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.