seem like another church in a neighborhood already full of churches, but it is determined to set itself apart from the regimented, traditional ways in which Christianity is practiced elsewhere on the South Side.
“We use language for legal cases, we use it to put children to sleep, to wake them up, to write down our grocery lists. We do everything with it, in a way we don’t with dance, with music, or with painting.”
On March 21, CPS announced the closure of more than ten percent of the city’s elementary and middle schools. The decision concluded five months of conversation between communities and the district. Officials hail the effort as genuine engagement. Others call it a sham.
Muddy Waters’ old home is falling apart, and may face demolition. How did it come to this?
