Douglas, Chicago

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Douglas (Chicago, Illinois)

Community Area 35 - Douglas and Community Area 35 - Douglas Location within the city of Chicago
Latitude Longitude	41°49.8′N, 87°37.2′W
Neighborhoods	Bronzeville Douglas Groveland Park Lake Meadows Prairie Shores South Commons
ZIP Code	parts of 60609, 60616 and 60653
Area	4.33 km² (1.67 mi²)
Population (2000) Density	26,470 (down 13.64% from 1990) 6,119.8 /km²
Demographics	White Black Hispanic Asian Other	6.59% 85.5% 1.11% 5.25% 1.53%
Median income	$27,800
Source: U.S. Census, Record Information Services

Douglas, located on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois is one of 77 well-defined Chicago community areas. The neighborhood is named for Stephen A. Douglas a famous Illinois politician whose estate included a tract of land given to the federal government. The Douglas tract later became the infamous Civil War Union prison camp, Camp Douglas, located in what is now the eastern portion of the Douglas neighborhood. As part of the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid, the Olympic Village is planned to be located on a 37 acre truck parking lot south of McCormick Place that is mostly in the Douglas community area and partly in the Near South Side.^[1] The community area contains part of the famous neighborhood of Bronzeville, a very famous center of African-American culture in the city.

Neighborhoods

Bronzeville

Bronzeville is a neighborhood located in the Douglas and Grand Boulevard community areas on the South Side of city of Chicago around the Illinois Institute of Technology and Illinois College of Optometry. It is accessible via the Green, Red Lines of the Chicago Transit Authority or the Metra Electric District Main Line. In the early 20th century, Bronzeville was known as the "Black Metropolis," one of the nation's most significant landmarks of African-American urban history. Between 1910 and 1920, during the peak of the "Great Migration," the population of the area increased dramatically when thousands of African-Americans fled the oppression of the south and emigrated to Chicago in search of industrial jobs. Many famous people were associated with the development of the area including: Andrew "Rube" Foster, founder of the Negro National Baseball League; Ida B. Wells, a civil rights activist, journalist and organizer of the NAACP; Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman pilot; Gwendolyn Brooks, famous author and first African-American recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, actress Marla Gibbs, the legendary singers, Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls, and Louis Armstrong, the legendary trumpet player and bandleader who performed at many of the area's night clubs. The neighborhood contains the Chicago Landmark Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District.^[2] 47th Street was and remains the hub of the Bronzeville neighborhood and in recent years has started to regain some of the former glory of years gone by. Gone though for good is the Regal Theater (demolished in 1973) where many great performers took the stage. During the 1950s and 1960s, a decision was made to replace the "slums" with several straight miles of high-rise public housing projects, managed by the Chicago Housing Authority, essentially isolating and simultaneously concentrating the poor black population in this section of the city. The largest complex was Robert Taylor Homes. The result was high crime and prolonged disinvestment in the community. Recently, these complexes have been demolished by federal mandate; however, they are being replaced by less than half the number of previously-available public housing units. Crime has gone down, however, which allows the fringes of the rapid gentrification occurring in the South Loop and Kenwood neighborhoods to move into the neighborhood.

Origins of the name

The name itself was first used in 1930, by James J. Gentry, a local theatre editor for the Chicago Bee publication. It refers to the skin color of African-Americans, predominant in that area at that time. It is also more accurate, because the skin tone of African-Americans is more brown that black. It has become common usage thorughout the decades. http://www.iit.edu/~bronzeville-stories/history.html

Education

The following Chicago Public Schools campuses serve Bronzeville: Beethoven School and Phillips Academy High School. Bronzeville is also home to the renowned Illinois Institute of Technology which is famous for its engineering and architecture programs. It also is home to the VanderCook College of Music and the Illinois College of Optometry, and in 2006 the Great Books liberal arts school Shimer College moved into the neighborhood.

References

External links

• Official City of Chicago Douglas Community Map
• Bronzeville Online
• Bronzeville Travel Agency
• Historic district
• Bronzeville History
• Bronzeville Politics and Housing

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