Woodlawn
The promised land
Scouting for a seat in the crowded lecture hall of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, it’s difficult not to notice the unusual heterogeneity of the people who are making the task so difficult. Their nametags identify them as University students, neighborhood schoolteachers, pastors, and parents, and all of them are... »
Capital Ideas: Moneythink ventures to bring financial literacy to South Side students
At 8:20am on a beautiful spring morning, sunlight is streaming through the chipped windows of a third floor classroom of Woodlawn Charter High School at 64th Street and Woodlawn Avenue, onto the sleepy faces of a group of high school seniors, their heads resting on their hands. On the walls of the classroom are... »
Moving in Circles: When does a new home lead to a new life?
Movement is part of the American dream. Across an ocean to the new world, west to the last frontier, then up the social ladder, out to the suburbs—or so they say it goes. Social mobility and housing mobility are inextricably linked in the national psyche. But there is a darker, less public story about... »
Criminal injustice
Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” was supposed to discuss her book last Wednesday evening in the large central room of the Experimental Station, but the heating went out. So instead, about a hundred of us packed tightly into a small, multi-purpose room next door,... »
A Noisy Protest: ONO brings its provocative musical performance to the Woodlawn Collaborative
Art is meant to draw people together, to forge cultural bonds that cross social boundaries. And yet, for decades, issues of race have impeded the diffusion of artistic innovation across the South Side’s social and racial lines. Although the University of Chicago’s presence in Hyde Park has engendered cynicism from surrounding communities, a few... »
Prophets of Woodlawn
Rudy Nimocks is a pear-shaped man with a pedagogically dapper bowtie and a tough scowl. But as he rises, and the din of the crowded atrium resolves into an attentive silence, a jovial grin melts his hardened visage. He’s clearly pleased by the turnout. “Before we get into the here and now,” he coos,... »
Rise and Swing: Jazz brunch on the South Side
Senegalese musician Morikeba Kouyate sits in the sunny front window of Hyde Park’s Chant restaurant, his twenty-one-stringed kora resting in his lap. He is taking a breather in between songs, which layer his high, strong voice over complex fingerwork on the gourd-and-stretched-skin instrument. In the expansive dining room, a few diners circle around the... »
Sanctuaries: A photo tour of Woodlawn’s churches
Churches dot the Woodlawn like freckles and underlie it like foundations. Some of them are historically significant, some have architectural merit, and some stand out only for their typicality. This photo essay includes a little of each. Founded in the second Fort Dearborn in 1833, First Presbyterian Church was a pioneer in the temperance... »
