The year 2001 marked the final destruction of the economic engine that wouldn’t quit: the Maxwell Street shopping district. Though plenty of arguments were made for preserving it–on cultural, historical, financial, and architectural grounds–no one doubted that the outcome would be its demise, squashed by the combined clout of the city, real estate millionaires, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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The university could have built its dorms and high-class housing development immediately to the west or east, in areas that once had public housing and a Chernin’s shoe store. Never mind that both spots are now vacant–or that Maxwell Street still had thriving businesses, some of which had been profitably run through the Great Depression and every subsequent recession. All remnants of the old Maxwell Street had to go.
The street’s low-income taxpayers couldn’t afford to keep up with the parade of city-funded witnesses, heads of tax-supported organizations, and union officials bought off with the promise of construction jobs. While a third of the Sunday market was allowed to survive on Canal, rents skyrocketed.
Meanwhile, the newly built condos of University Village are already driving up real estate taxes on the near southwest side. Consequently, rents are going up for the poorest of the poor, the former clients of Maxwell Street. Very few will be able to send their children to the university.
