"In Chicago, Art Where You Least Expect It "

[Inland]

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/travel/19surface.html

THE festering slaughterhouses of the Union Stock Yards, so famously and gruesomely described by Upton Sinclair, are long gone. But the adjacent neighborhood of Bridgeport, on Chicago's South Side, has been home to other things as well, and most haven't been especially pretty: racial divisiveness, Chicago's notoriously shady political machine and, not least, its perennially losing White Sox.

But these days, the pennants celebrating last fall's World Series victory by the White Sox — the team's first since 1917 — are not the only signs of change in this blue-collar enclave of insular European ethnic groups and, more recently, Chinese and Mexican immigrants. Drawn by its affordable rents and gritty vibe, a small but lively community of artists is stirring in the shadows of Bridgeport's grisly hog-butcher-to-the-world past.

"It has a raw and undiscovered feeling, a place for creative energy," said Da Huang Zhou, a local artist, of the area's hulking industrial monoliths, working class bungalows and Formica-clad diners.

Mr. Zhou and his brother, Shan Zuo Zhou, arrived in the neighborhood from their native China in 1986 and have since become both pioneers and patrons of its growing creative colony. In late 2003, the Zhou brothers and their curator, Oskar Friedl, opened an arts complex called the Zhou B. Center, 1029 West 35th Street, 773-523-0200, www.zbcenter.org, in a converted four-story warehouse. Not far away, the Zhou Brothers Arts Foundation, 3302 South Morgan Street, 773-523-0200, www.zhoub.com, includes a gallery and a sculpture garden where the brothers show their own work, as well as that of others. For lunch, a few doors down at the Polo Cafe, 3322 South Morgan Street, 773-927-7656, visitors can have a $12.50 "Mayor's Steak" sandwich of Angus beef beneath murals of the five Chicago mayors — including Richard M. Daley, the current leader, and his father, Richard J. — that Bridgeport has produced.

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[mopinko]

1. not unexpected to me, artists are being pushed out

everywhere else. artists always end up in the slums, because that is where society puts them. good on the zhou bothers, tho. they are awesome painters who deserve their very large success. glad to hear they are giving back. something artist also always do.
i give props to daley, tho he is much better than most mayors at supporting the art community, and appreciating it's value to the city.

[Inland]

2. Oh, for the days when the artists were in Old Town and Lincoln Park.

Get kicked out of there to Lakeview, Lakeview to Bucktown, now to Bridgeport?

[mopinko]

3. they seem to still be welcome in pilsen.

don't know how long that will last, tho. maybe it is the higher proportion of musicians. i think they get by a little better than visual artists. they get paid to perform. visual artists not only give looks away, they usually pay for the privilege.

[Inland]

6. Trib had article on 347 new housing units

on Peoria between 16th and 18th. Time marches on.

[mopinko]

7. it is happening, no doubt

everywhere. my neighborhood, rogers park, has lost a good many of its artists. $200,000 for 2 bedroom condos. who can afford this shit??

[XNASA]

4. A good friend owns 'mn gallery' at 36th & Halsted.

Bridgeport is thriving right now. Get in while it's still affordable to do so.

The northside is so passe. ;)

[Inland]

5. Probably already too late.

I remember articles a decade ago on home improvements in Bridgeport. People didn't want to leave, but they had money and wanted different space. "Affordable" is a relative concept.