Garfield Blvd and Halsted (Chicago, Peoria: real estate, homes, neighborhoods)

[jack swilling]

My family's ancestral home was near Garfield Blvd. and Halsted St. They moved in there at about the turn of the 19th to 20th century and were in the old Visitation parish. They moved in the 1970s. The address was 5746 South Peoria Street.
If anyone has the time, would you please bring me up to date on the recent history of the area. I have never lived in Chicago, only visited. We lived in Phoenix, and now I live in San Diego.
I remember it from visits when I was quite young in the 1940s and 50s and 60s, especially the big, old trollley on Halsted.
Thank you for your time.

[Drover]

That would be Englewood, one of the most economically distressed and crime-ridden neighborhoods in the city, if not the country. While it's still a fairly densely populated area, abandonment and disinvestment are still the two most prominent trends. Lots of vacant lots around there, and quite a few lots that would be better off vacant given what's left of the buildings sitting on them. To the extent that Englewood's condition has improved at all, it has done so primarily because the crack epidemic finally died down. Throughout much of the 90s Englewood was was a full-time killing zone. Now it's calmed down quite a bit and is merely a part-time killing zone.

The timing of your inquiry is quite convenient. In another thread we posted links to a recently-written two-part article in a local independent paper about the transition that took place in that area almost overnight in the early 1970s. The back-story actually takes place in the adjacent Back of the Yards neighborhood but is only 5 blocks away from where your forbears lived.

The price of intolerance, part 1 | Feature | Chicago Reader

The price of intolerance, part 2 | Feature | Chicago Reader

[Manigault]

They knocked down the parsonage at Visitation, but have kept the Our Lady of Fatima shrine, although they moved it closer to the church. I guess such a shrine is appropriate at a church called 'Visitation'! The parish membership has gone from predominantly white, to black to Hispanic.

The church now has a heavy community outreach with kids' programs, a legal clinic and a food pantry. I think the parish may have been consolidated with St. Basil's, which is still running a grammar school.

There's also a large chemical dependency residential program at 59th and Wood, which is not too far from there. If you get a DUI, you can expect to visit that facility, at least for out-patient evaluation.

[emathias]

No more trolleys in Chicago, too.

[jack swilling]

I'd like to thank all of you for the information on the old neighborhood. It has really made our day. Best of everything always.

[Larry Siegel]

All these negatives acknowledged, there are some beautiful homes in the area, particularly east (along Michigan, King Drive, etc.) that will be ripe for rehabbing or infill development in the next real estate boom. Whenever that is.

I've met a black woman who is putting hundreds of thousands into a renovation at 53rd and Michigan. Just sayin'.

[Manigault]

I noticed that the restaurant is still at Garfield and Halsted but is temporarily shut for repair.