Hippies In The 60s? (Chicago, Oak Park: neighborhoods, school, college)

[Motion]

What part of Chicago was known for its hippie scene during the 60s and 70s?

San Francisco had Haight-Asbury and NYC had Greenich Village. So did Chicago have a similar area to those back in the 60s?

[BOBNCHI]

Old Town!

[Motion]

I guess I haven't seen Old Town getting as much media coverage in relation to the 60s in comparison to Haight-Asbury. Has Old Town been highlighted in any documentaries about the 60s?

[Ycomoque]

Doesn't seem like it had anywhere near the profile of the Village or the Upper Haight.

[NoHyping]

https://areachicagoarchive.wordpress...-chicago-seed/

By the mid-1960s, the area around Wells Street in what is now Old Town formed the heart of Chicago’s small but thriving hippie scene. The neighborhood housed headshops, record stores, music clubs, coffee shops and a burgeoning population of bohemian young people. Students for a Democratic Society had its headquarters in the city as well and thanks to their tireless organizing, after 1965 the draft resistance and anti-Vietnam War movements had begun to gather steam. Predictably, local news coverage of both the flower children and the New Left was often antagonistic, factually inaccurate or openly dismissive.


This link only touches on Bridgeport a Italian Greasers haven.... that seems likely with the North side Hippies in Old Town and Greasers hang-ons in Bridgeport of the South side.

Stone Greasers, Greasers Gangs and Clubs From Chicago to New York

In the cities where the Greaser subculture survived past the 1970s were in places like Chicago, New York, and Tulsa where you had poor to working-class White neighborhoods which did not experience "ethnic cleansing" until into the eighties and nineties. In the 1970s, Chicago had an organization/underground newspaper called "Rising Up Angry" which would feature Gangs and Greasers in their "Stone Greaser Grapevine" section.

*** Throughout the 1950s until the early 1980s, Chicago's youth were divided into two cultures: the Greasers and the Hippies. Greasers tried to hold on, or imitate the Greasers of the 1950s. The Hippies imitated the Hippies, or Freaks that most people remember from the 1970s before the disco era. Hippies were known for their parties; Greasers were known for fixing up old fast cars, drag racing, motorcycles, and joining gangs, though being in a gang wasn't a greaser requirement.



The below link has all the 50s 60s gangs though Chicago is a bastion of far more the Greaser culture for Chicago then Hippies throughout the city. Though clearly in 1968 it all culminated in Chicago for counter culture of all types with MLK and RFK assassinated and neighborhood Riots and Burning's up to the DNC with Daley giving the orders to get the anti-Vietnam protesters, Hippies and Civil Rights people OUT of Grant Park and Lincoln Park. The rest there is history of a city that had to endure that scourge for years.

Gangs of Chicago in the 50s 60s into 70s of Chicago Gang names and location of their reign.
These seem to have had nothing to do with hippies.

Chicago gangs - Chicago Gangs and Clubs - Chicago Old School Gangs

[Irishtom29]

In the late 60s there were quite a few hippies on the near north side around Fullerton and Lincoln. I think the heads were the beginning of gentrification; that was a rough neighborhood in the 1960s.

On the West Side there was a bastion of freaks at Doc Gandalf's General Store at Lake and Austin. Odd mix of hippies, greasers, hippie- greaser hybrids (I had long hair AND a cabretta jacket) bikers and general oddballs.

The divide in Chicago youth culture in the 1960s was between greasers and doopers (dear old Oak Parkers); the doopers were the kids who dressed collegiate. In the mid 60s doopers wore white jeans, madras shirts and penny loafers. West Side greasers wore baggy cotton work pants, combat boots, white T shirts over sleeveless undershirts or Italian knits, grey or black cabrettas, thermals, stingy brim hats and such. North Side greasers were still kind'a 1950s in appearance at the time. I didn't go on the South Side, it was difficult to take the CTA from the West Side to the South Side because of the Black neighborhoods you would pass through-- you didn't want trouble with gousters.

Some corners of West Side greasers were Ohio and Leavitt (C Notes) Chicago and Lawndale (Jokers) Orr, Madison and Central (MCs) and Riis Park (JPs). Most of the time groups were referred to by their corner, not their names which I assume dated back to guys who were long gone. The Taylor St. Dukes were still around but had lost their influence--some came out to Madison and Central to throw their weight around and our older guys gave them a beating. (Many corners had older guys, middle guys and little guys. The little guys most often started trouble.)

[ChicagoMeO]

There were 2 kinds of hippies back then. The flower children which were "Make peace not war" and handed out flowers and were joyful, some did marijuana, but some just did not.

then some were radical - went to war marches, etc. political.

then some were druggies, that lifestyle may have affected their life in a bad way. Went to San Francisco, didn't work out well.

then you have combinations of the above.

What i was - i was a free spirit (still am!); wore jeans and bare feet all summer, hitchhiked to Old Town, people watched, didn't get into drugs, hitchhiked to the beach, etc, just for fun, did not like pot - the anti-drug commercials scared me; loved my black light posters and psychedelic lights, too young to go to the discos they had in chicago, hated the smell of pot; gave the peace sign to others, wore peasant blouses and hated my parents (don't trust anyone over 30 years old); felt special because i read the "underground newspaper" called "The Seed" and listened to FM radio (the lame kids listened to AM radio); spent summers at the beach; all that was me! But alas, some old folks think of hippies as radical, God-hating, Parent hating communist type, which was NOT TRUE! some of us just were free spirits!

[in_newengland]

Originally Posted by ChicagoMeO

There were 2 kinds of hippies back then. The flower children which were "Make peace not war" and handed out flowers and were joyful, some did marijuana, but some just did not.

then some were radical - went to war marches, etc. political.

then some were druggies, that lifestyle may have affected their life in a bad way. Went to San Francisco, didn't work out well.

then you have combinations of the above.

What i was - i was a free spirit (still am!); wore jeans and bare feet all summer, hitchhiked to Old Town, people watched, didn't get into drugs, hitchhiked to the beach, etc, just for fun, did not like pot - the anti-drug commercials scared me; loved my black light posters and psychedelic lights, too young to go to the discos they had in chicago, hated the smell of pot; gave the peace sign to others, wore peasant blouses and hated my parents (don't trust anyone over 30 years old); felt special because i read the "underground newspaper" called "The Seed" and listened to FM radio (the lame kids listened to AM radio); spent summers at the beach; all that was me! But alas, some old folks think of hippies as radical, God-hating, Parent hating communist type, which was NOT TRUE! some of us just were free spirits!

Had to rep you. I think the hippie days were the happiest days of my life. You're right when you say some people think we were haters and communists but most of us were just against the Viet Nam War. We were idealists, it's true, and we believed that love would cure all. Love, not hate. Peace, not violence.

Yes, we would give the peace sign and we wore love beads and sandals. We didn't take hard drugs but most of us did try marijuana. Later on, the movement got taken over by mean spirited radicals who incited violence and did things (like occupy a professor's office or participate in a protest so that they could get arrested .) They even went so far as to get some of the college courses dumbed down so that everyone would be equal. (Equally dumb.) That's when I stopped being a hippie. But the original and true hippie movement was all about love and peace.

The Chicago 7 were famous and I think that's where the well known photograph of the girl kneeling beside fallen students came in. That happened when things were starting to get out of hand and the crazies/radicals were taking over.

Everybody knew it would be interesting, the trial of eight people charged with conspiring to incite the riots that erupted during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.


https://www.chicagotribune.com/natio...ory-story.html

[BOBNCHI]

Originally Posted by in_newengland

..........Later on, the movement got taken over by mean spirited radicals who incited violence and did things (like occupy a professor's office or participate in a protest so that they could get arrested .) They even went so far as to get some of the college courses dumbed down so that everyone would be equal. (Equally dumb.)

Sounds similar to recent events in D.C.!

The girl kneeling was at the Kent State shootings.

[ChicagoMeO]

Originally Posted by in_newengland

Had to rep you. I think the hippie days were the happiest days of my life. You're right when you say some people think we were haters and communists but most of us were just against the Viet Nam War. We were idealists, it's true, and we believed that love would cure all. Love, not hate. Peace, not violence.

Yes, we would give the peace sign and we wore love beads and sandals. We didn't take hard drugs but most of us did try marijuana. Later on, the movement got taken over by mean spirited radicals who incited violence and did things (like occupy a professor's office or participate in a protest so that they could get arrested .) They even went so far as to get some of the college courses dumbed down so that everyone would be equal. (Equally dumb.) That's when I stopped being a hippie. But the original and true hippie movement was all about love and peace.

The Chicago 7 were famous and I think that's where the well known photograph of the girl kneeling beside fallen students came in. That happened when things were starting to get out of hand and the crazies/radicals were taking over.

Everybody knew it would be interesting, the trial of eight people charged with conspiring to incite the riots that erupted during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.


https://www.chicagotribune.com/natio...ory-story.html

Oh yes, you reminded me - my treasured peace symbol i wore around my neck and the love beads and bracelets too! the style was Bohemian style for women (peace signs, wide flared jeans (the wider flare the better! no skinny jeans). Mini dress (we had the figure back then for it!), and white go go boots or sandals. Some wore stinky pachouli fragrance.