Maxwell Street
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| This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (January 2007) |
| Maxwell Street | |
| 1330 South | |
| Direction: | East-West |
|---|---|
| Major cities: | Chicago |
Maxwell Street is an east-west street in Chicago, Illinois that intersects with Halsted Street just south of Roosevelt Road. It runs at 1330 South in the numbering system running from 500 West to 1126 West.[1] The Maxwell Street neighborhood is considered part of the Near West Side and is one of the city's oldest residential districts. It is notable as the location of the celebrated Maxwell Street Market and the birthplace of Chicago Blues and the "Maxwell Street Polish (sausage sandwich)." A large portion of the area is now the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), as well as a new private housing development sponsored by the university.
[edit] History
Maxwell Street first appears on a Chicago map in 1847. It was named for Dr. Philip Maxwell, an early settler. It was originally a wooden plank road that ran from the south branch of the Chicago River west to Blue Island Street. The earliest housing there was built by and for Irish immigrants who were brought to Chicago to construct the first railroads there. It continued to be a "gateway" neighborhood for immigrants, including Greeks, Bohemians, Russians, Germans and Italians.
Hull House, the largest and most famous of the 19th century settlement houses, established by Jane Addams, began here. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 started only a few blocks away but burned north and east, sparing Maxwell Street and the rest of the Near West Side.
Just north of the Maxwell Street neighborhood were the city's historic Greek and Italian communities, only remnants of which remain. Pilsen, the neighborhood to the south, was originally Bohemian (i.e., Czech) and today is Mexican.
Beginning in the 1880s, "Russian" (i.e., Eastern European) Jews became the dominant ethnic group in the Maxwell Street neighborhood, which remained predominantly Jewish until the 1920s. This was the heyday of the open-air pushcart market for which the neighborhood is most famous.
After 1920, most of the residents were African-Americans from the Mississippi Delta, who came in the Great Migration (African American), but most of the businesses continued to be Jewish-owned. In the 1980s and 1990s, both the neighborhood and market became predominantly Mexican-American.
During the period when the neighborhood was predominantly Black, and especially in the decades following World War II, it became famous for its street musicians, mostly performing Blues, but also Gospel and other styles.
The street itself began to shrink in 1926 when the Chicago River was straightened and new railroad tracks on its west bank pushed the eastern end of Maxwell Street further west. The 1957 construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway cut Maxwell Street in two and pushed the market west of Union Street. In 1967, UIC started to expand south of Roosevelt Road, into the Maxwell Street neighborhood. A few years later, a subsidized housing development called the Barbara Jean Wright Courts Apartments chopped off Maxwell's western end at Morgan Street.
[edit] The Maxwell Street Market
During and after the period of Jewish predominance, the area was colloquially known as "Jew Town." Although there were many fine stationary department stores located there, the area's most notable feature was its open air market, which was the precursor to the flea market scene in Chicago. One could almost buy anything there, legal and illegal. The old Chicago Police Academy on O'Brien Street was adjacent to it.
In need of jobs and quick cash, fledgling entrepreneurs came to Maxwell Street – many say it was the largest open-air market in the country – to earn their livelihood. From clothes, to produce, to cars, appliances, tools, and virtually anything anyone might want, Maxwell Street offered discount items to consumers and was an economic hub for poor people looking to get ahead. This milieu of culture and ethnicity was a distinctly American phenomenon. Maxwell Street has been called the Ellis Island of the Midwest.
In 1994, the Maxwell Street Market was moved by the City of Chicago to accommodate expansion of the University of Illinois at Chicago. It was relocated a few blocks east to Canal Street. Since the move, it is sometimes called the New Maxwell Street Market. The market moved again in September, 2007, to nearby Desplaines Street, north of Roosevelt Road. The City of Chicago is referring to this as the market's "permanent home."[2]
Emmy Award nominated Producer, Phil Ranstrom, created "Cheat You Fair: The Story of Maxwell Street" [3]
