Empty Borders Building to House Akira Apparel

posted by chicago pop

[Source: http://www.shopakira.com/]

From Crain's Chicago Business: Hyde Park's empty Borders building will soon host the flagship store of Chicago fashion boutique Akira. Asked why he chose to open a location in Hyde Park - the flagship store, no less - owner Eric Hsueh said this about the local market:

"Our core customer is in their mid-20s, recently out of school, who are working,” he said. And a good number of those customers live in Hyde Park and currently drive to the North Side to shop at other Akiras."

Now they won't have to, which is exactly what Hyde Park's retail renaissance should be about. Local business meets local market.

More:

Akira, a rapidly expanding Chicago-based clothing boutique, will open its 19th location, I've learned, in a vacated Border's bookstore in Hyde Park this fall.

(An 18th store—and the first outside of Illinois—will open next month in Merrillville's Westfield Southlake Mall. Read more about the chain, which was started a decade ago by three University of Illinois grads, here.)

The 8,000-square-foot Hyde Park store at 1539 E. 53rd St. will become the flagship location for Akira, which also has stores in Bucktown, Lincoln Park, Andersonville, Water Tower Place, Block 37 and three suburban malls.

Hyde Park “is a good market in that it's under-served and has a captive audience,” Akira co-owner Eric Hsueh told me. 

53rd Street continues to fill in and, for the first time in as long as many of us can remember, with a clothing store. That's a significant diversification of the neighborhood's retail landscape.

Hyde Park School of Dance Spring 2012 Gala

posted by chicago pop

Something to take advantage of!

Where is Bobby Rush? Absent 13.2% of the Time

posted by chicago pop

From today's Tribune:

In case you've ever wondered why it seems that Bobby Rush doesn't really do anything. His record of missed votes is topped only by a woman who was shot in the head and two others, and is in the top ten with two representatives who have been or are still on the campaign trail.

Of note: 

If all the 2008 votes and non-votes are taken out [during the period when Rush underwent surgery and treatment for cancer of the salivary gland], Rush's career percentage of missed votes drops from 13.2 to 9.6 percent, still well above the House average.

And a bit of analysis to confirm what was already known:

[M]embers who are often absent tend to come from 'safe' districts that return them to office by large majorities every two years. That describes Rush.

Sweet gig.

Z & H on Check, Please!

posted by chicago pop

Almost exactly three years after getting some love from Hungry Hound, Hyde Park - Kenwood's favorite sandwich shop and locally-sourced, organic specialty foods boutique, Zaleski & Horvath Market Café, gets some attention from Check, Please! Worth noting: of the two reviewers who recommended other eateries, neither dinged Z&H!

Hat tip to HPP reader LN

2nd Ward Opposition to Hotel: Déjà vu All Over Again

posted by richard gill

As reported January 4 in ChicagoRealEstateDaily.com, the Unite Here hotel union is working to block construction of a hotel in Chicago’s West Loop area.  It’s a 615-room hotel proposed by Toyoko Inn Co. Ltd.  What a jobs generator this would be, and what a boost to the West Loop area. But Unite Here wants to block it because it says the company plans to subcontract housekeeping work to non-union employers.

Second Ward Alderman Bob Fioretti has been delaying the zoning approval process, although local residents are not opposed. Fioretti must be feeling enormous pressure from Unite Here.  In the 2^nd Ward, the union is trying to pull what they pulled and got away with—in Hyde Park—not too long ago.  The union tried to disrupt a public meeting about a proposed Marriott Hotel. The developer wanted to get the hotel up and running, and employing people. Not good enough for Unite Here. They insisted on an up-front guarantee of a union shop.  The guarantee was not forthcoming, so Unite Here sought to block the whole project.

Neighborhood organizations, the unemployed, the University of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the vast majority of area residents thought the hotel was a great idea for the site of the abandoned Doctors Hospital.  A few people who lived in the 5^th Ward’s 39^th Precinct, where the hotel would be built, opposed it.  One of them stood up in public and said the hotel would host alcohol-soaked events whose drunken attendees would spill into the streets.  He gave as an example…..Bar Mitzvahs.

Seeing that the neighborhood was strongly in favor of the hotel, someone in the precinct or the union found a hook: vote the precinct dry.  Only the precinct residents needed to vote on it.  A large city hotel can’t make a go of it without sale of alcoholic beverages in its bars and restaurants.  The union did much of the legwork to get the dry proposition on the 2008 ballots. They managed to do it, and it passed narrowly.  No hotel was built.  The hotel union helped kill 200 hotel jobs on Chicago’s high-unemployment South Side.

Fioretti should support the Toyoko hotel.  Let the union convince the workers to organize, once they’re working.

Read about the 2008 hotel fiasco on this blog. Start at November 23, 2008 and work back through several earlier posts.

Ray Lodato For Congress Press Release

[Ed. note: Ray Lodato lives in Hyde Park. The incumbent for the 1st Congressional District of Illinois is Bobby Rush. The other candidates can be found here.]

For Immediate Release           

January 7, 2012                                                  

Contact: Irene Sherr

773-324-8614

South Side Political Activist Ray Lodato Announces Candidacy

For 1^st Congressional District Seat

(Chicago, January 7, 2012)— Kicking off “a grass-roots campaign for 21^st Century leadership that looks forward, not backward,” South Side community activist and political scientist Ray Lodato has announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the First Congressional District. 

Lodato is calling for policies that will create jobs in the district, which will have a positive impact on many of the problems that affect families in the cities and suburbs of the First District.  The District has an unemployment rate of 13.9%, which is a key factor in the high rate of home foreclosures and puts pressure on local governments to provide emergency assistance. Lodato favors policies to increase the demand for clean energy as a way to create 21^st Century jobs for the First District.  A recent report by the Environmental Law and Policy Center that listed dozens of clean energy fifrms in the Chicagoland area that are poised to add jobs. “There’s no reason that the First District should have to import our green technology from California, Germany or China,” Lodato says.  “As Congressman, I’ll sponsor legislation that will call for greater use of clean energy, increasing the demand for green technology and creating jobs for our residents.”

Lodato also calls for a commitment to education excellence that will benefit all children.  “Equality of education is a necessity if we are to prepare our children for jobs in the economy of the future,” Lodato says.  “We have to find effective solutions that involve parents, teachers and communities together to meet the needs of all students.  Providing jobs for our citizens will improve educational outcomes by stabilizing families and improving the tax base for funding our schools, but we need to make sure that our schools have adequate resources to provide a well-rounded education for all children.”

Another pillar of his jobs strategy is Lodato’s call for building high-speed rail lines to link Chicago to nine other major Midwestern cities.  “We need to invest in the transportation of tomorrow, which will provide jobs today,” Lodato says. “By investing in high-speed rail, we are reclaiming Chicago’s historic position as the transportation hub of America, and creating jobs that cannot be outsourced.  Many of these lines will go through the First District and will provide jobs for our residents.”

Lodato brings nearly three decades of community activism to his run for Congress.  He is a past Chair of the Local School Council at William H. Ray Elementary School in Hyde Park, and he is a recipient of the Edwin Astrin Volunteer Award from the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO), a leading bipartisan political reform organization in the state.  Lodato also served on the board of the IVI-IPO for over ten years, and on the board of the former Blue Gargoyle youth services organization as well.  He has campaigned for several independent, reform-oriented politicians, such as Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Illinois State House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, and Alderman Leslie Hairston (5^th Ward, Chicago).  Lodato worked for nearly ten years for the City of Chicago, serving on the staffs of Preckwinkle, Hairston, and former Alderman Larry Bloom (5^th Ward, Chicago). 

While earning his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago, Lodato co-founded a community organization, the Neighborhood Conservation Corps, which focused on giving individuals from public housing developments jobs and jobs skill training in order to enable them to transition to the mainstream economy and skilled labor positions.  Lodato is married and has three sons.  His campaign website is www.lodato4congress.com, and his Facebook page is Ray Lodato for Congress.

Michael's on 47th Hits the Mat

posted by chicago pop

[Source: Michael Walker/Chicago Tribune]

 

 The 47th Street location is accursed. 

At least for grocery stores. According to the Chicago Tribune, Michael's Fresh Market is applying for bankruptcy.  The entire chain is going down due to difficulties obtaining financing from the grocer's creditor, Premier Bank of Wilmette. So in this case, in contrast to what transpired here before, the crisis is exogenous to Hyde Park. It appears to even be exogenous to Michael's. Rather, this one appears to be a direct local casualty of the 2008 financial crisis as it continues to unwind.

According to the lawyer for Michael's:

The financial difficulties experienced by the debtors are due in large part to the freeze on lending imposed by the lender beginning in the fall of 2010," the grocer said in a filing. "This freeze on the lender's extension on working  capital to the debtors was due not to problems with the financial performance of the debtors, but primarily was caused by the lender's own financial and regulatory problems.

So there may be a chance Michael's could convince another lender to help float the daily operations of what it claims is still a viable business. Sound familiar? 

Hyde Park Liberalism Critiques Itself

posted by chicago pop

An interesting interview in today's Salon with former Hyde Parker and editor of The Baffler, Tom Frank. His subject is a familiar one: how the American right has been more successful in mobilizing grassroots anger and energy than the American left.

But what's interesting about this piece from an HPP perspective is that you can easily read Frank's interview as one Hyde Park liberal intellectual - Thomas Frank - critiquing another - Barack Obama - about the menu of political possibilities available to the nation - possibilities that have also developed and been brought into sharp contrast within Hyde Park itself. Grassroots anger and mobilization versus the cool-headed and technocratically-inclined Becker-Posner school of law and economics embodied in Barack Obama.

That's my spin. How Frank puts it, with reference to the populist anger channeled by various Occupation Movements and the Tea Party, is this: 

The liberals had their leader in Barack Obama … they had their various people in Congress. But these people are completely unfamiliar with populist anger. It’s an alien thing to them. They don’t trust it, and they have trouble speaking to it. I like Barack Obama, but at the end of the day he’s a very professorial kind of guy...

The main thing that has to change is that Democrats and liberals have to be able to speak to the outrage, and that requires a complete change in the way they look at the world. The problem is that they’ve been going the other direction for 30 years. Ever since the right-wing backlash began, liberals have been making their own move to professionalism...

Their message was: The technocratic way is going to solve our problems. Just leave it up to the experts who are going to figure a way out.

The grassroots anger and mobilization that Frank sees as missing have long traditions in Hyde Park, certainly, but seem to have run aground for want of new ideas and successful outcomes. Their renovation has occurred outside of the traditional frameworks of Hyde Park activism. Meanwhile, the cool expertise of neo-liberal  managerialism is dominant in the University of Chicago's professional schools, and while palatable to many middle class intellectuals, are remote from the grassroots for just these reasons.

It's a dualism that you feel in the neighborhood everyday. In a sense it represents the gulf between institutions of governance and masses of citizens, in this country and globally, but with a whiff of Hyde Park terroir.

Rendering of Future Harper Theater and Herald Building Renovation

posted by chicago pop

On a gray winter stretch of December, this rendering of what we can expect at 53rd and Harper is a pleasant reminder of what Chicago streetlife can be like in the summer, and hopefully will be again soon at this location. Hat tip to HPP reader SS for the link at The Architect's Newspaper.

Lab School, Shoesmith Elementary, and Educational Inequality

posted by chicago pop

A couple of weeks ago the amazing blog CPS Obsessed touched on a topic dear to us all but not much covered at HPP: education. Specifically, public education, the free kind, the stuff that is supposed to come with taxes and an address here in the neighborhood. I'll get straight to the remark that got me thinking:

#50. UC Lab gets a $5 million donation from an alum to build a new arts wing. Yes, Lab is an amazing school, I’m sure, and yes, they do offer some scholarships, but, but, but. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Shoesmith received a $5 million donation? Or heck, even $500,000? I wonder what the arts program at the average CPS school is like in Hyde Park? The rich get richer…

As some of you may know (or maybe not, since when most non-Lab financing Hyde Parkers think of their public elementary school, they think "Ray" or "Murray," note that these schools are halfway decent, and that they therefore will not have to move to the suburbs), there has been a moderate bit of buzz in the northern edge of the hood arising from the selection of a new principal at Shoesmith Elementary in beautiful Kenwood.

An inspiring group of parents from the Shoesmith district have formed a Friends of Shoesmith Elementary group with the aim of supporting the school's new and energetic principal in her efforts to turn the school around. It's a tall order, however. As lovely as are the old mansions and brownstones that surround Shoesmith on every side, the school does not fill to capacity and of necessity takes in children from outside the neighborhood. Scores have improved, but the school is still on probation with the CPS. The enrollment is almost uniformly African-American and low-income. Most of the white middle class parents who live in the district  don't send their kids there. Full disclosure: this includes me.

Meanwhile, as everyone has heard, the Lab School, in addition to its other expansions and projects, has just landed a $5 million grant for a new arts wing.

We seriously thought about enrolling our charge at Shoesmith, did our due diligence, and have done our small bit to help out. We'd love to see it turn around. But I wonder even if all the tall hurdles facing Shoesmith and other inner city public schools could be overcome, would it be possible to overcome one hurdle particular to Hyde Park: the existence of the Lab School and a few other private options like it? Does the Lab school inevitably skim off the cohort that would, all things being equal, attend the local schools and thereby help to correct some of the problems that stem from lack of social and economic diversity? Does the channeling of resources to an elite institution like Lab only deepen the gulf of local educational inequality?

The comment on the above-linked CPS post gets at this. It's part of the broader dynamic city-wide, in which people who have the resources or wherewithal can opt-out of a public system, thereby exacerbating many of the problems that keep public schools in a cycle of under performance. 

Another very candid comment laid out the situation in Shoesmith's district as it breaks down along class and racial lines:

#58 .There is a huge money gap in the Shoesmith area. there is a significant number of people who are very wealty, a significant number who live on the edges of the Shoesmith area that are low income/in subsidized housing, and a small number of middle/upper middle class families.

In my opinion, the vast majority very rich probably wouldn’t consider Shoesmith, even if it was a great CPS school b/c they are Lab/Ancona/Latin/Parker families.

The low income families have no other choice by Shoesmith and don’t have the connections/political weight/etc.. to make Nettlehorst happen.

The middle/upper middle class families (of which I’m one) could be the difference makers in turning Shoesmith but the questons for them, is seems to me, are (1) are there enough of them to make a difference at the school, (2) is the school going to be responsive, (3) is it worth the risk for their kids, (4) do any of them have the Nettlehorst-type connections, (5) and is it worth the effort knowing you’ll have to do it all over again for middle school b/c Canter MS is not a good option?

Not long ago, I had to think through these issues about Shoesmith, and decided it was better for my family to do the CPS magnet/RGC/classical lottery, or pay for Catholic school because Shoesmith seemed too much of a risk.

I still wonder what it would be like to try & make it appealing to the neighborhood, wonder if I made the wrong deicision and should have fought for Shoesmith instead of finding another school outside our neighborhood, and can’t tell you how many of my neighors who made the same decision I did say how they wish we could have our kids all the same school, right down the street.

Painful truths. As with retail, safety, sustainability, and so much else, it all comes down to head count. Are there enough middle class families and children in the district to turn Shoesmith around? In raw numbers, perhaps, but how many of them will inevitably be drawn to Lab? How much larger would the local population therefore have to be for Shoesmith to reliably enroll a racially and socioeconomically diverse student body within its own district boundaries?

As one of our  neighborhood's preeminent educational institutions lands a multi-million dollar windfall, while another struggles to fill its classrooms with local kids, these are questions worth pondering.

The 'Academics of Real Estate': Harper Court in the Wall Street Journal

posted by chicago pop

[You may have noticed that I've been on a little bit of a hiatus from blogging lately, but  a number of kind readers have encouraged me to quit loafing and get into my sweatpants (as one is clothed when blogging, by definition). Yes, there is still stuff going on in this fine neighborhood, a lot of it promising, such as what follows. And if you really think something should be up on this space, let me know: sending me stuff is the best way to get an issue broadcast. Because I'm lazy.]

Old news, yes, but worth excerpting: this good summary of Harper Court from the Wall Street Journal (paywall), which highlights the fact that this $134 million project is exceptional for being a major counter-cyclical investment. In the midst of a continued global recession and tight credit in real estate lending nationwide, there is nothing comparable to it on the South Side, and little else in Chicago or equivalent neighborhoods in other metro areas. How is this possible according to the laws of economics?

Why, it's the Chicago School, of course.

In a new bid to revitalize an area just north of its campus, the University of Chicago is subsidizing the mixed-use project, known as Harper Court, through various forms of assistance.

The university is selling land to the developer for $1 million that it bought for about $9 million; it is guaranteeing the $22 million construction loan on the 130-room hotel; and it is leasing the full 150,000 square feet of office space. Further, the city of Chicago is putting in about $20 million in a subsidy that comes from forgone future taxes on the site.

The moves provided the spark for a development that wouldn't have occurred otherwise, in a neighborhood long eschewed by investors. A formal groundbreaking occurred earlier this month at the site in Hyde Park, a neighborhood filled with students, university staff and faculty. By and large, poorer neighborhoods surround it, and large new private developments have been few and far between.

The university has a history in Chicago of steadily expanding its campus with new dorms, labs and classrooms. But that isn't what's behind this foray into the real-estate investment arena. Rather, it is being fueled by a desire to make the area around its campus more attractive to its students and faculty.

"We're not trying to flip these properties for profit," says David Green, executive vice president at the University of Chicago. "We're trying to really help invest in a way to spur development in the area."

Taking the role of both master planner and pioneer investor, universities in economically struggling urban areas have increasingly taken the lead on commercial developments to improve the livability of their neighborhoods.

The Journal points out, as we have on the blog, that other institutions like Penn have pursued similarly aggressive development agendas when it seemed that the market was unwilling to make major bets on the neighborhood. Of course, this entails a risk, but so does the choice to run a top-tier research university in a neighborhood that often only minimally meets basic standards of service and amenities expected by its staff and students.

53rd Street is singled out, to no great surprise, as full of potential but wanting over the last few years.

Harper Court, on 53rd Street, is a historic retail strip, dotted with a hodgepodge of retail outlets, from banks to a mattress store. Its Valois Cafeteria, a classic neighborhood eatery, has occasionally been visited by President Obama upon his returns to Chicago.

But the university has higher aspirations. "It hasn't been a great neighborhood street, or a real destination where there's an interesting mix of shops and services," says Mr. Green.

Elsewhere on 53rd Street, the efforts of the school are aimed at renovating older buildings. Earlier this year, it began renovating an old movie theater, and it leased a storefront it owns to a 24-hour diner.

"You have a real healthy combination of interesting development opportunities and good buildings with interesting space," says Josh Sirefman, a consultant for the university on the revitalization and a former New York City economic development official.

Based on the tall cranes and fencing around the Harper Court lot, and the spiffed up Herald Building now home to Five Guys, so far things look like a good bet. The kind of bet that probably should have been made a long time ago. 

Public Meeting on Police Districts 2 and 21 (Hyde Park - Kenwood) Merging -- Ald. Will Burns Presiding

posted by chicago pop

Much of Hyde Park - Kenwood is in the Chicago Police Department's 21st District, pictured above. As a part of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel's proposed budget, this district would be one of three citywide that would be consolidated with surrounding districts as a cost-saving measure. The rationale for this, in the case of Hyde Park's 21st District,  is the fact that because of the relatively low number of 911 calls originating in the lakefront area, it is considered to be low crime and not in need of a dedicated district office and staff. The proposal therefore calls for the 21st to be merged with the neighboring 2nd (Wentworth, pictured below) that includes the area west of Cottage Grove to the Dan Ryan Expressway.

Based on discussion at a recent 21st District CAPS meeting, CPD representatives made it clear that if this consolidation goes through, police manpower will go where the 911 calls are. This is predominantly west of Cottage Grove. As a result, response time to 911 calls from Hyde Park - Kenwood could lengthen. If Hyde Park - Kenwood is as safe as this scenario assumes, then all is well, and the University of Chicago police should be able to pick up the slack. Or, if this is not the case, or if local crime takes the form of isolated sprees by individuals or groups, then these sprees could run longer, cause more damage, tax the U of C's police force, and aggravate the neighborhood's reputation as 'unsafe'.

CBS Chicago sums it up:

The Prairie District station at 300 E. 29th St. dates from 1952. It serves an oddly-shaped precinct, extending north of Cermak Road and west to the Penn Central railroad tracks to include Chinatown and parts of Bronzeville, then proceeding south down the lakefront east of Cottage Grove Avenue.

At its southern edge, the district borders include the entire Hyde Park neighborhood except for Jackson Park, and extend south to 61st Street between Cottage Grove and Dorchester avenues so as to include the entire U of C campus.

The U of C also has its own private police department, which patrols even farther south into the neighboring Grand Crossing District.

But the Chicago Sun-Times recently pointed out that the nearly 60-year-old station could be merged with the Wentworth District to the west, given that its resources are no longer dominated by crime in the now-demolished Robert Taylor and Stateway Gardens public housing high-rises along the State Street corridor.

Yet, while crime in Hyde Park and around the U of C campus is vastly lower than in many nearby neighborhoods, security is still a concern.

If you have any questions or concerns about this little-publicized bureaucratic reform, there is a public meeting on the issue with 4th Ward Alderman Will Burns tomorrow night at:

4935 S. Dorchester

St. Paul the Redeemer Church

6-8PM

Subject: Consolidation of the 21st and 2nd Police Districts

Good Stuff Happening: Earl Shapiro Hall

posted by richard gill
 

After years of development inactivity, Hyde Park seems to be up and moving.  One big project getting under way is Earl Shapiro Hall, which will house the new Early Childhood Center of the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.  The start of construction is imminent; the Center is scheduled to open in the Autumn of 2013.

On September 17, on the site at 5800 So. Stony Island Ave., an enormous outdoor party celebrated the groundbreaking. People were issued hardhats and chrome-plated shovels for groundbreaking photos in front of construction equipment.  There were plastic shovels and pails that children used for "excavation," music and balloons and even a Lego construction game.  The food was for all generations—tacos, chicken, veggies, gourmet sliders, hot pretzels, sno-cones, Good Humor bars, popsicles, soft drinks, lemonade, and bulk candy.

For 90 years, the site had been occupied by Illinois Central Hospital, one of two medical facilities that the railroad had operated for its employees as well as the public.  In recent decades, the building had changed ownership and names and finally closed.  It was razed in early 2011 to make way for the school.  It's good to see good stuff happening in the neighborhood.

Will a Redistricted 5th Ward Include Hyde Park?

posted by richard gill

Chicago’s ward boundary lines are being redrawn, and the 5th Ward may no longer include any part of Hyde Park. Would that it were so. Hyde Park Progress has long been critical of 5th Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston, and we supported another candidate, Anne Marie Miles, in the February 2011 Aldermanic election. Miles lost. Hairston won and will be 5th Ward Alderman for at least another four years. That’s unfortunate. A perusal of this blog’s posts over the past couple of years will detail our beefs with Leslie Hairston. For one thing, small interest groups easily intimidate her, and she won’t take a position if she senses the smallest amount of discord.

Hyde Park is largely divided between the 4th and 5th Wards. The line runs along 55th Street, Lake Park Avenue, and 53rd Street. The redistricting may, or may not, put all or more of Hyde Park in the 4th Ward (Ald. Will Burns), the 20th (Ald. Willie Cochran), the 7th (Ald. Sandi Jackson), or 3rd (Ald. Pat Dowell). Any of these four Aldermen hold promise be an improvement, if for no other reasons than that they seem inclined to get things done, and confront buffeting winds when necessary.

The remap process, of course, is a contest of self-interest among the 50 Aldermen. Beyond the legal requirements of contiguity within wards and substantially equal populations among wards, the boundary lines are allowed to wiggle and twist, so that wards can acquire all manner of bizarre arms and tentacles. Take a look at the current Chicago ward map at www.cityofchicago.org and click on Chicago Government.

The new boundaries won’t take effect immediately, but it’s likely the incumbents will run again. It’s not too hard to believe that future Aldermen representing Hyde Park will have drawn the short straw. Hyde Park is known to exhibit all manner of silliness, obstructionism, hysteria and outright craziness over all matters big and small. Among the Aldermen themselves, the question may be: do they want us?

Beware the Maroon Candyman! RedEye's Take on HP Media

posted by chicago pop

HPP comentator and neighborhood blogger for the Tribune's RedEye website Melissa Conway gives her humorous take on the Hyde Park media situation - such as it is - in this little piece. (Not that we're a news organization or anything, or even track anything very regularly; we just have something to say once in a while):

First, there’s the local neighborhood paper, the Hyde Park Herald. It’s been around forever – no for real, since 1882 they say – and occasionally, their viewpoint seems stuck there. While it’s relatively informative about what’s going on in the neighborhood, I also sense a decidedly doomsday undercurrent whenever it comes to any new development or redevelopment in the neighborhood. This is reflective of a fear shared by many long-time Hyde Parkers – this sense of not wanting the neighborhood to evolve past anything they’ve already known it to be.

When I’m looking for an alternative perspective on the development going on in the neighborhood, I turn to a blog called Hyde Park Progress... The recent purchase of Borders by U of C is a current topic on the site It seems that whenever the University purchases property in Hyde Park, there is a fear in the air that warns, “Beward the Maroon candyman! He is only here to steal your property, and turn it into office buildings that will only benefit them, and not the community!” 

Check out RedEye's dedicated Hyde Park blog for snippets of lifestyle and current events. Another source on the hood.

[Image source: http://neighborhoods.redeyechicago.com/hyde-park/2011/07/29/news-to-me/ ]