It is delightful when folks who grew up on the Far South Side of Chicago in the days of mighty steel are, after a quarter-century, not only filled with nostalgia but advice on ”what is to be done.”
It is even better when reporters like Natalie Moore of WBEZ write about the surprising joy of living in Pullman/Roseland, the most southern parts of our city.
Why? Because the renaissance that this long-ago resident dreamed of, in a recent Sun-Times article, is already underway.
It’s been more than a decade since our organization, Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, began to work with Ald. Tony Beale and a variety of well-established community organizations to plan for the revival of Pullman/Roseland, which had been hit with a loss of more than 40,000 jobs by the end of the 1990s. With employment down, houses became vacant, and many pundits had written our communities off as unredeemable.
Fortuitously, the community disagreed. Where others saw deficits, we saw assets. Acres of buildable land at the intersection of the nation’s rail, water, road, and airway systems. In the nation’s first planned community, some of the best housing ever created. The long-shuttered but iconic Pullman Works, where the groundwork was laid for the nation’s labor and civil rights movements.
And so, together, we created a four-pronged plan for economic development and job creation, housing, recreation and education, and set about to get it done.,
While we have yet to reach the peak of big steel days, today, Ryerson Steel is the site of more than 2,000 new green jobs, with new companies drawn to the location and the ready workforce. The community welcomed Amazon, Whole Foods, Method Products, and S.C. Johnson as they established facilities and expanded.
Just as important to the community, fronting on I-94 is the city’s most profitable Walmart, providing fresh foods, prescription drugs, convenient shopping for clothing and more. Nearby are a gym; health center; a Potbelly’s; and two Black-owned restaurants, Culver’s, owned by entrepreneur Baron Waller, and Lexington Betty Smokehouse, offering the renowned barbecue created by chef Dominque Leach.
To spark the tourist trade, the resilient community fought for nearly three decades to win national monument status for Pullman Works, which is now a national park. Now tourism is increasing, and there is interest at the state level in reopening the famous Hotel Florence. A new visitors center and tours of Underground Railroad sites tell an equally important part of local history.
Helping young people, revitalizing housing
Our development plan also considered the need to nurture and support our youth. Opening just before the pandemic, the Pullman Community Centre serves more than 10,000 young people and their families in the largest indoor sports facility in Chicago. This after-school sports and tutoring venue complements a robust education system in which all of the areas schools excel, and one high school, Gwendolyn Brooks Academy, has taken top honors in the state.
In addition, the housing built in Pullman’s heyday has been preserved and revitalized, with families reclaiming these architectural gems and investing in the community they love. To add to this already-robust market for renters and owners, Rev. James Meeks, who led the Salem Baptist Church for nearly four decades, has just embarked on a project to build 1,000 new homes in the neighborhood.
Having accomplished the plan’s initial goals and seen an increase in per capita income among community residents over the past few years, we are in a new planning stage. The area was recently awarded $20 million from the State of Illinois to plan a health care network, which will be critical to job expansion and the health and well-being of the community, young and old alike. And we are now working to expand northern Pullman’s turnaround all the way south to Roseland.
So to all who have good ideas — actually, to everyone — we say, “We have lots to talk about and show you, so come on down.”
David Doig is president of Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, which collaborates with neighborhood stakeholders on community development efforts.
