“So what do you guys think?” asks Tony Lindsay, the workshop leader for the King Library’s branch of the Neighborhood Writing Alliance. The question is met by wordless expressions of approval, and a few satisfied “phews” and “yeahs!” With the immaculate intonation of an audio book narrator, Lorraine Minor has just read her new story, “The Deceased,” to kick off the writers’ workshop. The story turns a stroll down the sidewalk into a meditation on domestic violence, animal abuse, and the feeling of being powerless to stop them. “…Excellent,” someone ventures. “Excellent why?” Lindsay presses. And then things get rolling. The group of about ten fellow writers analyzes Minor’s story using Aristotle’s narrative arc, identifies its themes, and jots private comments down on their copies of her piece. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Sunday afternoon, most of Shimer College crowded into a small room to discuss the future of their school. The Assembly—a democratic body in which all students, faculty, staff, and trustees have equal votes—has traditionally been the moral authority of the college, while legal authority rests with the Board of Trustees. In last Sunday’s special session, those two authorities clashed as the Assembly voted on resolutions condemning the Board’s recent actions and the college’s president. Read the rest of this entry »

The caramel cupcakes at Bronzeville’s Abundance Bakery are so loaded with frosting that they rest upside down on their muffin-tops to support it all. Eating one is a gooey affair that requires a spoon, not to mention a glass of milk and possibly a friend to help. The cupcakes, like most everything at the bakery, are very sweet, very large, and very good. From a single display counter in a tiny storefront on 47th Street, Abundance Bakery has been offering a wealth of baked treats for twenty years. Read the rest of this entry »

The South Side Community Art Center is a surprise at first glance: its name is far more industrial and blocky than the Bronzeville gallery’s renovated location. Last Sunday, the impression of strangeness was only increased as the center played host to the ninth release party of AREA Chicago, the twice-yearly publication of the arts collective of the same name. Hipster and artist types lounged about the steps of an otherwise gray area; copies of the magazine lay strewn over the floors; and the mantle of the fireplace at the main gallery’s far wall was used as a repository for suitably bohemian liquors. Read the rest of this entry »

Bronzeville takes great pride in its history as the “Black Metropolis.” A destination for Southern blacks moving north during the Great Migration, it became the cultural nucleus of Chicago’s African-American community, nurturing such greats as Ida B. Wells, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sam Cooke, and Louis Armstrong, as well as the groundbreaking black newspaper the Chicago Defender. The neighborhood’s fortunes have fluctuated since its heyday, however—Chicago’s segregated housing practices eventually turned many blocks into overcrowded slums, which, in the ’50s and ’60s, the Chicago Housing Authority replaced with high-rise public housing projects such as the infamous Robert Taylor Homes. Over the last decade, the CHA has torn these down, replacing them with mixed-income developments in its latest controversial move. The demolition trend shows little sign of letting up, as Bronzeville’s proximity to the condo-rich South Loop, along with its cultural cachet, make it prime real estate for developers. Read the rest of this entry »

Envision this: a creative haven for artists both local and global to come together and encourage the economic growth of a community. A neighborhood place where artists, intellectuals, community activists, students, and visitors can work collaboratively towards creative expression and community building. Marguerite Horberg, drawing on over 20 years of experience with the acclaimed performing arts center HotHouse, hopes to make this lofty vision a reality with Porto Luz, an arts and culture center scheduled to open on Chicago’s South Side within the next year. Through this venture, Horberg plans to show the world a model for responsible economic stimulation of a creative community. Read the rest of this entry »

Buried in a blockhouse of paperwork and newspapers, Lou Ransom, executive editor of the Chicago Defender, remarks, “When you tear down projects, and you issue vouchers, people will move and try to find the most hospitable places to live.” He swivels his chair around, turning his back against the view of Lake Michigan from the seventeenth-floor office of the Chicago Defender, continuing to explain, “I call it the Second Migration, where the black population leaves the city for the suburbs, and stops making that commute back…and it’s not just the Sunday morning migration anymore, when people go to the city for church service or hair appointments. What happens when a large percent of your population moves out entirely?” Ransom queries. “What we’re undertaking is a reverse in-migration—the Defender’s moving back into the neighborhood,” he clarifies. That neighborhood is Bronzeville, the former home of the historic black newspaper. Read the rest of this entry »

Bankrupt and deserted, the Michael Reese Hospital on the 2900 block of Ellis Avenue is an unlikely site for Olympic grandeur. But across the street from the hospital, flags wave in the parking lot of the Prairie Shores apartment complex to welcome members of the International Olympics Committee, who visited Chicago this past week, to the projected site of the Olympic Village for the Chicago 2016 Games. Read the rest of this entry »