My dad claimed to be one of the first Mexicans to live on Paulina Street in the 1970s. He used to deal weed, coke, and heroin, running around with another Mexican guy who moved in down the block around the same time. Life was different in McKinley Park back then. Bars lined almost every cross street, and the neighborhood was said to consist mostly of taverns and funeral homes. I was the last in our family to live there, staying until 1995, when it was still a somewhat nice and safe neighborhood.
One summer day in 1995, I was walking down 35th Street with my girlfriend, Lana, to get some food. About five or six Mexican guys were hanging out in front of an apartment building on the north side of 35th Street, between Honore and Wolcott. As we passed on the other side, they shouted at Lana, saying things like, “You need a real man,” among other remarks. She flicked them off, and I followed her lead. The neighborhood was beginning to change for the worse at that point, with gang members moving in and boldly yelling obscenities on the once-quiet streets.
America still felt quiet and peaceful on the streets during those years. Overpopulation and heavy traffic didn’t start until the large influx of Mexican immigrants began moving into Chicago. I miss those days, especially the empty streets on Sundays.
Recently, I met a Mexican woman who couldn’t speak English but said she’d lived in America since the 1980s. She told me she lived at 37th and Wood Streets. I shared that I lived just a couple of blocks away in the 1980s and 1990s. We were excited to connect and reminisce about the old neighborhood. My Spanish isn’t great, but we managed to talk about many things—she had to rephrase often since I’m better at speaking than understanding it.
She described how beautiful the neighborhood once was. She moved out about 15 years ago and has daughters. One of her daughters was best friends with some of my neighborhood friends. She took my name and phone number in case her daughter wanted to reach out—though it wasn’t necessary. She often spoke with her daughter’s friend Claudia, whom I used to hang out with in grade school.
We both missed the old neighborhood. She said it was once a nice, close-knit community but became too dangerous due to gangs and shootings, forcing her to move.
Tag Archives: neighborhood History
Writing The Essence of Chicagoland Areas
It all started with a camera, then a video, now this.
What is this page and what am I doing with it? I interview people daily for my YouTube channel or by doing Street photography in the Chicagoland area. My main goal was to interview people from every neighborhood in chicago, but the only problem is that a lot of neighborhoods are dangerous and they’re not so easy to maneuver around in, but my goal is to reach every voice that I can throughout every neighborhood, in this I will try to capture insight of every neighborhood no matter how dangerous, then write about it here unless I an about to get it on video first.
The insight I’m looking for on this channel is the current state of Chicagoland neighborhoods and the history the people have of it. I want to get a perspective from everyone that I can, and that means every soul that lives in Chicago or of has ever lived in Chicago at some point.
I generally ask questions like, “what are the rent prices, how is the crime, where is your favorite place to eat, how do you compare the past and present of Chicago”, and a mess of other questions.
I initially started the Essence of Chicagoland Areas on Instagram. I was trying to tell stories by candid pictures by doing Street photography. Then I started interviewing people while I took their pictures, but those interviews made the pictures less candid, so I quit doing that, and went back to full candid street photography. Then I opened a YouTube channel and started interviewing people around the Chicagoland area on video in various specified neighborhoods. You could look up any of those channels by searching this channel’s name, otherwise you can just read about it here.
I have some really good conversations with people in Chicago, but some of them do not want to be recorded, so I figured I would write about what they told me instead, while keeping their anonymity. And that’s what I aim for on this particular site for this channel, to focus on the stories and history of the people. The essence of Chicago from the mouths of the people and not from a city funded fairytale from city hall.
I have some of my own interesting stories of Chicagoland area. I have knowledge of Chicago since I am born and raised in the area and been here since. But in my videos I do not really want to talk about myself or tell the story of other people’s neighborhoods, I really want to hear the perspective from the people that live in these various neighborhoods, for them to tell me about their own experiences, rather than me narrating that for them over various video clips. Although some people are ok with audio that I put over the video. I hold the camera away from their face and microphone to their mouths, and it works out fine.
I hope you like this site and find it insightful or at least interesting.
The Essence of Chicagoland Areas 