Pros Arts @ Hedges

UPDATED: Here's the flyer inviting people to the Hedges performances earlier this month. The visual art exhibit continues through January 28, so stop by after winter break.

Pros Arts Studios and my friend Irasema Gonzalez spent "an eight week playdate" at Hedges Elementary here in Back of the Yards, teaching writing, art and theater to 8th-graders. Irasema, a poet, and her teaching artist colleagues Lungelo Kuzwayo (theatre), Krystin Grenon (visual art) and Maria Gaspar (performance art) wrapped up on Friday, December 11 with two performances and an exhibition of student artwork. The art exhibition runs through January 28, 2010, so if you're in the neighborhood, stop by Hedges and take a look.

The students wrote a play called Trouble @ Bubbly Creek. Just in time for Christmas, Irasema graciously shared some quotes from her students' writing:

"People don’t need to move to another neighborhood to live in a better one. People that live in our neighborhood can have a good future.” --J.L.

“…its important to follow our dreams and stop at nothing until we’ve completed…we can change our community if we don’t like it.” –D.A.

“The memories or items we gather along the journey can shape our future.” –P.O.

"We should keep luchando for our dreams" --D.

"the stuff that happens to us now can help us in the future…” X.O.

“maybe you can change your neighborhood without changing to a new house.” R.C.

“You can make a change in our city, country or community. You can shape your future and help others shape theirs as well.” --J.L.

Someone reading these quotes initially thought they were from students in Pilsen. When told they were young people from Back of the Yards, she said: "Viva back of the yards! Often the forgotten ones but great talent emerges from there ...in all forms. Heck, maybe the next President will come from B.O.Y."

Maybe so. With these hopeful thoughts in mind, I wish all the Tattler readers happy holidays and peace on earth, especially here on Marshfield Avenue!

Hoops on Marshfield A Rousing Success

Hoops in the Hood made it to the parking lot at 48th and Marshfield tonight. Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council also blocked off the street at 48th and Marshfield. Kids and families from the surrounding blocks came by as well. The basketball action went on for two hours, and non-players enjoyed face-painting, hopscotch and riding their bikes in the street. Peter Pan and Tone-Loc played on the UNION Impact Center team--I'm glad to know they are hooked up with them. My friends whose son made his First Communion recently held a birthday party in the street--I saw Peter Pan's parents and some of the Bradys over there. Members of Jason Gill's family also have friends on the 4800 block and were sitting out with them in front of their house during the festivities. It was nice to see people from multiple blocks enjoying themselves together.

Everything seemed to go quite smoothly. I gather there was one incident where someone showed up and wanted to play ball but hadn't been on any of the organized teams that have been playing all summer. They let him join the court briefly but it became clear quickly he just wanted to draw attention to himself, so some of the officers present escorted him out, and that was that.

There were some nice freebies for everyone, too. Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council had hot dogs, icies, popcorn and water for the crowd, and gave away tote bags. Teen Living Programs gave away pen key chains and let people know about their services. We're not so used to free stuff around here. A lot of the kids took a minute to realize they could just get something to eat. "It's free?" asked my buddy Eddie.

"Yep. Go ahead and have a hot dog," I told him.

Lots of neighborhood stalwarts were out and about at the event: Sandy Traback and Officer Tony Mejia, CAPS beat facilitator/NHS Advisory Board member/ Richards LSC member Veronica Lopez, Officer King (who regularly comes to Beat 914 meetings), Rafael Yanez of UNION Impact Center, and tons of folks from the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council.

Congratulations to Maria Raygoza, who has been doing excellent work on the 4800 S. Marshfield block. She's formed a block club and they are working with Ald. Cochran to get street resurfacing. Signs on the block show that work should be starting next week. They've already gotten some sidewalk repairs and tree-trimming.

My camera isn't working, but I hope to get pictures from others early next week.

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.

Summer Job Hunting

After the car saga came to a successful conclusion, Oldest Brady Girl came by tonight to do her online application for a summer job through the Youth Ready Chicago website. They are taking applications through July 6, but some programs have earlier deadlines, so if you haven't signed up yet, do it soon!

Oldest Brady Girl's two sisters did their applications here last night, and another girl from the next block up did hers here a while ago. Here's what I've learned about the application process. It seems to go a lot more easily if you know the organization you want to apply to--if you're just applying for everything it takes a long time to work through all the stuff. Last night for some reason some of the girls found themselves accidentally logged out and had to start all over--I'm still not sure why that happened. The After School Matters programs are listed by sponsoring organization, and that's the easiest way to find the program you're looking for. So if you want to do an ASM program, it's good to do your homework first and know the organization you want to apply to.

While Oldest Brady successfully completed her application tonight, her sisters and cousins were wanting to help me out. "Do you need us to clean anything?" Ines asked me.

"Yes I do," I said. "Want to sweep the floor?" They did. Then they organized the vast pile of baby gear in the room that will eventually become the nursery. They found this goofy doll somebody gave me that I kept mostly to practice with baby carriers (especially the sling wrap that a dear friend and regular reader of this blog recently got for me--thanks so much! Now that the car works again I can go pick it up.) Tonight Ines came downstairs with the dolly in a Baby Bjorn. It was flopping around and we were all cracking up.

"You don't fold your own clothes that nicely at home," Oldest Brady Girl teased one of her younger sister, who had been organizing and folding baby clothes.

I had leftover baby shower favors from a shower with my relatives out east, so each of the younger girls picked out their favorite animal-shaped cookie cutter to take home with them.

I hope the older girls actually do get jobs out of this. I have contacts at a couple of the organizations they applied to, so we sent emails to those contact people saying they have applied on line and is there anything else they have to do. We'll see.

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.

The Puzzle of Picasso

So this is the graffiti masterpiece Picasso sprayed up over at 36th and Kedzie back in the summer. I'm the one who persuaded his mother that all graffiti is not gangbanging, that it can be art, and that he wouldn't get busted for doing it there. (Picasso told me it was a permission wall and looking around on line at some graffiti message boards, that seemed to be true.) I think it's pretty good, for what little I know. And I don't even know what it says, but I know enough about gang graffiti to know this doesn't say anything obviously representing. (Of course, if I'm wrong, tell me.)

That level of uncertainty should tell you how things stand between me and Picasso of late. This afternoon, a woman on the block I'll refer to as La Chismosa collared me to talk about Joey and Picasso. "They're up to no good," she said. She's most worried about Joey. "I think he's a good kid at heart, but he's the youngest and he wants to be accepted," she observed, probably accurately. She told me she overheard Picasso tell him he almost kicked somebody's ass in a fight, then asked why he held back. "Next time, I want to see you leave a mark," she quoted him saying. This is not the Picasso I know. But I'm sure she didn't make it up.

I was thinking about this tonight while grocery shopping and picking up a copy of The Witch of Blackbird Pond for Ines. She and her cousin and I went to the library this afternoon to find it--Ines needs to read it for school and write a two-page report, due Friday--but they didn't have it. Today was Ines' 13th birthday, so I told her I would go get it and that would be her birthday present. By the time I got back from the shopping trip it was about 9 p.m., pretty late for their house.

I went down the block to see if anyone was still up there, and Ines's cousin was sitting on the front stoop talking with Picasso. Ines's cousin is a junior at Rauner and is a very good girl. So I was happy to see her talking with him. My nosy neighbor side kicked in, too, because her younger sister was supposedly Picasso's "girlfriend" when they were both at Chavez last spring, but now they go to different high schools--she's at Rauner with her sister; he's at Curie--so I don't know how much they see of each other. Cousin said she would get the book to Ines and I let them get back to talking with each other.

Anyway, so I can't figure out where Picasso is at. He and Joey and another guy on our block and one or two guys from up the street hang out together. Are they their own crew or are they hooked up with one of the bigger gangs in the area? Who are they getting into it with; what was this about fighting? Picasso is smart; is he letting it show at school? I must get his schedule and see if I know any of his teachers at Curie.

Some jerk is blasting annoying rap music across the street from my house. I can hear it clear as day in here. Yuck. Guess I should go see if I know who they are. I looked, I do know who they are. I didn't say anything, but they saw me walk in and out. It's still playing, but it's quieter now.

New Youth Activities at Holy Cross/IHM

Well, the fall season is here and there are new things for kids to do over at Holy Cross/IHM Parish. There's a cooking class for kids aged 11 to 14 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4-5:30 p.m.. I told Ines about it after church today, since she was so into cake decorating.

"How much does it cost?" she asked me.

"It's free," I said. "That's why I'm telling you about it." She took the church bulletin home to show her mom.

There's a lot of musical options: children's choir on Fridays (they sing at the 10:30 a.m. Mass), girls' choir on Thursdays, mariachi (guitar, trumpet and violin) also on Thursdays.

There's also a youth newsletter group forming on Thursday nights. It will be led by a writer from U.S. Catholic. I told her I'd try to help her out, even if only by proofreading the final version. My schedule is too crazy to commit to the same night every week, but I ought to be able to come at least once a month. We'll see.

If you're in the neighborhood and want to know more about these activities, send your kid (or yourself, if you are a young person), you can call the parish office at 773-376-3900.

Violence Prevention, Large and Small Scale

Obviously there's been a lot of buzz in Chicago lately about youth and gang-related violence. It's ironic to me that all these people, including the Mayor, are crying about what to do, when they know something about what to do and its funding was cut.

I refer to Project CeaseFire, a public health initiative out of the University of Illinois Chicago that has been working since 1995 to reduce street shootings. On the web site, the history runs through 2006, when CeaseFire was established or getting started in 15 Chicago neighborhoods, plus other sites around Illinois.

What the site doesn't mention is that CeaseFire itself became a victim of the budget shootout in Springfield last summer. The agency lost $6 million in state money, which cut 140 violence prevention workers. This ABC story gives details. Although some alternate monies were found and some of those people even kept on working for free (I heard), getting the work done became a lot harder.

CeaseFire's executive director, Tio Hardiman, hit the crux of the problem on the head in an MSNBC story about the current wave of shootings and efforts to stop the violence. To stop shootings, he said, petty arguments have to be resolved quickly and peacefully. "There's really a dire need for more conflict resolution training."

That's the big scale. On the small scale, Thursday afternoon I happened to be inside the Chavez Upper Grade Center right around dismissal, at 1:45 p.m. One of Joey's teachers had offered to give him a ride to his first class of the new session at Marwen, so I went to confirm arrangements. After we were done, I came outside and found one of the girls from the next block up from my house waiting around for her brother. We agreed to walk home together.

Her brother came out with a big gaggle of other boys. His sister and I talked about school--she's learning about Native Americans and she and her classmates are rehearsing for a performance of Native American stories. We got about half a block ahead of the guys. I, being a clueless adult, was pretty focused on our conversation. She, being a smart kid, kept slowing down and making sure we weren't too far ahead of her brother and the boys I took to be his friends.

When we got south of the viaduct on Hermitage, their noise reached a new height and intensity. We stopped and turned around to find them forming the classic fight circle and saw her brother putting his books down and handing off his jacket.

She and I took off running. I was still in a skirt and heeled boots from being downtown that morning, so I must have looked pretty funny galumphing toward them and hollering, "Hey! What are you doing? Cut that out!" The northern half of the ring turned and ran back past the viaduct, disappearing from sight.

Fortunately, we got there before anybody took a swing. Her brother told me those boys had been bothering him all day long in school and everybody had been waiting to get out of there so they could settle it on the street. I tried to ask him if he thought it was over or if the problem would be back tomorrow, but it started to rain harder and he ran for his house's front door.

"Thanks for walking with us," his sister said.

I think about this and I think about a question I asked the Marshfield Avenue boxers one day as we were walking to Medicine Man's car. Peter Pan was bragging to me and the two or three other guys present about how the oldest Brady boy had just won a fight. I asked all of them, including Big Brady, if they knew other ways to settle an argument besides fighting. They all said no.

"Would you like to learn some?" I asked. Peter Pan looked at me with the classic "how sissy is that!?" kind of expression. Joey didn't say anything. Big Brady Boy actually said yes.

If anybody knows of some big tough guys who teach conflict resolution skills to preteen boys, send them my way, would you? Or maybe we just need to get back to boxing. I trust those guys to teach my neighbors how to save their punches for the ring.

Hey, Kids--Get a Summer Job!

It's that time again--time to start thinking about summer jobs. The city's summer jobs program for young people, now known as Kidstart, is taking applications. Here's what I heard from my pal on 49th and Hermitage:

Here is a link for all CPS students, ages 14-21 for an opportunity to get a summer job. I know that all our neighborhood children are always on the look out for a job.

I think that being level headed and always having some type of responsibility (job) is the key to getting ahead especially when you live in a neighborhood like ours. Well maybe i can just speak for myself but that was actually the key factor for me to have stayed away from trouble and all the negative influences that were actually more visible in the past. Anyway hopefully we can help out as many kids stay level headed and hopefully make something of themselves.


For more information, you can call the summer jobs hotline at 773-553-JOBS. Some of the kinds of jobs available are coach, tutor, nutrition aide and even journalist.
Applications are due April 25, so get on it now--don't wait!

Little Village Boxing Video

If you want to see what the place where my neighbors have been boxing looks like, check out the Community Beat blog and the great two-minute video on Chicago Youth Boxing at La Villita Community Church.

The video was made long before I started driving the Boxing Bus, but you get a great feel for the really wide age range of young men involved. They are wanting to work with girls and women, too, so if you're a female aspiring boxer, don't be shy--go see it live for yourself.

Oakley Soccer League

It's quite a contrast from Chicago Indoor Soccer, but I had the luck to check out the Oakley Soccer League facility at 62nd and Oakley tonight. From the outside, it looks like just another abandoned warehouse across the street from the barbed wire keeping people away from some train tracks.

But inside, there's a whole little indoor soccer space, with a nice surface (I didn't step on it, but it looked comfy) nets all over to keep the ball on the field, and even some room for bleachers. A yuppie like me enjoyed the exposed brick and high ceilings while laughing at the visible insulation falling apart way up there and hoping there wasn't any asbestos.

Back down on the ground, plenty of dads and tios were cheering for their favorite little guys on the field. "Victor, arriba!" one dad kept yelling. Peter Pan's little brothers were playing--I saw one of them score. There was a kid in Gunsaulus sweat pants and I thought even a couple of white boys in the crowd.

Peter Pan's neighbor had brought them over. He lives on the south end of the block in a house that looks pretty crappy from the outside, but he tells me he's fixed it up on the inside. He really stays on the down-low: his kids are never outside, the house is nothing to look at, etc. But he owns his own trucking business, his oldest daughter just got into Bronzeville Military (score another decent high school for an 8th grader on the block) and his younger kids all go to Saucedo in Little Village. He had one of them in Chavez for a few months, but decided it wasn't challenging enough for his kids.

He looks out for Peter Pan and his brothers and sisters, too. You never know what dividends you'll get from being an honorary soccer mom.

By the way, if you're looking for a place to play soccer, they have youth leagues and adult leagues. The youth leagues go from 6 and under to 16 and under. Call Hector at 773-629-2498 or Fernando at 773-983-4895. On the way home, Peter Pan suggested they get a bunch of kids and parents together and rent the place out to play soccer sometime. Sounds like a good idea to me, but maybe when it's a little warmer. There's no heat, and even in a down jacket and long johns, I was freezing after a while. The little kids seemed just fine running around in their soccer shorts, though.

This Just In

In case you missed the update to the March 4 post, two clarifications:

1) The young man being chased by the police early Sunday morning was captured by police but not killed. He was apparently driving a stolen car around 6:30 a.m. when police started chasing him westward from 47th & Halsted. The car crashed at 47th and Wood. After the cops fired three shots, the driver got out and appeared to be ready to turn himself in, but then he jumped back in the car and managed to restart it. Police gave chase to 43rd and Paulina, where they caught him. No one else was injured.

2) Some inside poop the papers didn't give about the death of 18-year-old Jose Ignacio Garcia Barrera. My sources say he was shot at 48th and Seeley, then driven to where the police found him. They also say he was caught in a trap over a girl, drugs, or both.

In happier news, yesterday I was able to arrange for free tickets for a group of 20 or so to go to the Museum of Science and Industry over Chicago Public Schools spring break. Medicine Man is asking his Americorps buddies if a couple of them will help us chaperone. We should have up to four or five young people from Su Casa and the rest from here on Marshfield.

It seems like such a small effort in the face of all the heavy stuff going down here, but better to do the small step than none at all.