New Maxwell Street Market: Its Present and Future – Dr. Alfonso Morales Report

The Maxwell Street Market began as a collection of small street markets in immigrant neighborhoods south and west of the Loop. After the 1871 fire, street market activity arose around the intersection of Canal Street and 12th Street (Roosevelt Road). In time, a trolley line on Jefferson Street drew peddlers there, and the outdoor market … Read More

Saving Maxwell Street: The People, Power, and the Politics of Urban Aesthetics in Chicago – Janelle L. Walker Ph.D. thesis

Saving Maxwell Street: The People, Power, and the Politics of Urban Aesthetics in Chicago, PhD thesis by Dr. Janelle L. Walker.  Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Folklore, Indiana University.  December 2000. The Maxwell Street neighborhood … Read More

“Killing Maxwell Street is like taking opera from Milan”, A Maxwell Street Anthology – Dr. Alphonse Diaz, Dr. Steven Balkin, Reverend Ellis May III, editors

A Plea to the Chicago City Council on April 11, 1994: Mayor Daley has his mind set to eliminate the Maxwell Street Market. The vote in the City Council is set for April 13. The Hispanic and Afro-American grassroots communities are very upset about this. People are already asking how can the President and the Vice … Read More

Losing Maxwell Street? – Hannah Norwood BA thesis

LOSING MAXWELL STREET?  A Thesis Submitted to The Faculty of the College of the University of Chicago In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Bachelor of Arts, Department of Anthropology by HANNAH NORWOOD. Chicago, Illinois, May, 2013 Maxwell Street Market might still exist by name in Chicago, but ask anyone involved with … Read More

Tour the old Maxwell Street area during Chicago Blues Fest!

Saturday, June 10, 2017, 10:00 a.m. Meet on the southwest corner of Maxwell & Halsted Streets (in front of Peet’s coffee shop, 1328 S. Halsted) in Chicago for a guided walking tour of the neighborhood where electrified Blues was born! Chicago’s Blues Fest runs June 9-11, 2017, so take a little detour to walk the … Read More

Printers’ Row Book Fair

June 11-12, 2016. Join the Maxwell Street Foundation at the famous annual Printers’ Row Book Fair to buy Maxwell Street history publications, including Chicago’s Maxwell Street by Lori Grove and Laura Kamedulski, Arcadia Publishing, Inc., 2002.

North Lawndale Arts & Culture Festival

August 6, 2016. Join the Maxwell Street Foundation and other arts and culture organizations at Douglas Park Fieldhouse in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood. Many residents of the old Maxwell Street neighborhood moved to Lawndale?for?upward mobility or due to displacement by urban renewal. This is the first annual festival!

Community Partners with DePaul’s Steans Center

The Maxwell Street Foundation partnered with the Irwin W. Steans Center for Community-based Service Learning at DePaul University to have students in Maxwell Street Foundation board member Janelle Walker’s “Documenting Maxwell Street and Pilsen” classes catalogue some of the Maxwell Street Foundation’s collection of historic material documenting the old Maxwell Street Market and neighborhood. Students … Read More

Muddy Waters Mural on State Street

Brazilian street artist Eduardo Kobra painted a rainbow-colored mural of blues legend Muddy Waters in 2016. Muddy Waters gained acclaim playing clubs on the South and West sides in the 1940s and ’50s and through his hits at Chess Records, based in Chicago. The mural, which is part of the Wabash Arts Corridor project to … Read More