Update on Ashland Avenue Streetlights & Friday Night Hoops

This afternoon I was at the corner of Ashland and 47th when I ran into the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council's Sean O'Farrell. He let me know BYNC is working on getting the Ashland streetlights back up and running. Thanks, BYNC, and I hope it can be done soon!

Sean also let me know that Back of the Yards is participating in Hoops in the Hood for a second year. They are hoping to play on the new parking lot at 48th and Marshfield, across from Chavez Elementary, next Friday night, but that is not yet confirmed. Tonight they are playing somewhere on Ada. Hoops in the Hood is a great way to bring neighbors together and make the streets a fun, safe place for kids on summer nights. To get a feel for what it's all about, click here and scroll down to "B-Ball on the Block," the original Little Village program that grew into Hoops.

Beauty in the Yards

(Photo courtesy Beauty in the Yards web site. It's a north-facing view of Ashland Avenue taken from the railroad viaduct at 49th Street. It looks like it doesn't fit well into the Blogger layout, so all the more reason to go see these on the host web site itself.)


As part of their work through the Mikva Challenge Issues to Action program, Big Picture High School students took photos around the neighborhood this spring. Their goal was to offer a different perspective on Back of the Yards from the shootings and other negative images of the area most commonly found in mainstream media. Photos were auctioned as part of the Big Picture scholarship fundraiser held in May.

You can see more digital images at Beauty in the Yards, and I hear the webmaster has more yet to put up, so check back there more than once if you like.

Halloween Preparations May Begin Saturday

I ran into Joey on the street about half an hour ago. He was on his cell phone, but when he got off we talked about Saturday. He thinks he'll be home around noontime and that his mom or dad might be able to help us bring the boards and the dropcloths back from Home Depot. He didn't know what a dropcloth was.

"Something to keep paint off places you don't want it to be. I thought we'd put the boards up against their fence," I said, pointing at my other next-door neighbors' house, "but I don't want to get paint on their fence. So we'll get something like those big blue plastic sheets and put it on the fence, then lean the boards up against it."

"Do we have to get our own cans?" he asked me.

"I can get cans, but I won't be able to get them until Monday. And if I get them, they stay at my house," I said sternly. He waved his hands at me with a "yeah, yeah, I know" expression.

He'll call Picasso and their other buddy. I saw those guys yesterday or the day before on the street and they said they'd be around on Saturday. Fortunately, Sarah's big brother has too much homework to drive us to the Notabaert Museum and I couldn't get a car from Su Casa, so the field trip with Sarah and Brady Bughunter will have to wait. Probably until November at this rate.

I've been trying to find some volunteers, especially guy volunteers, to help out with the graffiti on the boards and maybe with this haunted basement thing, too, but so far I'm out of luck. I just emailed 49 Neighbor so maybe he will have some ideas.

Goldblatt's Building Reopens as Furniture Store

I don't think I've yet posted about the grand opening of a Famsa furniture store in the first floor of the former Goldblatt's building at 47th and Ashland. The Famsa chain is based in Monterrey, Mexico and has other operations in the U.S.

I first noticed it last week, and stopped in last Saturday night to see what all the fuss was about. It's certainly very pretty. I wonder if it's too pricey for people here in the neighborhood, and whether it will draw people here from other neighborhoods or not. They have appliances, furniture and some electronics--like TV and stereo equipment. They had a few laptops on display but they don't sell printers. Too bad. I would have bought one.

They play music through speakers outside the store. Last week I liked it. I just went by a while back and this time I thought it was too loud. Well, I'm not their target demographic, for sure. Loud or no, I hope the tanking economy doesn't take them under. We'll see.

NHS Bilingual Homeownership Center Grand Opening

NHS staff (and staff spouse) at the grand opening celebration of the new Bilingual Homeownership Center in the Park Federal Savings Bank branch at 1823 W. 47th Street.



Paul Lopez, NHS board member and vice president of Park Federal, gave remarks and facilitated the program.



NHS Back of the Yards/Garfield Boulevard local advisory board members kibitz during the festivities.

Going to tonight's much less formal event--the barbecue, featuring some great carne asada and barbecued beef short ribs--reminded me I was behind schedule in posting these photos.

Oh, and in some sad local real estate news, I found out tonight that my block's first gay couple aren't sticking around. I still don't quite understand what happened, but from what Ms. Ribs told me, it sounds like the seller and/or the mortgage company tried to jerk them around for more money than seemed reasonable for this area, so they have decided to sell and try to unload the property. It's not that they can't afford their mortgage, it's that the house was overvalued. (This sounds weird to me.) I've found it listed for $227,525.

While I was at it, I did a little more real estate research and found Trulia has an overview of real estate in Back of the Yards. Here's a chart showing how the median home price has changed. I tried to paste it in here, but this format can't take the whole chart, which defeats the purpose, so check the link here and scroll down to Median Sales Price. It's not a pretty sight.

Gunshots Near 48th and Ashland

Around 4:45 on Sunday 9/21, I was at a birthday party for a six-year-old on the 4800 block of South Marshfield. Just as I was leaving the party to travel to another party over in Hyde Park, a series of six gunshots went off somewhere to the northeast. They were really loud, so clearly quite close. Then a blue van came screaming down 48th, westbound, closely followed by an unmarked police car flashing lights and wailing its sirens.

The driver of the van clearly didn't know the neighborhood; the van turned north onto Marshfield, which dead-ends at 47th. Right now there's construction so it is even harder than usual to get through. So we all saw the cops catch the van and whoever was in it. I have no idea whether anyone was hit by the gunfire.

Update 9/25: I heard tonight at the NHS barbecue that the shots last Sunday were from an AK-47, and that a second automatic weapon was involved. Yikes. I was also told the police captured one AK but the other is still out there somewhere.

A Tale of Two News Stories

Today's Trib has a long feature on the murder of Leticia Barrera and the efforts made to find her killers. So does the Sun Times. Of the two, the Sun-Times does a much better job of detailing the efforts the police and community made to work together.

Read it here.

I also appreciate this quote, in the Tribune story, from new police superintendent Jody Weis:

"This case would not have been solved as quickly without those witnesses and the support of the community," Weis said at a news conference at police headquarters. "When someone in the community knows something or sees something, their voice is more powerful than a gangbanger's gun."

I was privileged to attend the beat meeting in the Barrera family's beat last night and heard some of the story behind the story of how the community stepped up to work with police. It was also clearly the best organized beat meeting I've visited, ever.

Watch for a post in more detail tomorrow.

Suspect Arrrested in Halloween Murder

I was told earlier today that there would be a press conference at 4:30 this afternoon to announce that someone had been arrested in connection with the murder of Leticia Barrera on Halloween. If you forgot the details of the murder on Halloween at 48th and Seeley, see the Channel 2 story here.

Congratulations to Commander Eugene Roy and the police officers of the 9th district, who I am told did most of the legwork to find the suspect. I would also offer my congratulations to everyone in the community who helped the police with information and tips. At last week's Peace and Education Coalition meeting, the word was that they were close to a suspect and there was a pitch for contributions to increase the reward for information. I don't know if that did the trick or what, but whatever and whoever helped identify a legitimate suspect in the case deserves thanks.

I don't see any news on this yet, but will keep an eye out and link to any reports. Also, I really hope Mayor Daley makes as much noise to thank the community for bringing this information to light as he made critical noises in the immediate wake of the shooting. It takes a great deal of courage and faith to make information like this available to the police and the fact that someone did should not pass without notice.

Back of the Yards Entrepreneurs in Trib

Check out Jesse Iñiguez and Rolando Santoyo's t-shirt business, No Manches, which got a mention in Sunday's Chicago Tribune Style section. To read the story, click here.

You can order their hilarious t-shirts online at their website (linked above) or head over to Pilsen and buy them in real life at OMD, the hip new clothing store on 18th Street. Or, for more virtual reality, check out OMD Chicago's web site, where the home page features Jesse and Rolando (seated, bottom row) with a bunch of other people, showing off the t-shirts.

I got Junior and his brother and their dad some No Manches t-shirts for Christmas. His dad is a landscaper, so of course he got the "Mow Your Own Lawn" shirt. The boys got "Juan Deere" and "The United States of Mexico" with the now U.S. Southwest included. Check them out for yourself!

"A Tough, Tough Weekend"

That's what Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan had to say about all the shooting going on last weekend, some of which took place here in Back of the Yards. This Chicago Tribune story mentioned three local victims:

Jose Garcia, 18, shot in the chest while sitting in a parked car on the 4900 block of South Hoyne on Saturday night.

Two other neighborhood young people who were wounded: a 14-year-old who goes to school at Hamline and a 16-year-old student at Richards.

I'm not sure about the ones that didn't make the news, but if I understood correctly, there was a collection at church on Sunday to send the body of another slain youngster back to Mexico. I thought this kid was killed by a speeding police car, but I'm not sure I understood everything correctly during announcements.

UPDATED March 6: The young man being chased by the police was captured but not killed. The collection at church was for Jose Garcia's body to be sent to Mexico for burial.

Someone I spoke with today counted five shootings here in the area in recent days, including his own very young cousin, who was injured by bullets going through a car window. It sounds like he will be OK.

Between conversations with NHS board members, folks at Holy Cross and staff at Big Picture, here's what I've learned about why this is happening. Essentially, one gang whose territory lies east of Ashland is feeling the heat from the three or four other gangs surrounding them. I heard today that four or five of the east of Ashland gang's members have been killed in the last five months or so.

"They're getting that 18th street mentality now--kill or be killed," said one of my sources. I am not sure the extent to which that is from networking or because guys from 18th Street are physically moving down here--we are getting folks who have been displaced by rising rents and property taxes in Pilsen. While I have raved in previous posts about the great new neighbors I'm getting thanks to displacement, perhaps others haven't been so lucky.

At any rate, the beleaguered gang is out for revenge. On Sunday night about 7 p.m., I walked past five or six police cars in about three blocks, starting at 48th and Ashland. The sirens went on for hours afterwards.

Some neighborhood observers are already betting it will be a long, deadly summer.