"But who is this for" - thoughts on an artisan market in a gentrifying West Side neighorhood
A week ago, on December 14, I went to an artisan market held in a rehabbed industrial building in Chicago West Side’s East Garfield Park neighborhood. And I found myself thinking about something I’ve been pondering a lot in the three years I’ve been writing for Austin Weekly News - the neighborhood's gentrification.
As with much of West Side, East Garfield Park has been a majority-black neighborhood since the 1960s. And, as with much of the West Side, almost as soon as African-Americans started moving in, property values plummeted, businesses started moving out and what little the city invested in the area disappeared. And yes, as Linda Gartz, who grew up in the neighboring West Garfield Park, wrote in her memoir, racist policies of both federal and local governments had a lot to do with it. The riots that erupted in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. were merely the last nails in the coffin.
Yet, as early as mid-2000s, there was talk about East Garfield Park gentrifying. Back then, developers and speculators were eagerly looking for the next “hot” neighborhood, and East Garfield Park was definitely on many people’s radar, the way Logan Square was a few years earlier. Sure, there were a lot of shootings now, the theory went, but there’s some good housing stock, the Garfield Park Conservatory attracted people from all over Chicago, the Green and Blue ‘L’ lines offered a pretty convenient link to the Loop, and there were lots of vacant lots that could be redeveloped. It was just the matter of time and patience.
That talk died once the real estate bubble burst. But while the processes slowed, they never entirely stopped. I got to see it first hand during the 2013 Chicago Artist Month which, among other things, included a gallery walk showcasing what turned out to be many, many art studios and workshops throughout East Garfield Park.
I got to see all those neat spaces in the old factories and warehouses along the Union Pacific West Line railroad tracks
But they seemed a world apart from the boarded up storefronts and vacant lots only a few blocks south.
In fairness, not all of the artists I met that weekend were white. And some that were white actually did lived in East Garfield Park for years, if not decades, and some had parents or grandparents who lived in the neighborhood. But a lot of the times, what I came across was white people who lived in Logan Square, or West Town, or even the Village of Oak Park, who simply came to the neighborhood to work. Some of the ones I spoke to said that, hey, the space is cheap, and while parts of the neighborhood are "sketchy," East Garfield Park's reputation was overblown.
To be clear, it's not that the white people from outside the community came to work in the area that bothered me. It's that the ratio seemed so overwhelmingly skewed in favor of people outside the community. And that they didn't really seem to interact with the community all that much. The thick walls and heavy doors of a lot of those buildings only reinforced it.
Once I started writing for Austin Weekly News, I got to visit East Garfield Park a lot more often. Even while passing through the neighborhood on the way to Austin, couldn't help but notice that it seemed like, every month, more and more white people got off at Kedzie/Lake Green Line 'L' station (where a lot of the aforementioned lofts were). And as time went on and I attended more and more community meetings, I got to hear concerns about gentrification.
The Hatchery has become the biggest flashpoint. For those who don't know, it was the brainchild of the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago (an organization that has been on the Near West Side since the late 1960s). One of big things it does is help businesses get off the ground through its small business incubator. The facility wasn't really equipped for food-orientated businesses, because those need kitchens and other facilities that meet city codes. So they decided to build a separate food-orientated business incubator.
Many people in East Garfield Park actually welcomed it, and for good reason. This was a major investment in the community, and it was a great opportunity for local entrepreneurs. But others were skeptical, for several reasons. One phase I kept hearing all over and other again is "who is this for?" In other words, is this really meant to help the community, or is it meant to help people from outside the community?
Now, personally, I think it's a bit of Column A, a bit of Column B. Like I said, its an extension of ICNC's greater efforts to encourage business owners to set up shop on the West Side, and many people who come to take advantage of its business incubator come from elsewhere in the city, and the suburbs. But I've also spoken to people in the West Side who have been able to take advantage of what the Hatchery has been offering. And an argument can be made that it's the sort of the chicken-and-the-egg situation. If East Garfield Park entrepreneurs - say, a guy wanting to open a sit-down restaurant - think this isn't for them, they're not likely to try to get involved with it, now are they?
Which brings us back to the December 14 event. Ye Olde Holiday Shoppe was being billed as “holiday pop-up market will be back at our studio space with our favorite local businesses, makers, and artists.” I was skeptical about the “local” part, but I figured I might as well go there to get some leads for future articles for Austin Weekly News and maybe Cook County Chronicle, and maybe do some Christmas shopping.
So I talked to the vendors. Turned out that, as I guessed, while a few of them either lived or worked on the West Side, most of them came from elsewhere in the city. Many of them readily admitted that they didn't really know much about East Garfield Park, but they had friends or people in their network recommend it. The number of vendors who were black could be counted on the fingers of a single hand - and none of them were West Siders.
Most of the people who were shopping didn’t look like they were from the area, either.
I quickly abandoned any thought of Christmas shopping. There were a few relatively affordable items - postcards, some bits of jewelry. But most of it was way beyond my price range. Like, there were $40 mugs, and clothes that was definitely on the more expensive side. I get that making those things costs money, and artists and artisans have to earn a living, but man was it depressing.
After talking to some more vendors and getting a few promising leads, I headed home. I still had an article to finish
As I walked back to Kedzie/Lake station, a police car raced past me, sirens blaring. A young woman was talking loudly on the phone to her friend. It was less than a block away, but it felt like another neighborhood entirely.
And I wondered - did that woman know the market was even happening? Did anybody further down Kedzie? And if they did, would they want to come?
If you passed by the building, you'd see the lights coming out of the window. The doors weren't locked, and admission was free. Anyone who lived in the neighborhood could come in any time. But the more I hung around, the more I wondered - would they want to? Or would they hesitate to come into a hall full of young white hipsters, wondering how they'd be perceived? And what would they think of the prices?
I don't think the people who organized this event meant to exclude the locals. But would one blame them for thinking that it wasn't really for them?
What I learned over the years is that, on the West Side, a lot of the news gets around by the word of mouth. A friend tells a friend who tells their congregation who tells their kids and grandkids. It can be a pretty effective way to get information, so long as you are within the network.
I know there are local artists in Austin, the two Garfield Parks and North Lawndale. And I know they know people who might be interested. I just feel like, if the organizers behind Ye Olde Holiday Shoppe did more to reach them, to give them opportunities to sell their wares, there would be more parity. And they would invite their friends, and their friends would invite their friends, and people from the community might feel comfortable actually coming in and seeing what locals and non-locals have to offer.
And maybe then, I wouldn’t be left wondering - who is this really for?