On July 29, 2009, dozens of pro-Walmart protesters filled Chicago’s City Council meeting, and hundreds in matching “Jobs or Else!” T-shirts gathered outside City Hall. After months of delays, it finally seemed that the Council would hold a definitive vote on Alderman Howard Brookins’ (21st) ordinance permitting the construction of a Walmart at 83rd and Stewart in Chatham. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the Council effectively voted not to vote, transferring the issue from the Rules Committee to the Finance Committee, which had overseen it in the first place.
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In the early 1850s, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway was one of several connecting Chicago to parts south, and competition was fierce. When the Illinois Central Railroad lost a court battle to cross the LS&MSR tracks with its own, it responded in true Chicago style, kidnapping a guard and laying an intersecting track in the dead of night. Within a year, a fatal collision at what’s now 75th and South Chicago occurred between trains of two other companies operating on the disputed tracks. That didn’t deter Hyde Park founder Paul Cornell from developing the marshy surroundings, and when it was learned that a downstate village was already named Cornell, the area became Grand Crossing in honor of the intersection. By the late 19th century it was home to a range of factories and their mostly German workers. Successive decades brought demographic changes, and by 1920, eight years after the namesake railroads had finally been elevated above street level, Grand Crossing was mostly Hungarian. As in many South Side neighborhoods, the ’60s were years of white flight. To the immediate south across 79th Street, the neighborhood of Chatham remained middle-class through the transition. In contrast, Grand Crossing declined. But in spite of the—let’s not mince words—sketchiness, it’s got more to see and do than most parts of Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »

Anybody can tell you about Chicago’s culinary specialties. Some cities might stop at a single dish, but between the pizza, hot dogs, and Italian beef, our broad-shouldered town has a rock-solid reputation. Alas, it doesn’t extend so much to barbecue, for which Chicago has a distinctly lackluster reputation. Frankly, it’s deserved. Even though barbecue joints dot the city, especially the South Side, most of them aren’t very good. But most is not all, and at least two of them could go head to head with the best Memphis or Kansas City have to offer. Moreover, they put to rest the notion that there’s no such thing as Chicago-style barbecue. Read the rest of this entry »

There are any number of guides to Chicago’s culinary wonders. From the North Side’s Alinea to the North Side’s Charlie Trotter’s, Chicago is littered with four-star wonderlands. But these gourmet eateries share one weakness: they all close. And once they do, the South Side may have the upper hand. Some of the city’s tastiest—and greasiest—food can be found at its 24-hour cult spots, where night owls and frazzled waitstaffs burn the midnight oil in sleepless solidarity. To help wake you up to the nocturnal bounty around you, the Weekly presents our guide to food after dark on the South Side. Read the rest of this entry »

In some ways, Grand Crossing and adjacent Chatham are like a case study in urban history. Both were originally settled by European immigrants working on the railroads and, later on, in factories. Both neighborhoods prospered during the first half of the 20th century. And starting in the 1950s, both were integrated; but here is where the two diverge. Grand Crossing saw a typical case of white flight, blockbusting by corrupt realtors, and subsequent economic stagnation. Chatham, on the other hand, integrated slightly later and learned from the mistakes of other neighborhoods. The whites still left, but their institutions and community groups were peacefully turned over to the new black residents. According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago, Chatham “has the distinction of being perhaps the only neighborhood in Chicago that developed from a European American middle-class community into one composed of middle-class African Americans.” To this day Chatham is more comfortable, while Grand Crossing is less well-off. Read the rest of this entry »

Size matters. And at Dat Old Fashion Hand-Cut Donuts, this adage is beyond a matter of measure; it’s a company fundamental. The proof is in the donut. Located at the corner of South Cottage Grove Avenue and East 82nd Street, just off the #4 bus route, Dat’s serves a daily crowd of regulars, doling out the neighborhood favorites: pineapple-glazed donuts, shredded coconut donuts, buttermilk cake donuts, jelly donuts, and the classic: the simple glazed donut. These favorites are considerable in size, certainly larger than what one would find at any other donut shop. But these aren’t the donuts that make Dat’s so popular and famous. It’s Dat’s notoriously large and fabled donut—the Big Dat—that demonstrates the seriousness of the claim “Bigger is better.” Read the rest of this entry »

Chatham is famous for being the stoutest stronghold of Chicago’s African-American middleclass. Peace and quiet dominate the neighborhood’s character as well as its history. Before the Great Migration of the 1950s, Chatham was variously populated by Hungarians, Irish, and Jews. By the 1960s, the townhouses and apartment buildings were occupied by African-Americans. The transition came without any of the discord arising in other neighborhoods throughout the city. Rumors of crime and widespread property neglect in the 1990s turned out to be unfounded. Peace and quiet reigned. Same as it ever was. Read the rest of this entry »