Nausicaa Renner

The exposed rafters of the old Pullman Railcar factory looked ominous against the gray sky—quite appropriate for the night before Halloween. But across the street, artist Linda Bullen welcomed visitors into her warm and colorful home—a restored company executive’s house from the 1890’s—for a celebration of Día de los Muertos. Bullen, an artist, originally became interested in the Mexican-Catholic tradition through an admiration of its art.

Inspired by the designs, she began to  build her own ofrendas a few years ago, and though in previous years Bullen had to urge other people to join her, this year her neighbors embraced the tradition to create a varied and informative walk. The walk on Sunday left from Bullen’s house and covered much of South Pullman, passing by the old Market Hall as well as Hotel Florence, while weaving through residential blocks to see six other altars.

Día de los Muertos traditionally honors family members and friends who have died by offering gifts to the weary spirits: a glass of water, marigolds, oranges, sugar skulls. Most of the homes on the walk were building altars for the first time, and only one person was of Mexican descent. Thus, many of the altars offered unique interpretations of the holiday. The Mosnart Gallery, for instance, invited participants to write notes to paste onto a stark white wall, and Donald Stahlke’s altar resembled a collage, incorporating the artwork of his students. But even the more conventional altars contained fascinating histories behind them. One honored a Marine who placed Hamm, the first monkey in space, into his space capsule, another commemorated a chef whose favorite foods were peanut butter and fried egg sandwiches, and a third paid tribute to a World War II pilot who delivered supplies over the Himalayas.

The residents of Pullman are genuinely devoted to preserving the past; as Mosnart said, he came to Pullman in his twenties and knew immediately that he “just had to live here.”  Whether long-time homeowners or newcomers to the area, almost every house on the walk had been restored by its owners, and some of them had been preserved by the very people who were now being memorialized. The houses themselves seemed like altars, with their marvelous details: from the pristine copper ceiling of one home to the stained glass skylight of another, to the simple dark woodwork of a third, and the paper bags lit with tea light candles lining the path to a fourth. A Metra train sounded in the distance as we strolled back to Bullen’s home for a wonderful traditional buffet, and the stormy night was tempered by the warmth of candles and neighborly hospitality.

The blonde woman had grown up in an all-white neighborhood near Marquette Park, and attempted to explain that the film everyone had just watched—filmmaker Tom Palazzolo’s footage of local Nazi party members preparing to combat a civil rights march on the park in 1976—did not give a full picture of the terrifying violence blacks faced if they dared to enter the neighborhood. Many in the audience, however, knew exactly how bad it was—they lived through it. And the documentaries were no talking-head montages; the powerful cinema verité-style footage brought viewers brutally close to the events and people that otherwise would fade into the community’s fuzzy collective memory or be loosely approximated by history books.

Etta James’ “At Last” played as projectionists from the Chicago Film Archives set up, and an American flag hung on the wall. Michael Phillips, director of South Side Projections (no relation to the Tribune critic), prefaced the first film—footage of a 1966 Cicero March led by Robert Lucas, who was in attendance—with a warning: “You feel like you’re going to get hit by a rock when you’re watching it.” The cameraman filmed from within the mob of black men and women protesting restrictive covenants. The camera jerked sideways as angry neighborhood residents jostled the filmmaker, then slowly receded from a police officer shaking a club at the lens.

The second film’s portrayal of the party members delivered a shock, not with violence, but with the banality of their hateful campaigning. With an intensity that bordered on the absurd, leader Frank Collin stood on a soapbox, swastika-emblazoned flag waving in the background, announcing a party member’s bid for Congress and proclaiming, “this territory will remain white and not fall to the black invasion.” Phillips put it best when he said, “just seeing them go about their business is more terrifying than almost anything,” even while Collin’s followers were making Monty Python jokes and accepting donations in a glass jar.

The last film—a chat from 2000 between Lucas and Bronzeville Historical Society president Sherry Williams, who was also in attendance—wasn’t as immediately striking, but it was the beginning of a conversation about the movement’s legacy. Eleven years later, the conversation continued, on the screen and in the seats.

The man’s name is Travis, and he is a visual artist, musician, Vietnam veteran, and resident of the Jeffery Manor neighborhood. He offers us chicken gumbo, collard greens, and cornbread. Then he tells us about the young people who moved into the neighborhood after the Robert Taylor Homes closed and about the old women who keep them in line.

This is the last stop on the Heartland South Study Day, a tour of the far South Side presented last Saturday by AREA Chicago and the Smart Museum of Art. “The exhibit started from road trips,” said Stephanie Smith, co-curator of the museum’s newest exhibit, “Heartland.” So we got on the road ourselves.

We traveled to South Chicago and discussed plans for redeveloping the expansive, fenced-off former U.S. Steel site along the lakefront. At Rainbow Beach, we remembered the clash between white and black swimmers that caused the 1961 wade-in there. We stopped at a concrete wall with a faded mural that used to be the picket fence border of the mill that made the steel for the area’s railroads, the U.S. Army, and the Sears and Hancock Towers. Our guide told us of the immigrant worker communities that once sprang up around each gate in the fence, each with its own character. These were the oldest, dirtiest, and least desirable neighborhoods in the city.

Everywhere there were markers of change, past and future. One bridge near Pullman reads, “Training the community on tourism.” We hear about a man who has started keeping bees on the old U.S. Steel land, while the surrounding community waits to hear new development proposals that may take twenty to forty years to execute. At an exhibit on the Great Migration at the formerly whites-only Hotel Florence in Pullman, the curator says she imagines saying to George Pullman, “You never thought I would be able to come in the front door, did you?”

Chicago’s first elevated train went into operation in 1892, and since then the system has been constantly shifting. Today, few remember how it looked at its peak, before the formation of the CTA in 1947 out of the privately owned Chicago Rapid Transit Company and Chicago Surface Lines. Since the consolidation, the CTA’s rail network has declined from a high of 227 stations to only 144. Today, however, the tide is turning the other way: although the CTA’s economic difficulties led to the recently announced fare hike, capital projects, like new facilities, stations, and tracks, are often eligible for millions of dollars in funds from the federal government. With Olympic hopes on the horizon, environmental concerns and volatile gas prices driving people out of their cars, and the city once again seeing positive population growth, now is a good time to take a look at a few ways our transit system might expand in the near future.

Orange Line Extension

Above: One potential route of the Orange Line south of Midway Airport

When the Orange Line was constructed in the early ’90s, the original plan had it extending south past its current terminus at Midway, all the way to the Ford City Mall at 76th Street and Cicero Avenue. Unfortunately, financial constraints caused the plan to be scaled back, but the Midway stop was planned out to allow possible future extensions. Today the CTA is applying for government money to extend the line as part of the Federal Transit Administration’s multi-step New Starts program. This program contributes to qualifying capital projects in cities across the country, although 20 percent of funds must be matched by state, local, or other federal agencies. Currently the project is on the Alternatives Analysis step, which solicits input to determine the “Locally Preferred Alternative” (LPA).

At a public meeting in the mall’s basement on August 19, CTA representatives explained the goals of the extension. For one thing, Midway’s transit center is currently congested with thirteen CTA and eight Pace bus routes, not to mention cars. Moving the Orange Line terminus two miles south would relieve some of that congestion, as well as shorten bus routes that carry passengers to the CTA from the south. The extension would also accommodate new growth around Ford City since the Orange Line was first built. “A lot of the new hotels, commercial [businesses], restaurants have opened up,” attests Ronald Shimizu, a consultant hired by the CTA. “We also have a lot of industry in the area as well.” Shimizu cited projections that show thirty-six percent growth in employment in the area by 2030.

The first stage of the Alternatives Analysis narrowed down the possible modes of transit between Midway and Ford City from an initial eleven options (including monorail and MagLev train) to a more reasonable two: heavy rail (like the existing CTA trains) and Bus Rapid Transit (a nebulous concept that might involve separated bus-only lanes). The Alternatives Analysis project should be completed within a few months, and if all goes well construction may be finished within five to ten years.

Gold Line

Above: The proposed route of the Gold Line, along what is currently the South Chicago branch of the Metra Electric

The proposed sites for the major Olympic venues in 2016 stretch along the lakefront, from Soldier Field and the Olympic Village south to Jackson Park. Unfortunately, none of these spots are particularly accessible by CTA trains. Hyde Park resident James Withrow has a solution: the Gold Line. Withrow’s proposal would take the South Chicago branch of the Metra Electric line, which runs from Millennium Station downtown past the waterfront venues to 93rd Street, and turn it into a line of the CTA. In practice this would mean running trains every ten minutes and providing integrated fares, so you could transfer to or from other CTA buses and trains for only twenty-five cents. Withrow hopes the trains would be branded as CTA and appear on CTA maps, but Metra would continue to operate them through an agreement with the CTA. “It’s just important for people looking at Hyde Park to realize that operationally they’re on the El grid,” he explains.

Although the name “Gold Line” is a nod to the Olympics, Withrow’s idea was not originally built around the games. “I’ve been working on this for five or six years, or at least talking to people about it, promoting it as something we ought to do,” he says. If Chicago beats out Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo, Withrow believes the Gold Line would be “vital” for transportation to run smoothly in 2016, but its utility will continue beyond then. “I think the best way to put it is that people see this as a good excuse to do the right thing,” he says.

Recently Withrow’s proposal has been adopted by Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) and Communities for an Equitable Olympics (CEO) and endorsed by Aldermen Toni Preckwinkle (4th) and Leslie Hairston (5th), as well as Hyde Park’s state senator and representatives. A few weeks ago Withrow got a favorable response from Doug Arnot at Chicago 2016, and he has high hopes that the Gold Line could be up and running as soon as two years from now. The CTA, which has not historically been known to oppose Mayor Daley, should go along with the plan, although Withrow is a little less optimistic about Metra. “You always hope that they will cooperate and actually want to help out, and I look forward to the first piece of evidence that that’s happening,” he says diplomatically.

Withrow has looked into the potential cost of the Gold Line, and it’s not clear yet where the funding would come from. “I never for a minute thought they’d be cheap, but basically the price we were quoted was something like three and a half million dollars per [rail] car,” he says. “I notice that when Governor Palin sold her jet, she only got 2.1 [million] for that, so we’re talking about something that’s more expensive than a jet.” Still, he’s optimistic that the federal government will chip in half the cost. “This is definitely the most pro-public transportation administration we’ve ever had,” he says. And given the clean electric technology and the lasting benefits, he hopes to get funding at the state level too. “This area, especially the area south of here, it was built for streetcar trolleys, it wasn’t built to accommodate a lot of cars,” he points out. “If you have a transit method that people enjoy using, I would certainly hope that both Hyde Park’s retail district and the retail further south of here would be helped out quite a bit by this.”

South Loop Green Line Station

Above: A possible Green Line stop at 18th Street

The almost three-mile gap between Roosevelt and 35th-Bronzeville-IIT on the Green Line used to have a stop in the middle at Cermak Road, long before there was a Green Line, even before Anton Cermak was elected mayor. That stop was part of the original South Side Rapid Transit line, but by the ’70s it had fallen into disuse, partly because of the new Cermak-Chinatown stop nearby on the Red Line, and the CTA decommissioned it in 1977. Now, with the South Loop booming as the Green Line rushes past without stopping, the CTA may wish it had a stop there once again. Since 2002 the agency has been studying that possibility on and off, and last month it received a grant from the RTA to look into a potential new station at 18th or Cermak. Both sites would have their ups and downs: a Cermak stop would help people travel to and from McCormick Place, but an 18th Street stop would be farther from the Red Line stop and closer to the center of the South Loop. No plans are in place yet, but look for future public meetings to be held.

Red Line Extension

Above: Three potential routes of the extended Red Line south of 95th Street

The Red Line extends farther south than any other CTA rail line, but it terminates at 95th Street, a good thirty blocks north of the city limits. According to the CTA, residents of the Far South Side experience twenty percent longer commutes than the rest of the city, and expected job and population growth will only increase congestion in the area. Since 2007, the CTA has been conducting an Alternatives Analysis study in the hopes of receiving funding from the FTA’s New Starts program, which may also fund the previously mentioned Orange Line extension and has in the past funded reconstruction of the Pink and Brown Lines. A meeting in April 2007 solicited public input on three proposed routes: Bus Rapid Transit or heavy rail running along Halsted, Michigan, or the Union Pacific railroad tracks from 95th Street south to about 130th Street. All of these alignments would better connect Pullman, West Pullman, Roseland, and the south suburbs with the rest of the city. According to comments submitted to the CTA after last April’s meeting, heavy rail along the Union Pacific route was the favorite, although the Halsted and Michigan routes were also supported by some. Specifics including station locations will be discussed at the next public meetings for the Alternatives Analysis, scheduled for December 3 at the Historic Pullman Visitor Center (11141 S. Cottage Grove Ave.) and December 4 at the Woodson Regional Chicago Public Library (9525 S. Halsted St.). Both meetings will take place from 6-8pm.

Graphics by Ellis Calvin

In 1916 the Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters “George” (SPCSCPG) was founded by a wealthy Chicagoan, George William Dulany, Jr. Over the following two decades the society’s ranks swelled to over 30,000 people, all named George and including French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, and King George II of Greece. The SPCSCPG was partly a half-joking expression of the annoyance the Georges felt at sharing a nickname with the African-Americans who staffed the Pullman Company’s sleeping cars. However, there were those among the society’s Georges who saw and objected to the racism involved in the practice; in the antebellum South slaves were often called by their masters’ first names, and the Pullman Porters were viewed as something like the slaves of George Pullman.

In 1880 George Pullman bought several thousand acres of land next to Lake Calumet in Hyde Park Township, about thirteen miles south of what was then the Chicago border. As there was not enough housing nearby to support the thousands of workers required for Pullman’s factories, he decided to include an entire town in his building plan, to be named Pullman. This kind of ambition was nothing new to George Pullman. In the 1860s he developed the sleeping car that would make his name famous after an uncomfortable cross-country train ride. The Pullman sleeper, or “palace car,” was comfortable to the point of luxurious, but it was too large to fit into standard stations or onto railroad bridges. Pullman’s design succeeded so spectacularly only because First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, exhausted and grieving after the death of her husband, insisted that one of Pullman’s comfortable cars be attached to the funeral procession carrying the President’s body on the final leg from Washington to Springfield. At the last minute stations and bridges along the way were raised and widened, and the publicity created enough demand for the “Pullman Palace Car” that railroads elsewhere in the country made the necessary adjustments and placed their orders.

The railroads leased the Pullman cars rather than buying them, both because this arrangement required less capital on the railroad’s part and because this allowed Pullman to maintain more control over his product. The standardized cars built and operated by the Pullman Palace Car Company included both mechanical and human components. The Pullman Porters were mostly drawn from among freed slaves and their descendants who had left their plantations and traveled north to Chicago. Although they formed an integral part of Pullman’s company, which was the fourth-largest employer of African-Americans in Illinois, they were not allowed to live in Pullman. Instead they lived in surrounding areas as far away as Bronzeville. The few blacks employed in Pullman were mostly servers at the Hotel Florence, which served as the heart and headquarters of the town.

The Hotel Florence, named for Pullman’s favorite daughter, still stands almost 130 years later, although now at the intersection of East 111th Street and South Cottage Grove Avenue rather than Florence Boulevard and Pullman Avenue. Now known as the Pullman State Historic Site, it includes temporary and permanent exhibits as well as community spaces. The current temporary exhibit, which opened last Friday and runs through the end of Black History Month, is titled “Every Day a Struggle: African Americans and the Pullman Experience 1900 to 1930.” The exhibit is illustrated with period photographs, record covers and cartoons, and draws heavily on the archives of the Chicago Defender, once the country’s largest black weekly newspaper.

The period covered by the exhibit properly begins a few years before 1900, with the death of George Pullman in 1897. Pullman had been beloved by his black employees for offering a huge volume of well-paying jobs at a time when racism, illiteracy and poverty made it difficult for African-Americans to catch a break. He had also been a generous supporter of the Republican Party and an acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln and his family. After Pullman’s death, Lincoln’s son Robert Todd Lincoln, a former Secretary of War and Ambassador to Great Britain, was chosen by the board of directors to be the new president. Lincoln found himself at the head of a hugely overextended company facing a “crisis of identity,” in the words of Paul Petraitis, a local historian who did much of the research for the exhibit at the Hotel Florence. At the time of Pullman’s death, his company’s holdings on its land south of Chicago included a forge, an oatmeal factory, and four streetcars of which only three could be located. All of this had led to both the company’s teetering financial situation and a court decision that the company’s interpretation of its charter was too broad. The result, Petraitis explains, was “a yard sale at the world’s most perfect town”—a reference to the honor bestowed upon Pullman at the Prague International Hygienic and Pharmaceutical Exposition of 1896.

Selling off the company’s miscellaneous property wasn’t enough (the three streetcars sold for one dollar), nor did it suffice to turn over control of the company town to the city of Chicago. Lincoln decided to cut the porters’ wages by almost twenty percent. This put their income at below subsistence level, but Lincoln decided that the porters could make the rest through tips from customers. The bitter fight over this decision is reflected in many of the Defender articles on the walls of the Hotel Florence. In late 1800s America, tipping was far from a routine practice. Furthermore, porters now had to pay for their own meals, lodging and uniforms, and as their wages were cut their duties increased. They were now responsible for setting up and taking down the sleeping cars, shining shoes, making beds, and cleaning linens.

The porters also had to deal with casual racism on a daily basis, which ranged from verbal abuse to physical attacks. The Defender zealously reported the more egregious incidents, including one in which Senator William J. Stone of Mississippi shot at and tried to kill L.T. Brown, a porter on a Pennsylvania Railroad train. Stone had called Brown by a racial epithet and ordered him to fetch a glass of whiskey, which the porter apparently balked at. Stone then slapped Brown and fired a bullet at him, grazing his shoulder.

The Defender included many stories of interest to Pullman Porters, since it was through them that it was carried outside of Chicago to black readers in the East and South. The porters helped make the Defender the most influential paper in Black America, and by 1917 more than two thirds of the paper’s readership was outside Chicago. The Defender’s heavy railroad coverage included more than just news stories. One Defender article on display is titled “Sparks from the Rail: Winston’s Spicy Gossip of Men and Events in the Railroad World” by John R. Winston. Many of these spicy gossip items appear incomprehensible to anyone outside the world of early 20th century sleeping car porters. One of the more comprehensible items: “Sporting Dick Weeks won a match $100 [sic] horse race Saturday, May 31, at Oelwein, Ia., race tracks and some cracker wanted to lynch him because he beat the white boys out in the hurdle. Richard Weeks is a colored boy from Kentucky and is very clever and has many railroad friends.”

The exhibit ends with a section titled “Fighting Back” on the 1925 founding of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which twelve years later would win its first collective bargaining agreement with the Pullman Company. By that time the company was declining, and in 1944 the manufacturing division and the sleeping car operations division were separated by court order. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters would go on to play a large role in the civil rights movement, and its leader A. Philip Randolph helped win the fight to desegregate the army and defense contractors during World War II. It’s fitting that this history of struggle should end with a Black History Month exhibit on the Pullman Company in the Hotel Florence, the heart of the company town that wouldn’t let blacks in.