Chatham

Chatham | Environment | Housing Issue 2019

Urban Flooding by the Numbers

Chicago has an urban flooding problem, and Chatham sits at its heart

by 3 months ago 1 Comment

Sofie Lie

Chicago has an urban flooding problem. The latest report on this issue, released by the Environmental Law & Policy Center and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in March, found that climate change in the Great Lakes will result in an increase in “extreme precipitation,” heavy rainfalls that are more likely to lead to flooding. This report is only the latest in a series that have sought to quantify the problem of urban flooding in Chicago, and its disproportionate impact on the South Side. In the wake of this report’s release, the Weekly went through literature on urban flooding, and pulled out the most important numbers that describe the problem.

Avalon Park | Best of the South Side 2017 | Chatham | Greater Grand Crossing

Best of Chatham, Avalon Park, & Greater Grand Crossing 2017

by 2 years ago 2 Comments

Jason Schumer

I’ve lived in Chatham since the fifties. My aunt and uncle were one of the first African American couples who lived here. It was an all-white area at the time. Within two years, white flight took place. African American middle class professionals moved here. Doctors. Policemen. Judges. Politicians. Dentists.

Best of the South Side 2015 | Chatham | Greater Grand Crossing

Best of Chatham & Greater Grand Crossing 2015

by 4 years ago

Luke White

The first thing you might notice is the lawns: carefully manicured, they bring to mind a preserved vision of the ideal American suburb of the 1950s. It’s not an accident. Block clubs in Chatham maintain a genial atmosphere and preserve a long-standing community within the neighborhood. It’s a feel that neighborhood citizens work hard to preserve in a time when the families of Chatham have begun greeting newcomers, renters, and unaffiliated buyers who nevertheless want to be a part of what is one of the most tight-knit communities in the South Side.

Chatham | Music

Call It Soul-Pop

Nola Adé takes the stage

by 4 years ago 1 Comment

Soul singer and Chatham native Nola Adé doesn’t like to box herself in. When we sat down to talk, she had just performed a sold-out opening show at Hyde Park’s Promontory. “I grew up just listening to the voice of Ella Fitzgerald,” she told me. “I’ve always loved her voice, but some of my influences go from Lauryn Hill to Asa—she’s a Nigerian artist—to Amy Winehouse—I do so many of her covers—to Mali Music, one of my favorite artists today. And I still have some traditional Afrobeat artists that I really love too.” Continue reading →

Best of the South Side 2014 | Chatham

Chatham

by 5 years ago 1 Comment

LUKE WHITE

Lanisha Byron steps out of Target and into the early evening on 86th Street and South Cottage Grove Avenue, laden with bags of back-to-school supplies and worry etched into her face. “All I’m saying is that if he doesn’t do his homework on time this year, there’s gonna be consequences,” she laughs. Cottage Grove is busy at this time of day—with places like the strip mall here, Walgreens down the road, and a multitude of local businesses, it’s been one of Chatham’s commercial lifelines since the early 1940s. Even along relatively quiet stretches, Byron passes by people who greet her cheerfully on the sidewalk—the smiling men outside the neighborhood mosque, mechanics taking a break outside the auto shop, and Houston Myers, her neighbor and a resident of Chatham for three years. Continue reading →

Chatham | Interviews | Music | South Shore

Return of the Student

Jazz musician Marquis Hill plays for the hometown crowd

by 5 years ago

MarquisHill

Trumpeter Marquis Hill, originally from Chatham, returned to the South Side two weeks ago for a show at the House of Bing in South Shore, and also played at WHPK’s annual Black History Month concert last Saturday at the University of Chicago’s International House. Continue reading →