50 Ward, 50 Weekdays: The 9th ward's turn...

We showed you the sixth ward's entry in this series by Chicago Public Radio, now we look at the 9th ward's entry. Although in this entry published just yesterday we take a look at Pullman because that's where this particular resident - Carolyn Lewis - lives:

“Basically, it’s an old established neighborhood,” she says. “The guy who built the Pullman railroad [cars], he built the neighborhood up.”

Pullman was a factory town, the late 19th Century vision of George Pullman. It has city, state and national landmark status. There are tourists walking around with neighborhood maps, and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., wants to make it part of the National Park Service....
“It’s a beautiful neighborhood. And I think they keep it up very well. It’s not as kept up as it used to be, but I think they trying to get back to that. Because when I first came over here, it was gorgeous. Especially the park,” she says. “The park was beautiful.”
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She likes the area, but talks about it as an outsider. Lewis uses “they” to describe residents who’ve been there a long time. For example, when she talks about how the neighborhood has hardly any restaurants or businesses nearby:

“I think that’s another reason why the neighborhood’s not growing like they thought the neighborhood was going to grow. See, [because], they thought this was going to be another Oak Park or Hyde Park, I think.”

She even has her thoughts on the Red Line project where the Dan Ryan line will be shut down for 5 months next year for repairs:

“From the time I moved here up to now, I noticed the transportation has gotten worse and worse and worse.”

And it is only going to get worse, she predicts, next year when the CTA shuts down the southern half of the Red Line for 5 months for repairs. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and others have promised to boost bus service to blunt the inconvenience. Lewis, it appears, is unconvinced.

“You just want us to put up with the fact that you all [put] a band aid on the problem for years and years and years. And now that you can’t do that anymore, shut it down. Heck with the customers,” she says. “That’s going to make me have to go all around the world just to get to work. [And] all around the world to get back home.”

Lewis thinks the closed Red Line will lengthen a commute that’s barely manageable as is, thanks in part to delayed buses.

“I have to walk through this park,” she continues. “Would [city officials] want their mothers [to] walk through a park at 11-something at night?”

“Lately, I’ve noticed there’s not a lot of light around the park. So I have to call somebody on the phone as I walk home.”

Also I want to share with you the series entry from the 34th Ward. Ja'Sharee Martin talks about the potential of the Red Line extension towards her part of the city.

When we talk politics, Martin says she doesn’t know much, doesn’t really watch the news. She says she thinks Mayor Rahm Emanuel is doing a good job. She likes his push for a project near and dear to the Far South Side: the extension of the CTA’s Red Line, which now ends at 95th.

“If he extend[s] the Red Line, everybody don’t have to take the bus. They can, you know, get on [the train] where they live at.”

That project has stalled and stalled through the years. If it actually happens, it’ll be well after Martin finishes massage school. But she's good. Her grandma drives her to the train.

You can check out other entries of this series here.