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Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Change, and Lack Thereof

posted by on November 4 at 17:57 PM

North from Hyde Park to Bronzeville, then Bridgeport. The streets are mostly empty. I suspect most people are either at home watching the results, at bars, or downtown already.

Bronzeville was the section of Chicago where Barack Obama, had he been born two generations sooner, would have been forced to live, probably in horrific slum conditions. It’s mostly been obliterated, first by the construction of Public Housing in the ’50s to ’70s, now by the stirrings of gentrification. It’s telling that the part of Bronzeville known as “The Gap” is the portion which was NOT bulldozed by either Michael Reese Hospital, IIT, or the CHA. Waiting for the light at 31st and King Drive, a middle-class black couple in a spotless new minivan, sporting Obama baseball caps, and I discussed how safe the streets of Chicago are tonight, with cops at every major intersection and traffic control cops everywhere else. I said it should be so safe all the time, and they laughed and headed off to the rally. I continued west and then south, into Bridgeport.

Bridgeport is the home of Chicago’s political power, has been for nearly a century. I rode towards 3536 S. Lowe, the bungalow where the current Mayor Daley was raised by his father, Richard J. Daley. I thought about whether things have changed that much in the home of The Hamburg Social and Athletic Club, the quasi-street gang where Daley cut his political chops, and which was at the front of the 1919 Race Riots in Chicago. Less than a decade ago, a young man was beaten almost to death for the simple crime of being a black kid west of the Dan Ryan Expressway. I thought about stopping in Schaller’s Pump—which some say is the real headquarters of the Cook County Democratic Party—but it looked packed, and I doubt it has wifi. Instead, I’m at the Richard J. Daley branch of the Chicago Public Library.

Is this neighborhood ready for an African-American President?

Who knows. I did see something on the street that would not have happened in the old man’s time: two teenage girls, one white and one black, walking along together talking, down 36th between Wallace and Lowe, then north on Halsted. Hope? Maybe.

RSS icon Comments

1

zhou brother's cafe at 35th and morgan has free wifi and decent beer on tap.

Posted by iheartbeer | November 4, 2008 6:08 PM
2

zhou brother's cafe at 35th and morgan has free wifi and decent beer on tap.

Posted by iheartbeer | November 4, 2008 6:08 PM
3

WTF?

The entire Daley machine has been working its ass off for Obama for about 2 years.

Um, yes, have some hope already. They can't pay more precious coin than that!

Posted by PC | November 4, 2008 6:17 PM
4

@1 and 2: Thanks, but gotta keep moving. Next, Chinatown and then Pilsen, Greek Town, maybe West Town.

Posted by Chicago Fan | November 4, 2008 6:17 PM
5

Whatever, it's nothing new that a white and black girl are walking through the hood. No one is going to flip their shit in Bridgeport if a black man is president. I don't know what this person is thinking.

Posted by J | November 4, 2008 6:21 PM
6

@3: The current Daley Machine is not the Machine of his father. That splintered into pieces with the election of first Jane Byrne and then Harold Washington. Daley himself is behind Obama totally, but this neighborhood is still profoundly racist, and if the Bradley effect lives anywhere, it is here. And the current machine needs to do nothing for Obama; he had the state locked up all along, so it was beside the point.

Posted by Chicago Fan | November 4, 2008 6:23 PM
7

@ J: google "Lenard Clark" and see what you learn about this neighborhood. Chicago is still a segregated, racist town. In 1930, exactly ONE African-American lived in Bridgeport. IN the 2000 census, out of a total population of over 33,000, there were 397 blacks. Racist fucking neighborhood, live with it.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/165.html

Posted by Chicago Fan | November 4, 2008 6:27 PM
8

I work in Bridgeport and most of my coworkers live in or are from the neighborhood - Chicago Fan is right, there is still plenty of racism going on in the area. The neighborhood is mostly integrated but it does not mean that anyone likes it. I have walked into neighborhood bars with African American coworkers and there was no doubt that it would be preferable if we left. I go to the same bars with white folks and felt totally comfortable.

My next recommendation would be Jak's Tap, west of the loop but I don't know if they have wifi. Killer beer selection, though.

Posted by iheartbeer | November 4, 2008 6:31 PM
9

Just and FYI in case you care but I was able to take a small piece of mom with me to vote. a ring and a jacket and she was with my in the polling both. Hope I made her proud. And if I was in the city of Chicago I could of placed a vote for her too!! lol

Posted by Laura | November 4, 2008 7:07 PM

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