courtesy of Zol87/flickr

The Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments in Bronzeville are a sorry sight. At one time, this building was among the city’s largest housing projects. It was built in 1929 by Julius Rosenwald, owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company, at the request of Rosenwald’s friend, Booker T. Washington. Stretching west from Michigan to Wabash and north from 47th to 46th Street, the affordable housing was created to relieve overcrowding after the Great Migration.  Rosenwald—who also funded and served on the board of the Tuskegee Institute, an institution dedicated to improving the education of African-Americans across the country—intended the building to serve as a new beginning for blacks in Chicago. Now, the massive building’s windows are all broken or boarded.

In addition to providing housing, the 400-unit complex originally included fourteen stores (four of which were black-owned) to encourage economic development. During the building’s history, a long list of Bronzeville’s most notable citizens lived in the Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments, including musician Quincy Jones, the boxer Joe Louis, and the city’s first black librarian, Vivian Harshe. The massive and ornate building served as one of the cornerstones of Chicago’s Black Metropolis.

As time went on, however, the structure’s fortune changed for the worse. Mismanaged federal funds in the mid-1970s and a change of ownership marked the beginning of several decades of neglect. By the late 1980s, the complex was overrun by poverty and drugs. In the 1990s, problems arising from urban blight, the inability of the new building owner to pay off the structure’s mortgage, and the failure of its drug elimination programs finally forced the condemnation of the building, and by 2000 all tenants had been evicted. By 2003, the National Trust for Historic Places cited the building on its list of the eleven most endangered historic places. The Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments seemed at the end of its life.

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For 25 years, Bobbie Johnson has led the fight to preserve the Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments. In the early ’90s, Johnson moved into the housing project as a drug elimination coordinator under a Housing and Urban Development program. “It was like New Jack City,” she said, referring to living conditions in the apartments at the time. “It was a big drug business in a small habitat.”  Living in the complex until the building was condemned, Johnson became strongly established in the Garden Apartments community as a voice for change through her efforts as a drug elimination coordinator.  Having previously worked as a nurse, her motivation stemmed from a passion for caring for people in need. “I came to preserve the humans,” she says. Since the evictions, former residents have rallied around her to fight for the building’s preservation.

Her relentless pursuit to save the building led her from organization to organization over the past decade, in search of support.  “After a while I came to understand how politics work and how the community works,” she explained.  Beginning with the support of the Chicago Urban League, Johnson leaned on an array of grassroots methods and community groups to spread the word in the community about the value of the building, while at the same time attempting to sell the economic value to private companies.

After over a decade of struggle, a deal potentially worth $170 million has been reached to preserve the building. The potential for commercial development coupled with the activism of those like Johnson attracted the attention of Landwhite Developers LLC, who have purchased the building with the intention of renovating it. The deal will draw on funding from as many as fourteen sources—including the City of Chicago, which has already approved $58.6 million in revenue bonds for the new project.

The new plan for the building is similar to the original, in design and spirit. The renovation will include new community spaces, including a daycare and community service offices, and commercial properties, echoing the original goals of the project. “I didn’t spend 25 years fighting to save a building,” says Johnson. “I did it to leave something for those who come after me.”

Walking around the area immediately surrounding the apartment complex today, one can see empty lots and boarded-up buildings—reminders of the stark reality of recent strife. But when ground is broken this coming spring, the dream of Julius Rosenwald, Bobbie Johnson, and others will be reborn. Johnson plans to invite community musicians to perform alongside Quincy Jones and Wynton Marsalis when the building finally reopens It would be a fitting tribute to the building’s legacy, or perhaps more so to the hope for its future.

Courtesy of the artist

On a Friday night at Blanc Gallery, a visitor unabashedly ran her palm along a series of seven panels. Her fingers first grazed scraps of black roofing paper, continuing to another panel of hot-pink vinyl stretched over studio debris, and ending their run on pieces of Bazooka bubble gum laid out like tiles. The cardinal rule of any art gallery—Do Not Touch—was suspended.

Connie Noyes’s exhibit “Pink | Space” invites the viewer’s touch. In fact her art thrives on interaction, for example with the artist herself. On November 18, dressed in a tiered tulle skirt and a webbed black top, Noyes mingled with visitors at the opening of her show. Her white wig bobbed as she went from person to person and piece to piece.

The genesis of the “Pink | Space” exhibition was a simple question. Noyes asked herself, “What is my space?” To come to an answer, she looked inside humanity for something we all share: the color pink. “It’s the internal color of muscles and organs unconcerned with external racial, class, gender or spiritual differences,” she says. “It is the color of humanity—the color of universal love.”

To express her own “pinkish physical self” for “Pink | Space,” Noyes uses what she describes as “trash from the floor.” One piece titled “If you can’t hide it, decorate it” consists of scattered, irregularly shaped bulges affixed to the wall. On the opposite wall, squished pieces of pink bubblegum hold together a cracked porcelain platter. White, black, and neutral shades are incorporated into the works, interacting with the pink by blending together and contrasting with the feature hue.

Another piece takes a more personal route, featuring a chopped-up bride doll. Recently divorced, Noyes came across a doll at a garage sale that resembled the frilly moppet she had as a child. The doll’s banged-up condition seems an apt symbol of vulnerability following the end of a marriage.

This exploration of material inspired Noyes to develop a second endeavor based on the human connection that pink represents. The phrase, “in the pink,” can mean both the pinnacle of a moment and being in prime condition, especially in terms of health. These simultaneous meanings created the starting point for a much larger project.

“At this very pinnacle moment,” she explained passionately, “we need to come together to do something better.” Noyes’s second pink-based project is “In the Pink: The 1,000,000 people art project,” centered on a website currently under development. The site aims to connect one million people around the globe, across many backgrounds and disciplines, to network and create dialogue about projects they are passionate about. The project is an extension of Noyes’s personality. She explains less than modestly, “I connect a lot of people together. It feels like I’m a resource.”

Noyes kicked off the first “In the Pink” dialogue two Saturdays ago at Blanc Gallery, titled “Symposium for Change.” A medical doctor, a steel manufacturer, and a composer were asked to share their passions. Noyes said the symposium went well, with “really interesting talks and thoughtful questions from the audience.” She hopes to put an edited recording of the discussion online.

The two projects go hand-in-hand, as Noyes engages in conversations of her own through her artwork while fostering a larger dialogue in her forum. Noyes encourages viewers to interpret her work through their own perspectives. “I’m putting myself out there, and through that vulnerability people can come towards me. It can be very powerful,” she says. Whether by encouraging visitors to touch her artwork or asking them to click and post on her website, Noyes’s talent of engaging the viewer in her art goes hand in hand with a willingness to expose her own life.

Blanc Gallery, 4445 S. King Dr. Hours by appointment only. (773)952-4394. blancchicago.com

Nathan Worcester

On a weekday afternoon in Bronzeville, the intersection of 47th Street and Cottage Grove is busy. Pedestrians flow along and mostly obey the red “Don’t Walk” sign. Some stop to chat with friends, while others hustle through the early autumn chill. In the northwest corner, cars inch through the McDonald’s drive-through line. On the eastern side of the street, people stream in and out of Save-a-Lot, O’Reilly’s Auto Parts, and the Urban Partnership Bank. But on the southwest corner there is an empty lot of well-packed dirt.

“Is it really becoming an apartment building?” asked Darnell while waiting for the bus with his girlfriend. “I just knew the liquor store was closed. There weren’t any posters up saying what would come in.”

The city bulldozed Pappy’s Liquors in early October. According to Bernita Johnson-Gabriel of Quad Communities Development Corporation (QCDC), the city purchased the parcel through a negotiated sale. “The owner of the property knew that we were marketing the property and was okay with it. Early on in the six year period, they had been negotiating with the developer.” As for Pappy’s, “like in any other community, the liquor store had been problematic.” But the owner of the liquor store didn’t own the space. “It wasn’t really his decision or option because he was just a tenant.”

The now-empty parcel is the last needed for the completion of a six-year project led by the non-profit QCDC and the neighborhood’s former alderman, Toni Preckwinkle. The city will sell the site to Mahogany Chicago 47 L.L.C., a Columbus, Ohio-based partnership between developers Skilken and Adam Troy. Then Mahogany will own all the land they need, and construction can begin on a mixed-use, mixed-income development, “The Shops and Lofts at 47.”

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Skilken’s website advertises “The Shops and Lofts at 47” as an example of the firm’s ability to “capture opportunity in underserved markets.” Per their plans, retail space at the site will total 55,000 square feet, including a 40,000 square foot anchor store and seven or eight small shops. According to Skilken President Frank Petruziello, “we saw that 47th and Cottage was the most high-profile intersection from a retail standpoint in the 4th Ward. That was consistent with then-alderman Preckwinkle’s vision for the community.”

The residential portion of the development was originally slated to contain condominiums. However, since the collapse of the housing market, the plans now call for apartments. In a phone interview, Petruziello estimated that roughly 20% of the residential units would be offered at market rate, while the remainder would be rented at varying levels of subsidized rates.

The development is just one of several occurring in the Quad Communities (North Kenwood, Oakland, Douglas, and Grand Boulevard), many of which are being drawn in by the QCDC or similar organizations. “There will also be a development coming to 44th and Cottage Grove”, said Johnson-Gabriel, adding that a dialysis center will likely arrive at 43rd and Cottage in the summer of 2012. The city is pushing a lot of the development in the area, as most such projects receive some financial support from the city, although the degree varies on a case-by-case basis.

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Back at 47th and Cottage, residents have their own thoughts on development. Many people say that the neighborhood needs an inexpensive big box store. Walmart is a popular choice. “We’ve got a bunch of Targets, and a lot of Save-a-Lots, too,” said Bridgest, who was eating with some friends at McDonald’s. At Save-a-Lot, Seerena, who was grocery shopping with her three children, agreed that the community needs more affordable options for buying groceries.

“The street does not lend itself to a large big box, but probably some midsized retail would be fine,” said QCDC’s Johnson-Gabriel. She guessed that a big box store could be sustained on the State Street corridor near 39th Street.

Beautification is also a popular desire. “Beautify the park, businesses, surrounding areas,” said Bridgest. Nicole, another shopper at the Save-a-Lot, wanted some sort of community youth center. “It’s time for change because the area is getting out of control,” she said.

But Johnson-Gabriel disagrees: “All the ingredients for creating a safe, healthy, and vibrant community are here.” She’s not alone in taking this view. “It’s pretty peaceful most of the time,” said Bridgest at McDonald’s. “Everybody knows everybody.” Not long after, he paused to greet someone who had just walked in.

Nonetheless, some residents seem to think it’s not the right time for a big new development, including Grace, an on-and-off resident of Chicago for over fifty years. When she learned that the corner of 47th and Cottage would be getting a mixed income development, she scoffed, “They need to put in a mini-police station.”

Waiting for the bus to take him to Howard Area Alternative High, Will wasn’t happy about the liquor store closure. “I’m mad as hell!” he laughed. After taking a more serious outlook, however, Will thought the mixed-income development could be good: “as long as they have security, it’d bring more jobs.”

Maggie Sivit

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Many South Side residents are used to long waits for buses. But for members of five Southwest Side neighborhoods, the wait is going on its 14th year.  In April 2008, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, as part of their 30-year plan for the city, held a series of meetings in Little Village, where residents vocalized their need for better transit. Soon afterwards, the community decided it was time to restore east-west bus service along a main commercial corridor in their neighborhood that was cut by the Chicago Transit Authority in 1997. Organizers from Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) met with community members who both remembered a historic 31st Street bus and expressed interest in bringing back the service. They worked with the CTA to locate a source of funding. That summer, the CTA received a federal grant earmarked for the 31st Street bus totaling $1,067,659.

But today, there is no bus along 31st Street. In the neighborhoods the street cuts through—Bronzeville, Armour Square, Bridgeport, McKinley Park, and Little Village—east-west bus service is lacking. Between Cermak Road and 47th Street, Chicago’s grid system of bus service breaks down, leaving large areas of white space on the CTA system map and roughly 200,000 people without a direct route. The #35, #39, and #60 buses provide service along 35th, 39th, and parts of 26th Streets, but the #35 and #39 terminate near Kedzie Avenue, and the #60 diverts north to the loop at Western Avenue. No bus provides a straight route from the lake to Chicago’s western boundary. “You have to hopscotch—go past where you need to go to get where you’re going,” says Bridgeport resident and community activist Maureen Sullivan.

The grant the CTA received in 2008 as part of the Job Access Reverse Commute (JARC) program of the U.S. Department of Transportation was a victory, but it came with a catch. The program requires that 50 percent of the transportation project’s operational budget be provided by state and local funds.

This has proven to be a major roadblock for the 31st Street bus campaign. The implementation and operations costs for the proposed route are estimated by the CTA to be approximately $2 million, not including the portion of the expense to be covered by fares. The CTA must match the $1 million grant in order for the bus to become a reality, at least for the trial period. In an e-mailed statement, the agency stated, “Currently, there are no local match funds identified to implement the project.”  Residents have waited for this to change for the past three years.

The CTA has drafted a route to connect to the Red and Orange ‘L’ Lines as well as the new Rock Island district Metra stop at 35th Street, though the proposal has not been finalized. It would provide transportation for working, transit-dependent residents of the West and near South Side to major workplaces such as Domino Sugar, Prima Plastics, and Dearborn Produce. Teens and families could access parks and the 31st Street beach. The route would end at Cicero Avenue, traveling north a few blocks through a commercial center to Target. LVEJO has also proposed that the route extend north on its eastern end, running express on Lakeshore Drive to McCormick Place and the Museum Campus. Mike Pitula, a community organizer and LVEJO’s director of public transit, claims that currently, “this area has no direct bus access from the West or South Side.”

Although the grant specifies that the 31st Street route provide access to jobs, Pitula argues that this service is important for two more reasons: to contribute to environmental efforts and to create safe routes to local schools.

The proposed bus route would service De La Salle Institute and Illinois Institute of Technology in Bronzeville, as well as Holden Elementary School in Bridgeport. And, more urgently, the 31st Street bus would provide safe transportation to a school in dire need of it. According to a survey conducted by LVEJO, Little Village-Lawndale High School is the only high school in Chicago that does not have CTA service within 2.5 blocks. According to Pitula, approximately one-quarter of the students who attend LVLHS must cross a gang boundary while walking to school. Violence has spiked along 31st Street since 2009. One of two closest CTA stops to the high school is on Cicero Avenue, but Pitula says there have been reports of young women being sexually harassed after school on a nearby bridge. “While it wouldn’t be a magic bullet, having a bus route would be one way to prevent these interactions from happening,” he says.

Schoolchildren aren’t the only population the bus would impact. Older residents have struggled with the lack of bus service for a long time. Senior citizens with limited mobility, who can’t get to checkups at Mercy Hospital or to the senior club at Piotrowski Park, have been particularly vocal in the 31st Street bus debate. Tom Gaulke, a pastor at the First Trinity Church in Bridgeport has heard his parishioners complain and summarized their dissatisfaction: “all these little old ladies at the senior home can never make it out anywhere.”

In May 2011, after three years, LVEJO decided to take action once again. “This spring, we realized there was a deadline coming up,” said Pitula, “you don’t just get a grant and sit on it forever.” The CTA claimed in an August community meeting and in an e-mail statement this past week that the $1 million will not expire. But according to the Federal Transit Authority’s website, JARC funding is available only for a total of three years after apportionment.

According to Pitula, the CTA has applied for a one-year extension of the grant. “It’s a fairly routine procedure,” he says, but the current phase in LVEJO’s campaign is to put pressure on the Federal Transit Administration to approve the extension. They expect to hear back before the end of the year.

This summer, working under pressure of an imminent deadline, the campaign expanded to encompass other communities along the route. In fact, some groups were already vocalizing their concerns about the bus route’s progress independently from LVEJO. According to Pitula, the campaign began in two places simultaneously three years ago: Little Village and Facebook. The Facebook page was created by lifelong resident of Bridgeport and video store owner Joe Trutin as part of his campaign for state representative in 2009. He and the Little Village activists have since joined forces, with Trutin rallying residents of Bridgeport and McKinley Park. He’s also taken on the task of gathering data to bolster their case—over the last few months, Trutin has been measuring the width of streets in attempt to refute one resident’s claim that 31st Street is not wide enough for bus service. He and Pitula have fought all opposition, however small, but Trutin says only two members of these communities have publicly voiced it.

Though much of the organizing has been centered in Little Village and Bridgeport, the issue crosses many neighborhood boundaries and has engaged many people. In late August, the CTA held a meeting with community members at the McKinley Park library. In addition to residents of Little Village, Bridgeport and Chinatown, senior citizens from Armour Square and McKinley Park came to emphasize their dependency on transit. “We showed them that we were a diverse group of people who had a common goal,” says Connie Ma, who works at the Chinese American Service League in Chinatown. Many community organizations have signed on to the campaign, from church groups and cultural clubs to the more extreme Citizens Against Terrible Transit. Pitula expressed that his goal this summer was to build “a cross-town coalition composed of residents along this route,” and it appears he has been successful.

At one point in this process, some residents—bus drivers and mechanics who could contribute their skills to the community—tossed around the idea of providing their own bus service. Pitula summarized this project as a “worker self-managed bus cooperative” that would be organized by the Chicago chapter of the Industrial Workers of the World. “It would be a demonstration for the CTA, but also an alternative model of transit to provide work and service for people in the community,” he said. The idea, added Ma, would be “to utilize the people the CTA has laid off.” While progress on this alternative has stagnated over the past few months, the idea of an independent bus service is not foreign to Little Village. Pitula remembers a free shuttle service along 26th Street that was disconnected a few years ago—a single school bus that residents could flag at street corners, funded by advertisements on its exterior.

The push for a 31st Street bus is a fight to provide South Side residents with easier mobility, a need that other Chicagoans recognize. Sullivan, who lives and works in Bridgeport, points out that the major expressways are easily accessible from the near South Side, but there are many people in these neighborhoods who do not own cars and their movement is, as a consequence, limited to their own neighborhoods. To some extent, a 31st Street bus would unite the neighborhoods it serves and reduce this isolation. “Once people travel, they start exploring,” Trutin explains.

The people behind the 31st Street bus campaign realize that theirs is an uphill battle—to add a route at a time when CTA trends have tended towards increased fares and cutting service—but pressure on the CTA is building. The project has received letters of support from one state senator, two state representatives, and three aldermen, according to its Facebook page. The $1 million needed to implement this route is less than one tenth of one percent of the  CTA’s annual budget, but Pitula nonetheless has taken them at their word that the agency does not have the identified funds.

Residents of these communities will not stop fighting for the 31st Street bus—some have already been fighting for 14 years. In the meantime, local organizations are simply asking for acknowledgement by transit officials. The CTA claims that service along 31st Street was originally cut in 1997 due to low ridership, but Ma argues that the people who the decision affected were the people who needed it most. “If one person needs the bus more than someone who has a car, shouldn’t it be more important that the first person receives this service?” she asks. While a bus would be a major victory on many levels, the immediate issue is a lack of communication between the CTA and the people it serves.

“We just want a confirmation that the CTA sympathizes with us on a human level,” Ma reflects, a sentiment she said many expressed at the August meeting. “But they kind of stared blankly at me.”

Chelsea Leu

The name White Castle brings to mind myriad associations—nickel meals, greasy sliders, and Harold and Kumar. But whenever you think of White Castle, it’s hard not to picture one of the actual restaurants. Since the chain was founded in the 1920s, the company has relied on its trademark design to make it more recognizable among consumers. Each branch, the company dictates, has to look quite literally like a castle—Chicago’s Water Tower castle, to be precise—complete with turrets, crenellated walls, and white porcelain brick. Effectively, the buildings themselves became wordless advertisements, glistening roadside invitations to come in and eat.

White Castle #16, at Wabash and Cermak, was built in 1929. Weathering the Depression and the eight decades that followed, the porcelain structure slowly lost its sheen. But, in 2010, after its current owner was awarded a $280,000 grant from the city to rehabilitate this Chicago artifact, the White Castle’s façade was returned to its former gleaming white glory. In September, the site was deemed so important that the Commission on Chicago Landmarks awarded White Castle #16 the “2011 Chicago Landmark Award for Preservation Excellence.”

While the building itself is gaining preservation notoriety, the food won’t be receiving any awards for historical accuracy. In fact, the former White Castle now houses two separate but related restaurants—Gourmet Chicken and Chef Luciano, both owned and operated by father and son team Dave and Rocky Gupta. The two restaurants occupy the same enclosed space, though each has its own special fare. Chef Luciano (Dave’s alter ego) serves Italian staples with, as their menu says, “Cajun, Jamaican, African and Indian” accents. Gourmet Chicken, on the other hand, serves fried and roasted chicken, fried okra, and incongruously, Indian dishes, such as curry chicken and naan.

Rocky can constantly be seen in the kitchen, moving between the two sides of the restaurant, while Dave makes appearances on the customers’ side of the counter, his friendly face crinkling with a smile as he wishes visitors an enjoyable meal. One wall of the brightly lit space is painted a bright vermilion, while the rest are covered with framed newspaper clippings and photographs of happy customers. Racks of homemade and hand-labeled bottles of hot sauce, lemonade, and ginger beer flank the ordering counter—a flavorful spread that seems a far cry from what the eighty-year-old building originally offered.

Gourmet Chicken and Chef Luciano aren’t devoid of their own history. Here the workers all wear the same black T-shirts, proclaiming that Gourmet Chicken has been “proudly serving the South Side” since 1982 but the legacy of White Castle still (quite literally) surrounds them.

The Guptas are conscious of this legacy. To celebrate the completion of the renovation last November, they offered their take on White Castle’s famous Depression-era five-cent burger deal—a two-piece roast chicken dinner with rice pilaf for a nickel. But their mission of bringing gourmet yet affordable food to Chicago seems in direct contrast to the assembly line-produced fast food of White Castle. As a chef, Dave sees bringing tasty, nutritious, and affordable food to his customers as a life mission. This belief was the driving force behind his decision to switch from fried to roasted chicken dishes in 1988. Though some scoffed that roasted chicken wouldn’t sell, Dave firmly believed that “if you give people choices, they will make the right choice.”  Gourmet Chicken and Chef Luciano, then, occupy a unique niche—neither fast-food chain nor pricey fine dining, but  a simple, two-part eatery where the staff look after their customers.

Still miss that quick-and-dirty White Castle fare? While the former White Castle #16 no longer serves Chicagoans, a modern-day, functional White Castle is visible just across the street—a testament to the chain’s power as a cultural icon and, perhaps, the unchanging tastes of the American palate. According to White Castle Inc., the chain “is more than a company. It’s an experience that transcends time, space and sometimes, rational thought.” Though it may sound like hyperbole, it seems as if this mantra still rings true in White Castle #16, even though its royal burger days are done.

49 E. Cermark Rd. Monday-Saturday, 10:30am-8pm. (312)326-0026. chefluciano.com

Devin Cain, Claire Hungerford, and Kelsey Gee

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“Gimme just a minute,” Harold Lucas says. “I’m gonna go inside and get one of those hoity-toity cocktails from the gallery.”

Lucas deserves his drink. For the past half-hour he has been guiding a whirlwind tour of historic Bronzeville. He is 68 years old and a recent survivor of a heart attack and double bypass surgery. For most of the tour, he has had to shout to be heard over the roar of his trolley tour bus and the murmurs of its passengers. The air inside the trolley is thick with the scent of perfume and champagne and most of Lucas’s audience consists of people half his age, elegantly dressed, and eager to amend, reject, and praise his version of their neighborhood’s history.

This is only the first of four tours that Lucas will give tonight, but even the challenge of these two hours pales in comparison to the decades that the lifelong Bronzeville resident has spent dedicated to this 1.7-square-mile section of Chicago. As the head of both the Black Metropolis Convention and Tourism Council and the Bronzeville Online Visitor Information Center, Lucas has worked, he says, to ensure that Bronzeville is recognized as the city’s “premiere destination for African-American tourism and cultural life.”

But his is not the only vision of the neighborhood on display Friday night in Bronzeville. Twenty-four-year-old Columbia College graduate Tempestt Hazel joined with Lucas to present “The Future’s Past”—an art exhibit and community retrospective at the Blanc Gallery, which aims to provide an “introductory glimpse into the histories of Chicago’s Black Metropolis.”

Hazel is not a Bronzeville resident, and did not grow up admiring the neighborhood’s long cultural history. She was pulled, instead, by what she calls serendipity. “I don’t drive,” she says, “so I spend a lot time walking and observing different parts of Chicago and their varying types of architecture.”

It’s obvious why Bronzeville would fascinate someone with an eye for design—stately three-story homes, beautiful churches, pristine glassy office buildings and restaurants, and recently flattened empty lots all line Martin Luther King Drive, a boulevard once known as South Parkway.

The project started off as a way to highlight these historic buildings, but later, Hazel decided to try to bring a new perspective to her depiction of the neighborhood. She enlisted the help of four other artists—Stephen Flemister, Krista Franklin, Emmanuel Pratt, and Amanda Williams—and began to construct silhouettes of historic Bronzeville sites to adorn the wall of the Blanc Gallery.  Along with the silhouettes, the artists have begun to collect and display memorabilia that tie in with the neighborhood’s heritage: old playbills, records, posters and scraps representative of an artistic past.

“These are all works in progress,” Hazel says. “Over the next four weeks you’ll be able to watch these pieces evolve. That’s what makes it interesting—the change.”

The ostensible goal of “Future’s Past” as stated in a gallery news release was to bring “today’s residents into visual contact with yesterday’s heroes.” But yesterday’s heroes look remarkably different from the artists and curators that made this reflection possible. These new champions of Bronzeville represent a shift toward a community that can engage with the city at large in a conversation about what makes a neighborhood—and who should belong.

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The art on the gallery walls is only one portion of the exhibit—Harold Lucas’s interactive tour completes and troubles the subjects behind the frame. Outside the Blanc, Lucas leads his trolley bus tour down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive,  stopping at several historic places, including the Supreme Life Building, the Lutrelle Palmer House, and the former sites of the Regal Theatre and the Savoy Ballroom, which have been demolished.  Each of these buildings also features Hazel’s art, which is displayed in the windows and brought to life by the soft halogen-glow of interior lighting.

One patron on Lucas’s tour calls out, “You missed the Ida B Wells house!” Lucas replies, unfazed, “Hold on just a minute, we’ll get to that.” Occasional shouts from the back of the bus remind the rest of the attendees that Bronzeville’s history does not easily fit one uniform interpretation. As Hazel says, “it changes a lot depending on whose telling the story.”

The Future’s Past exhibit is not just art for art’s sake, but it’s not a passive collection of historically significant facts, either. Bronzeville, the neighborhood which was once known across the country as the “Black Metropolis,” a center of African-American culture and entrepreneurial activity, is now often associated with its problems of economic stagnation and crime. Lucas attributes many of these issues to the Chicago Housing Authority, whose large-scale public housing projects, including the infamous Robert Taylor Homes, which isolated the neighborhood from the greater Chicago community and, he says, contributed to the “breakdown of the black family structure and values.” Today, the Robert Taylor Homes no longer stand—the last building was razed in 2007—but in Lucas’s eyes, the damage they inflicted remains.

On top of that, Bronzeville has struggled with forces outside the realm of the political. Natural disaster wreaked havoc on the neighborhood this past year after a fire at the intersection of 47th and King Drive destroyed several treasured Bronzeville institutions. The Blu 47 bar and restaurant, the Jamaican Consulate, and the Spoken Word Café—one of the original hosts of HBO’s Def Jam Poetry series—were all consumed by the blaze.

But in spite of a number of setbacks, multiple projects are currently in the works for the revitalization of Bronzeville.  Jimalita Tillman and her mother, former Alderman Dorothy Tillman hope to re-open the Spoken Word Café in Ald. Tillman’s former political headquarters.

Meanwhile, Eileen Rhodes, a real estate developer and owner of the Blanc Gallery where the “Future’s Past” exhibit is now displayed, has partnered with the chef of the historic Parkway Ballroom, Cliff Rome, to open up a restaurant with broad appeal. Their vegan-friendly, “gourmet on the go” hot dog restaurant, H-Dogs, is located on the site where the Spoken Word Café once stood, and Rhodes hopes that it will attract more of the students from nearby universities to Bronzeville. She believes that more inclusive, colorblind solutions such as creative local businesses and art attractions will reinvigorate the community.

But for some, Bronzeville needs more than just free enterprise, and some community members want to ensure that the new business growth will not come at the expense of the neighborhood’s cultural and ethnic integrity.

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But beginning his second tour, Lucas sets out his vision for the future of Bronzeville. He hopes the neighborhood will resist gentrification and retain a population that is at least “60-percent African-American.”

Lucas sees the success of black businesses in Bronzeville as being key not only for the prosperity of its residents, but also for the advancement of other black Chicagoans. “The rise of the black middle class in Bronzeville,” he insists, “will bring about the emancipation of this city’s African-American community.”

The question of neighborhood gentrification doesn’t come with an easy answer. In fact, the issue of racial change in Bronzeville is so charged that few people other than Lucas are willing to speak out publicly.

“Harold takes a hard line and polemical view of neighborhood development,” Rhodes notes cautiously in an e-mail, preferring to take a more apolitical stance.

But even if the other organizers of the event are unwilling to speak out on the issue of race, all those involved with “Future’s Past” seem united in their view of who their audience should be, and who will inherit this cultural legacy.

The project targets community members and challenges them to consider bygone realities and future possibilities for the neighborhood. Its intended audience isn’t just arbitrary. Because “Future’s Past” is aimed at those who are already somewhat familiar with Bronzeville’s past, the organizers are able to delve more deeply into personal histories.

With touching candor, Lucas discusses the Chicago Military Academy. A large, boxy building, the Academy is remarkable primarily in the role it played in his own life—he protested in front of the building while he was homeless, when the city threatened to tear it down. “I prayed almost everyday for those walls,” he says, his voice quavering.

Lucas’s version of Bronzeville history is more idiosyncratic and intimate than what you’ll find in the pages of a textbook. He avoids trite statements about many of the area’s most famous residents and entertainers like Nat King Cole, Richard Wright, Louis Armstrong. Instead, Lucas chooses to champion the underappreciated leaders and social architects, whose thoughts and achievement have blended with Lucas’s own. Chief among these local heroes are Earl B. Dickerson, a prominent attorney and the first African-American member of the Chicago City Council, and John H. Johnson, founder and editor-in-chief of the Negro Press, Ebony, and Jet Magazine, respectively. “These guys are up there with Malcolm, and Dr. King,” he says, “They’re definitely in my top-ten heroes list.”

Though the show was designed for Bronzeville residents, they are not the only ones coming out to catch a glimpse of this piece of Chicago history. “To be perfectly honest” Hazel says, “this show is for the people of this area, but the really interesting part of the show is that it has attracted a very diverse crowd. I’m not going to say that anyone should or shouldn’t come and take part in the neighborhood’s culture.”

Returning to the Blanc Gallery after Lucas’ tour, it’s hard to reconcile the stories and emotions of the tour bus with the scene inside the exhibition space. The interior of the gallery, like that of the new H-Dogs just down the road, is immaculate, white, spacious and brightly lit. The walls are lined with artist installations of old playbills, records, black silhouetted figures and drawn outlines of the old project houses, but it all feels slightly distanced, and less intense than the raw oral history.

The purpose of the exhibit is not only to retell stories of the way things used to be, but also to look forward to the new. In Hazel’s opening speech, she introduced the project with the oft-repeated phrase: “you have no future if you don’t have a past.” In context, she was able to bring out the power hidden in the truism. New projects and entrepreneurial ventures are helping reestablish the link between the Black Metropolis’s historic greatness and the new and evolving community that is taking root today. These are not big steps, but as Lucas says at the end of his tour, quoting his hero John H. Johnson, one needs always to “dream small dreams.”

The ISF Bank was founded in the 1930s to serve the South Side’s African-American community. It has since grown from a one-room office on 47th Street to a multimillion dollar entity, and now hosts the Shred-o-Rama twice a year. The event, as executive Assistant to the Chairman and CEO Cynthia Williams explained, is designed to let people “get rid of old papers that they obviously don’t need any longer, for purposes of protection.” In one fell load, everything from old bank statements to top-secret national security files can be destroyed forever.

The enormous “Accurate Document Destruction” truck, which was provided by the city’s largest mobile document elimination service, dominated the parking lot. The hulking white beast hummed and whirred with each new load of documents, clanging and banging in a cacophony of noises as it ripped apart everything it was fed. After dropping off stacks of paper, the newly lightened participants could wait and watch their documents torn to bits, monitoring the job on the truck’s internal monitor. There was no need to worry about overwhelming this Leviathan with mountains of classified files: at a past event, a single person brought in three carloads of legal documents. While this season’s Shred-o-Rama saw nothing quite as dramatic, people showed up with paper in all sorts of receptacles, including cardboard boxes, trash cans, and laundry hampers. Once all the records and statements had been obliterated, attendees were invited into the bank to enjoy free hot dogs and potato chips.

The festivities did more than inspire good cheer, however. All the shreddings collected were recycled, turning thousands of sheets of secrets into fresh, unblemished paper awaiting new secrets.

Kelsey Gee

Through the window of the #47 bus, two words calls out to me as if uttered by the lips of an angel: “veggie dogs.” Frosted onto the tall windows of H-Dogs, the new burgers-and-dogs restaurant in chicken-and-waffles-heavy Bronzeville, the words come as both a surprise and an invitation.

One of the few South Side vendors to offer the veggie rendition of the encased meat treat, H-Dogs was founded by a culinary master and a vegetarian real estate developer. According to Eileen Rhodes, the vegetarian half of the team, H-Dogs’ menu aims to promote wellness in Bronzeville. “For us, it was about more than opening a business,” she says, “it’s about getting the community to be healthier and healthier.”

Rhodes lives on the near West Side, but works in Bronzeville with East Lake Management and Development. Co-owner and head chef Cliff Rome, meanwhile, has worked under the world-renowned chefs Wolfgang Puck and Francois Dongo at Spago in Beverly Hills, California. The two met in 2002 while collaborating on the redevelopment of the Parkway Ballroom, a space where weddings, political fundraisers, and Nat King Cole performances took place from the 1940s through the ’70s. Rome’s catering group, Rome’s Joy, has kept the reopened ballroom busy. Taking this initial success as a sign of good chemistry, the pair decided to work together again to start a full-service restaurant.

Their goals, however, are not merely culinary. Both are serious about using H-Dogs to spur new development in the neighborhood.

Inside, the place looks a bit like Five Guys. The space is wide open, with the sleek kitchen exposed behind a low counter. The countertop and free-standing tables provide endless chrome surface area, and bright primary color accent pieces that break up the black-and-white tile floors give the place a retro diner look. Hanging over waiting customers, one flat-panel television remains fixed on the Food Network, while another, perched over the family-sized tables, shows college football.

Unlike that other fast-food restaurant (which, coincidentally, just opened a location on the South Side), H-Dogs offers a meal creatively designed with the neighborhood, and their cholesterol levels, in mind. Though H-Dogs does carry hefty (1 pound, to be exact) beef and bacon burgers, the more popular items on the menu are the lower-fat, lower-price turkey, salmon, and veggie patty-based meals.

One of the cheapest dishes, the “Sloppy JoAnn” will give you a hearty helping of slow-ground turkey, mixed with a sweet tomato basil sauce in lieu of the ground beef slop served up by cafeteria workers across the country. The “Big Easy” could make a meal in itself, with its thick, smoked andouille brat, hidden under a helping of vibrant N’awlins jambalaya, mustard, and cubes of fried okra.

But it’d be a big mistake to fill up without trying the side of French fries. It costs only fifty cents to replace the regular fries with crispy, crinkle-cut sweet potato fries, cheese fries, or fried okra, and another 50 cents for savory, squishy, truffle-salt dusted fries. If you have enough spare change, it’s worth trading up. But what drew me in from the street, the “Healthy Hound,” is a split veggie dog on a white bun nestled beneath a bed of cucumbers, sprouts, roasted peppers, and red onion.

Such a menu isn’t developed overnight, and Rhodes readily admits the two “spent a long time figuring out what the neighborhood wants to eat.” Her efforts seem to have paid off. One month after the restaurant opened, I am one of the many returning customers. A father, wasabi mayo hanging from the corner of his mouth, offers to help me as I consider a second order: “Try the salmon burger, you can’t go wrong with it, I promise you.” While waiting for their take-out orders, a group of customers peers into the kitchen, asking one another hungrily, “What’d you get?”

Rome is not the only big name to try his hand at gourmet fast food. In the last few years, foodie-endorsed remakes of American junk food staples—from fancy Kit-Kat bars made of toasted hazelnuts and sea salt caramel, to organic black truffle mayo French fries—have popped up everywhere. What distinguishes H-Dogs is its audience. “It’s about hot dogs, but it’s really about making more people and more businesses come into Bronzeville,” says Rhodes. But more than just feeding Bronzeville with better, fresher ingredients at a low price, the duo is excited about the prospect of bringing in outsiders, like students living on the nearby University of Chicago and the Illinois Institute of Technology campuses. “It’s such a diverse area,” Rhodes sighs. Off to a great start, the owners seem just as excited as their customers about getting people to try new things: “There are no vegan options yet, but that’s the next step.”

4655 S. King Drive. Monday-Thursday, 11am-7pm; Friday-Saturday, 11am-8pm. (773) 633-2978. hdogschicago.com

Maggie Sivit

At the intersection of King and 26th, a fifteen-foot statue waves commuters through the “Gateway to Bronzeville,” a suitcase dangling in his spare hand. The figure is a monument to the early 20th-century Great Migration, a massive resettling that sparked a black cultural renaissance rivaled only by Harlem. Out of the upswing emerged such luminaries as Ida B. Wells, Bessie Coleman, Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, and Louis Armstrong. While the cultural and intellectual products of the era spread around the world, segregationist zoning regulations strictly defined the boundaries of African-American settlement, and Bronzeville became the heart of Chicago’s “Black Belt.” In 1962, the Chicago Housing Authority constructed the sprawling Robert Taylor Homes along Bronzeville’s western edge, at the time the nation’s largest public housing complex with a peak population of 27,000. Poor design and services contributed to high unemployment and crime rates, which inevitably spilled into the community as a whole. Since the project was demolished (the last home fell in 2007) and the city implemented its controversial plan for mixed-income redevelopment, residents have stepped in to preserve their heritage. New boutiques, restaurants, and hangouts have gradually begun to emerge out of the buildings that once held the thriving Black Metropolis. While the golden days of poets and jazz are gone, today a bold community is committed to keeping its history, independence, and ingenuity alive. These days, there is a renewed sheen to the streets of Bronzeville.

Best Hidden Nightclub
Meyer’s Ace Hardware
Unless you’re in sore need of a garden hoe, hardware stores don’t usually inspire a lot of excitement. Nevertheless, any jazz aficionado setting foot in this Ace should find their heartbeat quickening in tempo. The building opened as the Sunset Café in 1921, drawing headliners such as Carroll Dickerson and a young Louis Armstrong. As the club grew in popularity, Sarah Vaughan, Nat “King” Cole, and Charlie Parker all took the stage. Dale and David Meyers, current owners, are the second generation to manage the hardware store—their father bought the old club from Louis Armstrong’s manager in the ’70s. The Meyers brothers are always happy to show customers their office, a portion of the stage whose accordion-shaped wall still holds its art deco backdrop. If you’re lucky, they’ll pull out a drawer of yellowed photos, menus, and sheet music before showing you around the second floor, which holds more artifacts from the old venue. Walking back through the store, you can faintly hear the syncopated clops of feet jitterbugging to Cab Calloway or faded echoes of Earl “Fatha” Hines working the ivories. 315 E. 35th St. Monday-Saturday, 9am-6pm; Sunday, 11am-2pm. (312)225-5687 (Bonnie Fan)

Best Biscuits
Ms. Biscuits
Former Chicago Mayor Eugene Sawyer was once a regular at Ms. Biscuits’ small storefront along South Chicago Avenue. But after thirty years in business, those doors shut for good in 2002. Six years later, Ms. Biscuits’ nephew Dylan Reeves reopened the diner across from an early 20th-century baked-goods factory near Washington Park. These days, customers get seated on small round tables in a warm interior decorated by still lifes on exposed brick. The wait can be long, attributed to growing popularity (rumor has it that they’re extending their hours while adding Johnny Cakes and fried green tomatoes to their menu), but the wait staff couldn’t be more hardworking. The menu features classic breakfast food, including steaks, turkey, salmon croquette, and pancakes with a greater circumference than that of a fat baby’s waistline. Of course, the buttered griddle biscuits still follow the original and well-guarded Ms. Biscuits recipe. 5431 S. Wabash Ave. Daily, 5am-2pm. (773)268-8088 (Bonnie Fan)

Best Comedian-In-Chief
Brian Babylon
Brian Babylon knows how to please a crowd. In one set, he’ll get the house laughing at his ability to exploit white guilt in order to secure more paid vacation time. In the next, they’ll be reeling from his impersonation of that Jamaican singer on the Green Line. His “Obama” is so dead-on you may have heard his voice on BBC America talking about the South Side in the President’s characteristically clipped baritone. For Babylon, it all started when comedy club Jokes and Notes opened in 2006 on 47th and King. Since his first sets there as the “Prince of Bronzeville,” he has stood onstage everywhere from the Laugh Factory in LA to London’s Jongleurs. Still active at Jokes and Notes, which he considers the best open mic in Chicago, Babylon helps to bring in comics from all over the city. You can hear him on the air during his Morning AMP show with WEBZ-affiliated Vocalo 89.5 FM or as a guest on NPR’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me.” Of course, it’s best to catch him off-air at one of his “5th Thursdays” shows at Jokes and Notes. Find the Prince online at vocalo.org/blogs/user/brian (Bonnie Fan)

Best Pre-Game Popcorn
Mother Butter’s Popcorn
Step into Mother Butter’s storefront and your nostrils will fill with the warm scent of Tim and Jennifer Donnelly’s little popcorn kitchen, where a bit of New Orleans punctuates both the décor and the corn. Butter blends such as Louisiana Hot or Jerk Seasoning and gourmet popcorn flavors like Bayou and Cajun are available to sample. The store also offers a few Southern-style sweets like “gophers”—caramel pecans covered in chocolate. Taking an old-school “culinary” approach, Mother Butter’s dashes each batch of popcorn—kept small for taste quality control—with a blend of spices that accentuates the different textures of the various corn varieties. For those unable to choose between the sweet homemade caramel and the salty cheddar, score both with the Chicago mix.” Located a stone’s throw away from U.S. Cellular Field, Mother Butter’s can elevate your Sox game fare from tasty to decadent. Plus, bags of the good stuff start at only one buck. 17 W. 35th St. Monday-Friday, 10:30am-8pm; Saturday, 11am-7pm; only open on Sundays when the White Sox play. (773)548-7677 (Bonnie Fan)

Most Heritage on the Walls
South Side Community Arts Center 
One of the few remaining WPA-commissioned art centers, this brownstone building stands as a testimony to the cultural influence of the Bronzeville community. The late Margaret Burroughs, co-founder and renowned artist, described the “mile of dimes” it took to buy the former manor and open the center in 1941. Both artisans and community members—from churchgoers to bootleggers—walked that mile until the doors opened. The center has both catalyzed and weathered social change throughout the civil rights era, remaining a haven for African American culture. Over the years, the center has hosted important showings of work by Charles White, William Carter, Eldzier Cortor, and George Neal. Inside, the original New Bauhaus-style interior maintains the holes that once held the artwork of these legends, now ready to support the neighborhood’s next generation of artists. 3831 S. Michigan Ave. Wednesday-Friday, 12-5pm; Saturday, 9am-5pm; Sunday, 1pm-5pm. (773)373-1026 (Bonnie Fan)

Vicki Yang

Sitting before a massive dish of red, steaming Creole-style jambalaya, my mind echoed with Hank Williams’s famous line: “Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou.” However, I did not find myself in a Southern backwater town but at Le Fleur de Lis, Bronzeville’s self-proclaimed “newest and best Creole restaurant,” located a stone’s throw away from the 41st Street Green Line stop.

The jambalaya would make Hank proud. This flagship dish of Creole and Cajun cuisine—and a descendent of Spanish paella—stays faithful to its Southern roots. It’s got no-fuss ingredients that impress the palate without overwhelming it, the “holy trinity” of onion, celery, and bell pepper contrasting with the unholy and unhealthy union of chicken, shrimp and sausage. Slowly simmered in stock and tomato sauce with rice, the result is a smooth, risotto-like wonder laced with complex flavors. Any attempt at savoring this spicy dish will gradually mutate into a greedy shoveling.

One small thing, however, blemishes the experience of Le Fleur de Lis’s jambalaya. Sitting on top of the red mound of flavor are a few mysterious transluscent strings, each about an inch long. At first glance, they appear to be bamboo shoots or futuristic shoelaces. As it turns out, they are nothing more than leathery tidbits of pseudo-parmesan cheese. The effort required to push them aside is minimal, but a hindrance nonetheless.

Le Fleur de Lis, owned by Louisiana native Allen Rochelle, is still fairly new, having just opened in late October. Although it is bursting at the seams with potential, awkward touches like the plastic Parmesan hold the restaurant back—it is on the verge of something special, but just not there yet.

Still in the process of becoming, Le Fleur de Lis is literally rough around the edges: on  the front door a hint of uncovered varnish stands out against the bright red paint. Elsewhere, dim lights and dark, wooden floors create a cozy, if unpolished, atmosphere. The walls are colored with warm, earthy tones, interrupted with bright paintings by local artist Just Flo.

The waiter, too, was slightly off the mark. After being told we had never eaten at Fleur de Lis before, he jovially—and without a hint of irony—replied, “Neither have I, but I hear the food’s pretty good.”  He heard right: the food is generally quite good. Almost every dish, however, has some flaw, preventing it from realizing its full potential. Aggressive salting, for example, overshadows the light and fluffy virtues of the corn muffins.

The po’ boys, popular sub sandwiches and classics of Creole cooking, come with either shrimp, smoked sausage, grilled chicken, or catfish. Accompanied by some fantastic French fries, these “shorties” (as 6-inch po’ boys are known in New Orleans) could quell the direst of hunger pangs and the most intense of grease cravings. The po’ boys’ only flaw are the baguette-like French rolls they come in; although delightfully chewy and fresh, they lack a crispy crunch.

The chicken and sausage gumbo packs a strong pork punch and a marvelous heat, but it tends to leave the kitchen a tad tepid; the crawfish etoufee presents a pleasant duet of seafood and mushrooms, but is creamier than Alfredo sauce. Their menu is, as our waiter says, good—nothing more, nothing less.

The theme of near excellence extends to desserts, where an overcooked crust scars an otherwise delectable sweet potato pie. The bread pudding, praised by Metromix, is indeed tasty: warm, rich, and caramelized at the edges, it is riddled throughout with rich, cream-absorbing raisins and enormous chunks of walnut. But even this gem lacks a certain je ne sais quoi—that the pudding would deteriorate into monotony were it not for a scoop of vanilla ice cream perched on top.

Le Fleur de Lis has all the makings of a very special neighborhood spot. All it needs is some fine-tuning and the one ingredient no chef can provide–time.

301 E 43rd St. Monday-Thursday, 11am-9pm; Friday-Saturday, 11am-10pm. (773)268-8770. lefleurdelischicago.com