East Garfield Park

There are neighborhoods in Chicago I don’t feel comfortable walking without guidance. The biggest issue is crime. Will I be safe? The answers are difficult to find, despite diligent online research.

Googling “Chicago’s worst neighborhoods” yields interesting results. A lot of the answers, particularly in forums, tends to reflect perceptions rather than actual statistics. Tourists worry more about being mugged in a very poor neighborhood, when they should be aware that garden variety pick pockets tend to congregate where the action is—tourist hot spots, particularly when late night bar hopping is added to the mix.

Searching online some neighborhoods, like Auburn Gresham, North Lawndale, and Washington Park, tend to show up consistently on “bottom” lists. East Garfield Park, while suffering from higher than average city crime rates, isn’t a shoo in for a “worst 10” neighborhood. The numbers vary. The discussion forums are a different matter. The comments constantly warn against visiting.

While I wouldn’t advise walking unfamiliar neighborhoods alone at night anywhere, tourists and many Chicagoans seem unfairly prejudiced against East Garfield Park even during the day. Getting off the green line at the Conservatory L train stop leads directly to one of the most impressive conservatories in the country. I like it better than Lincoln Park and it has more family-friendly areas. There just isn’t much to do beyond the park.

I crossed paths on social media with Dr. Peter T. Alter, Historian and Director of the Studs Terkel Center of Oral History at the Chicago History Museum. He was in the process of helping raise money for "Forty Blocks:The East Garfield Park Oral History Project.” It would train students from Breakthrough Ministries' Art and Science Academy to interview local residents about the neighborhood.

I have been asked why I don’t document neighborhoods more thoroughly when I visit, particularly the people. The answer is it would require resources like the Forty Blocks project—dozens of committed people, funding, and many hours of work per neighborhood. It takes an entire team.

What Chicago really needs is a Forty Blocks type project in every neighborhood of the city, hopefully produced by the people who live there. I am a tourist of the city taking snap shots of the architecture, capturing a particular place and time.

Alter suggested lunch at the Inspiration Kitchen, located near the conservatory. I had chicken and waffles with an egg, creole mustard, and cayenne syrup. Coming from the spicy Southwest I found the sauces mild but good. Alter had a catfish PoBoy.

I’m always hesitant to walk through a new neighborhood with someone I don’t know. Luckily, Alter has experience working with media and film crews. He was already trained to stay out of the way of my camera view. Beforehand, I realized it was kind of rude of me to suggest he show me around, then only pay half attention to what he was saying as I became engrossed in photography. I was able to solve the issue by getting some video clips of his tour.

In hindsight, I was glad he was there. I didn’t always understand what I was seeing. East Garfield Park is a once prosperous area that has declined dramatically from the 1950s. More than two-thirds of the residents have left. The area is Chicago’s own piece of the Midwestern rust belt. I felt like I was looking at Detroit.

Alter explained Chicago had two major periods of riots in 1968. The summer riots of the Democratic convention are well known. But earlier that year, in April, riots broke out across the city after the assignation of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While King lived in Chicago he was based in the neighborhood just south of the train tracks, in Lawndale. Historically, the area was one of the first places in the western part of the city to be settled by blacks leaving the South Side after World War II.

During the April riots a significant number of homes and businesses burned in Lawndale and some surrounding areas. They were never rebuilt. The empty lots we were seeing in East Garfield Park weren’t just due to the recent housing crisis. There had been a mass exodus of factories, businesses and jobs since mid century.

During the last housing boom there was a lot of speculation about East Garfield Park gentrifying. It’s close to downtown and has good public transportation. Looking around I had to wonder—gentrify what? So much of the neighborhood is simply gone. It’s not going to be the work of fix-and-flippers or hipsters.

If the neighborhood is going to change it would take an effort like the Chicago Housing Authority in Bronzeville, transforming large blocks at a time with mixed income housing, or the South Loop, where developers are inserting large luxury projects. Even then, both of the aforementioned communities lack significant business development.

Walking around I thought I saw signs of new commercial investment in the neighborhood. I pointed out a great little grocery store. Alter explained no, it was actually a food pantry run by Breakthrough urban ministries. Ditto for the gym, child care and health center. Our lunch restaurant was likewise a social service. Almost no commercial businesses exist in the area. We did pass an urban farm with a B & B nearby.

Residents have few services. Our tour was in early March. Several times we resorted to walking in the street because sidewalks were coated in sheets of ice. They wouldn’t be cleared until they melted. The situation is particularly difficult for the elderly. When I later looked online I was surprised at how high the neighborhood rents are given the condition of the area.

We ended the tour by walking down the once grand West Washington Boulevard. Some of the old mansions remain. To the west it terminates at the extraordinary Garfield Park field house owned by the city park district. Parting ways with Alter I explored the incredible marble and metal work inside. It’s one of Chicago’s relatively unknown architectural treasures, at what was once one of the country’s grandest parks, in what was one of the finer neighborhoods.