The neighborhood around Maxwell Street began life as a Jewish immigrant community. More would migrate from countless corners of the world to Maxwell. The titular street was a marketplace for anything one could hope to purchase. It was here where blues was introduced to Chicago. The market and neighborhood flourished until the 1960s, when a portion of it was demolished to make way for the Dan Ryan expressway. It suffered further in the 1980s, just as northern neighbors Little Italy and Greektown did in the 60s, casualties to UIC's expansionism. By the mid-1990s, very little of it existed until finally, by 2001-2002, it was gone forever.

What has been built around the intersection of Halsted and Maxwell, reminds me of an episode of the Twilight Zone. In Eye of the Beholder, a young woman with an abnormal face goes through many rounds of surgery in order to make her appear normal. If her latest surgery fails, she will be segregated at a colony for the deformed. When the doctor removes her bandages after the surgery, a beautiful young blonde is revealed. When the lights are turned on, the other characters in the room appear to the audience as hideous and deformed.

To some, an expressway, athletic fields, and Woodfield-esque retail may seem an improvement over a crowded, rough-around-the edges immigrant neighborhood. It may not be that simple, but I still wonder.

While perusing the County Assessor's website, I searched for properties around the Maxwell area. As luck (and a molasses-speed bureaucracy) would have it, most of the images on the website have not been updated since 1999-2000.

Photograph any area, and doubtless it will eventually undergo a change which will render such photographs relevant. The purpose of these photographs, however, is the opposite of an explicit preservationist/documentary effort, such as HABS/HAER. These photographs were made solely as a reference to put a face to property values. "Look at the expendability of this one! Tear it down!"

Our photographer accidentally, perhaps in spite of her purpose, made an interesting historical record. The style is no-nonsense, clear, and un-pretentious. The focus is on the built environment, rather than the human dramas which comprise the bulk of Maxwell images otherwise available. However, these were done with a low quality digital camera, rendering them effectively un-reproducible.

A side note: Unlike any of our other pages (so far), you will need to side-scroll back and forth for this page, but we're working on it. There was really no better way within our limits to imply the continuity of walking down a street.

Back from obscurity, here we find Maxwell on its last legs...