Author: South Side Weekly

Robeson Issue

The Robeson Issue

by 2 weeks ago

In February 2018, the Chicago Board of Education voted to close Englewood’s remaining four neighborhood high schools. Three of them would be dissolved over the next three years, but Paul Robeson High School, which opened in 1977, would be demolished in the summer of 2018, and in its place, a new high school built. The New Englewood STEM High School will open its doors to Englewood freshmen this fall.

Housing Issue 2019

The Housing Issue 2019

by 1 month ago

Siena Fite

A little over two weeks ago, a group of tenants and activists gathered outside the Germano Millgate Housing Complex, at the corner of 89th and Burley, to protest the living conditions inside. A union organizer brought along Scabby, the inflatable seven-foot rat with beady red eyes used to shame workers who cross the picket line during a strike. That day, Scabby was doing double-duty as stand-in for Anthony Fusco, owner of Germano Millgate and object of the tenants’ ire. They said Fusco had failed to maintain basic standards of living. Black mold was growing in the bathrooms. Tenants would buy new clothes to replace the ones rats and mice chewed through and strip the beds every morning to stop the same thing from happening to their sheets.

Arts Issue 2019

The Arts Issue 2019

by 2 months ago

Andrea Coleman

There’s nothing quite like spring in Chicago. Since at least November, there’s hardly been a day when it was not miserable to be outside for any period of time. When the sunset finally moves past 5pm, the temperature climbs into the fifties, and the year’s first dandelions bloom across the city, Chicagoans emerge from their cocoons too. There are more people outside, walking, playing in parks. It’s like the city is itself something that wakes up and stretches out, ready to do things and go places again.