Bringing back Old Maxwell Street is a worthy tribute to Chicago history

The city deserves a pat on the back — and maybe a complimentary pork chop sandwich — for its decision to bring street vendors back to the Near West Side's Maxwell Street this summer.

Merchants were run off from the area 30 years ago when the location was redeveloped by the city and the University of Illinois Chicago.

But the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events decision to temporarily return the merchants to their historic home beginning Sunday — and then on the last Sunday of the month until October — is a nice bow to the original Maxwell Street's place in Chicago's history.

Maxwell Street vendors currently set up shop weekly at 800 S. Desplaines St.

The market "not only promotes entrepreneurship but also provides critically important opportunities for small businesses including craftspeople, artists, farmers, restaurateurs, and re-sellers," Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a news release.

Department of Cultural Affairs officials said the market will be held on Maxwell Street between Halsted Street and Union Avenue, then on Union from Rochford Street to Liberty Street.

A century of cultural significance

The original Maxwell Street area had fallen into decay by the time it was wrecked and removed by the city and UIC, with merchants and street vendors trying to turn a buck in embarrassingly rundown commercial buildings and along streets rough enough to break an ankle — or a car axle. The city closed the original Maxwell Street in 1994.

But lost to the bulldozers was place with a century's worth of cultural significance: an area, then centered along Halsted Street south of Roosevelt Road, that was a retail Ellis Island where first-generation Jewish, Black, then Latino sellers offered everything from pots and pans to suits and hubcaps.

The Maxwell Street Polish, complete with mustard, poppy seed buns, sport peppers and grilled onions was popularized there, as was the pork chop sandwich.

It was also a place where musicians beginning in the 1940s set up shop along the sidewalks, entertaining shoppers with live blues music — but a new type, called "electric blues," using amplified guitars and harmonicas and creating a sound that would become world-famous.

"For wave after wave of immigrants, Maxwell Street was their entry to America," according to the non-profit Maxwell Street Foundation. "Later, the Great Migration brought African Americans from the South. Each brought their own cultures and hopes to the vibrant street and the Market that sprang from it. In doing so, they made Chicago a richer place."

This summer's version of Maxwell Street might not be as legendary. But writing a new chapter for the area while remembering its past — and finding a deal or two along the way — is quite a worthy endeavor.

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