W A L K t h rou g h

PILSEN BY SIHANG

PHOTOGAPHS BY SIHANG

Pilsen was originally settled by Irish and German immigrants, who came to work at the factories and stockyards nearby. Those indus-tries attracted Czech immigrants next, and in the late 1800s, the neighborhood was named in honor of the city back home in Bohe-mia. The streets of Pilsen still bear their mark — weathered stone castles like St. Adalbert’s and Thalia Hall loom over buildings with colorful turrets and dashes of ornamentation completely absent of the Prairie School influence found elsewhere in Chicago.

Get in By train. Pilsen is very easy to reach by train from the Loop. The key is to know which part you’d like to visit first: the arts district in East Pilsen, which is centered at 18th and Halsted, and the arts/commercial center in West Pilsen, which surrounds 18th and Ashland. It’s a long but manageable walk between the two areas, with a quiet zone in-between.By Bus. 8 halsted runs the length of the arts district. 9 Ashland will drop you at 18th and Ashland. 18 16th 18th runs, appropriately enough, down 18th street, connecting with the Pink Line at the 18th station.

Understand Pilsen

Pilsen was originally settled by Irish and German immigrants, who came to work at the factories and stock-

yards nearby. Those industries attracted Czech immigrants next, and in the late 1800s, the neighborhood was named in honor of the city back home in Bohemia. The streets of Pilsen still bear their mark — weathered stone castles like St. Adal-

bert’s and Thalia Hall loom over buildings with colorful turrets and dashes of orna-mentation completely absent of the Prairie School influence found elsewhere in Chi-cago. In the 1960s, the construction of the University of Illinois at Chicago displaced a community of Mexicans from the Near West Side, and many resettled in Pilsen. Though they inherited an area in econom-ic decline, Pilsen’s new residents built a

set of cultural institutions that far outpace many wealthier neighborhoods, crowned by the excellent National Museum of Mex-ican Art. And with the city’s once-thriving West Side Italian community mostly wiped out by that same construction, a single block of the industrial Heart of Chicago neighborhood drew new focus as a place where Italian Chicago survived, remaining today as an alternative to the more heavily touristed Little Italy near the university.

Fears of gentrification began several years ago when the Podmajersky company began converting the old warehouses of East Pilsen into cheap studios for artists. Depending on who you ask, this was either intended to: a) Revitalize the nearly vacant eastern half of an economically depressed neigh-borhood by creating spaces where exciting young artists could live, work, and exhibit, a “SoHo in Chicago”;

b) Jump-start the process of gentrifica-tion that happened in Wicker Park several years earlier, driving up property values by exchanging low-income residents for wealthier ones looking to trade on that artistic “cool.” The artists arrived and opened galleries, but many left for lack of foot traffic. Most of those who remain have private studios, open to public only for special events, giv-ing East Pilsen the feeling of a ghost town

on non-event days. There is an increas-ing split between the two halves of the neighborhood, and businesses seem torn between appealing to the working-class Mexican community already here and the affluent community that is still arriving. Whatever direction Pilsen may be headed, what’s there now is an area with a long his-tory of re-inventing itself, rough in places and full of inspiration, and guaranteed to provide visitors with an interesting day.

Murals in Pilsen

Public art is an integral part of the character of Pilsen. The Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum is an

important force in the cultural and ar-tistic life of the community. There are

numerous murals in the area bounded by 16th Street to the north to the Chicago

River to the east and south and Western Avenue to the west. It is one of the larg-

est Mexicain American communities in the country. In the 19th century, the area was populated by immigrants from Ger-many, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

The name Pilsen is derived from Pizen, a city in Bohemia. The first recorded Mex-

ican immigrants began arriving in the 1950’s. About 90% of Pilsen’s 44,000 res-idents are hispanic and most of those are Mexican. The immense, vibrant murals

of the neighborhood suggest an immedi-

ate connection to the Mexican muralist tradition.

Mexican Influence

In Mexico, the muralist movement was spurred on by the Revolution of 1910. The Revolution had a tremen-

dous influence on the artists of this time; provoking significant changes in the

arts. The leaders of the revolution used

murals to communicate with the people, the majority of whom were illiterate. The topics of art were social and revolution-ary: worker conditions; poverty; and ag-ricultural reform. The murals addressed the general problems of the worker, the indian and the peasant. The social mis-sion was primarily carried out by three muralists known as Los Tres Grandes. They were Diego Rivera, Jose Orozco,

and David Siquieros.

Rivera was the most hopeful and op-timistic. He was not in Mexico during

most of the revolution. He painted with bright colors and soft lines. In his youth,

Rivera’s enthusiasm for the revolution inspried him to study the history of the Mexican people. He traveled to various

sights to study his homeland: its history; precolumbian artefacts; myths; legends; and traditions. He wanted to express the pain and suffering felt during the tumul-

tuous revolutionary era as well as the greatness of Mexico’s prehispanic past. Orozco and Siquieros experienced the

violent upheaval first hand. Their work shows the stark reality with dark colors and harsh lines. Orozco and Siquieros

painted the gruesome reality of the revo-lution.

The outside of this 40-year-old commu-nity organization is covered in an ongo-ing mural project honoring the Aztecs

and modern Latino figures. Casa Aztlan is located in a building that originally

housed the Bohemian settlement house founded in 1896. In the early 1970’s,

Middle European immigrants began leav-ing Pilsen while Mexican immigrants be-gan to arrive in greater numbers. In 1970

through the leadership of the Brown Berets the organization became an inde-pendent community based organization

and changed its name to Casa Aztlan. Like the original settlement house, Casa

Aztlan provides community residents

with a variety of services needed to adapt to life in a new urban environment while preserving their culture and maintaining

their values. Casa Aztlan is one of the oldest community organizations in the Pilsen area serving primarily the Mexi-can, Latino and African-American com-

munity

In 2006, Pilsen Historic District became a National Historic Register District. South Water Market has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

History of Pilsen

In the late 19th century, Pilsen was inhabited by Czech immigrants who named the district after Plzeň, the

fourth largest city in what is now the Czech Republic. They replaced the Ger-

mans and Irish who had settled there first, in the mid-nineteenth century. The population also included smaller num-

bers of other ethnic groups from the Austro-Hungari-

an Empire, such as Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats and Aus-trians, as well as

immigrants of Pol-ish and Lithuanian heritage. Many of

the immigrants worked in the

stockyards and sur-rounding factories.

Like many early 20th century American urban neighbor-

hoods, however, Pilsen was home to both wealthy professionals and the working class, with the whole area knitted to-

gether based on the ethnicities, mostly of Slavic descent, who were not readily

welcome in other areas of the city.Although there was some increase in the

Hispanic presence in the late 1950s, it was not until the early 1960s that there

was a great spurt in the numbers of Lati-nos in Pilsen. This was due to the dis-

placement of Latinos from the neighbor-hood UIC currently occupies. In 1970,

Latinos became the majority population in Pilsen, surpassing the population of

people of Eastern European descent.Many of the newer residents of the

neighborhood are not Latino, and it is projected that the neighborhood will

continue to become more diversified in the years ahead.The non-Latino popu-lation in Pilsen is still a minority as

of the 2010 Census.The Chicago Hous-ing Authority’s plan for transformation of the ABLA proj-

ects has spilled over into Pilsen proper, with the now nearly com-

plete Chantico Loft development, Union Row Townhomes, as well as the defunct Centro 18 on 18th Street in East Pilsen.

Infill construction of condominiums and single family homes is now in full force on the east side of the neighborhood, as

Pilsen becomes one of the next major de-velopment areas for infill construction.Some local advocacy groups, including

one led by Michael A. Martone, have

formed urging the neighborhood’s alder-man to curtail gentrification to preserve

the Mexican-American culture.

L ayout

The east side of the neighborhood along Halsted Street is one of Chicago’s largest art districts,

and the neighborhood is also home to the National Museum of Mexican Art.

St Adalbert’s dominates over the skyline with the opulence typical of churches in

the Polish Cathedral style.W 18th Street is an active commercial

corridor, with Mexican bakeries, restau-rants, and groceries, though the princi-pal district for Mexican shopping is W 26th Street in Little Village, Chicago’s

other formerly majority Pan-Slavic com-munity.

Lower West Side, Chicago is a Chicago community area located on the West Side of the city, in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is three miles southwest of the Chicago Loop, and its main neighborhood is Pilsen.