Redeveloping a Slum

Northeast Corner Halsted and Maxwell, originally uploaded by kendoman26.

The redevelopment of the Maxwell street area along Halsted has been a mixed bag. While the slum has been cleared, what has replaced part of it are near million dollar homes and half a million dollar condos. The heart of the area was the intersection of Maxwell and Halsted.

The picture shows the northeast corner and four of the saved building. Today the ground floors of these structures contain restaurants. If you were to look east down Maxwell you would find a parking garage at the east end with storefronts between Halsted and the garage. The facades of several buildings that were located on Halsted but deemed unusable to save, have been erected here.

It would have been nice to have saved more structures than they did, but the area is a lively today as it was when it was an area to buy cheap crap.