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Showing posts with label altgeld garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label altgeld garden. Show all posts

Saturday, September 9, 2023

Red Line extension gets $2 billion, one step closer to reality

Well this is what the Sun-Times says that $2 billion is pledged towards.

The $3.7 billion Red Line extension has “advanced to the final phase” of the painstaking, federal funding process. The feds are making a $2 billion commitment to cover half the cost and authorizing CTA to advance to the engineering stage, which CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. called the “final step ... in order to begin construction.”

The CTA hopes to award an engineering and construction contract and begin preliminary work before the end of this year, then reach the final step — a full-funding grant agreement with the feds. That would pave the way for construction of the extension and four stations to begin in 2025.

“You have heard us talk about this project for decades, but I’m here to tell you the project is now happening,” Carter told a news conference at the Red Line Extension Community Outreach Center, 401 W. 111th St.

The Red Line extension includes new stations at 103rd; 111th Street near Eggleston Avenue; along Michigan Avenue near 116th Street; and the new terminus at 130th Street near Altgeld Gardens.
Here's a WGN story about this which aired on the news yesterday. It features comments from Congresswoman Robin Kelly, Mayor Brandon Johnson, CTA Pres. Dorval Carter, and Ald. Anthony Beale as he will benefit from this new L branch. [VIDEO

Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Block Club Chi: Longtime Far South Side Ald. Anthony Beale Faces 2 Challengers In 9th Ward Race

These are the three people who are running for Alderman in Ward 9.

Via Block Club Chi

And here is the start of the write-up:

Two hopefuls are trying to unseat one of City Council’s longest-serving members, aiming to bring new leadership to the Far South Side seat after more than two decades.

Cameron Barnes and Cleopatra Draper are challenging Ald. Anthony Beale in the 9th Ward race. Beale, first elected in 1999, is seeking his seventh term representing Chatham, Roseland, Pullman, Washington Heights, West Pullman and Riverdale.

Sonya Thompson Dorsey withdrew from the race in December after two residents challenged her signatures. Dorsey said she still plans to participate as a write-in candidate, she said.

The 9th Ward has seen increased development in the past several years, with new businesses like Lexington Betty Smokehouse and Culver’s. It’s also home to Pullman National Historical Park, which opened in 2021.

I see Barnes in this article wants to fight gentrification. Beale of course touts his accomplishments as the longtime incumbent in the 9th Ward. And then I really like this by Draper:

Draper’s goals are to revitalize the Roseland business district, bring better grocery stores to the area, improve housing stability and mental health facilities, fight “food apartheid” and tackle gun violence, according to her website.

“The goal is to revitalize the 9th Ward, the Far South region,” Draper said in a December YouTube video. “This is not just a singular race. This is to change and enhance the quality of life Black folks on the far South Side. We’ve been neglected for too long, and I’m not accepting another day to live in a food desert, a medical desert, transportation desert, child care desert. Where and in what form or fashion is that community?”

If elected, Draper also wants to bring essential services to South Michigan Avenue, create new and expand existing businesses and address public safety concerns, she said.

I'd like to see Michigan Avenue get some more investment. What's her plan?

Early voting has been going on since January 26, 2023 and will be going through election day February 28, 2023. 

Thursday, September 1, 2022

Crain's: New hotel, grocery store pitched for Pullman #Ward09

 Some exciting projects coming to the far south side. Pullman could get a hotel and Altgeld Gardens - which is a long way from Pullman - could be getting a new grocery story.

Via Crain's Chicago Business

One year after the Pullman National Monument debuted as a hopeful tourist attraction, two developers have lined up plans to add a hotel for visitors and a grocery store for residents in the burgeoning area.

In one of two projects proposed in and around the far South Side neighborhood, a venture led by Chicago investor Andre Garner is seeking a city grant to help develop a 101-room Hampton by Hilton hotel at 111th Street and Doty Avenue, a few blocks east of the clock tower building that has been restored as a visitor center for the historic site. In the other, Cleveland-based grocery operator Yellow Banana has applied for the same grant to help it develop a Save A Lot supermarket immediately south of Pullman at 130th Street and Eberhardt Avenue.

Both developers have applied for $5 million in assistance through the Chicago Recovery Plan development grant program, according to a joint statement they issued with Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th. The grants are partially funded by local recovery money from the federal American Rescue Plan Act passed last year.

The plans could add to a series of developments in and near Pullman along Interstate 94, where the 180-acre former Ryerson Steel plant site has been transformed in recent years into a mixed-use campus, dubbed Pullman Park. The historic-but-disinvested property now includes a Method Soap factory that opened in 2015, a pair of greenhouses from produce grower Gotham Greens and a Whole Foods distribution center and an Amazon delivery center, among other new developments.

Read the whole thing. 

 

Friday, April 29, 2022

Chicago Mag: ‘This is the end of Chicago’ (Geographically)

Map of Hegewisch and nearby area 

From Ed McClelland at Chicago Magazine regarding the southeast side of Chicago.

To reach the southeasternmost corner of Chicago, you have to take bumpy, potholed Boy Scout Road out of Hegewisch, then turn onto a set of tracks belonging to the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. With Powder Horn Lake to your right, follow the tracks between tall stands of reeds, still in their winter blondeness, toward a railyard where black tankers idle. Then turn onto a disused rail spur, weeds growing between its ties. Ahead, just across the state line, in Hammond, Indiana, are the rusted sheds of some long-abandoned industrial concern.

Chicago’s southern border is, perhaps, the wildest, most undeveloped part of the city, a hinterland that, in some places, looks more rural than urban, despite lying within the boundaries of America’s third-largest city. Like the nation’s southern frontier, it is a no-man’s land that crosses woods, lakes, rivers, and federal facilities off limits to the public. It would have made sense to set the southern city limits at the Little Calumet and Grand Calumet rivers. Instead of respecting natural boundaries, though, surveyors drew a straight line that corresponds with the middle of 138th Street and is often impossible to follow, even by bicycle or on foot. Last weekend, I tried, and, for most of its length, I failed.

After leaving the Belt Railroad yards, the city limits travel west across Powder Horn Lake and through Burnham Woods. I only had a bicycle, not a canoe or a machete, so I couldn’t paddle and bushwhack through those wild barriers. To pick up the line again, I pedaled south to the village of Burnham, and into the dirt alley behind 138th Place, a street of vinyl-sided workers’ cottages and a long-shuttered Old Style bar. Running along the north side of the alley is a fence entangled with vines — a border fence between the city and suburbs, as flimsy as any in the Sonoran Desert, barring the way to Mexico. On the other side is Chicago.

The alley dead ends near the south bank of the Grand Calumet River, the body of water that lends its name to the Calumet Region. From there, the city limits cross the confluence of the Grand and Little Calumets. When they hit land again, they slice through the northern tip of Burnham Park. A few square feet of that suburban park actually lies inside Chicago, although the village of Burnham still mows the grass. Such is what happens when man’s Euclidean determinations impose themselves on nature’s beguiling irregularities.

They go from about Altgeld Gardens which is contained within Ward 9 and further east into the area known as Hegewisch as you see in the above map. Read the whole thing.

 

Saturday, May 29, 2021

Sun-Times: Altgeld Gardens Commercial Building

Via WisconsinHistory.org

Since I mentioned Altgeld Gardens a few days ago on this blog, I found this Sun-Times article on an architecturally significant building in that part of town called the Altgelt Gardens commercial building:

Monday, May 24, 2021

Driving around Chicago's Altgeld Gardens #Ward09

 

[VIDEO] Found this through the YouTube channel CharlieBo313 where he drives around urban neighborhoods throughout America. He's done more than a few videos in the Chicago area driving around inner-city neighborhoods and most recently he drove around the nearby suburb of Harvey, Illinois.

On this recent occasion he drives around the Altgeld Garden neighborhood which has been made famous because a young man named Barack Obama came here to be a community organizer. It's amazing to see how this neighborhood looks in 2021. Perhaps in the near future we'll see how it looks once the Red Line extension is in service.

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

CTA Red Line extension meeting regarding the station at 130th street

 I'm sorry I haven't be able to adequately advertise these virtual townhalls regarding the CTA Red Line extension. One had just passed last night, however, regarding the proposed station at 103rd Street as you see in the flyer below. There will be two other meetings on the 103rd Street and Michigan Avenue stops later this month.


Meanwhile StreetsBlog Chicago has a recent story about the meeting about the 130th Street stop for the proposed Red Line extension

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

CTA Red Line extension project #RLEReady #Ward09

[VIDEO] CTA has a new video out about the CTA Red Line extension that is still being planned that takes the Red Line further south into Roseland and Altgeld Gardens where the final destination is 130th Street. The next critical phase for this ambitious project is construction which is expected to cost $2.3 billion half of that would come from federal funding and the rest from non-federal funding i.e from the city of Chicago, state of Illinois and/or even CTA itself.

I like these renderings of the various stops on the southbound Red Line extensions.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Red line extension moves forward

Rendering of the 103rd CTA station
I'm somewhat disappointed that the red line extension to Roseland may not open until at least 2026 at the earlier according to what was written by Greg Hinz. Regardless more progress is being made in the future progress to bring the CTA L system further south from 95th street. This project is expected to cost about $2.3 billion.

As CTA continues to move forward we will see a draft environmental impact statement which will be seen on this project's website. In addition as hopefully construction would begin at 2022 at the earliest another step is to purchase those properties within the footprint of the route whether or not the CTA goes with the two options for their preferred routing.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

My Block My Hood My City visits Altgeld Garden #mbmhmc

[VIDEO] I'm sorry this hadn't been shared here. Please visit My Hood My Block My City and consider buying a t-shirt or hoodie sweatshirt. You'll be supporting this project when you do.

Jahmal Cole is in the middle of a project that took him to at first different Chicago parks. For example he did one episode in Abbott Park where he met with Republican US Senate candidate Jim Oberweis.

Lately he's been going to different neighborhood and this week he visited Humboldt Park on the northwest side of town. Today we're going to look at his visit to Altgeld Garden located near the far south city limits of Chicago. Mr. Cole refers to the Garden as President Obama's old stomping grounds there was where the President made his living as a community organizer.

There is one landmark of note here for the Garden.
"The Wall" or "The Wall of Death" lists the names of deceased Altgeld Residents --- going back decades. It's a tradition at the Gardens to write the names on the wall, so the person's name will be set on stone and never forgotten.  This is social capital at its finest. In the Pullman community, residents that live on a different tier of the Socioeconomic ladder, hang fancy art work on the gates in their alleys. At the Altgeld Gardens, the local residents write names on the wall. Beauty can't be stratified.
Via The Sixth Ward

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Rate the video: Harold "Noonie" Ward for Alderman 9th Ward


[VIDEO] I'm sure we'll be posting a number of videos between now and election day next month from the many Aldermanic candidates in wards 6, 9, and 21. Last month we posted 9th Ward Ald. Beale's appearance on CAN-TV's Political Forum where he answers various questions affecting the 9th ward and the city.

Today we post about one of his challengers Harold "Noonie" Ward. This is essentially a campaign ad showing various shots around the 9th Ward. We see Altgeld Gardens, DuBois School, and even drive into Pullman with this video. This video is mainly taking shots at Ald. Beale.

Also, Mr. Ward notes that the 9th Ward is the only city ward without a major grocery store. So I suppose he doesn't count the Walmart in Pullman?

BTW, this video was noted by Chicagoist on Wednesday:
 This one is worth a look: it has high-production values, a moody tone and a damning indictment of an incumbent alderman that makes this a must-watch. That the rest of the city has a window into this race, via this video, makes it all that more interesting.

All the same what do you think of this video? Would you vote for Mr. Ward? Do you agree with some of the points of this video?

This video is via Aldertrack who in addition to a "racing form" which you can purchase from them you can also subscribe to daily email giving you various updates for election day 2015.

Crossposted from The Sixth Ward.