Chicago History Today: A 102-Year Legal Tangle (1-28-1836)

Did you realize the plot of land that makes up the Chatham Village Cooperative was part of an almost century long real estate dispute? Let's allow Chicago history blogger J.R. Schmidt told this story back in January 2016.

The blocks between 83rd and 87th Streets, from Cottage Grove west to St. Lawrence, are subtly different from the surrounding neighborhood. The reason is a convoluted property-title mess that dragged on for over a century.

In 1836 Chicago was a community of a few thousand people gathered around Fort Dearborn. But speculators saw a bright future, and were buying land—even ten miles out on the open prairie.

On January 28 John L. Wilson purchased the 80-acre property mentioned above from the federal government. He paid the established price of $1.25 per acre. Five days later, Wilson sold the property to Charles Pettit for $3 an acre. For an initial investment of $100, Wilson now pocketed $240.

It’s not known whether Wilson had even seen the land he’d flipped. His agent, Isaac Palmer, had actually carried out the purchase with Wilson’s money.

Meanwhile, speculation was running wild. Six months after buying the land from Wilson, Pettit mortgaged it for $3,000, which he soon paid back. In October, Pettit took out a new mortgage for $1,500.

Then the bubble burst. The so-called Panic of 1837 was America’s first great depression. Land prices plummeted. Pettit couldn’t pay back the $1,500, and his creditor foreclosed.

I don't want give the rest of his post away, however, how it starts doesn't seem much different than what happened in the recent financial crisis of almost a decade ago. However, one of the major developments in this area has a long history before the housing was finally developed. Read the whole thing.

Sun Times: 2 CPD officers among 4 hurt in Chatham blaze

Piggybacking off of JP's breaking news regarding a fire on 79th Street this morning which blocked traffic from Cottage Grove to St. Lawrence, the Sun-Times offers an update.

Four people were injured, including two Chicago Police officers, in a residential fire Thursday morning in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side.

Firefighters and a warming bus responded at 5:12 a.m. to the three-story building in the 600 block of East 79th Street, according to Chicago Police.

About 6:10 a.m. the fire was upgraded from a still and box fire to a two alarm fire, the Chicago Fire Department said. The flames were being fought defensively with three hose lines.

Two officers and two other people were taken to hospitals, police said. The officers were treated and released, but conditions for the two other people were not immediately available.

Thankfully there were no fatalities!

Here's a pic from the Chicago Fire Dept. on twitter:

The 2 11 now struck out. One police officer taken by police to hospital for minor smoke issues. Adult building occupant to jackson park for smoke inhalation. pic.twitter.com/ElNO9fE79g

— Chicago Fire Media (@CFDMedia) February 8, 2018

They also found a cause:

The Cfd office of fire investigation (OFI) reported a preliminary finding of accidental electrical as cause of fire on 79 street and origin is second floor.

— Chicago Fire Media (@CFDMedia) February 8, 2018

79th street BLOCKED from Cottage grove to St. Lawrence!!!

BREAKING NEWS

If you are hearing the 3 helicopters, it is due to a major fire on 79th between Cottage Grove and St. Lawrence. Streets are blocked off between them. There are SEVERAL emergency vehicles (fire trucks, ambulance and police cars). A passerby said that everyone made it out.

You can check TV news later today for more details, but if you are going down 79th, make sure you avoid that part of 79th.

A few June events

Some upcoming summer festivals & events are beginning even now. Here are a few (via their Facebook photos). If you are having trouble reading these, or have your own event, please email us at blog@thesixthward.us

The first is from St. James Evangelical Lutheran Church, at the corner of 80th & Michigan. See you this Friday, June 6 at 7;30pm.

And 

Chatham Academy H.S Street Festival 

Saturday 

June 14, 2014
12 noon - 8pm

90th Langley
(near 90th & St. Lawrence, 1 block North of Burnside Scholastic Academy)

Authorities: 2 dead, 1 wounded in Chatham shooting

An shooting at 79th & ST. Lawrence has left 1 dead and 2 injured. And this happened in broad daylight.

From Chicago Breaking News:

Two assailants wearing masks opened fire this afternoon leaving two people dead and a 17-year-old girl hospitalized in serious condition in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side.

The shooting happened about 1:15 p.m. in the 7900 block of South St. Lawrence Avenue, fire and police officials said.

Two men wearing masks shot three people: a 20-year-old man who was dead on the scene, a 17-year-old girl in the lower back, and an 18-year-old man in the leg and lower arm, according to police.

Christopher Spraggins, 20, of 348 E. 76th St., was pronounced dead on the scene while the male in his late teens was pronounced dead at 2:14 p.m. at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Police said the teen girl was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Kevin MacGregor, she was in serious condition.

The gunmen ran eastbound after the shooting and fled into a car, police said.

No arrests have been made this evening, according to police News Affairs Officer Daniel O'Brien.

Four people were killed and at least 14 wounded in shootings in Chicago between 4:15 p.m. Friday and early Saturday morning.'

Authorities: 2 dead, 1 wounded in Chatham shooting

...And from our Facebook page:

Jan M. Hooks My nephew was the young man who was killed. Please keep his family and those who were wounded in your thoughts and prayers. We need to do something about the violence in this city and especially on the south side of Chicago

Ms. Hooks also added that there was another shooting a few hours later at 79th and Prairie.

My wife read this news, and stated to me that she wants to leave Chatham at our first opportunity. How do we combat the fear that drives away good citizens?

Izola's 90th birthday include fundraisers

NOTE: Click on images for a larger resolution! 

There is a 90th Birthday celebration for Izola White on the weekend of September 8-9., 3p-7p Sunday's celebratiuon is open to the public. Saturday's celebration requires a minimum contirbuition of $250.

It's a fundraiser to help Ms. White live at her own home rather than a nursing home.

Here are the details from Facebook

Come and be a part of an iconic celebration honoring Ms. Izola White and watch a community come together for a woman who has given so much to so many. Izola has done so much for others in her over 50 year history as owner of the restaurant. Through her misfortune, she was forced to close her place due to illness and financial problems. She now faces being placed into a nursing home if her living expenses aren’t met. this fundraiser will help relieve her of this worry and allow her to enjoy her home as she ...turns 90 years old. The effort will also bring a possibility of keeping her dream alive as the new ownership takes place at this location. PLEASE come out and show your support, you won’t regret it!


Key Note Speaker: Jesse Jackson Sr, Alderman Sawyer, Dorothy Brown, Spencer Leak Sr, Greg Hinton, Herb Kent, Emil Jones


Saturday, Sept 8th 3:p.m to 7:p.m dinner reception, live jazz Band, special guest speakers, picture auction (Photos from the restaurant ) and raffles. Minimum donation $250.00

Sunday Sept 9th 3:p.m to 7:p.m is community and Seniors citizens Day in the parking lot of Izola’s Restaurant Live Band, Food & Drinks ,Guest Speakers, Raffles. Open donation( Bring your Chair , Chairs are limited)

Let us know here at The Sixth War if you have further details, or have other comments regarding Izola's.

Note: the many photos on Izola's wll will be auctioned off, such as this one from Bernie Mac.

Burnside Academy history comes alive on Friday.

We blogged about him in January, as he was featured in the Chicago Suntimes about the desegregation effort that Burnside was a part of.

He will now discuss his story live with the current students of Burnside Academy. Kindergaretn - 4th grade will hear him from 8:30 ~ 9:30am.  At 9:35, the 5th - 8th graders will hear him speak.

Contact Burnside Scholastic Academy for details. Burnside is located at 650 E. 91st Place, with a phone number of (773) 535-3300;  Fax of (773) 535-3230;  Email =>  burnside650 (at) yahoo.com  ;  and the website is at http://www.burnsideacademy.net/

Tony Burroughs, outside of the Burnside School 650 E. 91st Place, where 50 years ago the first demonstration against Chicago Public Schools system of segregated and unequal education took place. Friday, January 13, 2012.
Brian Jackson~Sun-Times





Mayor Emanuel involved in drive-by shooting at Dixon School

Mayor Emanuel involved in drive-by shooting at Dixon School.

To elaborate & explain: On our Facebook page, we posteda photo from the Mayor's facebook page. Mayor Rahm Emanuel had stopped by Dixon Elementary School on Tuesday morning, for what was essentially a photo opp (i.e. photo shooting). (A search at news.google.com came up with nothing ).

So the headline was a little misleading.
OK, a lot misleading.  But how much significant time has Mayor Emanuel really spent in our community? He has been here a few times, to eat at Izola's (which has since closed, but hopefully temporarily), shake hands at El stops, and this Dixon appearance.  But he has avoided most forums on the South Side when he was running for mayor, such as the Mayoral Forum at Carter Temple, where every other candidate appeared.

We will we see any significant attention from the Mayor in the next 4 years?


Random question: why were the Dixon students "out of uniform"? Was it intended to make the school seem "safer" than a school with uniforms? Or just a coincidence that it timed with the photo opportunity?

6th Ward Clean and Green with Alderman Sawyer

[VIDEO] On July 2, the Saturday before the 4th of July, Ald. Sawyer and a crew cleaned up a vacant lot near 71st & St. Lawrence. There were pictures posted on Twitter @6thWardChicago. So here's a video report which features mainly Ald. Sawyer and his newly minted 6th Ward Streets & Sanitation Superintendent Paul Bryson.

It was mentioned back in May during the course of the GCA meet & greet with Ald. Sawyer that he did a clean & green in the Englewood neighborhood perhaps not long after he assumed office as 6th Ward Alderman. So in this video he urges everyone to call his office at 773.635.0006 or via e-mail at 6thwardchicago@gmail.com. You would have to join his crew and help out however.

Clean up on Aisle 81!

 

It's been only a day since the election, so i should give the campaigns time to recover from their parties.

But there is a lot to clean up. These photos were taken on 81st ST. and St. Lawrence, and signs form both were put up all along 81st (as well as throughout the ward). This was Wednesday at noon.

The Sawyer campaign certainly can recycle these for next season, and Lyle's campaign could perhaps also find a use for their signs as well.

Now it's time for us to unite as a ward....

Fall Family Festival (Halloween alternative) on Friday October 29

St. Mark United Methodist Church is hosting its annual Fall Family Festival on Friday, October 29th, 6pm- 8:30pm

Activities include games (with plenty of candy for prizes), crafts, food. Even more is planned than last year's festival, which was well attended.

Admission is free, but children need to be accompanied by an adult.


Costumes are welcome. However, they should be family-oriented (no devils, monsters, Freddy Krueger, etc.)

For more information, contact the church at

8441 S. St. Lawrence Ave


Chicago IL

773-846-2992

Office@stmarkumcchicago.org



If you have other Halloween / Halloween alternative activities, let us, TheSixthWard blog, know!



Halloween / Halloween Alternative activities

Shooting (and death) on 79th & St. Lawrence

Just saw this on the Tribune's Chicago Breaking News site

A 23-year-old man who was shot in the head and neck Wednesday night on the South Side in the city's Chatham neighborhood has died from his injuries.

Officers and paramedics responded about 8 p.m. to the 600 block of East 79th Street and found the man with gunshot wounds to his neck and head, police said.

Preliminary reports said the man was approached by two male suspects, one on foot and the other was riding a bicycle. The person riding the bicycle fired shots, striking the victim. Both suspects fled northbound from the scene, police said.

The victim was taken to Stroger Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

No one was in custody for the shooting. Calumet Area detectives were investigating.

As scary as this is...we NEED to ALL walk the streets. The more we're out there (and not alone), the more we can save our neighborhood.

A nice sign of the neighborhood

We've read about signs in the community some people really hate.

Here's a sign i think most agree is a good one. I snapped this photo at 81st & Vernon on Saturday (I saw another on at 81st neat St. Lawrence, across the street from Chatham Fields Lutheran Church).

There is a bible reference to James 2:8 (from the New International Version)

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself,"[a] you are doing right.

Anyone know who posted the signs, and where we could get more?

Will Dixon be ready tomorrow?

Just walked past Dixon school yesterday, and saw that they are still working on construction, such as installing new windows. The facade was completed earlier this summer.

School starts for Track E schools, such as Dixon, on Monday, August 9. i know that's a short amount of time for all the work that needed to be done.

Will Dixon be ready?

Little Ceasar's is gone - now what?

The Little Caesar's that was at 607 E. 79th Street (the strip mall at 79th & St. Lawrence) has suddenly disappeared.

In talking with a worker at Captain Hook's 3 doors down, they said that the pizza shop had apparently dropped in business, and then seemed to move out "in the middle of the night".

When that Little Caesars first opened, the workers were friendly, and service was good. My now 5 year old daughter regularly got cookies & ballons from the staff, which was always appreciated.

But over the months, the quality went down. Pizza and crazy bread were often undercooked, the "Hot N Ready" pizzas often werent ready, and the crazy sauce containers were half-filled and cold. The books which listed free pizzas for unhappy customers seemed filled with entries.

And it seems many people weren't accepting this type of service. Otherwise, it seems strange that a place offering a family meal for $5, especially in this economy, went out of business.

Chatham survived without Little Ceasar's until 2008, and will be just fine since it left. But at least for our family, it makes the occasional pizza dinner a little less convenient.

But now where is thes best tasting pizza in the Sixth Ward?

But more important (for some) - which place now has the cheapest pizza?

3 people hurt in Chatham shootings

From Chicago Breaking News tonight...

3 wounded in South Side shootings
April 15, 2010 8:36 PM No Comments

At least three people were taken to hospitals from two
shootings on the South Side tonight, officials said.

Just before 8 p.m., two people were shot at East 85th Street and South Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, a Chicago Fire Department spokesman said. The two were taken to Northwestern Memorial
Hospital with traumatic injuries.

No information about the circumstances of the shooting or the victims was immediately available.

About 8:10 p.m., paramedics responded to 622 E. 87th Place to reports of shots fired. One person was taken to Stroger Hospital.

No information on that shooting was available either.

-- Serena Maria Daniels

Can anyone explain what's going on? Yes, it was hot out tonight. But here in Chatham, between Cole Park and Target?!?!

Cool Building Wednesday: Pride Cleaners

Lee Bey has posted on his blog an entry on Pride Cleaners, at 79th & St. Lawrence.

Cool Building Wednesday: Pride Cleaners

This photo is one of several that Lee Bey has taken, and published on his site.

Check out his blog entry and please comment both here & there! (Several people with ties to Chatham have posted there).

If i read the comments section correctly, Lee Bey said he grew up near Chatham. We'd love for him to share more stories!

Tropic Island Jerk Chicken is NOW open!

Original Tropic Island Jerk Chicken has finally opened their new location at 553 E. 79th Street across the street from the mall housing Cosmo Beauty & Little Ceasar's), starting to serve the community again last Wednesday.

The storefront takeout counter looks like the old one.

You can see from the bottom photo that they have added a nice dining room.

You can check the old prices on the website. But they actually have a menu with prices raised (presumably to help pay for the additional overhead).

It's been over 2 months since the old one closed due to the land acquisition process for the updated Whitney Young Library. I know my wife missed the restaurant very much.

Contact information for the restaurant:
Original Tropic Island Jerk Chicken
553 E. 79th street
Chicago IL 60619
773-224-7766
http://www.originaljerkchicken.com/
(the also have a store in Calumet City at 570 Torrence Avenue)

Please note that the name of the restaurant is Original Tropic Island Jerk Chicken , not what was listed here.

Should we tolerate bootleg DVD's in our community?

From Saturday's Chicago Breaking News:

Police from two northwest suburbs seized about 10,000 illegally copied DVDs,
including blockbusters currently in theaters, in a raid on a Wheeling
man's home, authorities said today.

OK, it's not the most heinus crime that requires a lot of attention & resources. But does the selling of bootlegs really help the community?

For example, does The Bootleg Man at the Captain Hook's/Firehouse on 79th & St. Lawrence REALLY enhance that establishment, or Chatham as a whole??

Some positives of selling bootlegs might include that people aren't selling drugs or doing nothing, or that people save mney from seeing a bad movie.

But there seem to be a lot of negatives as well.

Does it help the consumer, who often watches pretty low quality DVD's, and don't go out & see the community, or help local businesses?

Does it help local businesses which employ our youth & young adults (or even older adults)? Do we really want ICE Theaters and surrounding businesses to fail?

Does it help the Black Film industry when we watch it on illegal DVD instead of the theater. Two examples that my wife observed: Dreamgirls or the Tyler Perry movies have been packed when they came out; leading to some continual success for the producers and actors involved. Yet on a Christmas day, she observed that many barber shops & hair salons were showing "The Great Debaters" when it came out in theaters that day. Did such behavior harm the movies success, hampering the great message it had from getting out to the general community?

We've had a lot of discussion on what businesses we do and don't want in our neighborhood. This may not rank very high, but can we consider it as part of our discussion?