With a well-established local reputation for quality opera, it is surprising that the SSOC is only in their fourth season. The group was founded by Dr. Marvin Lynn, who is no longer with the opera. Today, SSOC has a simple and clear vision, as Johnson explains, “to spread high caliber music to South Side Chicago. We want to give artists an opportunity to perform with minority groups, and we want to work with the youth.” Elsewhere, there are not many opportunities for African Americans in opera, a field traditionally dominated by those of European stock. To stir change, the Company presents three programs a year: two free performances and one gala event, all at the South Shore Cultural Center.

Although they primarily perform scenes from classical American operas, the SSOC often includes an eclectic repertoire ranging from musical theatre, such as “Porgy and Bess” by Gershwin, to traditional African-American music. On June 23, students who are of college age will be performing a selection of musical theater pieces in the Company’s “Showcase of Our Young and Emerging Artists.” Although they have many veteran singers, most of whom reside on the South Side, the SSOC doesn’t have a fixed group of vocalists. In addition to auditions, such showcases aim to draw new talent to the group.

This past February, the Company collaborated with the Chicago Parks District, the composer Jonathan Stinson, and librettist Alan Stinson on their opera-in-the-works, “March on Washington,” for their Black History Month program. This new opera follows Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and others from a civil rights meeting scene at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, to a confrontation with President Kennedy at the Oval Office in Washington. The Company’s most talented were showcased in these short segments from the show, which feature works ranging from traditional freedom songs to classical arias. This show, still a work in progress, will hopefully be complete for the 2013-14 season to mark the 50^th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington.

The SSOC is determined to offer young African-Americans with vocal chops a new path. Johnson, who played civil rights leader John Lewis in “March on Washington,” says, “I think that people would be really pleased in attending any of our performances because of the range of what we present on the stage. Each of our programs has been very high quality. It is a wonderful evening. And you can’t beat the value.” Although opera tracks aren’t reigning on the Billboard Top 100 lists, there is no doubt that the SSOC offers a great deal of training, relevancy, and community to the young South Siders that attend their rehearsals. Johnson repeatedly mentions the importance of spreading opera to minorities, “but,” the tenor says, lowering his voice, “I really want to stress that the bigger goal is to promote good, quality music.”

Showcase of Young and Emerging Artists, South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore Dr. June 23. Saturday, 7:30pm. Free. southshoreopera.org.

(Rachel Wiseman)

On April 10, in the mezzanine of the South Shore Cultural Center, an unusual partnership was formed between Ed Borstein and Noah Emmanuel. Ed is a lanky 25-year-old University of Iowa graduate and drummer for the Chicago punk band T’Bone. Noah is a sixteen-year-old South Shore resident and avid Drake fan. The pair spent over two hours locked in a room with an Akai MPD Midi drum pad controller and a computer equipped with Ableton Live, a music-editing program—they were trying to make a hip-hop song.

“You see the trick to making beats, I think, is finding an isolated instrument and just chopping it up into little pieces,” Ed lectured Noah. “So what we need here is just one little trumpet sound. You ever heard of Arturo Sandoval?”

“I may have heard the name,” Noah replied in a low, slow voice—a stark contrast to his double-timed rap delivery, which has earned him the title of the “new Twista” among his friends.

Ed nodded and pulled up a YouTube clip of Sandoval playing the National Anthem. Slowly, he began to chop up the song into individual notes until it became something entirely new, a blaring four bar trumpet loop.

Noah nodded his head and muttered verses inaudibly under his breath. After a few minutes he pulled out his cellphone and began reading out rhymes he had saved: “I feel/my body is steel/I’m ill/I verbally kill/so tell the cops to stop/ the popped shots/and the crack rocks.”

****

This musical duo is just one result of a series of recording projects and initiatives currently funded by the Chicago Parks District. The idea of a software-based music composition program, particularly one focused on making rap music, might seem outside the jurisdiction of the public parks. However the program’s organizer, Jayvi, sees no conflict.

“You know I just don’t really make those sorts of distinctions, like, between technology and nature, or musicians and non-musicians,” he says. “Age doesn’t really matter that much either. As long as you’re a sentient being, I’m going to talk to you like I talk to anyone else.”

This last statement is particularly important for Jayvi’s Chicago Mobile Recording Studio project, which seeks to record not only the voices of teenagers, like Noah, but also those of younger children. In the summer, Jayvi loads his recording equipment into the back of his van, drives out to the parks, and records songs made by the kids who happen to be hanging around. His main goal, though, is not to record just any song, but those which are sincere and recount real life experiences.

“Because of all the ‘crap’”—Jayvi’s favored moniker for commercial rap—“you get all these kids talking about crazy stuff. Like, if you find a nine year old boy and give him a mic and ask him to sing a song, the first thing he’ll start singing about is having birthday sex and going to the club.”

Shaking his head, Jayvi says, “I’m just like, man, you’re nine. You’ve never been to a club. Tell me about something you actually know about. And once, you do that, you’d be surprised what they’ll tell you.”

****

At the studio, Ed plays some of the recordings he and Jayvi made this past season of kids in various parks around the city.

“Every day we would just go out and do these four hour sessions, you know,” he recounts. “And we’d get the kids to do everything: they made the beat, they rapped and they sang. They made whatever music they wanted to make.”

The recordings are enough to make one believe in Jayvi’s principled opposition to age-based distinctions. Despite being planned out by pre-teen children, the music sounds completely professional. The rhymes vary from the playfully mischievous (“this park is cool/I like this park better than school”) to sincerely concerned (“stop, please listen, you’re wasting your time drinking forties with the homies/you could be learning/instead of burning”).

Jayvi himself did not grow up in a musical family and found few opportunities to play when growing up. “I played clarinet for maybe about a year before I got a marble stuck in it and, well, that was the end of that,” he explains. “But later on I bought a toy trumpet and started collecting other small instruments.”

Jayvi went on to study sound at the School of the Art Institute, but later dropped his studies and began working for the Chicago Parks Department. It was around this time six years ago that he also met a group of teenagers who recorded under the name of “the Inferno Mobile Recording Studio.”

“Those guys though, they just wanted to make ‘hot tracks,’ get it, that’s why it was the Inferno,” Jayvi says. “But I wanted to do more than that. I wanted do something that isn’t just about making music, it’s about documenting something. And that’s what just totally made Ed’s wig flip, that you could actually do something like that with music.”

“The project honestly did change my life. It’s the greatest job ever,”  Ed says. While he has been drumming since he was very young, he had never used computer software to create music until Jayvi trained him.

“These kids make me feel kind of out-dated sometimes,” he admits. “I’m used to just making music with drum, bass, guitar, but through this project I realized how much you can make with just a computer.”

****

Back in the booth, Noah’s rap, for instance, documents a time and a place—“it’s about this neighborhood. It isn’t so bad now, but it used to be real, real bad. I was just rapping about what I remembered from growing up.” But this isn’t his main goal. In fact, Noah wants to be an entertainer, not a  storyteller.

“My guy out in Atlanta,” Noah said, referring to a friend and amateur rapper who goes by the name of Rosco Perrelli, “he’s getting to be real big time. He’s got like, 2,000 followers on Twitter. And he said like maybe I could come down and do a show with him. So I’ve just been telling him like lets stay off the streets for now and in a couple years we’ll just be kickin’ our feet back, on top of this, you know.”

Ed, who has been performing in live shows for over a decade, seemed skeptical of this attitude. “You know, I heard this story on NPR the other day, it was one of those big time hip-hop guys—Jay-Z, I think—talking to Terry Gross. He was talking about why young rappers always grab their crotch when they’re on stage. You know why?”

Noah shook his head.

“It’s because when you’re on stage, you feel naked. If you’re naked, what’s the first thing you’re gonna try and hide.” Ed pointed down and said, “It’s not easy being naked on a stage.”

There were a lot of minor disagreements between Ed and Noah. Ed objected to Noah using words like “murder,” “kill,” and “ill,” even metaphorically. Noah didn’t like having to make “topic songs” like the disabilities PSA rap which they recorded the previous week. Ed was upset that the only rock band Noah knows is Dragonforce, “and that’s only because they had that one song on Guitar Hero.”  Yet despite these differences, the two of them have been making music together, co-operatively, for months, meeting up every Tuesday night at 6:30 to record.

At the end of this particular session, Ed ran out of the room yelling to Jayvi and the kids he was helping edit a loop in the other room.

“You guys hear this track Noah and I just made,” he shouted. “It’s dope!”

Claire Hungerford / Sam Bowman

There’s a new school in South Shore, and it’s empty and beautiful. It has a swimming pool, a green roof, and state of the art lab facilities, but no students, as of yet. It needs to be occupied, though, and fast; by law, it cannot remain vacant past January 31.

Come fall, the new South Shore High School will welcome students very different from those currently studying in the older buildings; 60 percent of the freshman class will have tested into International Baccalaureate (IB), college prep, and career training programs, while the other 40 percent will be on the general track. The goal is to attract children from the neighborhood, 93 percent of whom currently opt to attend schools outside of the area, rather than one of the four small schools on the South Shore High School campus.

The four schools share a name, sports teams, campus, and are assessed collectively when it comes to test scores and attendance, but became administratively and ideologically disconnected in 2002, when the large and unsuccessful South Shore was divided into four sections in a Gates Foundation-financed “small school initiative.” A 2002 Chicago Tribune article quotes then-CPS head Arne Duncan: “These schools will all be schools of choice. No one will be assigned there. These schools will rise or fall based on their own merits.”

Claire Hungerford

According to Black United Fund president and community organizer Henry English, this effort to make South Shore a high-quality high school for neighborhood students has failed: “whatever class you’re in, you don’t send your kids to South Shore. The majority of kids come from everywhere, it’s a school of last resort.” This failure has prompted a new design, which would accommodate students of varying educational abilities and only accept students from the surrounding areas. The old South Shore schools are going to be phased out, graduating the current students but not accepting any new ones.

Though the closing of the old South Shore schools is a tragedy for those who have invested so much in founding and developing them, the board’s desire to build an educational facility that will appeal to the people who live in the area is understood. “It is my strong belief that every community in Chicago is obligated to provide the best instructional program, facility, and resources for the kids who live there,” says School of the Arts Principal Douglas Maclin. “This is a very loaded issue. I’m just so saddened by the dichotomy of the different views—one side wants a new school to start, and the other one wants our kids to have access to this beautiful building.” The new school has the potential to transform the educational experience of kids in the neighborhood, saving them a commute across the city and fostering community closeness.

But the current South Shore students have reasons for attending as well—often the schools in their neighborhoods are not up to par, or will not accept them for one reason or another. Though the small schools have collectively been pronounced a failure, some students, at the School of the Arts in particular, have found the most supportive community they’ve ever known.

Walking through the metal detectors at 7529 S. Constance, still home to the Schools of the Arts and Technology, it’s hard to believe that in 1965 this was a new building replete with structural innovations: Brutalist design, hexagonal classrooms, and a photography darkroom. Today, there is only one working faucet in all of the science labs, and unfinished vents allow snow to blow into classrooms. In a few weeks, the building will be demolished to make way for a public park. The attendance office, partitioned off on the side of the lobby, is little more than an oversized cubicle; its walls do not reach the ceiling. In an office adjacent to the library, School of the Arts faculty and administration argue that their school should be judged separately from its three counterparts. English teacher Ms. Toloupas expresses her frustration with the board’s judgment: “CPS consolidated the four schools with respect to our numbers and reported that the school was failing. This school has not failed. Our numbers have improved every year.”

This question of how to gauge the success of a school, or of a teacher, is much disputed. But in this particular case, even looking at something seemingly straightforward like ACT test progress or drop-out percentages can be misleading. The drop-out statistics for the four schools are grouped together, adding up to an unbelievable 52 percent. However, the School of Arts prides itself on a 7.4 percent drop-out rate, which is one of the lowest in the city. In addition, almost 100 percent of the school’s population can be classified as financially needy, qualifying them for free or reduced-price lunches—the students most likely to drop out of schools across the city. The School of the Arts was singled out in a 2007 Stanford case study as an example of an effective small learning community, representing “many aspects of what leading researchers consider critical organizational and instructional changes.” Faculty members have also insisted that CPS look beyond the numbers: the School of the Arts’s uniqueness comes, in part, from its connections. The school has strong partnerships with arts organizations such as the Goodman Theater and the Joffrey Ballet, and United Airlines has provided over 120 paid internships for students, as well as flying a group of students to Obama’s inauguration. The school helps students with outside the classroom: local businesses have provided students with winter coats and discounts on tuxedoes and dresses for the school’s prom.

Although most students do not reside in the neighborhood and many have lived through homelessness or foster care, South Shore High School has become their support system. “I’ve never had any school that does what they do,” says LSC Representative and School of the Arts parent April Whitaker. “The principal and his teachers are a family unit. There’s an emotional connection.” One of her sons, Dexter Burns, graduated at the top of his class at School of the Arts with a full ride to University of Illinois-Springfield after having been denied entry at every other high school to which he applied. Ms. Whitaker was present at a January 7 public hearing regarding the proposal, which she felt served as an opportunity to showcase the students’ growth: “Even though they’re teenagers, no one behaved badly. They were phenomenal. It was empowering for them. That’s why Black Star called and contacted me to ask if I could bring students to a mayoral forum they’re hosting—they were so well-behaved.”

Two of the school’s founders are also in the office. Yvonne Burnett, once a special education teacher, is working at her laptop, neglecting the desktop sitting right in front of her. “You turn on this computer and the whole floor goes,” she shrugs. “Facilities matter. And the students don’t have access to those facilities,” adds Ms. Simmons, “We’re in limbo now. The children and the teachers. One thing about the School of the Arts, though, we function like a family. We lift each other up. We’re going to try to make the best of this situation.”

Claire Hungerford

But the closing of the schools isn’t the only problem; the looming January 31 deadline for occupying the new building necessitates some counterintuitive moves. The students of the School of the Arts and Scbool of Technology are going to be placed in the new building only until June. “We have been working on this for the past two years; we have been talking about a new school opening with new programming,” says Mr. English. “But they have not given us plausible reasons for moving students into a new facility and [then] back into an old facility. It’s not cost-effective, and it’s not good for the students. The Board fully understands how to start a new school. We can’t understand why it’s doing everything counter to that model.

This move in/move-out proposal is all the more shocking for the administration of the South Shore High schools because, before December 17, they had been given the impression that the new building was intended as a replacement for the North building—that the same students would move to the new building, along with their teachers. It is clear now that they will soon have the building, but only temporarily—at the end of the year, their school and their jobs will be gone.

Ms. Toloupas recalls how a suit-clad team from the Board of Education came for a visit. The teachers were sat down at a table in the library, and surrounded by the Board’s three security guards. They were handed letters, which revealed that the January 26 proposal had reserved the new building for an entirely new school. Once the year was over and the Arts and Technology branches of South Shore were consolidated with the schools of Leadership and Entrepreneurship, the teachers would also be consolidated, based on seniority and tenure. The teachers were “free to apply” for a position at the new school.

“The immediate future is very unclear,” adds Jen Thomas, the librarian. “But there is a lot of heroism going on. You find that your teachers are working hard to keep a brave face for our kids. Not knowing what’s going to go on employment-wise is pretty difficult.” The library is filled with noisy kids, but hardly any books. “The library has been removed and donated to other libraries. It’s tough to look out there and see empty shelves,” Ms. Thomas admitted. She took a trip to the new building, and seemed happy that the children would be able to experience it. “The facility is what a school is supposed to look like, what they’re supposed to learn in. It’s hard to teach kids about the importance of education when you’re in a dark room! They’ll flourish over there.” Even if they can only stay there a little while? “I’m trying not to think about that.”

Around the turn of the last century, workers and businessmen attracted by the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition settled down in Woodlawn and South Shore. New homes and brick apartment buildings were built for the predominately upper-middle-class white Protestant residents. The streets of South Shore are filled with remnants of the first decades of the 20th century, with houses designed in styles ranging from prairie home to Renaissance revival, and the most striking structures in Woodlawn are the churches that sprouted up during its initial development. But the buildings here have borne witness to a history far different from the one imagined by their architects.

The immigration of blacks to the South Side caused racial discrimination to flare and produced tensions that are still playing out around questions of gentrification. Many whites fled to the suburbs, taking their wealth and political power with them, and leaving the neighborhood to suffer recurring aftershocks of severe economic depression. The socialite attitude of South Shore largely faded, and was replaced by the working-class ethic of steel mills. Both neighborhoods have seen times of struggle: they were on the front lines of the civil rights movement in Chicago, and continue to battle poverty, crime, and gang violence.

Still relatively poor and politically neglected, both neighborhoods have seen a hard-earned period of reinvigoration over the past 20 years, and a visit to either of these historically and culturally rich communities will show that even in hard times, the raw pasts of Woodlawn and South Shore are giving way to a brighter era.

best experiment
Experimental Station

Founded in 2002, the Experimental Station aims to create a social and artistic nexus that facilitates cultural diversity and discourse within the local community, while simultaneously supporting independent initiatives such as music and publishing. Besides hosting a popular farmers market every Saturday from 9am to 2pm, the Experimental Station offers low-rent studio space and houses several community development efforts. Through the Woodlawn Buying Club, area residents chip in on wholesale orders of organic and natural foods, helping to make good food affordable. The station also hosts Backstory Café, a small coffee shop and restaurant that serves reasonably priced organic dishes. A neighborhood journalism project, Invisible Institute, focuses on building robust public debate out of neglected local issues. The Station’s Blackstone Bicycle Works provides affordable bikes and cheap repairs to the community, while at the same time employing and instructing community youth in the art of bicycle repair and maintenance. Check the Station’s website often for lectures, art exhibitions, and concerts by local musicians. 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. (773)241-6044. experimentalstation.org (Alec Mitrovich)

best olive branch
Woodlawn Collaborative

It’s a poorly kept secret that the University of Chicago has a historically tense relationship with its surrounding communities; we’ve seen it flare up most recently in the UofC’s continuing efforts to expand its real estate with new facilities in Woodlawn. Tired of the divisions, a group of UofC students and Woodlawn residents decided create an independent forum for community involvement and cooperation. The Woodlawn Collaborative is housed in the First Presbyterian Church at 64th Street and Kimbark Avenue, and is designed to be a space where community groups and student organizations can converge and tackle a variety of educational, political, and artistic projects. There is a roving calendar of events and activities hosted by partners of the collaborative, which range from Blue Gargoyle Tutoring to Jelly (a non-profit that teaches juggling) to Students for a Democratic Society. Less than two years old, the Collaborative has quickly established itself as one of the most prominent platforms for cooperation between UofC students and residents of Woodlawn. 6400 S. Kimbark Ave. woodlawncollaborative.org (Isaac Dalke)

best coffee for a cause
Backstory Café

The most commonly accessed component of the Experimental Station, Backstory Café was designed as a communal gathering place in an effort to effect real social change through casual encounters. Sitting inside the small café, it’s easy to tell that the establishment is being used as it was intended to be: conversations about grassroots organizations and community goings-on can always be eavesdropped on, and the clientele is usually diverse. It’s easy to see how such an environment could make anyone’s coffee break more interesting. Aside from beverages, Backstory serves tasty sandwiches, soups, and salads made from organic ingredients and halal meats, with vegetarian and vegan options abounding. There is also a used book selection, provided in part by Powell’s Books, all of which are available for intermittent in-store reading. If you’re looking to escape commercial monotony and support a local, progressive café, this is your place. 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Monday-Friday, 11am-4pm. (773)324-9987. backstorycafe.com (Alec Mitrovich)

best no-bullshit burger
That’s-A-Burger

The menu at That’s-A-Burger is sprawled over two walls of the restaurant, a carnivore’s delight of sausage, chili, chicken, turkey, and other staples of a meat lover’s diet. However intimidating this might be, if you ever find yourself at That’s-A-Burger there is probably only one thing you’re interested in: the burger. TAB doesn’t produce a particularly witty or creative variation on the standard hamburger; rather, they’ve elevated that simple form to almost platonic perfection, heights rarely reached by a humble neighborhood burger joint. While long waits for a TAB burger are not uncommon, even when there are few customers, the reward is well worth the delay. All burgers are cooked to order, and the handcrafted care is apparent. In this era of frozen patties, burger assembly lines, and other mainstays of fast food, eating a well-seasoned burger with a side of hand-cut fries is a delicious change of pace. 2134 E. 71st St. Monday-Thursday, 11am-7pm; Friday-Saturday, 11am-9pm. (773)493-2080 (Isaac Dalke)

best ex-country club
South Shore Cultural Center

Replete with a ballroom, stage, solarium, gardens, and a top-notch dining room, the South Shore Cultural Center would seem more apt in the hands of a monarch than in those of the Chicago Parks District. Indeed, the center saw its share of Chicago elitism in its early days as the once Protestant-whites-only South Shore Country Club. Those days are thankfully long gone. Today, the center holds classes ranging from ballet to kickboxing to ceramics, houses a professional culinary institute, hosts a variety of cultural shows and exhibitions, and can be rented for private events (President Obama and First Lady Michelle held their wedding reception there). If you can’t make a class or performance, the grounds are still worth a visit. With a golf course, horse stables, nature reserve and bird refuge, small beach, and a beautiful Mediterranean Revival-style clubhouse, the park is magnificent. 7059 S. South Shore Dr. Varying hours. (773)256-0149. chicagoparkdistrict.com (Isaac Dalke)

best history lesson
Rainbow Beach

Chicago prides itself on its lakefront. The well-groomed network of beaches and parks that line Lake Michigan’s shores are a beautiful background for summer’s blazing afternoons. The beaches’ beauty also means that they see a lot of traffic on a daily basis—but if you look hard enough, there are still stretches of calm. Take Rainbow Beach: spanning over five city blocks and outfitted with a concession stand, bathing house, and field house, it’s one of the largest beaches in the city, and receives considerably less traffic than some of its better-known counterparts in Lincoln Park or downtown areas. The beach also has some fascinating history. It was once an area of racial conflict, largely avoided by black beachgoers because of the hostility of white lifeguards. In July of 1961, an interracial community coalition that included members of the NCAAP youth counsel staged a “freedom wade-in,” a quiet but significant precursor to the techniques of the civil rights movement. Grab a towel and some sunscreen, and take in the beauty of the lake, the history of the beach, and one of the most complete views of the Chicago skyline you are likely to find. 3111 E. 77th St. (312)745-1479. chicagoparkdistrict.com (Isaac Dalke)

best way to eat your vegetables
Yah’s

Standing out colorfully from its surroundings and boasting an equally distinct cuisine, Yedidah King’s globally inspired vegan soul food attracts customers from all around the city. Dishes such as basmati rice casserole, sweet potatoes, smoked greens, baked beans, and even stir-fry grace the eclectic and ever-changing menu. The $10 daily special includes a main course and your choice of three heaping spoonfuls of sides. Yah’s also offers desserts and freshly made juices. But be warned: if blueberry cheesecake (vegan, of course), banana pudding, or pineapple lemonade intrigues your palate, it’s best to arrive early, as many of the restaurant’s sugary selections get snagged up by lunch customers. Service is laid back, but the complimentary cornbread makes the wait enjoyable. Vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores alike can be more than satisfied with Yah’s hearty entrees, diverse sides, and inspired sweets. 2347 E. 75th Street. Monday-Saturday, 9am-8pm; Sunday, 10am-7pm. (773)759-8517 (Nandini Ramakrishnan)

If you had a funky, alternative, yoga-practicing, holistic-remedy-dispensing grandmother from New Orleans, she might feed you something like the food served up at Yah’s. The menu consists of a rotating circuit of $10 daily specials with no separate options, placing one at the mercy of the daily special. While this is typically a risky affair, in this case it’s your funky vegan grandma in the kitchen, making a meal that emerges comforting, inexplicably smooth and animal product-free.
Friday’s daily special was a mishmash of sides foregrounding “BBQ Nuggets,” a seitan-based meat alternative glazed lightly in barbeque sauce. With a tender, meaty texture, the BBQ nuggets were a hit among my cohorts, not one of whom was vegan. Eggplant lasagna served as another locus of the meal, and the delightfully creamy, not-quite-cheesy top layer left me wondering what mysterious alchemy had been performed in the kitchen. The complements to the dishes brought us back to the realm of the familiar. A generous bowl of subtly flavorful garlic lentil stew, the “mushroom patty,” a doughy pastry stuffed with diced, marinated mushrooms that suffers only from its cafeteria-style name, and a rather ordinary vegetable kebab. The confusing array of well-prepared sides gave the meal the feeling of a Thanksgiving feast, and although barbeque and lasagna are not typical brethren, we all ate with a potluck-inspired enthusiasm. A blueberry “cheesecake,” which a friend accurately described as “weird but good,” followed the dinner. While surprisingly similar to the real thing in taste, the dry texture of the cake ultimately undermined its $5 price tag.

The not-quite-thematic state of the meal was consistent with the rest of the experience. Glasses and plastic cups alike crowded onto the table with a variety of colorful dishware. Silverware came wrapped adorably in a bit of paper towel. Consistency in the menu was similarly ambivalent, with the veggie kebab replacing grilled broccoli in our day’s special. True to its Southern roots, the service was sweet but meandering. Plates generally emerged from the kitchen one at a time in temporally unsystematic shifts, and when our group ballooned from three to seven, water was hard to come by.

Although occasionally frustrating, Yah’s easy-going approach ultimately paid off. In addition to their daily specials, the restaurant cooks up a number of other sides that can be freely substituted at no extra charge. And while the restaurant purports to close at 8pm, my group arrived ten minutes before the hour and things were just heating up. A live blues band had even crowded into the room, playing well past 8 o’clock and on into the next hour. If relaxed service is a take-it-or-leave-it condition of a Yah’s visit, the benefits still outweigh the negatives. Yah’s Cuisine provides the “comfort vegan soul food” it claims on the menu, with double the comfort.
Yah’s Cuisine, 2347 E. 75th Street. Tuesday-Sunday, 10am-8pm. All items under $10. (773) 382-1742.

ShoreBank was founded to meet the financial needs of low-income communities that were widely discriminated against by commercial banks. Redlining, the practice of denying loans and bank services to entire neighborhoods, was legal at the time, and ShoreBank’s founders, Ron Grzywinski, Mary Houghton, Milton Davis, and James Fletcher, recognized that access to financial services could help rejuvenate ailing neighborhoods like South Shore on Chicago’s South Side. They purchased the failing South Shore Bank and by 1975 had done something unheard of: their socially conscious bank had begun to turn a profit, and has continued to do so.

ShoreBank’s Senior Vice President of Nonprofit and Foundation Banking Clare Golla and Vice President of Corporate Communications Brian Berg stress that “our mission is our competitive advantage.” Rather than aiming to make money in spite of its mission, the bank achieved success precisely by filling a market need for an institution that takes its customers into constant consideration. It measures its success with what it calls a triple bottom line. “We equally measure our performance based on our financial performance as well as our community development impact and our environmental impact,” says Berg. “Our triple bottom line is our strategic advantage that distinguishes us from other institutions.” Jackie Leavy, a volunteer for the Coalition to Save Community Banking, stresses that the way community banks, when well run, do business is not just good for communities—it’s good for everyone, especially the bank’s shareholders. “ShoreBank,” she says, “understands that working with its communities on economic empowerment, financial literacy, and community rebuilding will, in the long run, mean more business for the bank—that if a community continues to be mired in poverty or in a mortgage foreclosure crisis with a depressed housing market, that this is bad for everyone.

ShoreBank draws customers with its promise of mission-based banking and its personal approach with its customers. Lacking the big marketing budget of large commercial banks, it is forced to build a community tied together by close relationships between customers and partnering institutions. It tries to grant credit to those who can afford it, even if they don’t have the financial records to back it up. “We have a really strong partnership with our customers,” says Golla. “We know them really well and they have no problem giving us feedback.” It’s an approach that builds loyalty and creates powerful word-of-mouth support. Their outreach programs not only introduce financial literacy to low-income neighborhoods, but also bring in customers.

ShoreBank’s approach to the businesses, faith-based organizations, and nonprofits that it services is based on similar principles. “We believe in collaboration,” says Golla, “which involves partnering with foundations, nonprofits, banks, and government agencies. It’s a much larger dynamic in a web of collaboration.” The loyalty of the bank’s customers allow it to bridge connections and create unlikely scenarios for small companies and nonprofits. ShoreBank recently started the Capacity Plus Loan program to help altruistic organizations like the MacArthur, Heron, and Polk Foundations lend to nonprofits that service communities in need. These foundations deposit funds at ShoreBank that are then guaranteed as emergency lines of credit for affordable housing and arts and culture organizations. The Hyde Park-based Neighborhood Writing Alliance is part of the program, which has allowed it to continue offering services during a time when many nonprofits are cutting back. At the same time, the South Side’s hard-hit communities are finding a greater need for services like those of the NWA, which holds free writing workshops that give individuals in underprivileged Chicago communities the opportunity to express themselves and discuss important issues. Carrie Spitler, its executive director, says, “We’re definitely finding a bigger demand in the past year and a half…I think people are in their neighborhoods more often and looking for a place to connect rather than staying at home and feeling that whole sense of isolation.” She adds, “We’ve been really lucky, knowing that the luck has come from hard work and planning…I know that if something comes up tomorrow and I don’t have the cash to cover it, [our financial support] is there.”

In the new millennium, ShoreBank faced new competition from brokers offering predatory adjustable-rate mortgages, a particular problem in its target neighborhoods. “In the mid-2000s,” says Golla, “more of these non-bank lenders and mortgage brokerages started popping up. By 2007, none of the top five lenders in our priority communities were banks. They were these irresponsible institutions with no regulatory procedures.” Berg stresses that ShoreBank had always stayed out of the market for adjustable rate mortgages. “We would rather say no and lose that business because it’s the right thing to do,” he says. Indeed, Grzywinski recognized early on that the boom in sub-prime adjustable rate mortgages represented a looming threat to the nation’s financial health, writing a cautionary letter to Ben Bernanke in 2007. In the same year, ShoreBank created one of the first Rescue Loan programs to help victims of predatory loans refinance their mortgages and save their homes.

Although, as Berg points out, those predatory lenders are “virtually gone” and “the market has corrected itself,” vulnerable communities and the nonprofit and community development institutions that service them have been hit hard. A ShoreBank press release cites “soaring unemployment, a significant drop in property values, a huge wave of foreclosures, and a lack of credit” as forces that have sapped its communities of its economic lifeblood. “With Chicago reporting an unemployment rate of about 10%,” the press release says, “the actual unemployment rate of Chicago’s African Americans is much greater—in the 20 to 25% range, according to the Economic Policy Institute.” Golla points out that “a lot of people are saying that in many of the neighborhoods that ShoreBank works it’s more akin to a depression than a recession.”

And despite its prudent business strategy and unprecedented record of fiscal accomplishment, ShoreBank has not escaped the blow of the financial meltdown. Midway through 2009, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s regulators ordered ShoreBank to raise capital in order to continue operating safely. In spite of its attempts to reinvigorate its equity, it continued to be pummeled by the tough climate of its markets and was forced to ask the State of Illinois for a bailout in last month. While no state government has yet interceded to save a financial institution, the scenario is quite possible for a unique bank that has been championed by both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The United States Treasury Department just announced a new program to stabilize community development financial organizations with $1 billion in federal funding as part of its Troubled Asset Relief Program.

While Berg and Golla were unable to comment on their company’s situation, Thomas Fitzgibbon, the recently retired CEO of MB Financial, has been following ShoreBank’s new challenges and sees mixed prospects for its future. “The bank has really been battered pretty heavily by the downturn in the commercial real estate market and the housing market,” he says, meaning that “the disaster scenario” would be its sale or liquidation by the FDIC—the recent fate of several other Chicago banks, including the West Side community development bank Park National. Many believe that, between government backing and donor support, ShoreBank will be able to weather the storm.

But Fitzgibbon wonders whether ShoreBank’s social mission might be somewhat compromised by the concerns of the government and new investors. “The fresh capital that came in would most likely come with the requirement that the management be restructured and that the bank itself take a new approach to its banking and perhaps its mission,” he says. “The likelihood is that it would continue to do something along the lines of its mission but would have a more conservative approach with its credit management.”

Berg and Golla, however, stress that its social mission is “in its DNA.” Though it’s in a period of transition and faces unsure economic times, they are certain that ShoreBank’s social mission will always be central to its identity. “Everybody here believes that banks do good while doing well,” Berg says. Golla adds, “I haven’t seen anyone as dedicated as the people at ShoreBank are right now to keeping our customers afloat. We put so much sweat equity, and real equity, into it that there’s just no question about the mission.”

The origin of the jazz brunch is hard to pinpoint, but it most likely began in New Orleans as entertainment for wealthy tourists. Restaurant brunches almost always tend towards the American and French standards of omelets, pancakes, and eggs Benedict, and the musical entertainment is almost as uniformly jazz or gospel, never Baroque or rock ‘n’ roll brunch. It’s a meal in keeping with the culturally mixed and commercial culture of New Orleans. The central problem, then, is that because brunch is by nature a complacent experience, must it domesticate the jazz that is paired with it? What does that mean when the jazz brunch comes to a city with such a long and strong jazz tradition?

In Chant’s case, the restaurant invites a diverse mix of musicians to provide entertainment at the Sunday brunch. In addition to Morikeba, Chant has featured blues singer Gloria Shannon, jazz vocalist Maggie Brown, and many others beyond the norm of the standard jazz quartet. As an Asian-inspired fusion restaurant, says Chant catering manager Angelique Connor, “we’re interested in combining cultures.” That means accompanying the fried, lobster-stuffed wontons with traditional West African storytelling and songs. As for having a musical brunch at all, Chant’s upscale appeal makes it a natural fit for an experience not offered by many other restaurants on the South Side. And Hyde Park, as Connor points out, “has a very rich history in music.”

In Woodlawn, Backstory Café has a weekly jazz brunch with a buffet and made-to-order menu. In its cozy one-room space, it’s a more intimate affair than at Chant. Though the menu changes weekly, jazz trio Recovery are returning guests; members Ben Brown, Jeff Kimmel, and Brian Sulpizio play experimental music throughout the city. Backstory’s jazz brunch is an enjoyable experience, a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon. But to enjoy jazz as an active experience, the café’s weekly avant garde jazz night is a better bet.

W.C. Handy’s Bistro in South Shore is a “health and entertainment bar” that promises a jazz brunch on Sunday, though they were closed when the Chicago Weekly visited. The restaurant claims to be the “Only One of it’s [sic] Kind in the Mid-West,” and it may be the only of its kind in Chicago: serving meat-filled and vegetarian dishes alike, offerings include salmon croquettes with grits and eggs or vegetarian corned beef with yams. Live music on Sunday afternoons recall the mission of the original W.C. Handy, often called the Father of the Blues, who is credited with bringing blues to the mainstream in the teens and twenties. As jazz has become ubiquitous background music, it may take such a mission to make it a focus once again.

Joelle Lamarre, Sean Harris, and Isaiah Robinson sing along to Roberta Thomas''s improvisation (Mehves Konuk)

“We are here because people in the community really do enjoy opera; they really do enjoy classical music,” said Marvin Lynn, founder and executive director of the SSOCC. Lynn, a lyric baritone and professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, founded the predominantly African-American opera company in November 2008 to help make opera more accessible to audiences on the South Side, with a particular focus on pieces that feature African-American artists by African-American composers, as well as some classic repertoire.

The SSOCC has so far conducted two shows, featuring gorgeous vignettes from pieces like “La Bohème,” “The Marriage of Figaro,” “Carmen,” “Porgy and Bess,” “Falstaff,” and “Don Giovanni.” Both shows boasted an impressive turnout, with about six hundred people attending the February 2009 show and a thousand attending the June 2009 performance, which were both free of charge.

The cast is a conglomerate of 35 mostly local artists of obvious passion and indubitable talent. Lynn has performed at several prestigious venues such as the Annapolis Opera, Dreamstreet Theater, and the Maryland Arts Festival. SSOCC Artistic Director Elizabeth Norman Sojourner—a lyric coloratura soprano—has performed at the White House and Kennedy Center, and appeared with symphonies throughout Europe and Africa.

Yet what is most impressive about the lively group is the infectious vitality and joyous vibe they exhibit when sharing the stage. Their peculiar ability to match mature beauty with charming jest allows them to stimulate the classics with just a hint of gospel sentiment. “For repertoire, it’s good to work with people you like and respect,” said performer Sean Harris, a tenor. And indeed they do. Watching them playfully crowd around a piano during rehearsal, singing together in graceful synchrony to the jazz classic “Lullaby to Birdland,” it’s hard not to run up there and belt out a few rusty notes yourself, just to be able to join in on the chaos of snapping fingers and pealing laughter.

In addition to offering opportunities to local African-American vocalists, youth outreach is a primary goal of the SSOCC. Lynn is currently developing a comprehensive educational program for children and adolescents who are musically interested, but who may be unable to pay for singing lessons. The program will be free of charge, and the students will be taught by the cast members, with whom they will then perform.

The SSOCC’s next event will be the “Broadway Regards” event on October 23. Conducted once a year, this benefit raises money so that Lynn and the rest of the SSOCC may “offer as many free performances as we can.” The upcoming show will be the first musical show they have performed, and the first that will all be in English. The event will feature pieces from “Dreamgirls,” “The Wiz,” “Sweeney Todd,” “West Side Story,” “Showboat,” “Ragtime,” “Into the Woods,” “Chicago,” and “Firefly.”

The event will be held in the South Shore Cultural Center’s Robeson Theater, whose recent renovation was funded by SSOCC’s partner, the Chicago Park District. Lofty gold-trimmed Corinthian pillars, polished white marble floors, and a few stunning crystal chandeliers ornament the Mediterranean-style center. A line of large glass windows open out onto the lawns. And the occasional snippet of a bus horn makes it all the more striking.
Robeson Theater, 7049 S. South Shore Dr. October 23. Friday, reception at 5:30pm, concert at 7pm. $65 for dinner and the concert, $20 for concert only. (773)241-6147. southshoreopera.org

best corned beef
A.P. Deli
It’s no secret what A.P. Deli’s specialty is: Printed all over the store’s outside and inside, even on the receipt, is “Chicago’s #1 corned beef.” Begun in 1984 as a small grocery and liquor store in the far south neighborhood of Roseland that offered sandwiches on the side, the deli now has four branches across the South Side and several in the suburbs. The location at 75th and Chappel isn’t pretty; the grungy exterior, the clear plastic shields separating customers and employees, and the lack of seating cast doubt on the website’s claim that people come “from all over Chicago” to get their corned beef fix. But if they don’t, maybe they should: A.P. knows its specialty well. About half of the menu works out to corned beef under various names (“Big Beef,” “Pound N-Half”) or related sandwiches like Reubens, but the original is probably the best. Make sure to ask for onions, mustard, rye bread, and anything else you want on top, or you’ll get a plain hunk of salted beef in bland bread. But even that might be worth the trip. 2025 E. 75th St. Sunday-Friday, 10am-11pm; Saturday, 10am-midnight. apdeli.com (Sam Feldman)

best sugar rush
Give Me Some Sugah
If you’re looking for a sugar-free meal, this isn’t your kind of bakery. Other than a few breakfast items like muffins and scones, the three-page menu is made up almost entirely of mouthwatering desserts, from pineapple upside-down cakes to chocolate cream pies. Other than the Shawn Michelle’s ice cream, everything on the menu is made on-site, and proprietor Lenore Lindsey isn’t afraid to get creative: Her lime bar manages to condense all the goodness of an entire key lime pie into a surprisingly small volume, and her potato chip cookie is about ten times better than it sounds. If you don’t see the dessert you want on the menu, let her know and she’ll probably make it for you. 2234 E. 71st St. Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-7:30pm. givemesomesugah.com (Sam Feldman)

best multitasking space
Experimental Station
There isn’t really one word for what the Experimental Station is. The nonprofit organization that now occupies the building was born from the ashes of a 2001 fire that destroyed a complex used by artist Dan Peterman for his socially conscious art projects. Today it’s used for a range of purposes, which in the past year have included performances by the Hyde Park Community Players, a monthly film series, King Ludd’s Midway Arcade, and the 61st Street Farmers Market. Aside from these periodic attractions, the Experimental Station includes the Backstory Cafe, which offers free Wi-Fi and serves sandwiches, soups, and Metropolis coffee, and Blackstone Bicycle Works, which not only does bike sales and repairs but also summer and after-school programs that teach neighborhood kids how to work on bikes. This Saturday, September 26, is a good day to check out the Experimental Station, since it’s one of the venues for the third annual Hyde Park Jazz Festival. 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. (773)241-5458. experimentalstation.org (Sam Feldman)

best jamaican
Three J’s
The restaurant Three J’s (standing for Jammin’ Jamaican Jerk) is not fine dining, but the place is a step above Boston Market at the prices of Harold’s Chicken Shack. Don’t be deterred by the modest interior, which looks not unlike a typical burger joint—what the place lacks in décor is made up for in its delicious Jamaican fare. Three J’s eponymous jerk chicken is savory with a home-cooked taste, avoiding excessive greasiness. Their ox tails, an exotic and worthwhile dish, are covered in a creamy gravy over a bed of rice. In both dishes the meat is incredibly tender and slides easily off the bone. Fish and shrimp dishes are sometimes available, but vegetarians should avoid the place unless they desire a meal made up of sides: potatoes either mashed or sweet, steamed and buttery greens, and white bread as dense as pound cake, perfect for wiping your plate clean. Service is slow, but friendly. 1713 E. 75th St. Monday-Thurday, 6am-11pm; Friday-Saturday, 6am-midnight; Sunday, 7am-9pm. (773)667-1360 (Chris Havlin)

best comfort food
Daley’s
Around since immigrant laborers needed lunch in the 1930s, Daley’s has weathered the massive changes to Woodlawn it has seen pass. Not only does its lengthy history give it a perspective few institutions on the South Side can match, it also gives Daley’s solid recipes for everything from pancakes to hamburgers. The history is as thick as the grease; it’s also as thick as the ties that bind Woodlawn together. 6307 S. Cottage Grove Ave. Monday-Sunday, 7am-10pm. (773)643-6670 (John Thompson)

best café with a view
My Soul Cafe
Tucked away at the corner of 72nd and Exchange, this café serves good coffee and better than average sandwiches, as well as organic tea and cold drinks. The prices aren’t bad, either, and with a purchase you can use the store’s free Wi-Fi and fax machine/copier. They even rent out laptops. Best of all, perhaps, is the view out the front window: the Metra trains majestically rushing by on Exchange Avenue. 7201 S. Exchange Ave. Monday-Friday, 7am-7pm; Sat, 8am-5pm. (773)336-8592 (Sam Feldman)

Evan Glassman’s Studio E was the perfect mix of living space and gallery to achieve the right mood for Cuevas’s event. “I’ve always found the fine dining scene to be a little cold,” Cuevas explained on Saturday night, just before a salad of endive, asparagus, and caprioli goat cheese “pearls” was served. The guests nodded in agreement: a woman described how she felt a restaurant’s reputation could be completely undermined by a “stuffy” atmosphere. Cuevas’ solution, the dinner party, encourages chatter among the guests through communal seating arrangements, and often includes a musical or artistic component to further conversation. Live painting was provided by local artist Rex Floodstrom, whose futuristic urban landscapes were displayed throughout the gallery.

Guests could develop their own artistic tendencies, as Glassman had put aside some wall space for a group mural. Upon entering, guests sipped wine (all dinners are BYOB), networked, and added their touch to this rapidly growing artwork. The first course, a grana padano crisp filled with queso fresco mousse topped with fresh chives, was passed out as guests took in Glassman’s unique interior, which included a Zen-like walk-through garden and a high ceiling tiled with doors.

The pace of the meal was relaxed, but an open kitchen allowed one to watch the busy all-volunteer staff. The first hot dish was a spicy pesto made from morita chilies and Michigan ramps, which generously coated a homemade linguini. The cheese in this dish truly captured the “underground” nature of Clandestino: this crumbly, salty, raw-milk cojita was made by Cuevas’s uncle in Mexico, and travelled across the border packed in his family’s suitcases. The pasta was followed by a rib-eye and short rib burger, topped with Wisconsin cheddar and served on a pretzel bun. Finally, the long awaited dessert arrived: a Meyer lemon pound cake with a scoop of rhubarb cream cheese ice cream, which was deceptively smooth before a delightful rhubarb tang.

Clandestino holds dinners in different spaces all over Chicago, and is developing a large and diverse following. Anyone can get involved by visiting their website and signing up for their mailing list. A community of people has sprung up around Cuevas’s original idea, drawn together by their love of good food, conversation, and unique, one-of-a-kind experiences.