Maxwell Street Totally Explained

Everything about Maxwell Street totally explained

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. 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.

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, Italians, African-Americans and Mexicans. Hull House, the largest and most famous of the 19th century settlement houses, established by Jane Addams, began here to help immigrants transition to their lives in Chicago. 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.
   A few blocks north of the Maxwell Street neighborhood are the city's historic Greek and Italian communities. Taylor Street is Chicago's Little Italy and one can still find Italian style cuisine, pastries, and lemonade. Pilsen, the neighborhood to the south, was originally Bohemian (for example, Czech) and today is Mexican.
   The neighborhood's historic church is St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis has evolved through the years with the surrounding community. It originally started as German Catholic, then Italian, and now Mexican with almost all of the masses in Spanish. --
   Beginning in the 1880s, "Russian" (for example, 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.

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's sometimes called the New Maxwell Street Market.
   Emmy Award nominated Producer, Phil Ranstrom, created "Cheat You Fair: The Story of Maxwell Street" over twelve years, and it's narrated by actor and former Chicagoan, Joe Mantegna. Regarded as the most comprehensive of all films made about the legendary Maxwell Street, this documentary was first shown at the Chicago International Documentary Festival in April, 2007. "Cheat You Fair" examines the history of the market, the development of the electric, urban blues, and the gentrification that happened in the Maxwell Street neighborhood. Currently, the documentary is being shown at film fesivals and universities. More information can be found at www.cheatyoufairthemovie.com. A derivative, short film was also created by Ranstrom called "Electrified: The Story of the Electric, Urban Blues", which will premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Blues on Maxwell Street

In the 1930’s & 40’s, when many black musicians came to Chicago from the segregated South, they brought with them outdoor music.
   But when the early blues musicians began playing in the streets of Maxwell – the place where they could be heard by the greatest number of people -- they realized they needed either a louder than standard Resonator guitar (for example Arvella Gray) or amplifiers and electrical instruments (for example Jim Brewer) in order to be heard. Over many decades, the use of these new instruments, and the interaction between established city musicians such as Big Bill Broonzy and new arrivals from the South, produced a new musical genre – electrified, urban blues, later coined The Chicago Blues.
   This amplified, new sound was different from the acoustic, country blues, which was played in the South. It was popularized by blues giants such as Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Bo Diddley and Howlin Wolf, and evolved into rock & roll.
   The genesis of this new Blues has been explained as a synthesis of Jewish and African-American influences. Economic decline in the American South after World War I caused many Delta blues and jazz musicians-- notably Louis Armstrong-- to migrate north to Chicago. The first economically secure class willing to help them was the mostly Jewish merchants of the area around Maxwell Street, who by that time were able to rent or own a store building. These merchants encouraged blues players to set up near their storefronts and provided them with electric extension cords to run the new high tech instruments. Shoppers lured by the chance to hear blues music could be grabbed and hauled into the store where they were sold a suit of clothes, shoes, etc.
   That was perhaps best exemplified by the pathbreaking Jack Benny radio show starting in the 30's. Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelski and raised in the Chicago area) and Ediie (Rochester) Anderson played the roles of a squire and his valet. Different from the then popular "Amos and Andy Show" where two white comedians spoke Negro dialect, the Benny show was the first massively popular media presentation showing a partnership between black and white persons, and it was written so that Benny was made out to be the fool and Rochester got the punch lines. It may have mirrored the relationship between store owners and musicians on Maxwell Street.
   One of the most famous gags was when Jack would say, "Come on, Rochester, we've to go downtown!" Then an audience of 40 million would hear the most famous sound effect on radio (except for Fibber McGee's Closet), when Rochester would crank up the 40-year-old car which Jack still owned because he was too cheap to buy a new car. Name of that famous old car?
   (A. The Maxwell.)
   By the 1970's most of the older Jewish merchant families had gathered wealth and moved to the suburbs but the area was still widely known as Jewtown. It appears this name was first created by Blacks, and many Jews were later uncomfortable with it.
   Jews, who remembered having been slaves in Egypt, and African Americans found a opartnership in the Blues which from the first signified a lament or elegy for hard times, though it outgrew that limitation.

The University of Illinois at Chicago's expansion into Maxwell Street

The University of Illinois at Chicago was established at the Harrison/Halsted area in 1965, the location chosen by Mayor Richard J. Daley. It was especially unpopular to the locals, who had been promised more low-income housing by the city, and there were numerous protests, especially by the Italian-American and Mexican-American communities. The university had little interaction with the surrounding community, and decided against keeping local businesses in its plans for expansion in the 1980s. The college slowly began buying land in the Maxwell area, and demolishing the buildings. It is rumored that the university never officially announced their plans in the 80s, but circulated speculation that they were going to exercise eminent domain, which was in fact backed by state legislation. This strategy would have saved the school millions of dollars, not only because people slowly moved out and didn't have to be compensated, but also because real estate prices continued to drop through the 80s and early 90s because of the rumors. When the school finally made public its plans to move the Maxwell Street Market, and demolish the buildings, the community tried to petition to designate the Maxwell Street Market area a National Historic District in 1994 and again in 2000. The proposal was eventually turned down due to the efforts of the university, backed by Mayor Richard M. Daley (son of Richard J.).

Maxwell Street in popular culture

Maxwell Street is where the Maxwell Street Polish Sausage sandwich originated.

The famous entrepreneur, Ron Popeil, began his career as a street vendor at the Maxwell Street Market.

The Maxwell Street Police Station, at Maxwell and Morgan Streets, was "Hill Street Station" in the 1980s television series, Hill Street Blues.

The musician and band leader Benny Goodman was born in the Maxwell Street neighborhood and spent most of his youth there. One of his first musical experiences was playing in the Boys Band at Hull House.

Maxwell Street was featured in the 1980 film, The Blues Brothers, in which it was portrayed as a thriving ethnically African-American community. The scene features the two stars, "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues - played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, looking for Matt 'Guitar' Murphy and Lou 'Blue Lou' Marini, to get their band back together. They enter the "Soul Food Cafe," the exterior of which is actually Nate's Deli, formerly Lyon's Deli (the interior is a set). As they're entering, John Lee Hooker is playing "Boom Boom" on the street, and we see some typical street scenes, including the famous "Cheat You Fair" sign. Once the song ends, Jake and Elwood encounter Matt's wife, played by Aretha Franklin. When Matt becomes excited about the band getting back together, Aretha launches into "Think." In the end, much to Aretha's dismay, Matt turns his apron in, and hits the road with the Blues Brothers.Further Information

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