Chicago Community Area #18 - Montclare

Tonight I rode straight out on Armitage until it turned into Grand, out to Montclare. Montclare is on the western edge of the city, so Grand Avenue is sort of a gateway into Chicago. Hence there are pillars on both sides of the street which welcome people entering the city from west at Grand and Harlem. The pillars carry the Y-shaped symbol of Chicago, its four traditional stars and the motto "I will". Until today, I wasn't aware that "I Will" is one of Chicago's mottos. I only knew about "Urbs in Horto" - City in a Garden. The Chicago Public Library has a web page where they explain the symbolism behind the official Chicago city flag. Each of the six points on the four stars has symbolism. One of the points on the fourth star symbolizes the "I Will" motto. Another one of the points symbolizes the city's Latin motto (Urbs in Horto). Mayor Daley at one time entertained the idea of changing the city motto to "City of Children", evoking much discussion and debate.

Being on the edge of the city, Montclare is a relatively quiet neighborhood, primarily residential, and the local "downtown" area has a distinctive small town flavor. Further east, the car dealships bring you back to the reality of the city with their bright lights.

Chicago Community Area #34 - Armour Square

After fixing my flat and stopping at the 31st Street beachhouse, I headed up the lakefront path to 18th Street, just south of Soldier Field. The path from the lakefront to the 18th Street overpass wasn't marked at all, but I followed a couple of bikers who looked like the knew where they were going and eventually found it.

I stopped at Battle of Fort Dearbourn park (in the Near South Side community area) which had just been renamed, formerly Fort Dearbourn Massacre park, the day before. The park, located at 18th and Calumet, commemorates the battle between the Native Americans and the soldiers and settlers of Fort Dearbourn as the latter were fleeing the fort which was located in present-day downtown Chicago near Michigan and Wacker.

Continuing west on 18th to Wentworth, I entered Armour Square, better known as Chinatown. I avoided the main drag on Archer Avenue and on Wentworth south of 22nd (Cermak), and I headed straight for my favorite spot in Chinatown - Ping Tom Park. You will probably never find this park unless you know that it's there and you're looking for it. It's tucked in behind some townhouses on 19th. From 18th and Wentworth, go one block south to 19th. Turn right on 19th and go about a block west. When 19th ends at Tan Ct, veer right along a path over two railroad tracks. You'll see the Chinese-style pavilion along the river in the park. The park also includes a children's playground and a beautiful walking path.

The park is named for a Chinese businessman, Mr. Ping Tom, who worked on behalf of the Chicago Chinese community. Mr. Tom served as a trustee for a number of important civic and cultural institutions and was an advisor to US Senators, Illinois Governors and Chicago Mayors.

Chicago Community Area #36 - Oakland

I continued eastward on 47th to Drexel Blvd which is in the Kenwood neighborhood, but I didn't stop or take any photos in Kenwood on this day. Turning north on Drexel Blvd, I rode north into Oakland, a small community along the lakefront from 35th to 43rd. There's a small Chicago Landmark neighborhood in Oakland but it took me a while to find the houses I was looking for on 4100 block of S Berkeley. It started raining fairly hard and I took cover along the old railroad embankment along 41st Street. This embankment once held the Kenwood line of the Chicago L, but it was abandoned in 1957. The side of the embankment along Drexel has been painted with a strongly-themed mural.

While I was tooling around looking for 4100 Berkeley, I found a marker commemorating the place where Hannah Greenebaum Solomon lived at 4060 S. Lake Park Avenue. Ms. Greenebaum was a social reformer who lived from 1858-1942. She was the founder of the National Council of Jewish Women. She worked on behalf of Jane Addams's Hull House (which I intentionally passed on my way home) and she represented the United States at the Internation Council of Women in Berlin in 1904. The other representative was Susan B. Anthony. Being fluent in French and German, Greenebaum translated for Anthony at the conference.

I finally found the 4100 block of S Berkeley and found several homes designed by Cicero Hines. They all have a distinctive cottage feeling and several of them have been rehabbed nicely. I can't decide if the house in the photo I took is the same as the one in this photo. In Black on the Block, Mary Pattillo quotes an 1887 Chicago Inter Ocean newspaper:

Eleven Berkeley cottages on Berkeley avenue between 41st and 42nd streets. Some of them are built partially of stone and others entirely of stone. The houses embody in a marked degree the elements of the attractive and popular along with the economical and substantial.... Throughout, the Queen Anne architecture of all these houses is as attractive as it is diversified.

Pattillo continues and writes:

Despite the modest size and charm of these cottages, the owners were principals in law firms, presidents of corporations, and high-ranking officials. Such distinguished Chicagoans lived throughout North Kenwood and Oakland at the end of the nineteenth century.

Unfortunately, on my way north out of Oakland, I hit something hard with my back tire and ended up with a flat tire around 37th and Cottage Grove. I walked the bike to 35th and crossed the bridge over the railroad and Lake Shore Drive to the east over to the Lakefront Path. I changed the tube there and just as I was finishing up, it back pouring rain again. I took cover at the 31st Street beach house. The rain didn't last long so I was on my way again relatively quickly.

Chicago Community Area #38 - Grand Boulevard

The fourth new neighborhood on Sunday's ride was Grand Boulevard. The neighborhood gets its name from the street that was originally named Grand Boulevard and is now called Martin Luther King Drive. In between those two names, it was known as South Parkway Boulevard. There are several street signs that indicate taht Grand Boulevard was a center of development and performance of the Blues musical genre. The most striking memorial to the Blues is at the corner of 47th and King Drive where there are 4 statues on tall pedestals depicting musicians (trumpet, sax and guitar) and a soloist belting out their blues.

The same corner is the home of the Harold Washington Cultural Center, with a life-sized statue of Chicago's first black mayor in front. The center has unfortunately been involved in some local controversy and was the subject of a probe by the Lakefront Outlook newspaper.

Chicago Community Area #37 - Fuller Park

Fuller Park is a thin strip of a neighborhood wedged between the train tracks and the Dan Ryan expressway from 39th to 55th. I rode through on 47th, stopping at Fuller Park (the park itself) on 46th and Princeton. Unfortunately, Fuller Park is in economic decline and has been suffering since the Union Stock Yards shut down in the 1950s.

Although I knew it was a depressed and depressing area, when I looked up Fuller Park in the Encyclopedia of Chicago, I was shocked to learn the following:

• Since 1969, no new housing, public or private, has been built in the community.
• In the same period, only 12 permits for commercial development were granted by the city.
• During the 1980s, Fuller Park received fewer bank loans for home improvement purposes than any neighborhood in Chicago.
• The poverty rate is over 40 percent and single mothers head a large number of families.

Despite these hardships, I sensed a feeling of positive attitude among the people who I saw dressed up and going to church on the day I visited.

Chicago Community Area #61 - New City

After passing through Bridgeport on my way south on Halsted, I came to New City which is best known as the home of the Union Stock Yards at 4100 south (Exchange Ave). The stockyards were made famous in Upton Sinclair's novel "The Jungle". The stockyards were established in 1865 and reached their peak in early-mid 1900s, but eventually became less important as the slaughtering industry became decentralized. The stockyards closed in 1971. The former stockyards area is now an industrial park, but the original old stone gate still stands. There are many interesting articles on the web about the stockyards. Here's one.

Less well known than the old stone gate to the stockyards is the memorial to fallen firefighters which stands directly behind (west of) it. The memorial commemorates the lives of 21 firefighters who were killed while battling a blaze in the stockyards on December 22, 1910. According to this article, the Union Stock Yards fire ranks behind the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and the 1947 Texas City Disaster as the third largest loss of firefighters in a single event in US History.

Continuing south on Halsted to 47th and then east on 47th, I was shocked to find a mountain of J. B. Hunt truck/train trailers at 47th and Normal, just west of the train tracks.

Chicago Community Area #31 - Lower West Side

Sunday's ride took me through several near west and south neighborhoods. I started by heading straight south on Halsted down to 1600 south into the Lower West Side which is better known as Pilsen. "Lower West Side" sounds like some place in Manhattan. I've never heard anyone here refer to it by that name.

Pilsen is an important Mexican-American community, but started out as a Czech neighborhood and is named after a city in the Czech Republic: Plzeň. The community is well-known for the many murals that are painted on the 16th street railroad embankment and on the sides of buildings throughout the area. Some of the murals depicts Eurpean scenes and reflect the Slavik origins of the neighborhood, others have a distinct Mexican/Aztec motif. Unfortunately, many of the beautiful murals are showing heavy signs of weathering.

After checking out the murals on 16th all the way down to Blue Island, I went down to one of the main commercial streets, 18th St, to return back to Halsted. At 1125 West 18th, I spotted a strange inscription over a door way: "Morticians" written in pseudo Chinese lettering. There didn't seem to be any mortician studios in the immediate vicinity and a quick Internet search was not fruitful.

[Edit 8/20/09: I was able to turn up this old photo of the Mortician's building in "better days". If you ask me, I think it looks better now.]