SSW 04.29.20

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SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent non-profit newspaper by and for the South Side of Chicago. We provide high-quality, critical arts and public interest coverage, and equip and develop journalists, photographers, artists, and mediamakers of all backgrounds.

Volume 7, Issue 17 Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Serrato Managing Editors Martha Bayne Sam Joyce Sam Stecklow Deputy Editor Jasmine Mithani Senior Editors Julia Aizuss, Christian Belanger, Mari Cohen, Christopher Good, Rachel Kim, Emeline Posner, Adam Przybyl, Olivia Stovicek Politics Editor Jim Daley Education Editor Ashvini Kartik-Narayan, Michelle Anderson Literature Editor Davon Clark Nature Editor Sam Joyce Stage & Screen Editor Nicole Bond Visual Arts Editor Rod Sawyer Food & Land Editor Sarah Fineman Contributing Editors Mira Chauhan, Joshua Falk, Lucia Geng, Carly Graf, Robin Vaughan, Jocelyn Vega, Tammy Xu, Jade Yan Staff Writer

AV Benford

Data Editor Radio Exec. Producer Social Media Editors Maya Holt

Jasmine Mithani Erisa Apantaku Grace Asiegbu, Arabella Breck,

Director of Fact Checking: Tammy Xu Fact Checkers: Abigail Bazin, Susan Chun, Maria Maynez, Sam Joyce, Elizabeth Winkler, Lucy Ritzmann, Kate Gallagher, Matt Moore, Malvika Jolly, Charmaine Runes Visuals Editor Mell Montezuma Deputy Visuals Editors Siena Fite,

Sofie Lie, Shane Tolentino Photo Editor Keeley Parenteau Staff Photographers: milo bosh, Jason Schumer Staff Illustrators: Siena Fite, Katherine Hill Layout Editors Haley Tweedell, Davon Clark Webmaster Managing Director

Pat Sier Jason Schumer

The Weekly is produced by a mostly all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring.

Over the summer we publish every other week.

Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, contact: (773) 234-5388 or advertising@southsideweekly.com

Cover illustration by Alejandra Fernandez

IN CHICAGO South Side neighborhoods have the most coronavirus fatalities South and West Side neighborhoods lead the city in COVID-19 deaths. Inside this issue, readers will find a table with the latest death counts broken down by community area; numbers are drawn from the tracker we published two weeks ago, which updates daily online. South Shore has so far seen the highest number of COVID-19 fatalities per capita, followed by Morgan Park, West Englewood, Douglas, and West Pullman. Carol Adams, treasurer of South Shore Works, hosted a webinar to discuss the coronavirus pandemic with local aldermen Leslie Hairston and Michelle Harris, the city Department of Public Health, and other public officials, which the Hyde Park Herald reported focused on education and expanding testing, care, and social services in hard-hit areas.

The mayor’s added powers during the crisis Both progressive and machine aldermen were skeptical of granting Mayor Lori Lightfoot emergency spending powers, an ordinance that ultimately passed the City Council April 24 with a 29-21 vote. During a committee meeting on April 22 a handful of aldermen, including Byron Sigcho-Lopez, Raymond Lopez, and Jeanette Taylor, used a parliamentary procedure to temporarily delay the vote, which they said was a “power grab”—prompting Lightfoot to accuse them of being selfish and grandstanding. The emergency powers could speed up the city’s response to the crisis by allowing the mayor to move the 2020 budget around and negotiate million-dollar contracts, but critics claim that reducing oversight of city spending could result in abuses like the infamous parking meter deal negotiated under Richard M. Daley. Though the ordinance is set to expire on June 30, it will likely be extended if the stay-at-home order persists.

Essential workers are mostly Black and brown More than half of essential workers in the city during the pandemic are people of color, according to an analysis by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning that looked at twelve job sectors and other occupations that have been essential during the pandemic, such as manufacturing, transportation, material moving, and building and grounds maintenance. Latinx workers are especially overrepresented in construction (at thirty-nine percent) and food service occupations (thirty-eight percent), while Black workers are most overrepresented in healthcare support (at thirty-six percent) and protective service jobs (twenty-nine percent). Chicago-area essential workers live in greater concentration along the South and West Sides, in nearby south, southwest, and west suburban Cook County, and nearby counties.

IN THIS ISSUE what's happening in the wards?

Checking in with South Side aldermen on their responses to COVID-19 south side weekly editors..............5 krista franklin is real af

A conversation with the poet and artist av benford.........................................8 footwork in the foreground

Open the Circle is building a bigger stage for homegrown Chicago dance christopher good..........................10 documenting the past

Some of Chicago’s disappearing buildings martin gonzalez............................12 op-ed: a just cause for chicago tenants

“Eviction is a traumatizing and destabilizing experience.” bobby vanecko.................................14 op-ed: losing home

“There should be some basic level of housing below which no one will fall.” julian hendrix................................16 op-ed: small neighborhood businesses need you now more than ever

No, the federal PPP loans did not help your local café, bakery, or taquería jesse iñiguez....................................18 voices from la villita, post-demolition

“As always, they screw us over.” jacqueline serrato.........................19 covid-19 deaths in chicago’s neighborhoods

bea malsky and south side weekly editors.............................................20 illinois temporarily expands food stamps during covid-19

Link cardholders and households with children receive emergency food stamps jacqueline serrato.........................21 ssw games

croSSWord, trivia & coloring page jim daley, martha bayne, and grae rosa..................................................22 APRIL 29, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3

GUIDE

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4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ APRIL 29, 2020 



POLITICS

What’s Happening in the Wards?

Checking in with South Side aldermen on their responses to COVID-19

BY MARTHA BAYNE, CHRISTIAN BELANGER, JIM DALEY, JACQUELINE SERRATO, AND SAM STECKLOW

City Council meetings have moved online; ward offices are (generally) closed. The April 24 vote to grant Mayor Lightfoot emergency spending powers sparked bitter debate. So what exactly are South Side aldermen up to right now? How are they responding to the COVID-19 crisis in their wards? We did a little research.

Find your alderman at sswk.ly/ FindAld.

3RD WARD: PAT DOWELL

5TH WARD: LESLIE HAIRSTON

Earlier in April, Dowell co-hosted a virtual town hall with local, county, state, and federal elected officials about the impact of COVID-19 on Black communities. She also helped sponsor a new ordinance that would require all Chicago residents to wear face masks or cloth facial coverings in public. Dowell keeps a resource list at ward03chicago.com and sends regular newsletters with updates. Her office is closed, but her staff can be reached at (773) 373-9273 or ward03@cityofchicago.org. She voted in favor of the emergency powers ordinance.

Hairston has been updating residents through her ward newsletter and social media, primarily her Facebook page. On April 28, Hairston hosted a virtual ward meeting for residents. With Alderman King, Hairston recently participated in the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference’s virtual community forum—a stream of the event is available on the HPKCC’s Facebook page. Contact her office at (773) 324-5555 or via the form on her website at lesliehairston.com. Hairston voted against the emergency powers ordinance.

4TH WARD: SOPHIA KING

6TH WARD: RODERICK SAWYER

Kenwood and parts of Hyde Park, Bronzeville, and the South Loop

Park Manor and parts of Grand Crossing, Chatham, and Englewood

King has been sending out updates to ward residents through email and social media, including information on stimulus check payments, health guidelines, and meetings she’s participating in. With Alderman Hairston, King recently participated in the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference’s virtual community forum—a stream of the event is available on the HPKCC’s Facebook page. You can also connect with her office by calling (773) 536-8103 or sending an email to ward04@ cityofchicago.org. She is a cosponsor of two bills from Alderman Matt Martin that would provide rental relief and mortgage forbearance for Chicago residents. King voted against the emergency powers ordinance.

Sawyer’s office is sending out a newsletter every other week with information about food pantries, social distancing, and other resources and updates. He closed his ward service office in mid-March, though residents can still access it through email at service@6ward.com or the phone—leave a voicemail at (773) 635-0006. Sawyer voted against the emergency powers ordinance.

Washington Park, Grand Boulevard, and parts of Bronzeville and the South Loop

Parts of South Shore, Hyde Park, and Woodlawn

7TH WARD: GREGORY MITCHELL

Parts of South Shore, South Chicago, Calumet Heights, and Jeffrey Manor Mitchell’s usual newsletter has included information about social-distancing and health guidelines, as well as local food banks, small business relief, and other resources for people in his ward. Mitchell voted against the emergency powers ordinance.

APRIL 29, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

POLITICS

8TH WARD: MICHELLE HARRIS

Avalon Park, Burnside, and parts of South Shore, Grand Crossing, Chatham, and Calumet Heights Harris has been updating residents over social media, primarily on her Facebook page, as well as through a newsletter with information about senior shopping hours, tenants’ rights, small business grants, and other resources. She closed her ward office on March 19, but residents can still get in touch through email at michelle.harris@ cityofchicago.org, or by phone at (773) 874-3300. Harris voted in favor of the emergency powers ordinance during the full City Council meeting.

9TH WARD: ANTHONY BEALE

Pullman, Riverdale, Altgeld Gardens, and parts of Roseland and Chatham Beale has been updating residents through his Facebook page, and sent out a newsletter

with a comprehensive resource guide, as well as information about testing at hospitals on the South Side. His ward office is closed, but residents can get in touch through email at ward09@cityofchicago.org, or by phone at (773) 785-1100. Beale has announced that he wants to use his ward funds to buy protective masks from businessman and former mayoral/presidential candidate Willie Wilson—according to a press release from his office, Beale and Wilson spent Sunday afternoon handing out free masks in Pullman. Beale, a frequent critic of Lightfoot, voted against the emergency powers ordinance during the full City Council meeting.

during regular business hours. She has a ward resource guide, and her social media streams and newsletters provide regular updates, like the cancellation of the Easter egg hunt, and a tutorial on how to make a face mask. Her office can be reached at three numbers, (773) 768-8138, (773) 7688174, and (773) 768-8175, and by email at ward10@cityofchicago.org. Sadlowski Garza voted in favor of the emergency powers ordinance.

10TH WARD: SUSAN SADLOWSKI GARZA

Bridgeport, Canaryville, and parts of Pilsen, Back of the Yards, and University Village

East Side, Hegewisch, and parts of South Chicago and Jeffrey Manor

Sadlowski Garza announced in late March that one of her staffers had tested positive for COVID-19 and that all employees would be working remotely Monday through Friday

11TH WARD: PATRICK DALEY THOMPSON

The last update to the 11th Ward website’s appears to have been in 2018, but Thompson’s office is keeping constituents informed about COVID-19-related issues and regular ward business via Facebook and Twitter. It’s unclear whether his ward office is closed; calls to (773) 254-6677 routed to a generic voicemail account. Per an April 22 Facebook post, previously scheduled alley resurfacing projects are proceeding as planned. Thompson voted for the emergency powers ordinance.

12TH WARD: GEORGE CARDENAS

McKinley Park and parts of Back of the Yards and Little Village Cardenas spoke in a mayoral press conference, along with 22nd Ward Alderman Michael Rodríguez, to announce an executive order stating that undocumented immigrants were eligible to apply for COVID-19related city relief programs, as established in the sanctuary city ordinance. His office is printing CPS packets for free, donated face masks to local police departments, and co-hosted a Latino Caucus virtual town hall and an environmental webinar.

They can be reached at (773) 523-8250 or ward12@cityofchicago.org. Cardenas called on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to provide free internet access citywide and also voted in favor of granting her emergency powers.

13TH WARD: MARTY QUINN

Clearing and parts of West Elsdon, West Lawn, and Chicago Lawn Quinn said his office is providing yard signs to residents to show support for first responders and that he is facilitating delivery of computers to students who need them at home. His staff has contacted residents via phone calls, text messages, and mailers. The ward office is keeping regular hours, and can be reached at (773) 581-8000 or ward13@ cityofchicago.org. Quinn voted in favor of the emergency powers ordinance.

14TH WARD: ED BURKE

Parts of Archer Heights, Gage Park, West Eldon, Brighton Park, and Garfield Ridge The long-serving, still-under-indictment alderman of the 14th Ward voted against granting emergency powers to the mayor.

Calls and emails to his ward office at (773) 471-1414 and ward14@cityofchicago.org were not returned.

15TH WARD: RAYMOND LOPEZ

Parts of Back of the Yards, Brighton Park, and West Englewood On Monday, Lopez announced that an employee was diagnosed with COVID-19 and his offices would close until May 1. They can be contacted at (773) 823-1539 and (773) 306-0837, and at ward15@cityofchicago. org. The alderman posts religious services and acknowledgements of fallen officers on social media, and his husband made nearly 200 face masks to distribute to vulnerable residents. In early April Lopez said that liquor stores in his ward voluntarily agreed to shut down at 5pm every day. He has vocally opposed expanding mayoral powers and voted against it.

16TH WARD: STEPHANIE COLEMAN Parts of Englewood, West Englewood, and Back of the Yards

Through her ward website 16thward.org, Coleman is offering COVID-19-related resources such as tips on how to safely shop MELL MONTEZUMA

6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ APRIL 29, 2020

POLITICS

for groceries and how to make a no-sew mask out of a t-shirt or bandana. She maintains a weekly newsletter that has included knowyour-rights information for workers, food pantry listings, and other ward resources, encouraging people to “spread the word not the virus.” Her staff can be reached at (773) 306-1981 or by email at info@16thward. org. Coleman voted against the emergency powers ordinance.

17TH WARD: DAVID MOORE

Parts of Chicago Lawn, Auburn Gresham, and Englewood Moore’s staff is keeping regular office hours remotely, and are even “more so” responsive to constituents' issues at this time, his chief of staff JeVon Moore wrote in an email.

Although he is not hosting virtual ward nights, his office is making calls to and distributing PPE to seniors in the ward as outreach, and has fielded questions, largely about requesting PPE or food. His communications with ward residents has taken the form of robo-calls, social media, and his newsletter, which can be subscribed to by emailing alderman@17ward.com or calling (773) 783-3672. The 17th Ward and surrounding wards have been hit particularly hard by COVID-19, and Moore with other aldermen held a press conference to emphasize its deadliness to their constituents. Moore voted against the emergency powers ordinance.

18TH WARD: DERRICK CURTIS Ashburn and parts of Chicago Lawn

In partnership with the Greater AuburnGresham Development Corporation, Curtis reportedly spent the afternoon of Friday, April 24, handing out free masks and gloves in the parking lot at 2043 West 79th Street. Auburn Gresham has been one of the community areas hardest hit by COVID-19, and the alderman took part in that neighborhood’s city-convened Racial Equity Rapid Response virtual town hall on April 25, at which he noted he has lost both a cousin and friend to COVID-19. The ward office’s phone number is (773) 2845057; its email is ward18@cityofchicago. org. Curtis voted in favor of the emergency powers ordinance.

19TH WARD: MATT O’SHEA

Beverly, Mount Greenwood, and parts of Morgan Park Following a March 25 breakfast he helped serve at the Original Pancake House in Beverly to employees of Oak Lawn’s Advocate Christ Medical Center, O’Shea started a GoFundMe page to raise money for meals for front-line health care workers.

On April 14, O’Shea used some of the donations to distribute 1,900 meals to police stations and detective divisions on the Southwest Side. The alderman told WGN his 19th Ward Youth Foundation, which is the beneficiary of the fundraising drive, was also delivering meals to hospitals and fire stations. As of Monday, the page had raised more than $136,000. The ward office phone number is (773) 238-8766. O’Shea voted in favor of the emergency powers ordinance.

20TH WARD: JEANETTE TAYLOR

Parts of Woodlawn, Englewood, Washington Park, and Back of the Yards Taylor has been updating residents through her newsletter, website, and social media with information and resources. She is a member of the Right to Recovery coalition, a group of legislators, unions, and community groups calling for a comprehensive legislative relief package to help vulnerable groups during the pandemic. Taylor has been critical of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s rental relief initiative, and called for the Chicago Housing Authority to use any vacant units as housing for homeless people. She is also a cosponsor of two bills from Alderman Matt Martin that would provide rental relief and mortgage forbearance for Chicago residents.

Taylor voted against the emergency powers ordinance.

21ST WARD:

(773) 881-9300 to schedule food delivery, or email their name, address, and phone number to ward21@cityofchicago.org. Calls and emails to his ward office by the Weekly were not returned. Brookins voted in favor of the emergency powers ordinance.

Weekly to his ward office at (773) 533-2400 and ward24@cityofchicago.org were not returned.

22ND WARD: MICHAEL RODRÍGUEZ

Chinatown and parts of Pilsen, McKinley Park, the South Loop, and the West Loop

Parts of Little Village, North Lawndale, and LeClaire Courts

Rodríguez and his office are ensuring damage control after receiving harsh criticism for not warning residents of a demolition that enveloped his ward with potentially toxic dust. His office is closed, but staffers can be reached at (773) 762-1771 and ward22@ cityofchicago.org. Prior to that, Rodríguez spoke in a mayoral press conference, along with Ald. George Cardenas, to announce an executive order stating that undocumented immigrants were eligible to apply for COVID-19-related city relief programs, as established in the sanctuary city ordinance.

He voted against extending emergency powers for Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

23RD WARD: SILVANA TABARES

Parts of Garfield Ridge, Clearing, West Elsdon, West Lawn, and Chicago Lawn The ward office has suspended walk-in hours, but is staffing phone and email requests during regular hours. Tabares said her staff is phone-banking and text messaging residents and has used social media and a weekly newsletter to keep them informed.

She added that she is working on an ordinance that would grant “Line of Duty” designation to deceased first responders and extend benefits to their families. Her ward office can be reached at (773) 582-4444 or ward23@cityofchicago.org. Tabares voted in favor of the emergency powers ordinance.

25TH WARD: BYRON SIGCHO-LOPEZ Sigcho-Lopez has a ward-based resource guide at 25thward.org/covid19 and keeps his offices open Monday–Friday, though they are only accepting calls, not walk-ins.

Residents can contact the office at (773) 523-4100 and ward25@cityofchicago.org.

Staffers are printing learning packets for CPS students and delivering care packages to senior facilities, and the alderman frequently appears in webinars. The office also recently launched a Family Emergency Fund. Their Facebook feed and website includes information in English, Spanish, and Mandarin. Sigcho-Lopez is a proponent of #RightToRecovery relief and voted against emergency powers for the mayor.

34TH WARD: CARRIE AUSTIN

West Pullman and parts of Roseland and Washington Heights The longtime alderman said in a statement that she has closed her physical office with the intention of reopening in May, while her staff is working from home and addressing constituent concerns from there.

“Most pertinent information” is posted on Austin’s Facebook page. “Our response has been constituent-focused [and] partnership based,” the statement reads. You can leave a voicemail message at (773) 928-6961; the outgoing message at this number gives information on hours and locations of neighborhood food pantries and hot meal resources. Austin voted in favor of the emergency powers ordinance.

HOWARD BROOKINS JR. 24TH WARD: Brainerd and parts of Auburn Gresham, Washington Heights, and Roseland

MICHAEL SCOTT JR.

On April 24 and 28, Brookins, along with other local politicians and business leaders, passed out masks at locations in the ward.

His ward office is providing food drop-offs to seniors in the community during the COVID-19 shutdown. Residents can call

Scott supported the mayor’s 9pm curfew on liquor stores earlier this month, and questioned the governor’s decision to close schools for the remainder of the school year. He voted in favor of the emergency powers ordinance. Calls and emails from the

Parts of North Lawndale and Little Village

APRIL 29, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

LITERATURE

Krista Franklin Is Real AF A conversation with the shapeshifting poet and artist

BY AV BENFORD

I

first met the artist, writer, bibliophile, and shapeshifter most commonly known as Krista Franklin in January of 2019. We were gathered in celebration, about twenty or so of us, at a tapas bar in the West Loop after the opening of a mutual friend’s exhibition. I’d arrived just shy of being late. As I was quickly reconnecting with and giving my love to the host, our party was seated, and as we continued to talk we took up residence at the far end of a long table. Franklin and another mutual poet friend joined us, making a raucous foursome of Black poets. Part of what made her so memorable that cold January evening was a quick wit and an irresistible laugh, but most of all was her voice, deep and rich like butter on a Sunday biscuit.

I

t's July 2019. 1104 S. Wabash. Franklin and I are at Columbia College Chicago, in the studios of the Book and Paper Arts Programs. She’s only in this studio for a few days, and so tonight she’s planning on staying until the building closes at eleven.

This week she will spend ten to twelve hours on the grueling process of making paper. “I've been doing it for about five years straight...It's not backbreaking but it is laborious. And it’s heavy work—you're picking up a lot of weight. Wood. And water too.“ Today she is working with abaca, a fiber from the Philippines. “I don't really have a lot of access to it except for here. It's really translucent, especially when bleached.

It can be semi-translucent when dried. It's one of my favorites. I use it as a laminate.”

As we sit on stools near the studio’s large loft windows, Franklin looks at me with the intuitive intensity of an artist in anticipation, her mind coiled tight before the lunge. Franklin, who is originally from Ohio, has been living in Chicago for eighteen years. She came here on a whim: “my best friend lived here.” The two women had made a pact that they were going to apply to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for grad school. Franklin didn’t keep her end of the bargain, and when her friend applied and got accepted, Franklin 8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ APRIL 29, 2020

stayed in Dayton, Ohio. A year later, her best friend was still working on her masters and needed a roommate. “I was thinking [I was] sitting...chilling, and I was like, I am not doing it. And the next day I was like, okay, I'll move. I sold off everything I couldn't fit in my little car. Lived with her for a year and then struck out on my own.”

Once engaged to artist Steven Flemister, she came to the South Side for love, but when that relationship ended, she stayed. Franklin adores her home in Bronzeville because it is “emotional[ly] and physically charged,” adding, “to say that I live in Bronzeville...that space where all this Black history erupted..." She notes that "I won't always live there, I won't always live in Chicago, but it has been one of the most critical spaces for me to live in for many many reasons, including and up to some of the more violent things that happen in the city." For this lover of Black history and story, this fighter city—constantly identifying itself in opposition to something else—makes an apt home.

F

or the better part of the past decade Krista Franklin’s work has spanned genres and media like light spans a dark room. In 2012, Willow Books published Franklin’s chapbook Study of Love & Black Body. In its title poem, she quotes André 3000 thanking mothers and fathers in the epigraph, while later in the piece effortlessly flaying your heart with truth— in hard smacking lines like “To the child her mother said: Children are like tiny anchors.” and “Not one thing can stand the weight of a chain.”

In 2015, Franklin exhibited the project “Like Water” at the University of Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture. “Like Water” combined writing and visual art to create a shapeshifter, a fictional young Black woman named Naima Brown.

The exhibition examined how Naima moves through the world as she figures out that she can shift and change herself into anything-from an animal to another person.

In 2018, Franklin released Under The Knife through the artist book publisher Candor Arts. The hand-bound book has a clinically stylized look; the cover resembles a medical file. “For me, the stitching was an aesthetic as well as a conceptual conceit around the stitching in my body,” says Franklin. “It is a non-traditional book in a lot of ways. It is designed to be many things: a memoir, a work of art, a family history, a photo album. It's an art book, but it does tell a non-linear story about...my mother's side of the family and some of the traumatic experiences around mothering and motherhood. Woven throughout that is my own story with reproductive issues as well, and...having had multiple surgeries to deal with that.”

Franklin's new book, Too Much Midnight, was released by Haymarket Books in early April. It is a holy work in the canon of black female liberation theology.

A chronicling of Franklin’s conjuring. A culmination of horrors and histories told

through the vulnerable lens of a life lived openly. In Too Much Midnight, Franklin draws from a gri gri bag of awakened realities—the larger canons of pop culture and art history, as well as the histories of the African diaspora and Afrosurrealism.

The book features thirty pairs of poems and artworks, as well as an interview with the artist.

Franklin tells me that “the courage [to tell these stories] wasn’t hard, because I come from a family that's very forthright. I won't say most Black families, but I think [in] a lot of families in general there always seems to be this huge cloak of secrecy around shit.

My family doesn't have that. We definitely have stories that I don't know. The women in my family have a right to their own privacy.

But when it comes to their childhoods and the experiences they had to endure, they are really open. I remember when I was younger, my biggest question [for my mother] was ‘Is it ok that I am writing about this, that, or the other?’ Her question would be ‘Is it

PHOTO COURSETY OF KRISTA FRANKLIN

LITERATURE

true? Then OK. Carry on.’” She laughs at the memory.

One of the things that touched Franklin’s life growing up was that her mother and aunts were raised in an orphanage in Xenia, Ohio. “They were taken to this orphanage [when] my mother was about six or seven.

She's the oldest of four. They were taken from the home because my grandmother could not afford to take care of them. It was a financial issue, poverty-related. Not abuse or anything like that.” Her mother grew up there until about the age of sixteen. She graduated from high school and then went home to help get her sisters out after that.

“I would go back to that orphanage every summer. They have a reunion every year and my mother was just at that reunion this past weekend. So it was a part of our life story. It wasn’t this thing that anyone was ashamed of. Even my grandmother, she was kind of shameless, you know? May she rest in peace.

Even if she did have shame around losing her children, she never showed that to me. Also, they still were in contact with her. So I was still very much a part of my grandmother's life. It wasn’t this huge ordeal.”

Franklin’s creative process involves a lot of obscuring. “When I started writing Under The Knife,” she says, “I intended for it to be a straight memoir, just all the way through, starting at their [her mother and aunts] story and going straight through and then landing at my last surgery, which was

a hysterectomy. My psychic grappling with this idea, this speculative notion that I had around my body going ape shit, because of the particular traumas I had in my imagination around what it means to mother a child. And the idea of loss. I recognize Under The Knife as being in a literary legacy of capturing the narratives of Black women. And I kinda wanted...this kind of echoing throughout the book, [but] I could only really achieve that by deconstructing the book. I wrote up to a certain point. I couldn’t really get much further, once I got better from my surgery...so then I took it to the cutting floor and chopped it up. Did a whole bunch of interventions in the writing—including painting over pages and obscuring certain passages. Digitally manipulating certain things and introducing family photographs, introducing medical records, just a number of different kinds of archival materials to capture the story that really can't be told— or really fully understood.”

C

ritics have drawn connections between Franklin’s work and that of jazz musician Sun Ra. (“People talk about Sun Ra and my work all the time, and to that end, I'm very flattered because he was a master.”) But, she tells me, she didn't come to these concepts that she explores in her work through him—instead, she discovered ideas of Afrofuturism through reading science fiction novels. “Octavia

PHOTO COURSETY OF KRISTA FRANKLIN

Franklin looks at me with the intuitive intensity of an artist in anticipation, her mind coiled tight before the lunge.

Butler is much more of an influence on me then Sun Ra is. The Neptunes are more of an influence. I mean, OutKast is more of an influence on me than Sun Ra.” Franklin was born in the 1970s, so she “didn't even find out about Sun Ra until much much later in my life.…I appreciate the legacy of Sun Ra, I was drawn to him because of his ability to myth-make a whole legend around himself creating his identity....I am compelled by his persona.” But her inspirations were sci-fi writers like Nalo Hopkinson, Tricia Rose’s book Black Noise, and Public Enemy—she’s a fan of what she calls their “sonic displays.”

When I asked Franklin about what it means to be an Afrofuturist, about the common marriage of her name and the term, she quickly turned the question on its head. “What are you talking about when you say that I am an Afrofuturist artist? I know what I am talking about, because I am making the work. I used Afrofuturism in graduate school [at Columbia College] and Afrosurrealism as a way of thinking about certain things in my work. The idea of the speculative, the idea of horror, the idea of the grotesque, the idea of the dream space, the dream state....How have Black people, African people, people of color, [Latinx] people—how have we used these systems that are very complicated—space, astronomy, metaphysics, astrology, Tarot divination systems...used shells to tell people's futures.

These are the things that rattle my cage, that I am excited to talk about and wish to talk about more than using these very reductive statements that—oh, her work is

Afrofuturist. Why are you calling it that?

Is it the outer space references that I am making? Is it the fact [that I am] referencing gods and spirits? What is it about this work that makes it Afrofuturist or Afrosurrealist?"

Krista Franklin is real AF. When I tell her of my own emotional response to her work, of my own seven hour myomectomy, of waking up alone and undermedicated-she holds me with an overstanding gaze.

After an afternoon of connecting through laughter, while sighing and bonding over the stories of our Black female bodies in the Western medical system, I leave Franklin to her work of constructing, examining, and intervening. She is sloshing through ephemera—piles of clippings and album covers, collected oddities of Blackness. The abaca sits ready for the next step in her process. An assortment of cut-outs and collage elements await her-- scattered across a steel table-- poised to be assembled and addressed.

AV Benford is a Food & Land editor at the Weekly. She last wrote about how marijuana legalization is off to a rocky start.

APRIL 29, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

MUSIC

Footwork in the Foreground

Through documentation and education, Open the Circle is building a bigger stage for homegrown Chicago dance

BY CHRISTOPHER GOOD

PHOTO BY WILLS GLASSPIEGEL

T

onight, the Stony Island Arts Bank is wallpapered by projector beams.

A clip of feet on pavement covers each of four walls. The scrape of sneakers on tarmac plays on loop over the sound system: it sounds like Chicago.

When the dancers walk onstage, they’re in socks, near-silent. But once they lace their sneakers, there’s the constant squeak of rubber soles on hardwood—the sound dance makes in basements and courts and alleys. It’s a constant reminder of the sheer athleticism, the arms swinging in counterbalance, the feet blurred behind fog and strobes. Like the Traxman song, these

10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ APRIL 29, 2020

dancers are footworking on air.

This is footwork: a kinetic, wildly inventive style created by Black musicians and dancers on the city’s South and West sides. You could spend an afternoon breaking down the range of influences that producers and DJs wove into footwork music throughout the 1990s: the manic punch of ghetto house; the 303s of acid house; the erratic rhythms of juke.

But this sound formed in reaction to footwork dance—a style born in the 1980s on the West Side with the “holy ghost,” an animated impression of catching “the spirit” in church. Decades later, the “ghost” remains

a standard, and footwork encompasses a dizzying array of moves: skate, dribble, bounce, juke.

What remains constant is the pulse: a breakneck 160 beats per minute.

The show is “In the Wurkz,” a multimedia work that traces the dancers’ personal histories across the sites where footwork was formed. The performers onstage are members of The Era ( Jamal “Litebulb" Oliver, Sterling “Steelo” Lofton, Jemal “P-Top” De La Cruz, Brandon “Chief Manny” Calhoun) and Partners in the Circle (Elisha "Eleelee" Chandler and “Queen Diamond” Hardiman), and the

whole production is a project of Open the Circle, the not-for-profit that The Era runs to support and further footwork’s social impact.

The “circle” is the dancefloor as proving ground—a clearing where footworkers battle one another and pay their dues. If you’ve never been to a footwork battle, you’ve never seen it, but producers have paid homage to the circle so many times that you might have heard it: DJ Roc’s “Make Em Panic” (“Get em in the circle / make ‘em panic”), RP Boo and DJ Spinn’s “Step n My Circle” (“step in my circle / everybody’s getting burned”), DJ Nate’s “Footwork Homicide” (fair warning

MUSIC

to anyone “that step in the circle”).

Competition remains one of the driving forces behind footwork. But to “open the circle” is to clear space for other dancers—a fitting image for Open the Circle, and for its efforts to support footworkers across the city.

Before Open the Circle, there was The Era, which Litebulb, Steelo, Chief Manny, and P-Top founded in 2014. Though the crew only goes back six years, its members have been involved in the city’s footwork scene for ages: Litebulb and Chief Manny came up with 3rd Dimension, one of the many dance teams under the Empiire collective; Chief Manny, Litebulb, and Steelo were later members of the respected Terra Squad crew.

Wills Glasspiegel, a journalist and videographer long involved in the scene, joined The Era shortly after its founding. By then, releases like Bangs & Works Vol. 1 and Double Cup had won over fans around the world. Dancers in Tokyo were putting their own spin on footwork; London clubs were booking Teklife DJs. (In one clip shown as part of “In the Wurkz,” Litebulb footworks in front of Buckingham Palace guards while on tour with Rashad and DJ Spinn.)

But even as footwork music gained a wider audience, the people that created it had lost members of their family. Jeremiah Sterling, a rising member of Terra Squad who might have joined The Era, was killed in 2010. Rashad—who even years after his passing, remains the closest thing footwork has to a household name—died in April 2014.

And for all the international clout, something about Chicago footwork had been lost in translation. The shows that got booked, whether in NYC or overseas, assumed a “standardized, commercialized model: a DJ and a room full of people that don’t know how to footwork,” said Litebulb in an interview. Glasspiegel affirmed: “A lot happened in there that I think some people miss if they're just looking at footwork as club music.”

The lines delivered in the opening moments of “In the Wurkz” put a sharper point on this: “white walls, white faces, thinking they can relate.”

So in the summer of 2016, The Era put their own stories first. In the span of a few months, they not only prepared a photography exhibition at Columbia College Chicago’s Hokin Gallery and debuted “In the Wurkz” as a stage show at Hamilton Park in Englewood, but

channeled the experience into a nine-track mixtape of the same name.

When the members of The Era decided to form Open the Circle in the following months, it wasn’t just about getting footwork on a bigger stage—“because man, if we [just] help ourselves, it's going to be a regular old group of artist men,” said Litebulb. It was about support—artistic, economic, and social support—for a community and culture rooted on the South Side.

How would you describe that culture?

For starters, The Era would like to clarify that footwork has never been about “background dancers.” Sure, they’ve performed in support of high-profile acts (e.g. SAVEMONEY)— but from the iconic Battlegrounds parties to the Rink, dancers always stood in front of the DJs. Litebulb remembers one up-andcoming Chicago band that asked The Era to “background dance” for a music video. The Era stopped returning their calls.

More often than not, the dancers are DJs, and vice-versa—there’s no line dividing the two. The vocal chops on any given footwork track are filled with nods to dancers and their dance. (Take, for instance, Rashad’s “Ghost”: named for a move from the 80s; filled with shout-outs to dancers like Litebulb). So during “In the Wurkz," the dancers and their stories are front and center, ad-libbing, dribbling, ghosting, “stepping on necks, stealing crowns.”

As Litebulb said: “if you really try to distill this whole genre that now stretches around the world, what is the essence of it?

It’s the dance.”

But dance is ephemeral: one of the hardest art forms to document, let alone to make a living at. Litebulb and Glasspiegel are frank about this: How many dancers from a Missy Elliott music video can you name? Do you know where that dance on Fortnite or TikTok came from? When the New York Times profiled Jalaiah Harmon, creator of the Renegade dance, it told us that the fourteen-year-old had created one of the most popular dances on the internet—and “no one really knows that.” Black music and culture have found a wider audience in white America, but the profits—and credits—don’t always make their way back to the artists.

“When you see Black cultural traditions, it’s sometimes too easy to anonymize it— ‘oh, it’s folk, it’s more than one author,’” said Glasspiegel.

So Chief Manny and Glasspiegel, The Era’s two videographers, have made documentation a central part of Open

the Circle’s work. Footwork has always circulated in viral clips, from Wala Cam’s recordings of footwork battles to that Michael Myers Halloween video. But Open the Circle’s videos don’t just put names and faces to the dancers—they clear a path to the grants that support their work. Getting “paid in exposure” doesn’t pay the bills. A grant from Chicago Dancemakers Forum, like the one Litebulb won, can.

Filmmaking also gives Open the Circle an opportunity to set the record straight on what footwork is. Most reporting on the topic revolves around a single scene, Battlegrounds, and a single model: “a fucking one-on-one battle between two footworkers with a crowd of people watching in a hotass room with no fan,” Litebulb joked.

Women have always been part of the juke and footwork scenes at the War Zone and Battlegrounds (just look at old Wala Cam clips). But to do their scene justice, The Era had to challenge preconceptions about footwork as a boys’ club.

Part of this is the stories they tell. In 2018, dancer Kenesha “Murda Mommy” Sheridan developed I AM THE QUEEN—a film tribute to the women of footwork—with Open the Circle. Then there’s the blistering “Ladies Thoughts” section of “In the Wurkz,” where Eleelee and Queen Diamond explain why they dance (before outdancing the men on stage).

But it’s also about making footwork accessible to a new generation. With its first summer camp, held in 2018, Open the Circle not only introduced South Side kids to the form, but provided them with a safe environment. When I visited that summer, I saw dance practice, acrobatics, video screenings, and a “homework” assignment that asked campers to find their favorite footwork music from a list: “RP Boo, DJ Earl, Jana Rush…”

To make this happen, the individual members of The Era rely on the support of the crews and teachers, often Black women, that gave them their start. Litebulb continues to work with his former 3rd Dimension mentor Tish Waters, the dancer who founded Empiire. The group has collaborated at length with Shkunna Stewart of Bringing out Talent (BOT), who had the connections and vision to make the group’s dance downs happen.

And in many ways, these dance downs are what Open the Circle is all about. Each summer, dance crews from around the South and West Sides—Diamonds, Dynasty, Geek Skquad—welcome the public to a

showcase-meets-dance party.

From outside the scene, you hear footwork described as some force of nature: it’s “difficult,” “aggressive,” “alien.”

But at a dance down, you might hear a Top 10 track played at twice the speed, or a Drake dance challenge mixed over a juke classic. Whether you find it “alien” or not, footwork assimilates the mainstream.

Chopped Lil Wayne acapellas (DJ Manny), an Evanescence flip (DJ Nate): all fair game.

To attend a dance down is to see a mash-up mentality in real-time, or faster.

“What you saw at the dance down was—you saw how footwork was born,” said Litebulb. “It's not born from an album. It's born from that environment that you saw.”

It’s this environment—being all under one roof, dancing—and this spirit of oneupmanship that inspired The Era’s decision to make their footwork lyrical. You’ll find a DJ chanting or ad-libbing over their set at a dance down (or any footwork party, for that matter), so rapping over footwork made sense as a next step. But when they set out to record the In the Wurkz mixtape, they made the choice to write lyrics that reflected their own experience as Chicagoans, as family men, as people working day jobs, as guys in their late 20s. In too much footwork, said Litebulb, “You only get bounce and break your back. You don’t get our lives.”

If being real isn’t all “bounce and break your back,” it isn’t all footworking on air. In its final act, “In the Wurkz'' depicts a night at Battlegrounds broken up by a shooting.

Police scanners hiss over the speakers; backspins blur the names of the victims.

There will always be new challenges. In response to COVID-19, The Era has had to cancel shows, reschedule projects, and figure out how to run a socially-distanced summer camp. But when an Open the Circle board member acquired a surplus of face masks last week, the members made a plan to distribute them to low-income communities. When they say that footwork saves lives, they mean it.

Open the Circle is on Instagram at @otcprojects, where they showcase dancers in “Footwork Fridays.” You can also find them and a new dance challenge, the #footworkchallenge, on Facebook and at otcprojects.org.

Christopher Good is a senior editor for the Weekly. He last wrote in March about Ajani Jones’ Dragonfly.

APRIL 29, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

VISUAL ARTS

Documenting the Past A look at some of Chicago’s disappearing buildings

BY MARTIN GONZALEZ

I

t’s fun to shoot old Chicago. I like documenting and seeing the hidden history. So much will be forgotten if we do not photograph the past. When a school, a church, or any building is abandoned, it usually winds up being demolished—by taking pictures we’ll help preserve its history.

Martin Gonzalez is a documenter of abandoned buildings around Chicago, fascinated by old places and imagining the moments of their past. This is his first piece for the Weekly. More of his photographs can be found on Flickr under the username Nitram242.

BONTEMPS ELEMENTARY, ENGLEWOOD Here’s one of the Chicago schools that closed, along with many others, back in 2013.This gym was used as a community center for kids to play and hang out, but it now sits abandoned and in decay.

GATELYS, ROSELAND I was sad to see the building looking this way because so much of the main shopping district in Roseland is abandoned and disappearing.

This neighborhood had so many department stores, restaurants, and other lively places. I bet there used to be many old theaters and bars here. When Gatelys caught on fire, I knew that a link to the past was going to be demolished. I had gone into some parts of the old department store back around 2012, when the parking garage and back area was demolished. I found so many cool items inside: old Gatelys receipts, catalogs, and shopping bags. That Gatelys sign is now gone, no longer a reminder of the good old days.

12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ APRIL 29, 2020

VISUAL ARTS

63RD AND ASHLAND BANK, ENGLEWOOD This was an old bank at 63rd and Ashland. It closed a long time ago and was converted into a church and retail stores. Here’s the old Beth-El church. The best part of documenting this old church was finding the hidden sections of the old bank. Sadly, this building has since been demolished.

PASTOR’S ROOM, 63RD AND ASHLAND BANK This room was the pastor’s main room. There was a nice desk behind the table, old books and pictures, and flags that were part of the Beth-El Nations church.

THRIFT STORE, 63RD AND ASHLAND BANK This part of the old bank on 63rd and Ashland was last used as a thrift store, but some remnants of the bank remained visible. I really like the tall ceiling and windows here.

APRIL 29, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

OPINION

C Op-Ed: A Just Cause for Chicago Tenants Organizers and aldermen continue the push for a new standard for evictions

BY BOBBY VANECKO

ALEJANDRA FERNANDEZ

14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ APRIL 29, 2020

hicago law currently allows landlords to evict any month-to-month tenant they want for any reason they want, as long as they give the tenant thirty days’ notice. According to an analysis by the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing, every year from 2010 to 2017, one in every twenty-five Chicago renters faced eviction. Around sixty percent of such cases ended in an eviction order being entered.

However, tenants are often forced out even in the cases that are dismissed, because they “voluntarily” agree to move out to avoid an eviction record, which can be as detrimental to a person’s ability to find quality housing as an eviction that is carried out.

Eviction is a traumatizing and destabilizing experience, and these “no cause” evictions worsen poverty and inequality while often enriching profit-seeking landlords in gentrifying neighborhoods.

While the Lawyers’ Committee found that eighty-two percent of eviction filings in Chicago from 2010-2017 made claims for back rent, the number of “no cause” evictions is not insignificant. Further, as a result of Chicago’s entrenched segregation and racial wealth and income gaps, people of color are disproportionately subject to eviction.

Organizations like the Metropolitan Tenants Organization (MTO) have been advocating for changes to this system for decades.

According to John Bartlett, MTO’s executive director, requiring landlords to provide a reason in order to be able to evict tenants has been a goal for the Chicago tenant movement since 1981. MTO has its roots in a community convening created that year, which was formed to come up with solutions to address the city’s longstanding housing crisis. One such solution was to create an organization to advocate on behalf of renters citywide. The community also created a platform of three primary policy proposals: a just cause eviction ordinance, tenant bill of rights, and a fair rental ordinance aimed at limiting arbitrary rent increases.

Ultimately, Barlett said that the community’s demands were whittled down to the tenant bill of rights, and after a fiveyear legislative battle, City Council passed the landmark Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance in 1986. The RLTO details the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants, including remedies for tenants like the ability to withhold rent when landlords refuse repairs. While this legislation was a significant achievement that has helped

countless Chicago renters, MTO is still pushing for the passage of the full original platform. Since MTO’s founding, their tenant help hotline has consistently received calls from tenants asking for help after being served with thirty-day eviction notices for lawful conduct like asking their landlords for repairs. MTO has also seen many “mass evictions,” which Bartlett describes as building-wide evictions that occur when landlords want to convert property to higher market rents.

In 2018, MTO joined with thirtysix other housing advocacy organizations to create the “Chicago Housing Justice League,” which has come up with a set of policies and principles to create more equitable housing opportunities throughout the city. The Just Cause ordinance is a major part of the league’s advocacy, and they have been collaborating with members of the City Council’s Latino and Progressive Caucuses, who plan to introduce the ordinance this Spring, Block Club Chicago reported earlier this month.

In an interview with the Weekly, the ordinance’s chief sponsor 25th Ward Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez said, “Evictions are a traumatic action… We cannot allow developers and corporations to continue to write legislation and impose their will at the expense of the vast majority of people.” Instead, Sigcho-Lopez has been working with MTO and the rest of the Chicago Housing Justice League to craft a new Just Cause ordinance, with help from other members of the Progressive Caucus and 48th Ward Alderman Harry Osterman, who Mayor Lori Lightfoot appointed as the chair of City Council’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate last May. As the former director of the grassroots community group the Pilsen Alliance, Sigcho-Lopez is deeply familiar with Chicago’s long-standing dearth of affordable housing, especially for communities of color. After he was elected to City Council last year, Sigcho-Lopez restarted conversations around Just Cause, a proposal that had been dormant during the developer-friendly administration of former mayor Rahm Emanuel.

While the ordinance is still being finalized and is sure to face opposition from landlords, developers, and their attorneys, the main thrust of Just Cause is that the ordinance requires landlords to give an actual reason for eviction—like nonpayment of rent or breaking a lease term—and it expands the notice period, with longer required notice for larger rent increases.

OPINION

ordinance, Sigcho-Lopez emphasized there are still many measures that state and “Just Cause could be a crucial step additional tenant protections such as the local policymakers could take to make sure to counsel in eviction proceedings, that no one is displaced as a result of the that could help thousands of Chicago right which reports from the Lawyers’ Committee current public health and economic crises. and the Reader have shown to decrease Ultimately, like the RLTO, Just Cause could renters.” the likelihood of eviction. There is also be a crucial step that could help thousands In more ambiguous situations, such as when a new building owner is converting a building to non-rental units, or when an old owner sells a building to a developer, the ordinance would require the owner to either give people time to relocate or pay a fee for relocation assistance. Once it is finalized, Sigcho-Lopez plans to introduce the ordinance as soon as possible and is hopeful that it will pass, especially given the fact that Lightfoot said in a speech to the City Club in February that she supports Just Cause and other tenant protections. However, the bill will surely still face significant opposition; a similar proposal from then-1st Ward Alderman “Proco” Joe Moreno was tabled in 2018 after outrage from Chicago landlords.

Sigcho-Lopez’s work on affordable housing has become even more urgent given the current pandemic and the statewide shelter-in-place order; social distancing is impossible when you don’t have shelter, and nationally, millions of people have lost their jobs and source of income in the past month. He also suggested a delay in property tax assessments to provide relief to homeowners, and proactive rental assistance to ensure that no one is saddled with extreme debt or forced from their homes during this crisis. However, in order to enact such measures, Governor J.B. Pritzker would have to lift the current statewide ban on rent control, which he has the power to do in an emergency, according to a legal memo commissioned by the KenwoodOakland Community Organization.

However, Pritzker has asserted that he does not have the legal authority to lift the ban on rent control; his office has not replied to a request for clarification. In the absence of such a “rent freeze,” 47th Ward Alderman Matt Martin last week proposed an ordinance that would give renters a twelve month grace period to pay rent if they lost income due to the coronavirus crisis. It has seventeen cosponsors.

Even before the current economic and public health crises arose, organizations like the Lift the Ban Coalition have been pushing state legislators to repeal the Rent Control Preemption Act, which was pushed through the General Assembly by the ultraconservative American Legislative Exchange

Council in 1997 before residents could even debate the benefits and drawbacks of such a policy, the Reader reported in 2017. SigchoLopez emphasized that the Just Cause ordinance would be most effective if rent control is also enacted—otherwise landlords could just hike up rent for whoever they don’t want in the building anymore, and then evict them for nonpayment.

Tenant protections like rent control and Just Cause are essential because they limit arbitrary increases in rent so that people are not displaced and neighborhoods are able to sustain a diverse range of incomes. As J.W. Mason, an economics professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, testified in front of the Jersey City, New Jersey City Council in November, there are moral reasons why long-term tenants have a legitimate interest in being able to stay in their homes—but there are also several economic justifications, such as the fact that high tenant turnover leads to less stable communities, which discourages neighborhood investment.

Most opponents of rent control ignore the fact that the two rent control bills proposed last legislative session did not apply to new properties or improvements made to existing buildings, so landlords would still be able to make profits for their additions to and management of the existing housing supply—rent control merely captures the windfall profits that automatically accrue due to the scarcity of housing or increased investment in a particular neighborhood.

In addition, rent control could also help to mitigate the current trend where the private housing market largely builds new units for upper income buyers and luxury renters (with a few notable exceptions in Chicago).

As retired Harvard University law professor Duncan Kennedy testified in support of proposed rent control bills in Massachusetts, “Giant rent increases with no equivalent improvement in housing conditions, along with displacement, represent a gigantic forced transfer of wealth from middle and low income tenants to landlords and developers.” That money would be much better spent ensuring that housing is not such a scarce resource, because it is a human right. Beyond the Just Cause

an urgent need to increase the supply of affordable housing, which governments can do through social housing—housing built and owned by municipalities (with funding from the federal government) that is leased at affordable rates and universally available to city residents.

While Chicago has needed major housing policy reform for years, the coronavirus crisis is making it even more apparent that Just Cause is one of many policies that will be necessary to increase and preserve Chicago’s affordable housing supply. As a January report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies concluded, “only the federal government has the scope and resources to provide housing assistance at a scale appropriate to need across the country.” Increased federal support for state and local governments is not very likely, but

of Chicago renters.

Bobby Vanecko is a contributor to the Weekly.

He is a second-year law student at Loyola University Chicago interested in criminal law, and interns at First Defense Legal Aid and the Westside Justice Center. He last wrote for the Weekly advocating for free, carbon-free, and police-free public transportation in the city.

APRIL 29, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

OPINION

Op-Ed: Losing Home

Lessons from the 2008 housing crisis for today

BY JULIAN HENDRIX

I

n 2016, the Obama Presidential Library selected Jackson Park as its future location. Many residents of the surrounding neighborhoods were thrilled, but others feared that they would be forced to move due to rising rents and property values. A study on housing commissioned by the Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement at UIC

found that in the two-mile radius around Jackson Park, sixty percent of renters were already spending more than thirty percent of their income on rent, the benchmark for affordability. Among low-income renters, the figure jumped to ninety-one percent.

We are in a moment where conventional explanations of housing instability fall short. Assumptions fly around that tenants

who cannot pay their rent need to move somewhere cheaper, or that homeowners who default on their mortgages borrowed more than they should have. Yet a cursory review of what’s really happening in our communities reveals that the people facing eviction or foreclosure right now are caught up in circumstances beyond their control.

Many restaurants and bars are operating at drastically reduced capacities due to bans on public gatherings; unemployment benefits and federal stimulus funds take weeks or months to arrive; the federal fund intended to bail out small businesses was completely exhausted within days of its creation, before some had the chance to finalize their applications.

The ongoing COVID-19 crisis is an unprecedented situation. But reports from the National Multifamily Housing Council tell us that well before the pandemic hit, an average of twenty percent of tenants were unable to pay their rent on time. This April’s report of a rise to thirty percent does not announce the arrival of a housing crisis, COURTESY OF TENANTS UNITED

but rather documents its intensification.

Significant housing instability has long been a reality. In fact, the U.S. very recently confronted a massive housing crisis in 2008, when speculative financial instruments created a housing bubble that threw millions of homeowners into foreclosure. In Illinois, foreclosure filings jumped forty-two percent between May 2007 and May 2008; a decade later, economists estimate that more than half of the people who lost homes during the crisis have not purchased another home.

What does 2008 show us? My experience as a tenant organizer and Kelli Dudley’s work as a housing lawyer have educated the two of us on an ugly reality: housing law has been shaped to protect the interests of the wealthy rather than the stability of our communities.

I met Kelli in 2018, when I hired her to defend me against an eviction that originated with my South Shore landlord’s refusal to adhere to building codes. In the sixteen months I fought my landlord, I learned firsthand how the legal system was not designed to protect me. While legal defense was a necessary part of addressing the issue, other strategies—most notably tenant organizing tactics—were more efficient and effective in protecting my legal rights than the judges and courts we assume serve that purpose. Kelli was able to prevent my eviction for six weeks and multiple court hearings but the judicial system’s default favoritism of landlords prevented a resolution; on the other hand, a single demonstration in front of the owner’s Andersonville home won me a commitment to repairs and a lease renewal within a week.

Kelli had learned the frustrations of housing court processes long ago from her work supporting other tenants fighting eviction as well as homeowners fighting foreclosure. She recently wrote about her experience in Iniquity: How Court Systems, Attorneys, and Legal Aid Organizations Cheated Homeowners in Foreclosure.

As tenants across Chicago grapple with an abrupt inability to pay bills and mortgage holders fret over bank notices, Kelli and I sat down to discuss our experiences with housing instability and what lessons these might offer to our communities as we assess the best responses for the present moment.

JH: In April 2020, the percent of tenants nationwide who did not pay rent jumped ten percent. We can assume that the number will jump again in May and that homeowners are facing similar challenges

16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ APRIL 29, 2020

OPINION

in paying their mortgages. How can people new to housing instability protect themselves if they’re unable to meet their housing costs?

Homes were taken without hesitation under these facts. I hope as many homeowners and renters as possible can be forewarned this time.

KD: If they do not pay rent, they must be linked in to a strong, consistent rent strike effort. Even then, if the landlord goes to evict when the courts reopen and any stays are lifted, the landlord will claim the full amount due. The courts will support the landlords.

With foreclosure, if a bank says, "It is okay to skip payments," homeowners must understand they are doing that to make money. The payments will come due after a certain period, and a lump sum will be required. At best, money may be tacked onto the end of the mortgage, making the mortgage extend further into the future.

Either way, interest will be collected and some late fees or some sort of processing fee may be tacked on. The banks are not "being nice." They are being capitalists. If I (a bank or landlord) can keep you on the hook to pay me more later, that can be a good business decision.

I would add that a favorite game of lenders and their lap dogs [back in 2008] was to collect "temporary modification payments" throughout the foreclosure process. They would not send the borrower any signed agreement, just string them along and tell them by phone to send the "modified" amount. Some collected as much as $60,000 from one homeowner over a period of years before abruptly throwing the case back into foreclosure and taking the home. The client would have been better served by using $60,000 to buy a new home.

JH: We imagine that homeowners are their own landlords, but they’re also facing monthly bills, whether it is a mortgage or property tax. And then there’s eminent domain, where even those who can pay their bills are forced to abandon their homes—as happened in Englewood during the Norfolk Southern Railway's railyard expansion, or in Pilsen with UIC’s southward expansion.

You and I have frequently discussed the quandary of spending money to hire a lawyer when faced with losing one's home as a tenant or homeowner. What suggestions do you have for homeowners who are having trouble making their payments and may be facing foreclosure right now?

"Housing law has been shaped to protect the interests of the wealthy rather than the stability of our communities."

KD: People have to consider whether they are getting value for the money they pay for a lawyer. [In some cases,] a lawyer may be able to keep the homeowner in their home and even help lower monthly payments. My objection is to lawyers who do nothing. A foreclosure can easily take a year or more just because of the steps in the process.

Many lawyers advertise themselves as the "save your home" lawyer, take money on a monthly basis, and never complete any work. In some cases, the “work” done is so incompetent that it hastens the loss of the home.

I do not have as much experience with the excuses around incompetent eviction defense, but I suspect it is much the same as above. [For both homeowners and tenants,] looking at what is being paid for is important. In some cases, it makes more sense to save the money for a move [than hire a lawyer], especially if you can move in with family or have other options.

JH: Your book is framed in the context of your own family’s history of displacement from their home. Can you say more about that displacement and what it says about the fantasy versus the reality of home ownership in the US? KD: While owning a home can be valuable, it is clear governments can take the homes away through eminent domain or for nonpayment of taxes. Eminent domain [resulted in] my own family’s loss of a

home to the National Park System [and, on another occasion,] for coal mining. Property tax, about which there is so much current discussion of inequity, is one of the quickest and most permanent ways to lose one's home. Tax foreclosures and sales have also spawned an entire industry of disingenuous lawyers and other scammers; people who get enmeshed in tax sales often lose money as well as property. And, of course, there are lender foreclosures based on alleged defaults in mortgages.

These are pursued in such an unfair manner, and such unfair methods are endorsed by the courts, that homeownership is illusory. A home can be taken with something like a false allegation that homeowner's insurance was not maintained by the homeowner. Like the tax sale example above, foreclosures have spawned another industry of vile predators. These attorneys and other mortgage defense rescue scammers drain people's savings, leaving them homeless and broke.

JH: The first city-level housing-related responses to the current crisis revealed the extent to which political leaders do not believe people should be able to stay in their homes. Closing eviction court helps no one if there is no plan for waiving the rent that hasn't been paid.

The mayor's decision to give out housing grants as a lottery was horrifying, but was at least structured to acknowledge that she had no intention of actually addressing the problem; nobody plays the lottery expecting to win! Meanwhile, the city's TIF fund has over a billion dollars, the Chicago Housing Authority has empty units, and federal money sits unused.

As the extent of the problem we are facing becomes clearer, I find myself asking the question: what would housing look like if it was not enmeshed in elaborate financial instruments, be they the mortgages of privately owned buildings or the layers of state funding for public housing? Any thoughts?

and other inequities. Housing is a human right. There should be some basic level of housing below which no one will fall. Even given basic guaranteed income, housing should be separately guaranteed—otherwise the housing market will constantly bubble around money, assumed increases, [and other factors].

Centro Autonomo de Albany Park has a great model for a true (not bourgeois or statist) housing cooperative model. [Under their vision,] owners would own and contribute to collective expenses for upkeep, insurance, etc., with money and time. The owner could leave the home to heirs, but alienation in the market would mean the collective would have a right of first refusal.

People could get the value of their home, but not in the bubble-driven and speculative market as we know it.

Julian Hendrix is a tenant organizer with Tenants United Hyde Park-Woodlawn. This is his first piece for the Weekly.

The Weekly launched a new initiative to collect stories and art a about life during the pandemic, and we want to hear from you.

Read a poem, share a story about your work, or just let us know how you’re doing.

KD: Our current system—treating housing as a reward for merit—only works to reinforce capitalism. People work for the literal fear of losing housing and are persuaded to make all sorts of unhelpful choices through a system where desperate, commission-paid people constantly up-sell mortgages, home prices, and so on. This creates the bubble nature of the housing market and reinforces structural racism APRIL 29, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17

OPINION

Op-Ed: Small neighborhood businesses need you now more than ever No, the federal PPP loans did not help your local café, bakery, or taquería

BY JESSE IÑIGUEZ

O

n April 16, the Small Business Administration (SBA) announced that the $350 billion in forgivable, low-interest loans made available through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) had been exhausted in just two weeks. From the beginning, the federal program was marred by problems, from some banks’ refusal to participate to special guidelines favoring mid-sized and large corporate franchises.

While the publicly-traded restaurant group behind Ruth’s Chris Steak House, for example, received $20 million just four days after the application opened, truly small businesses, like the coffeehouse I own in Back of the Yards, were left scrambling in the dark. (Ruth’s Chris Steak House, along with a few other companies, returned their loans after a public outcry.) And while a second round of applications has opened this week, small business owners expect the process to be as difficult to navigate as the first time.

When the PPP was first announced, we were ready. We made sure we met the eligibility criteria, gathered our financial documents and applied as soon as the bank could give us the form and the instructions.

We normally bank with two institutions and were advised through informational 18 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ APRIL 29, 2020

webinars that we should apply through both banks and settle with whichever one could get the ball rolling. But neither bank was able to submit an application on our behalf as they had slow response times, were not clear about the paperwork that was needed, or their online portals were not prepared to handle the application.

My business partner and I are hearing the same story from all the neighborhood small business owners we know, non-profit enterprises included. For other colleagues, the PPP was never an option because they are immigrants who aren’t eligible for government relief. But Grecias Bakery in Gage Park, Vista Hermosa Restaurant in Little Village, The Law Offices of Hugo Ortiz in Back of the Yards, and Bright Futures Chiropractic in Pilsen: all of us went to our respective banks eager to fill out the required forms and still got the runaround. We are left with more questions than answers.

The New York Times reported on April 22 that some of the biggest banks in the country, like Chase, Citibank, and U.S. Bank, placed their wealthiest clients at the top of the stack and dragged their feet with the applications from their smaller customers.

Firms with fewer than twenty employees account for eighty-eight percent of U.S. businesses. Yet data released by the SBA shows that almost seventy percent of the funds that were awarded were loans between $350,000 to $10 million and went to firms with payrolls between $140,000 and $4 million a month (or $1.7 million-$48 million a year). Meanwhile, your typical small businesses with payrolls less than $60,000 a month (or $720,000 a year), who everyone imagined would be the target of these loans, only received seventeen percent of the funds that were awarded.

Why aren’t we getting the support?

Is it because we don’t have lobbyists who can grease the wheels for us? After all the criticism of our government for bailing out the big banks responsible for the crash in 2008, I was hopeful that this time Congress would do a better job of sending money to the small businesses who employ nearly half the nation’s workers and are engines of new jobs. Boy, was I wrong. The government used the guise of supporting small businesses in order to funnel money into the pockets of corporations yet again, right under our noses. Both Republicans and Democrats share the blame here.

Last week, the President signed a bill approving $320 billion for another round of the PPP, and the SBA resumed accepting applications from approved lenders on Monday morning. However, the government needs to be more specific on what qualifies as a small business and prioritize those that employ fewer than twenty employees.

They specifically need to work out a setaside for microbusinesses that make up seventy-five percent of private-sector employers. Congress needs to recognize that it is not addressing the needs of those for whom this legislation was intended and just adding more money without these guidelines will only exacerbate the problem.

And if the federal government fails to act in favor of mom-and-pop shops, the banks need to be equitable in their customer service and dedicate funds for small and microbusinesses.

So what now? What else can we do?

Neighborhood business owners can apply for a myriad of small loans and grants being offered by other businesses, philanthropy

groups and nonprofits, but it can be a daunting task. Many of these loans and grants are in quantities of $5,000-$10,000, but can be a challenge to microbusinesses with few resources that are still trying to operate their storefronts during the pandemic. But the bulk of the work of gathering documents and writing narratives still has to be done by you.

To that end, on Tuesday, the city Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection launched a $5 million grant program for 1,000 microbusinesses in South, West, Northwest, and Far North Side neighborhoods that have four or fewer employees and less than $250,000 annual revenue. The fund will be distributed through a lottery in $5,000 one-time grants.

The bilingual applications can be found at chicago.gov/recoverygrant and close on Monday, May 4 at 5pm.

Now, more than ever, we need to start to use the power of our dollars to support those businesses that are integral to our communities. Large corporations like Walmart, Starbucks, and McDonald’s will survive, and if they don’t, history has shown that the government will bail them out. But small businesses like mine will not survive without your support. While the money you spend at big-box stores leaves the neighborhood and goes up the corporate chain, every dollar you spend in locally owned businesses stays circulating in the community and can even help feed a family.

Your patronage allows the economic impact to echo here.

During a national crisis is the right time to support your local independent mom-and-pops, your neighborhood coffee shops and corner stores. The majority of these small businesses are owned by your neighbors. They not only contribute to your property taxes, but also hire locally and give back to the community. They need your support to keep workers employed and neighborhoods running.

Jesse Iñiguez is the co-founder and director of operations of Back of the Yards Coffee. He is a lifelong resident and community advocate in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. This is his first contribution to the Weekly.

HEALTH

Voices from La Villita, Post-Demolition

What the dust cloud created by the Crawford coal plant demolition did, in residents’ own words

BY JACQUELINE SERRATO

L

ittle Village residents are sharing what they experienced when the April 11 Hilco demolition of a smokestack at the former Crawford coal plant released a thick cloud of dust—which the city and U.S. EPA concluded caused “no apparent health risks”—over their neighborhood. This was a South Side Weekly collaboration with the “La Villita, Chicago” community Facebook page that the author co-manages. Full names are not provided to protect people’s privacy and comments in Spanish were translated to English. If you or someone you know would like to share your experience, please leave a message at (773) 295-0206.

Reflections about the implosion José: They weren't dumb. They knocked it down on a day when the wind was blowing from south to north? I mean, the dust falls here in a Latino neighborhood and North Lawndale, a Black neighborhood. Why didn't they knock it down when the wind blew from north to south? (4/11/20) Daniel: The dust came all the way here. I was outside in my alley when I heard the loud bang and I looked south when the smokestack was coming down, and right after that I could see shiny particles flying in the air, good thing I had my mask on.

(4/12/20)

Brenda: The amount of notice was inadequate. The alderman’s website didn’t send out notice until the day before at 2pm and he decided to address this issue today at 5pm after the demolition has occurred and the dust is settling in the lungs of our community. The lungs of our people have been under constant attack. (4/11/20) Ruby: Since it's an old building that possibly contains asbestos, the dust had to be contained by the firefighters so that it would not spread to the community, especially since this can affect the people who already have respiratory problems and will not be able to be treated adequately in the hospital because their priority is patients with symptoms of COVID-19. So people are concerned and angry because if it were an Anglo community they would have seen dozens of firefighters ensuring that dust did

not spread. But as always they screw us over, and we do not come together to demand better for our community. (4/11/20) One dead after the dust settled Efraín: Fernando Cantú passed away early Easter Sunday morning at 3am, shortly after the demolition of the Crawford power plant smokestack, which we believe could be a primary cause of his passing. He came out to his garden on Saturday afternoon, and by 3am on Sunday he was dead. He was seventy-eight years old and suffered from asthma and COPD but he lived a normal life and his death was very abrupt. (4/14/20) Elisa: It makes me very sad to know that he is no longer with us, he was a very kind man and he got along with everyone. He was always greeting people that were passing by.

My dad liked to talk to him. Since he lived there for many years, I imagine that he was very loved by all the neighbors. May he rest in peace and my deepest condolences to the family. (4/14/20) Howard: Mr. Cantú loved to go outside in his beautiful backyard and/or walk early every morning, including the morning of the deadly dust storm. He was a wonderful person whom I knew as his physician for many years and as his neighbor. May he rest in peace alongside our brother Reynaldo Grimaldo, another La Villita neighbor and demolition worker, who fell to his death at the Hilco site. (4/12/20) Pain and breathing issues Leticia: The day of the explosion I went to throw out the trash and it smelled like a lot of dust and like something was burning.

Since then I have a dry throat and my eyes burn and cry a lot. I don't know if someone could help me or where I can go for help.

(4/24/20)

“This wouldn't have been allowed on the North Side or any other non-minority neighborhood.”

Marta: The day the Crawford building was knocked over, me and my daughter woke up in the middle of the night and the inside of our nostrils was all black, and she developed a headache. She told me that her head hurt a lot and to date she tells me that it hurts, though not as bad. (4/24/20) Robert: A little while after the demolition, my father began to experience coughing attacks. We've gone to the doctor and he's been told he has bronchitis. He's missed several days of work because of this and were still hoping his coughing attacks will soon subside. (4/24/20) Dalia: Some weeks ago I started to feel that my chest hurt. I suffer from asthma and use an inhaler. I feel like I am constantly short of breath and that hasn't happened to me in years. It was bad luck, that day I didn't know about the demolition and I went shopping close by and exposed myself to it. And since then, I started to feel chest pain and now I get more frequent asthma attacks. That's why on Monday I have an appointment with the doctor so he can do a check-up and prescribe me an inhaler. (4/25/20) Alfredo: What happened is that my baby got sick after that day. He had asthma, his nose was stuffed, and he got worse after that day because of what happened. In other words, I think that what they did is not right, because we did not know that they were going to do that, nobody warned us or anything. (4/25/20) Jessica: I have family members who are dying in the hospital because they cannot breathe and I live very close to where they did the demolition and right now we all have the virus. (4/27/20) Claudia: I get a lot of headaches and one eye hurts. That day when we felt the blow of the demolition throughout the house, I got a headache and I couldn't breathe. I do not suffer from asthma, I do not suffer from [any] of those types of diseases. It was so difficult for me to breathe that I had to go find a relative so she could lend me her humidifier. But since then I’ve had pain and I already finished a bottle of pills. (4/27/20) Jacqueline Serrato is the editor in chief of the South Side Weekly. She last She last covered strikes by local Amazon warehouse workers.

APRIL 29, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19

COVID-19

COVID-19 Deaths in Chicago’s Neighborhoods

BY BEA MALSKY AND SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY EDITORS

B

lack people make up about thirty percent of Chicago’s population, but as has been widely reported, currently make up the majority of COVID-19 deaths in the city.

Keeping accurate data on race can get complicated, though. Latinx and Hispanic people, for example, are known to be undercounted in official records. Since we live in a city segregated by race, ethnicity, and income, we found it insightful to break the data down by neighborhood in order

20 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ APRIL 29, 2020

to get a clearer picture of the situation on the ground. Community area counts have been calculated from latitudes and longitudes attached to death records. These locations reflect the Medical Examiner's determination of where the person fell ill. In most cases, it is their home address.

The Medical Examiner reports that when a person detained at Cook County Jail dies, their location is recorded as the jail's address in Little Village.

All data shown is pulled from the Cook

County Data Portal. Our online tracker checks for new death records hourly, though the Medical Examiner generally releases new data twice a day. We have included death records with COVID-19 listed as a primary or secondary cause.

In order to better understand the public health of our city and to properly advocate for just allocation of care and resources, we must see clearly the way illness and mortality appear along geographic and racial lines of disparity. All solutions must be based on

racial and economic justice. The South Side Weekly live tracker of COVID-19 deaths by community area is intended to be a tool toward those ends.

Check it out at covid19neighborhoods.southsideweekly.com

HEALTH

Illinois Temporarily Expands Food Stamps During COVID-19 Link cardholders and households with children receive emergency food stamps

BY JACQUELINE SERRATO The Illinois Pandemic EBT, as the program is called, automatically loaded into existing Link cards in mid-April. Families with school-aged children who are eligible for free or reduced meals when school is in session, but who do not currently receive SNAP benefits, are able to submit a simplified application starting this week.

They can do so by visiting abe.illinois.gov or by completing a paper application, available on the IDHS website.

Although Governor J.B. Pritzker has ordered all schools in the state closed through the end of the school year, officials have not yet commented on whether benefits will be extended into June.

New SNAP applications are being processed quicker now that they demand less documentation. Social security numbers are no longer required upfront, in-person interviews are waived, and verbal signatures are accepted by phone, according to the USDA. The requirements and limitations for able-bodied individuals without dependents who apply for SNAP benefits have also been loosened during the pandemic.

"We are constantly looking for ways to provide extra support for Illinois residents during this extremely difficult time," said IDHS Secretary Grace B. Hou in a statement. "IDHS has and will continue to apply for waivers that provide additional food assistance for children and families in our state.”

Illinois’s approximately 475,000 SNAP households will go back to receiving their regular Link amounts in June 2020 unless public officials extend the emergency benefits.

Jacqueline Serrato is the editor in chief of the South Side Weekly. She last She last covered strikes by local Amazon warehouse workers.

SPOILER ALERT! SSW GAME KEYS South Side Celebrity Trivia Answers!

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1. Tonika Lewis Johnson 2. Jacqueline Stewart 3. Lee Bey 4. Wanda Kurek 5. Chaka Khan 6. Ed Marszewski 7. Emmanuel Pratt 8. Tanya Saracho 9. Chance the Rapper 10. Tania Unzueta

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n April, Illinois raised the monthly allotment for SNAP recipients to the maximum amount, began providing food stamps to households with children, started screening applicants regardless of social security, and revised the guidelines for able-bodied single adults.

These changes were made possible by federal COVID-19 legislation known as the Families First Coronavirus Response Act that gave states the option to expand benefits. Illinois households that receive food stamps through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), especially those with school-aged children, are seeing larger deposits in their Link debit cards. New applicants are also experiencing faster processing as the state acts to address the financial strain stemming from the COVID-19 emergency.

Between April 8 and April 20, deposits for existing Link card holders were at their maximum amount based on household size, and they will automatically reissue in May, according to the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS). Single individuals now receive $194, while $355 are given to a household of two, $509 to a household of three, and $646 to a household of four. SNAP users can see how much is designated for other household sizes on the IDHS website.

The state approved a fund that will go to 316,000 households with children who qualify for free and reduced-cost lunch in school. The fund will cover the cost of meals that would have otherwise been consumed at school. The benefit amount is provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, and is calculated using a $5.70 per day per student calculation over the total number of missed school days in March, April, and May.

PHOTO BY JACQUELINE SERRATO

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APRIL 29, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 21

GAMES

croSSWord 4/29/20 JIM DALEY 1

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ACROSS 1 Type of inedible apple 5 Russian emperors, pre-1917 10 Fleck, or Lugosi 14 One who colors inside the lines?

15 Orphan of Broadway and film 16 Tampa baseball team 17 Sleek, with -dynamic 18 2012 film "Man on a _____" 19 Hemingway novel A Farewell to ____ 20 Illinois governor J.B. 22 "He is ______!" (back from the dead) 24 A Chicago-style one has poppy seeds 26 Roman statesman, or mobbed-up Western suburb 29 An Apollo mission, colloquially 33 Spider-man: Homecoming actress Harrier

34 Mero's podcast and late-night partner 35 "Eureka!"

36 Qtys.

37 "He ___ __ coming."

38 At Valois Restaurant, your food is served on one of these 39 "Nevertheless, ___ persisted" 40 Measure of gold purity 41 "Show me how __ ___ a tie?"

42 Parts of hundreds 44 Northern Red Line terminus 45 Chicago mayor Lori 47 Famously bitter liquor 50 Complain angrily: ____ and ____ 54 Culprit in the Great Chicago Fire 55 Luke, to Leia, after she goes off on Han: "_ ____" 57 It's excreted by the kidneys 58 Unaired 1986 Scott Bakula pilot

22 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ APRIL 29, 2020

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59 Permanently injures 60 C++ error object 61 75th St. BBQ spot 62 20th-century evolutionary biologist Mayr 63 Korean music genre DOWN 1 Lip balm, with stick 2 One who regrets 3 Skyrim character who is a lumberjack 4 Blues pair Jake and Elwood 5 "____ __ the hand" 6 Sun-Times gossip columnist Michael 7 Michael Crichton novel about a deadly infectious microorganism 8 Fix, as an election 9 Supremes hit "Come ___ _____ me" 10 Zombies crave them 11 Units of corn 12 Tick-borne disease 13 U.S. Polo ____

21 Their Eyes Were Watching God author Neale Hurston 23 These are scored in baseball 25 "_ ___ on a tack!"

26 Necklace fastener 27 "He is me" 28 More adorable 30 Belgian architect and Art Nouveau founder Victor 31 "The Most Hated Woman in America" subject Madalyn 32 Played, as with a person's emotions 34 Luke's father 37 Jordan's was a record 0.92 seconds 38 If you hit a pothole you might need one 40 UK Labour Party leader Starmer 41 Donna Summer's Bad Girls might say this 43 Bozo and Cookie 44 Abe Lincoln's rep 46 Places where food is grown 47 The USPS delivers this 48 Wile E. Coyote's mail-order brand 49 Nutrient-rich soil 51 Gang Starr classic "Just to Get _ ___" 52 Cosplayer-favored social media app 53 Tombstone lawman Wyatt 56 It might be a town or sports

South Side Celebrity Trivia!

1) What celebrated Englewood artist likes to fold maps of Chicago in half ?

2) Which University of Chicago film studies professor last year became the first Black woman to host Turner Classic Movies?

3) Which South Side architecture critic and photographer calls Pullman home?

4) Stanley’s, one of the last taverns on Back of the Yards’ Whiskey Row, was run by what beloved proprietor, who died last year at the age of ninety-five?

5) What legendary R&B-disco-funk icon grew up in Auburn Gresham?

6) Maria’s, in Bridgeport, is named after what neighborhood entrepreneur’s mother?

7) Which Washington Park practitioner of regenerative urban development was awarded a MacArthur “Genius Grant” in 2019?

8) What founder of Pilsen’s Teatro Luna has gone on to champion Latinx writers in Hollywood as a showrunner for the Starz series Vida?

9) Which rapper from Chatham purchased a defunct Chicago news site in 2018 with promises to relaunch it that have yet to materialize?

10) Which Little Village immigration activist helped found both Chicago’s Organized Communities Against Deportation and the national Latinx organization Mijente?

Answer Key 1) croSSWord key: pg. 21 2) Celebrity Trivia key: pg. 21

COLORING PAGE

Coloring Page Old Stone Gate, Chicago Union Stockyards Illustration by Grae Rosa

APRIL 29, 2020 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 23

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