I headed out to West Garfield Park yesterday. It's one of the smaller community areas on the far west side of the city. On a warm summer day around noon, the Madison St commercial district, between Hamlin and Pulaski, was bustling. Not particularly inviting, but it was bustling with people. This intersection of Madison and Pulaski was the site of urban riots in the 1960s,
particularly in 1968, and although there are many shops on this strip today, it has never fully recovered.
According to the
Encyclopedia of Chicago, this commercial district started developing after 1914. At that time, Pulaski Ave was known as Crawford Street. In 1933, Mayor Ed Kelly tried to have Crawford renamed after Casimir Pulaski, a Polish-born American Revolutionary War Hero, in order to gain favor with Chicago's large Polish community. Business owners in the area protested the name change. The protests continued, lawsuits were filed, and injunctions were issued until the Illinois Supreme Court finally ruled in favor of the name change in 1952. As you can see from the photo, some owners still refuse to change their signage.
I headed out to West Garfield Park yesterday. It's one of the smaller community areas on the far west side of the city. On a warm summer day around noon, the Madison St commercial district, between Hamlin and Pulaski, was bustling. Not particularly inviting, but it was bustling with people. This intersection of Madison and Pulaski was the site of urban riots in the 1960s, particularly in 1968, and although there are many shops on this strip today, it has never fully recovered.
According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago, this commercial district started developing after 1914. At that time, Pulaski Ave was known as Crawford Street. In 1933, Mayor Ed Kelly tried to have Crawford renamed after Casimir Pulaski, a Polish-born American Revolutionary War Hero, in order to gain favor with Chicago's large Polish community. Business owners in the area protested the name change. The protests continued, lawsuits were filed, and injunctions were issued until the Illinois Supreme Court finally ruled in favor of the name change in 1952. As you can see from the photo, some owners still refuse to change their signage.
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