page_title: Maxwell Street
section_title: In history and popular culture
hierarchical_section_title: Maxwell Street / In history and popular culture
caption_attribution_description: English: self made
context_page_description: Maxwell Street is an east-west street in Chicago, Illinois that intersects with Halsted Street just south of Roosevelt Road. It runs at 1330 South in the numbering system running from 500 West to 1126 West. The Maxwell Street neighborhood is considered part of the Near West Side and is one of the city's oldest residential districts. It is notable as the location of the celebrated Maxwell Street Market and the birthplace of Chicago blues and the "Maxwell Street Polish", a sausage sandwich. A large portion of the area is now part of the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago and a private housing development sponsored by the university.
context_section_description: Maxwell Street is where the Maxwell Street Polish sausage sandwich originated.
  The direct-sales entrepreneur Ron Popeil began his career as a street vendor at the Maxwell Street Market.
  The clarinetist and band leader Benny Goodman was born in 1909 near the Maxwell Street neighborhood and spent most of his youth there.
  The Maxwell Street Police Station, at Maxwell and Morgan Streets, was "Hill Street Station" in the 1980s television series Hill Street Blues.
  Maxwell Street was featured in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, in which it was portrayed as a thriving African-American community. The scene opens with John Lee Hooker playing his song "Boom Boom" with Big Walter Horton playing harmonica, drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and pianist Pinetop Perkins on the street as the stars of the film, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, enter a restaurant owned and operated by Aretha Franklin, looking for Matt "Guitar" Murphy and "Blue" Lou Marini. Muddy Waters was due to play alongside John Lee Hooker but was sick on the day of filming so missed out.
  In February 1988, United Artists filmed an occult thriller, Child's Play, featuring sets on Maxwell Street, including a disabled bus with the word "Auto" spray-painted on it, which had been sitting at 709 Maxwell since 1984. Scrap wood was purchased from Maxworks Cooperative for a bonfire in front of the bus, filmed for the movie.
  The professional wrestler Colt Cabana is billed as being from "Maxwell Street in Chicago, Illinois".
  The Maxwell Street market of the 1960s/1970s is mentioned in the short story "Barbie-Q", by Sandra Cisneros, in her 1991 collection, Woman Hollering Creek. The story is about two Chicana girls who buy fire-damaged Barbie dolls sold at a discount by a street vendor.
caption: Maxwell Street Polish sausages being cooked next to onion and pork chops
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