There Goes The Neighborhood

I have lived and seen all things in Chicago. I have lived in, for lack of better descriptions, changing neighborhoods, stable neighborhood, and just the hood. I know these are loaded descriptions, but any Chicagoan at the ground level knows what I am talking about. A great book to check out is the book There Goes the Neighborhood: Racial, Ethnic, and Class Tensions in Four Chicago Neighborhoods and Their Meaning for America. The neighborhoods are all southwest side neighborhoods with given psuedonyms, they are essentially mirror images of the northwest side neighborhoods where I've lived. The voices of the people are voices of those I have grown up with or have lived with.
How do you deal with neighborhood change? What physical elements or characteristics of people make you feel uncomfortable in a place you have called home? How much change is your neighborhood willing to accept or accomodate before there is a tipping point racially or socio-economically?

Chew on this: You live on the corner of Narragansett and Addison, you are an elderly woman in a small ranch house that you have lived in for 30 years, you tend your garden and grass daily, your whole family lives in Arlington Hieghts. Then one day you wake up, the side of your house says King Killa, on top of that the Latin Kings have crossed off the message and put their symbol. Do you get the hell out or do you resist temptation and stay and work to promote understanding between gang members in your nieghborhood and your values and the values that have come to define your quiet and peaceful neighborhood for the past 30 years?

Street Art?

When I was in high school at Lane Tech, its seemed like graffiti art blew up. My freshman year everyone became a tagger, even the nerdiest or least artistically inclined kid would try out a tag name. I guess if you were good you would hook up with other taggers and start a crew or just get into one. I remember ones like J4F and X-Men.

I never hung out with legitimate taggers but I went out with a girl in high school and we did some volunteer work scraping down a wall that was to going to be used as a permission wall. Anyway, I asked one of the guys why they tag, he went on to say it was art for him and that he only tagged under the CTA and government buildings. From then on I realized that graffiti could be used for art and for protest against opressive elements in society. I also appreciate how tagging has morphed into though provoking street art including stencils, posters, stickers. I understand that there is an ethos or a shared set of beliefs these artists work under.

So, I have some questions whether it be a tagger, artist, design theorist, property owner etc. These are in no particular order.

Is there a heirerachy of value given to a piece of street art that is created?

Can one judge the intent of a piece based on it's form or medium? For example, if I'm just a dumb kid who wants to put my name on a couple of garages for the fun of it, is that legitimate?

What if I wanted to tag over a community mural?

Is gang graffti a legitimate form?

Is street art less about protest and politics and more of a selfish endevor?

Can graffiti ever be considered as a nuisance?

Detroit on My Mind

I first went to Detroit on a college debate team road trip in 1997. I was able realize my dream of going to see one of the old rest belt cities on its death bed. It was my first attempt at anthropological and urban planning tourism, not only seeing the downtown and touristy areas, but inhabiting the neighborhoods, being with residents and living as a true inhabitant would, feeling how the built environment affects locals.

I have an unhealthy attraction to order and disorder. There is beauty in order and poetry in chaos. I especially love the chaos of Detroit and its ruins. From 2 million inhabitants to less than 900,000 the city is now post apocolyptic. Detroit, today, perfectly inhabits the following writing by an unknown poet:



The Splendor of the Ruin

Ruins are a testament to human pride, the fragility of existence and the finite nature of the world.

Urban Tranquility or Anxiety

The combination of visual and music in this clip gives you insight of the feelings evoked in me when I visit a new city or how an urban space can affect one emotionally and psychologically.

koyaanisqatsi - Pruit Igoe

koyaanisqatsi music by philip glass

Welcome to Chicago, Baby.

On Tuesday May 19, at 6:05, my baby was born into this city. Her name is Ava. Her middle name is more of a moniker, Paz de la Ciudad. Ava, Peace of the City. She is beautiful, peaceful, and healthly and I am on top of the world.

Pregnant in Chi-town

Berrrrrwyn

Son of Svengoolie. Good show for cheezy rubber chicken jokes, talking skeletons, and 1950's B- horror movies. Rich Koz a True Chicago, or Berwyn, icon. A True chicago tv show; when you had to turn the first dial to U and the second dial to Channel 32.

4th Annual Keystone Block Clean-up

Hispanic or Latino?

The census workers are out and about. So will I be defined as white, hispanic, latino? I just found out that Latino/Hispanic is not a race. So, according the U.S. government, apparently I am a white hispanic/latino who has Puerto Rican, Ukrainian, maybe Scandanavian blood with a Serbian last name, and to top it all off, I don't culturally identify fully with any of those categories or nationalities. Talk about messed up. Wish the census had a category for Chicagoan, the red, white, and baby blue run thick through my viens.

Suburb in the City

On Saturday I sat with Dave on the sidewalk, in front of my house, right after the annual block clean-up kick-off event. We sat there taking in the beauty of our neighbors' work, watching Liam, Ella, and Izzy run freely on the sidewalk and parkway, Dave sighed and said, " We got it nice over here, my neice and nephew live in a warzone over by Kimball". " You don't get this around here, it's nice because only dose yuppies have nice blocks, family blocks. This is a family block, like the suburbs in the city. " I said it takes a lot of work to maintain this. He said, " Naw, enough people care about their own kids and others; you got people over there, and there, and over there, spread out around the block, people who care."

I've been asked where I might live if I moved from here, I replied that I have daydreamed about living in Galewood, Oak Park, or some other family oriented nieghborhood.

To me, this block isn't the suburbs or utopia,I have seen or lived in those type of places. Here gang-bangers, addicts, hustlers, prostitutes, sexual predators, all pass through and surround this space. But if Dave's neice can sleep on the porch, like she did this Friday night, and my kids can run around (somedays) without fear of falling and getting stuck by a needle, if families can feel a sense of relative peace, then it's worth it to me to stay. I've got my family oriented neighborhood right here and we've got too many connections and growing roots here in this neighborhood, there's too much at stake to stop what we have intentionally been doing here to leave.

588-2300

True Chicago commercial.

Tweet, tweet

I just beat Ashton Kutcher.

Earth Day 2

When I grew up, I didn't think one bit about littering. In fact, one thing that I remember about about my childhood was how dirty Milwaukee Avenue was on the way to the drugstore. I attributed messy streets with city life. Once, when my aunt came from Puerto Rico, I was riding in her car and I threw a soft drink cup out the window, she said "Billy keep Chicago clean", I looked at her in disdain. I continued this practice until I was 24 years old, when I accidentally threw a cup out the window in front of Katie, like the first week dating. Apparently that was'nt normal in her experience. I mean come on, throwing something out the window, leaving a Whopper wrapper on a flower pot, throwing ashes out of a moving vehicle was wrong? Apparently so.
Once I heard Eric and Emily were cleaning their block over on Mozart and Cortland, back in the day; they even picked up an empty purple juice bottle in front of some gangbangers. I was burning with anger, who did Katie, Eric, and Emily think they were acting like some uppity-ups, keeping Chicago clean. Didn't they know True Chicagoans trash their town and like it like that. Nonetheless, slowly, I came around. I am reformed and so what, I do like picking up trash in front of my house and keeping Chicago clean.

Earth Day

Today at school we celebrated by creating a ton of trash from decorating our classroom for the annual International Day Celebration. Schools are the biggest wasters of paper out there. I think my blue bin has gum, styrofoam cups, binders with those little wires, styrofoam lunch trays, and pencil shavings. In addition, I think my janitor throws out my recycling in the regular garbage. Happy Earth Day.

Little Lotto

When I was a kid, my grandma would send me to the cornerstore on Fullerton for milk. Every once in a while she would also send me to buy lottery tickets for my grandpa, sometimes I would get to pick numbers. I would never win, but I always loved guessing the which numbered ball would pop up next.

Green Limousine

I just got my replacement CTA Plus card so that I can ride up Pulaski on rainy days or when I'm lazy. Pulaski is not as exciting as other lines and the busses don't have as much character as they use to. True Chicagoans will remember the green limousine, used until the 90's. That was a classy ride. Cladded in rivited metal panels of sea green and army green; an interior of, I believe, hues of biege, black, and taupe. The essence of a transportation, True Chicago style, "nuttin' to fancy, it just gotta get me to where I'm goin'. "

My Favorite Smells

What a beautiful night, walked out of Facets movie theater on Fullerton. 62 degrees, street crowded with cars, taxis, and j-walking pedestrians. The colors glimmering on the freshly wet asphalt. The smell of a misty spring evening rain. One of my favorite smells.

Here is a list of my other favorite smells: freshly lit cigarette, stale beer in a tavern, hiacynth, the Lincoln Park Conservatory, my son's soft cheeks, coffee roasting from a factory on Elston and Webster, Big Red gum, Cool Water perfume for Women, a newly published book, new carpet, newly painted room, cilantro, dentist's office (cloves), leather, moth balls, wintermint, gasoline, Murphy's Oil, pine trees, pipe smoke.

Best shots of the Trump Tower

New buildings are changing the skyline everyday. The Aqua, The Legacy, 300 N. Lasalle, One Museum Place, and the Trump Tower have changed the skyline forever. The Trump Tower is practically done and it's spire and it's top are tastefully done, the best parts of the tower. I do have a love hate relationship with the tower.
Worst shots of the tower: from the river, Navy Pier, the Kennedy. Best shots of the tower: along the Dan Ryan,heading north from Sox Park, when the road curves west; looking south on Rush street, standing on the platform of the El at Randolph and Wabash.

Best Shot of Chicago

Yesterday I went to the History Fair with my students. After, I turned off 31st street onto some street that is parrallel to the Dan Ryan Expressway and the railroad tracks, trying to get on I-94. I got the best perspective of the Trump Tower (which I hate), in fact taking this road north and getting onto the Dan Ryan,I got the best shot of the skyline,period. The south view of the skyline where the Dan Ryan turns left provides the most nuanced view of the buildings and their interplay with each other than any other perspective I've come across. No picture though, you have to check it out yourself.

32 years old

I know a person that was overweight and went to meet a personal trainer, after much analysis they determined that although he was 28 years old, he had the body of a 38 year old. Over the course of a year and a half, although 30 years old, he had gotten his body to that of a 24 year old. In the past two years I have done the same, lost wieght I mean, but I'm pretty sure I have the body of a 32 year old, because in fact I am 32 years old today, it's my birthday.
I am beginning to notice aches and pains, and a faint wrinkles on my brow and corners of my eyes. I am also noticing that I am sounding and thinking more like an old codger. I am constantly trying to instruct my kid and others about the right way of doing things, I dont want kids on my lawn, I dont like them playing football on the street because they might hit my car, and I complain if the nieghbors if their too loud.
I'll tell you this, I have no idea what these next few years have to hold. I never imaginged life past 25 years old, so I kinda have been on auto pilot. I have a baby girl on the way. I don't have any dreams for myself, my family. Kinda sad. Its time to dream again.

Obama Administration Oversteps It's Boundaries?

The Government forced out the CEO of GM. I don't know, slippery slope, or necessary? Even Mayor Daley was like, Whoa, dude, you passed the line.

Grieving a loss

To me, a tree represents two things, life and permanence. It's always difficult for me to see trees cut down in the city, particularly trees that have taken 50-60 years to mature. No trees have meant more to me than the trees of my old neighborhood at 3312 N.Keystone. There were only five houses on my block and eight mature trees, that isn't counting the leafy roof that lined School Street, the "Lost Boys" crab apple tree in next door apartment building's courtyard, or the bushes you could play hide and seek in, these trees on Keystone formed an impenetrable canopy, a boundary between the sidewalk and the sky. The way a space is organized has an effect on the people that find themselves within that space. I cannot imagine living in a suburban tract housing development without trees, or on a busy street where trees are a nuisence or not allowed to flourish. I owe a great deal of who I am to those formative years playing on my block. The way the urban space happened to be organized, with the trees and the J-shape of the block was serendipitious. The trees created an urban Secret Garden for play.

Today, however, I grieve the loss of the tallest tree on my old block. I rode past the 3300 block of Keystone and found the remains of the tree which my frends and I carved our names. The tree that I carved the names, Caitlin Bryce and Kimberly Brown, my first loves. The tree that quickly came to mind when reading "The Giving Tree" to Liam. All the people and friends from my past on Keystone have gone, the buildings, fences, garages, the names on doorbells are different, but the one thing that gave permanence to my memories, of what it felt like to live on my block, were the trees, and now they are gone too, and so my memories will fade into a mist. And I am reminded of the fragility of life.




If you want to see what I'm talking about go to google maps click on the streetview of 4000 W. School Street go west (straight), turn north(right) onto the 3300 block of Keystone and see for yourself. Just imagine it with at least five more mature trees planted.

Housing Prices have bombed

Last year the average home price in my zip code was $250,000, today it's $60,000. Looks like we're staying in the neighborhood for a little while.

Humboldt Park Needs a Break

Humboldt Park can't win. For thirty years people left the neighborhood or had been stuck here with no means of moving up in the ladder. So it became a struggle to maintain and improve housing and quality of life in the neighborhood for residents. Then, gentrification began pushing west and was threatening the displacement of many longtime residents. So the struggle became one of fighting to remain in a neighborhood through keeping housing affordable. While all the non-profits and community organizations were fighting to create or maintain affordable housing, the sub-prime lenders got so many residents to believe they were ready to own. Bam. The housing foreclosure crisis. So now non-profits organizations are fighting educate residents on how to keep their homes and renegotiate with lenders. My observations has been that more often than not, foreclosure has been the best option for people. Now Humboldt Park is beset with abandoned, boarded up homes; sometimes three or four a block, gentrification has slowed to a crawl, and Humboldt Park is quickly bleeding residents. If you count Hermosa just to the north and West Garfield Park to the south, your looking at one of the most abandoned areas of our city.

Now i understand that I don't have a complete handle on the dynamics of what is going on, but instead of spending so much time trying to get unwilling lenders to renegotiate rates, it may look like we have to take a two pronged approach to save Humboldt Park and other neighborhoods. First housing organizations need to continue to educate and guide troubled homeowners through the process of saving or losing their home. Then non-profits such as Bickerdike, Hispanic Housing, NNNN, LSNA etc. should work on creating affordable housing by buying up all the foreclosed property at below market prices and buying as many "short sales" as they can, rehabbing them, and getting them on the market for an affordable price for new home owners or simply managing the properties as affordable housing for renters. If these organizations are serious about their commitment to the neighborhood, in the long run, and are wanting longtime residents to stick around, this is the opportunity to get more affordable housing under the control of community organizations that seek the betterment of the neighborhood and keep longtime residents in the community. Developers are not snapping up these properties so quick because of the credit crunch and banks unwilling top loan to any developer. Community and housing organizations have connections with other non-profit lending organizations that can work around all the red tape the developers deal with. Gentrification has been weakened in Humboldt Park, this is the break organizations and residents have been waiting for.

City of Big Shoulders Gives Me a Hug

I have been taken back by the good will and honesty that has come my way recently. I get a daily brief of crime in my neighborhood from this site called Everyblock Chicago, I know all of the assualt, knifings, rapes, robberies, drug and prostitution arrests that happen in a one mile radius, everyday. Sometimes you think Chicago's gone crazy.
But three times in the last month our garage has been open hours at a time and nothing has been stolen, nieghbors have kindly watched our stuff or rung our bell to let us know. I lost my wallet on Thursday, with credit cards and a two hundred dollar check. I had been looking everywhere, I even back tracked up and down Belmont Avenue looking for any signs of my wallet. Today, I received an envelope; in it my license, credit cards, and the two hundred dollar check. The envelope had no return address. It's good to be reminded of a little kindness, honesty, thoughtfulness, humbleness, and neighborly love exists in Chicago. I extend thanks and blessings.

Chicago's President

Today My class and I witnessed the historic inaguration of Chicagoan Barack Obama. My class has a bunch of talkers, so naturally I was dreading having to get on thier backs about talking to their friends while the moment passed us by. But, I was impressed with the respect that my kids showed. They clapped everytime someone spoke, they bowed their heads when a pastor prayed, they held their hands over their hearts and sang our national anthem, without me buggin them to do it. I have never seen anything like it before, it's like their understanding of the moment in time brought forth a well of citizenship that has not been tapped in young people for generations. Two of my students gave articulate and passionate assessment of their feelings afterward, one said that it makes him feel like that "maybe in 20 years we'll have a Latino president, or maybe even a Middle Eastern". The other, I'm not joking, welled up giving his summary, " It's amazing, I mean, we're viewing history, nothing ever like this will ever come close to happening like this again."
I myself, am glad to be on this side of history, to collectively rejoice with my students, other , Americans, and world citizens in the new direction our country is heading in. For those of you that read my previous blog about election night, I have lightened up a little. Unlike the night of November 3, where people just seemed fake and the reaction to the win seemed contrived . I am glad today felt like one of genuine joy and excitement.

Today I was inspired by my students optimism; I am inspired by fellow Chicagoans that scrimped and saved to bring generations of their families to Washington D.C, I'm inspired that someone from my block made it to D.C., I am inspired by all the people that lived through the Civil Rights era crying in the crowd, I am inspired by the inaguration speech in which, I felt, Barack was able to express his awarness of his symbolic meaning and America's symbolic meaning, to push our country into the future, by compelling us to look back at our past and reexamine where we have come from and what our forefathers ideals were for democracy, freedom, and liberty. Today, I am proud that our country, has shown that what makes our country, our people great, is that in the name of our ideals we can work to reconcile our countries' moral failures such as slavery, discrimination, economic injustice, intolerance, greed, poverty, wars, selfishness etc. Thanks Barack for leading us into that future.

True Chicagoans Eat Italian Beef

The Italian Beef sanwhich is something , thin slices of roast beef, soaked in juices, topped with Scala giardinera, or sweet peepers. Mmmm. Don't get fooled into going to Mr. Beef on Orleans or Portillo's . The best beef stands are on the Northwest Side. Johnny's, Michael's, Roma's, Jay's, and my number one choice for juicy beef's and fries, Mr. Beef on Harlem. True Chicago.

Barack Obama wins

Everyone will be blogging about this, this evening. I'm tired, it's 2:28 in the morning, and I have to work in a few hours. I will tell you this, I was disappointed with the evening. Not one of the 65,000 people that attended looked like anyone I see and deal with on a regular basis. Lots of self-aware hipsters and cool upper-middle class, educated, pretty people, Ryan and me. Guess this event proves that there really is a technology gap between the rich and the poor.

All the homeless were still trying to get fed, the hustlers were not inspired by the change Obama will bring to America, they were trying to make change by selling Obama t-shirts, hats, and knick-knacks.

I think everyone was just had expectations that this would be our moment to experience in history, where we could say, we were there. That Obama's speech would be Kennedy-esque or a King type " I Have a Dream" speech, but it wasn't. It was just a spiced up stump speech with a few golden nuggets. There wasn't a real organic vibe to the event. If anyone has ever experienced a Bulls Championship celebration or rally, then you know that feeling of this organic wellspring of joy, excitement, and being a part of something bigger than yourself with people from all races and classes. I think the homegenity of the event made it feel subdued, awkward at times, and a feeling of disengenuos excitement. Overall, it felt fake. I expected more from an Obama celebration.

A Coming Out Party: Chicago Republicans

In Chicago, Republican is a bad word. you only find a few on the far Northwest Side and maybe a smattering downtown. This is a one party town, a oligarachy, ruled by powerful Democrats and and perpetuated through patronism. And they keep thier grip because urban dwellers think everything is copasetic with Democrats in power. I guess were not as backwards and closed as those country folk that vote Republican, right?
Last night I snuck into a John McCain party, at a bar, with Angel and Liam. Angel, a staunch Democrat, had to be coerced into coming. I told him he would be spying for the Democratic Party and that there would be free food. I was going for all the free McCain stuff to give out to my students. Liam was along for the ride. It was a boyz nite out.
I love being in a room where everyone thinks you're on the same page, but you're not. Where you get to hear people embarrass themselves and say things they would never say in public. That is what I was hoping for. When we got there, I grabbed as much SWAG as I could. The room was half empty, and there was a feeling like you were part a group shunned by society and now here are others like you and you're letting it all hang out. I saw babies with Palin Power bibs, people with McCain-Palin shirts, and some othere interesting sights. I could not believe how many old people there were and how many men where trying to pull off bow ties and red suspenders. I guess they were going for the Michael Douglas, Wall Street, look.
Time went on, we ate, watched the Sox lose and we didn't notice any Republican big wigs, until Tony Perica ( running for States Attorney) and Jim Durkin ( he runs McCain's campaign in Illinois) began speaking. These guys were passionate as only any underdog can be. They know how defeating it is to be a Republican in this town, but I was struck by Tony Perica's description of what it would do to Chicago politics by having a Republican as State's Attorney. He said he has the power of supoena and would be going after all the Strogers and Daleys of Chicago and Cook County. As much as I love Obama and am excited about his message of change, a Republican elected to any municipal or cook county office would be more in line with his message than the same old sleeping at the wheel, voting for your party, expectations in Chicagoland.

True Chicagoans Use Double-Negatives

Any study in linguistics will argue that there is no such thing as improper english. In that light of this, I present to you the following True Chicago double negatives:

I'm not gunna do dat no, not now, not ever.

Ain't nobody gunna tell me not to do dat.

I don't want nothin to do wit you.

... And the most famous double negative in Chicago history.... "Chicago ain't no sissy town" by "Hinky Dink" Kenna, the 1st Ward alderman ( 1897-1923) and "Lord of the Levee district".