Maxwell Street Historic District - Chicago, IL - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

From wikipedia:
Maxwell Street is an east-west street in Chicago, Illinois that intersects with Halsted Street just south of Roosevelt Road. It runs at 1330 South in the numbering system running from 500 West to 1126 West. The Maxwell Street neighborhood is considered part of the Near West Side and is one of the city's oldest residential districts. It is notable as the location of the celebrated Maxwell Street Market and the birthplace of Chicago Blues and the "Maxwell Street Polish (sausage sandwich)." A large portion of the area is now the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), as well as a new private housing development sponsored by the university.

Maxwell Street first appears on a Chicago map in 1847. It was named for Dr. Philip Maxwell.

Hull House, the largest and most famous of the 19th-century settlement houses, established by Jane Addams, began here to help immigrants transition to their lives in Chicago. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 started only a few blocks away but burned north and east, sparing Maxwell Street and the rest of the Near West Side.

Beginning in the 1880s, "Russian" (i.e., Eastern European) Jews became the dominant ethnic group in the Maxwell Street neighborhood, which remained predominantly Jewish until the 1920s. This was the heyday of the open-air pushcart market for which the neighborhood is most famous, unofficially lending the name of "Jew Town" to the area (the market, in particular).

After 1920, most of the residents were African Americans from the Mississippi Delta, who came in the Great Migration (African American), but most of the businesses continued to be Jewish-owned. In the 1980s and 1990s, both the neighborhood and market became predominantly Mexican-American. Most of the older Jewish merchant families had gathered wealth and moved to the suburbs.

The University of Illinois at Chicago was established at the Harrison/Halsted area in 1965, the location chosen by Mayor Richard J. Daley. This was especially unpopular with the locals. But the mayor won out and over the years the area has been transformed - much of the the original buildings, residents and color replaced by modern structures, shops and restaurants.

The exterior scene of the Soul Food Cafe(where Aretha Franklin was singing)from The Blues Brothers movie, was the now gone Nate's Deli. See (visit link)

Street address: Roughly bounded by Roosevelt Rd., Liberty and Maxwell Sts., Union St., and the rear alley of Halsted St.. Chicago, IL USA County / Borough / Parish: Cook Year listed: 2000 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Black, Performing Arts, Commerce, Entertainment/Recreation Periods of significance: 1950-1974, 1925-1949, 1900-1924, 1875-1899, 1850-1874 Historic function: Commerce/Trade, Domestic, Education, Industry/Processing/Extraction, Recreation And Culture, Religion, Social Current function: Commerce/Trade, Domestic, Landscape, Recreation And Culture, Religion, Social Privately owned?: no Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Secondary Website 2: [Web Link] Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

Visit Instructions:
Please give the date and brief account of your visit. Include any additional observations or information that you may have, particularly about the current condition of the site. Additional photos are highly encouraged, but not mandatory.

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.