What was the West Side of Chicago like in the 1970s? (River Grove: casino, live)

[steeps]

Originally Posted by ChicagoMeO

Are you looking at a map of the 1970's?

I remember driving thru Madison St. all the way from Oak Park, IL to Western Ave. this was maybe 10 years ago, it still looks like crap in many places. I just remember seeing the street as i drove thru it.

Actually, from the Google street views. Crossing from Oak Park into Chicago looks pretty good now. Like many areas renewed of a lot better taken care of now.

I said I remember one drive across Berwyn into Chicago in the 80, when I lived on the Northwest side. I am not looking for pictures then. But I went through the Garfield's and Lawndale? Even Englewood. With Google 360°s streetviews I find areas of homes, empty lots between many and sometimes a boarded up house with a RED X on the building. But not the empty collapsing buildings. Some areas look like your in a small Prairie town? Not Big city. Love the old Greystones in the West Garfield. Some areas look decent some of them still at risk of loss or boarded up.

[NOLA101]

Originally Posted by ChicagoMeO

Are you looking at a map of the 1970's?

I remember driving thru Madison St. all the way from Oak Park, IL to Western Ave. this was maybe 10 years ago, it still looks like crap in many places. I just remember seeing the street as i drove thru it.

The West Side (and South Side) had much higher populations back in the 1970's. Obviously they were much more vibrant back then.

I think this thread is the first place I've ever heard someone claim that neighborhoods improve by becoming poorer and losing half their population. The West Side is a shell of its former state in the 70's (when, admittedly, it was bad, but it was intact).

[williepotatoes]

Originally Posted by NOLA101

The West Side (and South Side) had much higher populations back in the 1970's. Obviously they were much more vibrant back then.

I think this thread is the first place I've ever heard someone claim that neighborhoods improve by becoming poorer and losing half their population. The West Side is a shell of its former state in the 70's (when, admittedly, it was bad, but it was intact).

Agreed. While it was sliding downhill fast, the west side was much more densely populated and vibrant than it is now. There was also a significant amount of industry still churning along.

[ViolentDisasters]

In the early-mid 70s there was also a lot radical leftist political activity on the near west side. The Back Panther Party, the Students for a Democratic Society, the Yippies, and various far left/communist groups had offices located there and the area was teeming with this sort of activity before and immediately following the famed DNC protests.There was still a relatively sizable Italian and Ukrainian population in this area at the time as well.

From what I've read, the NAACP youth coordinator/Chicago Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton made it a point to try to bring some unity among the poor Italian and poor black communities there (who had historically had a lot of tensions) in the late 60s with a lot of success, but after his assassination by the Chicago Police in 1969, those tensions slowly reemerged and by the mid 70s, racial tensions and white flight was back in full swing in that neighborhood.

[King of Kensington]

From what I understand, Jews used to live mostly on the West Side, but they shifted to the North Side in the 40s and 50s and went to northern suburbs. By the 70s, Jews would have been long gone.

Italians suburbanized at a slower pace, and would have still been on the West Side in some numbers in the 70s, though declining. They shifted I believe to the Northwest Side and western suburbs.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by JosephM1994

There is a screenshot somewhere in my computer but I remember doing a random Google Streetview in Lawndale and seeing a white guy in a car with a guy leaning into the window and a bunch of scary gangster looking guys on the adjacent corner, so it was a drug deal obviously. I think Chicago's West Side is the only place in America where you can see an open air heroin market on Google maps!

Do you remember which corner?

[NealIRC]

Originally Posted by 1972Impala

As my username suggests, I like the 1970s as a decade. Im told in other threads that Chicago's Italians and Jews lived on the West Side before redlining. As recently as the mid 70s were there any areas of the West Side that were still White Ethnic and stable? and where specifically were there specific enclaves?

I guess Humboldt Park used to be a Jewish neighborhood, but before the '70s.

And yes, North Lawndale and such used to be a Jewish neighborhood. There are books you can find in Barnes & Noble about Jews in Chicago.

According to 1 Latin King in his 50s, he once said "There's a saying that if you can survive Humboldt Park in the '70s, you can survive the Vietnam War."

I believe Mexican gangs started to infest Little Village in the early '60s. And that used to be an Italian, and possibly Bohemian neighborhood.

Humboldt Park became Puerto Rican in the '70s. Prior to that, Puerto Ricans originally were living in Lincoln Park, and as prices went up, went west, to Wicker Park, and then to where it is now, Humboldt Park and East Humboldt Park.

1 of the riots in Humboldt Park was actually in Wicker Park, by Division and Damen. Latin Kings used to be on Leavitt before they moved to Spaulding.

[rarex]

Originally Posted by ToriaT

I won't mention the stories I had heard about this on this board.

But.. but.. that's the most fun part! Stories...

[baileyvpotter]

Most of the Jewish population left Humboldt Park by 1960 (from the encyclopedia of Chicago).

Humboldt Park

[newsites]

The west side was called the Austin district, once with very nice well maintained homes and good clean people. That was destroyed many years ago by crime HUD and the trash that moved in back in the mid 1960s Drugs - Crime - Freeloaders - have taken over just like 100s of neighborhoods Mod cut.!!