Want to do a Pullman strike tour?

Credit: The Chicago Neighborhoods

I was awfully slow in sharing this. On July 13, 2019 there was a tour in Pullman related to the 125th anniversary of the Great Strike of 1894 and there are more scheduled through October. I believe this strike caused the President of the time a man by the name of Grover Cleveland to sent federal forces to end it.

I found out about this event through Curbed Chicago earlier this month, however, all I did was retweet this information. It would've been cool for me to take part in this as I know more about Pullman's story and architecture, but very little of some of the labor drama that took place there.

Tour the site of the Great Pullman Strike on its 125th anniversary https://t.co/IxFHGZDoQo pic.twitter.com/NkOtsl9jWh

— Curbed Chicago (@curbedchicago) July 5, 2019

According to the above link:

Labor history tends to get short shrift in history books.

The Pullman National Monument Preservation Society, created by Barack Obama’s presidential proclamation in 2015, is trying to change that. During the Great Pullman Strike’s 125th anniversary, the group is giving guided tours each month through October.
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The next tour is scheduled for July 13 at noon. Admission is $25, and each ticket includes post-tour reception and dessert.

WTTW has more on the history of this strike in 1894 with regards to the perfect company town that was Pullman.

The site of the former Halsted Indoor Mall #tbt

I snapped these shots of the site of the former shopping center on 115th & Michigan during the summer of 2014. I never released the shots back then, but I wanted to share the context of this site with this article from the Chicago Reader which was actually published in 2003.

It illustrated the history of the former Halsted Indoor Mall which was once housed in a building that once contained a Zayre store. The shopping center here contained both a Foot Locker store and a beauty supply as well as a Jewel-Osco. However at some point all these stores have since closed. The Jewel-Osco closed once a new store was built at the new shopping center located at 119th Street and Marshfield (or on the west side of I-57) should be around 2007 or 2008.

I do remember shopping with my family at the old Zayre store and the old Jewel store you see in the photos below was another shopping destination over the years until the new store opened across the I-57 expressway. One ominous piece of information I learned shopping here one day, my mother was told by another customer that they did snatch purses in that store. YIKES!

At some point after 2012 the former Halsted Indoor Mall was razed, I see this looking at Google Streetview. And that largely ends the saga of the former space which seemed to riddled with some issues involving it's management by the people who operated the space and certainly the people who owned it. The property itself remains vacant with the idea of at some point perhaps something else will be developed here. Perhaps more retail or even some mixed-use retail and residential.

Below are the photographs from summer 2014. I wish I had a pic of the sign on the corner of 115th & Halsted which even the last time I drove by here still had a sign for the Halsted Indoor Mall although the building no longer stands.

Here's a Google Streetview of this property before the Indoor Mall building was razed from 2012 after this you see it's no longer standing. And as stated already the above photos were shot in the summer of 2014.

Metra Electric delays during last nite's PM rush

[VIDEO] If you were traveling on the old IC line aka Metra Electric District you experienced some delays especially if you left from any station between Randolph Street to 51st Street. The video you see above aired on CBS 2's 6 PM broadcast.

Per  a tweet from a dedicated twitter page for the Metra Electic District electical power had been restored though trains would operate with residual delays

Metra Alert ME - Electrical power has been restored. Inbound and outbound train movement has been cleared to proceed. Trains will be operating with extensive delays - UPDATE #2

— Metra Electric (@metraMED) July 3, 2019

Recent shot of the Gately's ruins #Ward09

Drove through earlier this week. Sad to see this great big building along Michigan Avenue being demolished. I see the sign's gone, excited to find out any news of this local landmark. It's reminder of a business that no longer exists but many of a certain age still remember.

A posted this recent pic on ig embeded below

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A post shared by The Sixth Ward (@thesixthward) on Jun 27, 2019 at 10:43am PDT

What are the feds looking for in #Ward34?

While this is old news from last week south side alderman Carrie Austin of Ward 34 has her ward offices raided by federal authorities on a search warrant. Reports seem to suggest that this might be related to the indictment of Ald. Ed Burke (Ward 11) or even a colleague wearing a wire for the feds former Ald. Danny Solis (Ward 25). Of course is it possible that the feds have been looking at Ald. Austin in the first place.

This is a topic of discussion on last weeks Chicago Tonight with Paris Shutz and Carol Marin

This is something that I did a post or two over at The Sixth Ward. However I wanted to add this from last week from Rich Millers CapFax

Could this be part of what the feds are looking at? https://t.co/EGJHZOb9eG

— Rich Miller (@capitolfax) June 21, 2019

 

I also found this through CapFax's tweets. Another link as far as what the feds are looking for in Ward 34.

Family members. Her longtime chief of staff. Campaign contributions. Even food stamps.

The federal grand jury probe is looking for all sorts of stuff on Ald. Carrie Austin - and it's been going on since 2017.https://t.co/mVQDUhNZKg

— Dan Mihalopoulos (@dmihalopoulos) June 23, 2019

The future of the Gately's sign #Ward09

Nitram242/flickr

At least we get one good thing out of the loss of the former Gately's People's store landmark sign. The building was destroyed by fire earlier this month and the city is in the process of demolishing the former longtime department store which closed in 1981.

After fire gutted the old Gately’s Peoples Store in Roseland last week, Ald. Anthony A. Beale (9th) said he’s working with members of the Gately family to save the store’s historic neon sign.

“The sign deserves a place in a museum where it can tell our community’s story to present and future generations, and help inspire everyone to work together to make Roseland the thriving and bustling destination it once was,” the neighborhood’s alderman said Monday.

Beale said he went to the fire Friday and saw Gately family members at the scene. He was already planning to preserve the sign, he said, adding that Gately family members said they would help raise the money to make sure the sign is taken down, preserved and put up at a later date.

The sign was not damaged in the fire, but the blaze damaged the century-old building at 11201 S. Michigan Ave. so bad, demolition crews began to take it down Friday night.
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The sign remains on the building but will come down in the coming days. Beale said it will go into storage for a while and eventually go on display — but he didn’t reveal specific plans in mind to display it.

It does deserve to be somewhere to help tell the story of the Roseland community. And it's great to know the family that owned this business is still around to discuss plans to preserve this landmark.

It's awful to know about the fire, but to hear everyone - especially online or even in soundbites from any news reports - talk about their memories of the now closed store is definitely fascinating. 

Gately's Peoples store...destroyed... #Ward09

[VIDEO] This past Friday I posted about the former Gately's store located at 113th & Michigan. The store from what I can tell doing some Googling had long closed in 1981, with another store located in Tinley Park until 1994.

Usually me and my family would drive on Michigan Avenue to head to River Oaks Mall in Calumet City, we'd often pass this store. Of course by the time I came of age all I would recognize is that antiquated sign for a store that was no longer there. Whoever owned this property if it wasn't the Gately family who previously operated their location there never removed this sign. It was just a great reminder of the history of the retail strip of south Michigan Avenue between at least 107th Street to 1115th Street.

I've read up on the history of this strip and it was an important commercial areas though perhaps it didn't have the volume of another great south side commercial area such as 63rd & Halsted (which is experiencing a slow resurgence). Still there are plenty of people who grew up in Roseland and patronized this area before the decline starting in the 1980s. You can find YouTube channels that offer videos of people who grew up in Roseland during the 1950s & 1960s. It's fascinating how the area changed from a great place to grow up to what it's generally known today as a crime ridden area.

And then on Friday the former Gately's Peoples store was destroyed by fire. It seems we may never really know due to the damage what caused the fire, unfortunately the damage has been done. Who knows what will happen with the sign, however, the building that formerly housed the store which provided so many memories for those who shopped there has a date with the wrecking ball.

For me, I've never known the store and have never shopped there. I've never even shopped at the small storefronts that had occupied the ground floor of the building. Still, it's a little sad that this longtime sign is coming down and thus this won't be a landmark any longer. And now to figure out what will ultimately go up in its place along Michigan Avenue. What will be the new landmark to be located there?

Here's an ig post I did on the Gately's store once I learned of it's condition. I shot this just about a month before the fire.

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A post shared by The Sixth Ward (@thesixthward) on Jun 8, 2019 at 10:43am PDT

The Hope Dealers

Well now those men of Morehouse are back in class in Atlanta, however, this past week when they could've been on spring break beaches and warm weather they came up to Chicago to serve Chicago Public School students. This was noted on CPS' blog

Newsalert: Should CPS be shut down?

What prompts this question? A report from the Chicago Tribune with regards to the continuing investigation into a number of sexual abuse claims to CPS students. The number could be as high as 1000 cases of sex abuse of students. That's a lot!

A branch of a global law firm will review roughly 1,000 Chicago Public Schools sex abuse investigations, as part of a quarter-million dollar contract that’s meant to reopen nearly two decades worth of old cases.

The Chicago Board of Education’s vote Wednesday to hire Dentons LLP marks the school system’s latest step to re-examine how officials addressed past abuse and misconduct allegations in the wake of a Tribune investigation.