Author: Bridget Newsham

Housing | Pilsen

The Fight to Stay

An innovative new housing cooperative may be a solution for residents to combat Pilsen’s gentrification

by 2 months ago

Renee Rolewicz

Raquel Garcia, her husband, and their four-year old daughter moved to Pilsen in 2012 to be closer to their jobs at local elementary schools. They were in search of an affordable place to live, but more importantly, a place they could put down roots and be surrounded by a like-minded community. “This is the first time we have stayed anywhere for more than two or three years…I had moved around the city so much growing up,” she said in an interview. “Coming to Pilsen, for the first time, I felt in community. It’s been like coming home.”

Music

Creating As She Goes

Tatiana Hazel's fearless, magnetic music

by 5 months ago

Renee Rolewicz

When Tatiana Hazel uploaded her first singles to YouTube at the ripe old age of thirteen, it was clear she was destined for big things. With a very mid-2000s side sweep and original songs about first loves and first heartbreaks, Hazel expressed with grace and confidence what most of us only wish we could have during our teen years. In time, her style and subject matter drew in thousands of views, springboarding her career and encouraging her to pursue music on a more serious level.

Development | Features | Housing Issue 2018 | Pilsen | Politics

Who Pulls the Strings on the PLUC?

Pilsen’s Land Use Committee draws heat for cozy relationship with its alderman

by 7 months ago 1 Comment

Ellen Hao

They don’t want to give agendas to the community. They don’t want to give us anything,” reflected Anderson Chávez, a youth organizer with the Pilsen Alliance. The “they” Chávez was referring to is the Pilsen Land Use Committee (PLUC), an advisory committee set up by Alderman Daniel Solis (25th) to advise him on large-scale developments seeking a home in Pilsen. PLUC is intended to represent the community voice in decision making and uphold an only-in-Pilsen mandate of twenty-one percent affordable housing in all new developments over eight units. The committee is comprised of executives from four local nonprofits: The Resurrection Project, Alivio Medical Center, Eighteenth Street Development Corporation, and the Pilsen Neighbors Community Council.

Education | Englewood

Steering Englewood’s Schools

Committee members face challenges and doubts in planning new school

by 8 months ago

L-R: Craig Lynch, Asiaha Butler, and John McKenzie (Katie Hill)

Last June, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) announced their plan to construct a new high school in Englewood, slated to be built on the grounds of what is currently Robeson High School. The new school is yet another component of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “holistic” strategy to reduce crime in Englewood by investing in the neighborhood’s businesses and schools. “Investing in our education, our after-school and summer jobs…is important to our safety and [the] vibrancy of the community,” Emanuel said.

Visual Arts

Art on the Block

Ward residents build public arts projects in Chicago’s 50x50 project

by 11 months ago

Woodlawn Mural (Courtesy of the Green Star Movement)

Chicago is one of the cultural powerhouses of the world,” muses Mark Kelly, the newly appointed Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. “We have thousands of great artists and so we need to support our artists, we need to value our artists and then…they can…make our city a better place by bringing their art onto the streets.” Kelly is referring to the 50×50 Neighborhood Project, a Year of Public Art initiative announced by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in late 2016 to install public art in every ward in Chicago in 2017.

Art | Nature | Science

From Gizzard to Garden

Andrew Yang creates art with seeds from birds that meet an untimely fate

by 2 years ago

"Two Vehicles" by Andrew Yang (2016)

The Pheidole morrisi is a species of ant whose existence in New York’s Long Island tends to be confined to the area under power lines. The limitation of this animal life to fragments of land that happen to be spared death-by-concrete struck Andrew Yang, an associate professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), as quite poignant. In urban environments, we now look for and find wildness only in spaces that have been specifically designated for nonhuman purposes.

History | Housing | Lit

Home Histories: Lorraine Hansberry Home

by 2 years ago

Natalie Gonzalez

The Lorraine Hansberry House in northwest Woodlawn is unremarkable in appearance. Its brown brick walls and minimal adornments mimic thousands of other brick three-flats built in Chicago throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its outward appearance is transformed, however, when one learns that many of Hansberry’s experiences growing up in this house served as the inspiration behind her canonical play A Raisin in the Sun—a fictionalized reflection of her parent’s fight against housing discrimination in this very home.