People stopped to hear the music, eat lunch, and learn about the senseless destruction of a precious urban landmark. Participating in the demonstration were all segments of the Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition, including religious leaders from neighborhood churches, community leaders from nearby Pilsen, members of the Chicago Green Party, current and former Maxwell Street residents and merchants, UIC students and staff, historic preservationists, blues lovers and others. The most prevalent emotion was anger at UIC, which last week announced its intention to end a self-imposed moratorium on demolition in the historic neighborhood, seemingly scrapping its earlier plan to keep the retail character of the blocks around Maxwell and Halsted intact. Many now suspect that the land use plan announced last summer was a hoax, announced only to placate preservationists until university officials were ready to put their real plan into effect. Despite lovely weather, crowded sidewalks, and evocative scents and sounds, the Maxwell Street neighborhood experienced by Saturday's demonstrators was a shadow of its former self.
Nothing can hide the devastation that has occurred already.
Looking west from the demonstration site all that is left is the Maxwell Street police station, now housing the UIC police and surrounded by new baseball fields. To the north, Halsted Street all the way to Roosevelt is still open for business, but all of its buildings need work. To the east, the last remaining block of Maxwell Street still has most of its buildings, but only a handful of active businesses. All of the buildings, as well as the street and sidewalks, have been left to deteriorate deliberately to make their eventual destruction seem appropriate, if not inevitable. Saturday's demonstrators were there to say that a public institution should not be allowed to obliterate essential parts of a community's heritage and culture.