| Marquette Park Neighbors | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A not-for-profit alliance of residents and business owners in Chicago's Marquette Park community. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Welcome to our website! The Marquette Park Neighbors is one of Chicago's newest and most effective community organizations. Founded by longtime Marquette Park resident and community advocate Joe Kulys and several others, the Marquette Park Neighbors has, in a very short time, made a positive impact on the greater Marquette Park area. If you are a regular reader of the Southwest News-Herald (or even the Daily Southtown, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Reporter or the Lithuanian Daily Draugas), you know that we are in the forefront of proposing constructive new ideas to improve our community. We also are a leader in opposing blight, crime, zoning and liquor license abuses, and other things that threaten the quality of life in the greater Marquette Park area. We have had several public meetings in recent months, and our membership ranks have grown to nearly 200 households. Keeping everyone up to date on our activities is a challenge, both logistically and in terms of mailing costs. And while the Southwest News-Herald (and to a lesser extent, some other papers) does a respectable job of reporting our activities in a fair and timely manner, the ebb and flow of the news means that there are no guarantees of getting our news out via newspapers. Therefore, with an ever-increasing percentage of households linked to the Internet, we have launched this website. This website is designed to do five things. First, give you the latest news and views of the Marquette Park Neighbors. Second, provide a public service to other Southwest Side neighborhoods by including their news. Third, provide everyone with an opportunity to interact with us (via e-mail) and have your constructive viewpoints posted on this site. Fourth, serve as an advocate for stronger communities and promote our local businesses on Chicago's Southwest Side. Fifth and finally, provide everyone with a few links to other useful and interesting websites. Enjoy! | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| News and Views of Marquette Park | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Since no 15th Ward candidate won a majority of votes in the February 23rd aldermanic primary, voters in Marquette Park have a good opportunity to quiz the remaining two candidates on issues of importance to the Marquette Park neighborhood. One such important issue is the future use of the St. Adrian Parish properties. St. Adrian's, once a thriving, vibrant contributor to the life of our community, has fallen on difficult times in recent years. Over the last 10 years, many of its parishioners moved out to the suburbs, and were replaced locally not by other Catholics, but by Baptists and other evangelical Protestants. The decline in the parish's Catholic population has led to the closure of St. Adrian School and to the Sisters of Loretto leaving the parish convent for good. These shuttered buildings are a real question mark in our community, and a source of speculation. Last year, several self-described "community leaders" approached then-Alderman Virgil Jones and asked him to support a zoning change that would allow one of the St. Adrian buildings to be converted into a transient domestic violence shelter for the homeless. Other ideas were proposed, too, like converting St. Adrian's buildings into a men's homeless shelter, a soup kitchen and a halfway house for substance abusers. As a Marquette Park area resident, do you support such plans for your neighborhood? We don't! Is is the position of the Marquette Park Neighbors that the best use of the St. Adrian buildings is their original intent: a church, a school, a rectory and a convent. If that is not possible (and only if that is not possible), we have proposed that the Archdiocese of Chicago sell all the St. Adrian properties to the City of Chicago, to be used as the site of the new Chicago Lawn (8th) District Police Station. Fortunately for us all, Alderman Jones last year refused to support the zoning changes that would change the nature of St. Adrian Parish. But what now? With a new 15th Ward alderman to be elected on April 13th, what are the views of the remaining two candidates, Theodore Thomas and Carlos J. Hemphill? We, the Marquette Park Neighbors, call upon both Mr. Thomas and Mr. Hemphill to pledge to oppose any zoning changes that would allow others to turn the St. Adrian Parish buildings into what we've described above. We have sent each a letter stating our concerns. When we receive their responses, we will share them with you on this website. It is the position of the Marquette Park Neighbors that our community, beset with such challenges as crime, gangs, drugs and nuisance businesses, already shoulders more than its fair share of societal burdens. The self-described "community leaders" who approached Alderman Jones last year with their "solutions" for St. Adrian's, do not even live in St. Adrian Parish, let alone the greater Marquette Park area! One lives in St. Nicholas of Tolentine Parish and another lives in St. Simon. Why don't these "leaders" lead the way for homeless shelters, soup kitchens and halfway houses in St. Nicholas and St. Simon parishes? If you guessed that it's because their neighbors would run them out of the parish on a rail, give yourself a gold star for common sense! The Marquette Park Neighbors will accept such schemes for our neighborhood, if and only if we see other neighborhoods in the city (and suburbs) shoulder their fair share. We will not allow ourselves to be treated as a dumping ground for the down and out. Don't we deserve better? Further, it is the position of the Marquette Park Neighbors that the solutions to homelessness and poverty are not to be found in treating the poor like cattle and crowding them into congregate living arrangements that deny them basic dignity. The solutions are to be found in economic development, in steady jobs at living wages, in an improved housing stock that affords people of modest means the ability to live in a decent single-unit home. Packing them into St. Adrian's buildings so people in other neighborhoods don't have to look at them isn't the answer. What do you think? E-mail us. We may post your idea next week. Next week, we'll discuss the proposed Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District for the old Double Drive-In property. What will it mean for our neighborhood? Be sure and log on starting Monday, March 15th for this latest issue. Bye for now! | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| News and Views of other Southwest Side neighborhoods | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Watch this space in the weeks to come for news and views from West Lawn, Scottsdale, Ashburn, West Elsdon, Archer Heights, Garfield Ridge and Clearing!
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