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Why are Beverly’s home sales up? Because of the people who live here

Communities, Politics, , , ,

 

Last week in Crain’s Chicago Business there was an article about how home sales in Beverly are on the rise and some of the reasons why. I’ll get into that in a second, but a couple of declarations are in order here.

Neighborhood development – specifically my neighborhood of Beverly/Morgan Park, but also the general concept – is something that’s been on my mind for the last couple years due to volunteer work I’ve been doing. I serve on the board of the Beverly Area Planning Association (BAPA), I’m a board member with the Southwest Chicago Diversity Collaborative (where we’re working on the launch of a spring festival that highlights the need for more bike/pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods) and I work with The Beverly Area Arts Alliance where I produce a live storytelling series called The Frunchroom which tells stories about the South Side that don’t always make the headlines.

Like most volunteer work, there are intrinsic and extrinsic benefits. I love where I live and I want to see great things happen here. I own a house so a good neighborhood means good property values. More art and less racism means my blood pressure stays low. That sort of thing.

But I also see it as part of a larger belief about where neighborhood development should and must come from: a participatory community that has a voice in our neighborhood – and city. It’s the opposite of the typical top-down, politically-driven model Chicago has often embraced.

HOW BEVERLY CREATES COMMUNITY

beverlyartwalk

A couple years ago, I wrote and performed this piece at The Frunchroom. (Say, have you checked out our podcast yet?) In it, I suggested that bars can be a place of true community and an economic driver, particularly those places that elevate artists and writers. It may have been a bit self-serving or even meta considering I was saying it in a bar during the storytelling series I was producing with a group that showcases art in bars but that didn’t make it any less true. I’d witnessed it as over the last few years more young families had moved into Beverly/Morgan Park, attracted by the home values and classic Chicago neighborhood feel.

This week, no less than Crain’s Chicago Business backed up this assertion with data and reporting.

Beverly ended September with a steep increase in home sales for the year to date, according to Crain’s analysis of Midwest Real Estate Data’s sales information. In the first nine months of the year, 185 houses sold in Beverly, an increase of more than 27 percent over the same period in 2016.

[SNIP]

Meanwhile, new arts and social groups and new businesses have “brought a new energy into Beverly” in the past few years, said Francine Benson Garaffo, an @properties agent who has lived in next door Morgan Park for 29 years.

The neighborhood now has two breweries and a meadery (a meadery makes honey drinks, or mead), the three-year-old Beverly Area Arts Alliance, which hosts an early October Art Walk through the neighborhood, and the Frunchroom series of spoken-word performances.

(The Wild Blossom Meadery is near the 91st St. Metra on the border of Beverly and Washington Heights but grew out of a brewing supply store on Western Avenue.)

We have to recognize what a hard turn this was, especially when the Art Walk and Horse Thief Hollow (one of the two breweries mentioned) debuted:

  • There was nothing like them in the neighborhood. While both were warmly embraced, Western Avenue was (and still kinda is) a haven of shot-and-a-beer joints.
  • While there were some art galleries in the neighborhood, most are like the Vanderpoel Art Museum – gems galore, but hidden away, and not something the neighborhood was known for to outsiders.

These changes are due to individuals who envisioned change and put entrepreneurial thinking behind it. It wasn’t thanks to a city or ward office development plan (though such a thing would certainly be welcome and come to think of it why doesn’t that exist?). It was people – many of them volunteers – banding together in common cause who then attracted like-minded folks to follow behind them. Horse Thief begat Open Outcry and The Meadery. The Art Walk begat The Frunchroom. Etc.

You see this spirit of volunteerism-meets-entrepreneurialism in BAPA as well. Though it has only three full-time staff members, it has an army of volunteers, homeowners and local businesses who make it possible to create a year-long slate of events like the Ridge Run, the Beverly Home Tour, Bikes and Brews and more. They’re also not afraid to take on the city and advocate for the neighborhood like in the current campaign to save the Ridge Park fieldhouse after years of neglect.

HOW BEVERLY FOUGHT FOR OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS

schoolsmarch
Parents, students and community members march through the 19th ward to protest Alderman Matt O’Shea and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to close/merge three public schools in 2016.

The Crain’s article also had something interesting to say about public schools in our neighborhood.

Schools were the top draw, Clinton added. “It was important to me that if we’re paying Chicago property taxes, we don’t also have to spend the money to pay for private school. I want a good school paid for with our taxes.” The elementary school that serves their new home, Kellogg, scores a seven out of 10 points on Great Schools.

In a time of upheaval for CPS, it’s worth noting that people are moving to the 19th Ward because of our public schools. The article specifically mentions Kellogg as a reason why this family moved here. And that’s in spite of – not because of – efforts by our alderman and the mayor’s control of CPS.

Because if they had had their way, Kellogg would be closed.

In September of last year, 19th Ward Alderman Matt O’Shea revealed to the public a plan that would close or merge three 19th ward public schools: Keller, Kellogg and Sutherland. This also would have had deleterious effects on black and low-income students and affected two schools (Keller and Kellogg) with the highest CPS ratings.

Due to significant public objection, the alderman dropped this plan, which was supposed to be necessary to provide $40 million dollars to solve overcrowding issues at two other public schools in the Ward: Esmond and Mount Greenwood.

Somehow, even without closing or merging those three schools, the $40 million dollars was found anyway and the plans to build annexes at Esmond and Mt. Greenwood proceeded. Since then, there’s been little public information provided on the status of these plans.

As for Keller, Sutherland and Kellogg:

  • Keller has maintained a 1+ rating for two years running with a slight (0.41%) enrollment increase
  • Kellogg has maintained a 1+ rating for two years running and increased enrollment by 3% this year, bucking both ward and city trends for CPS.
  • Though Sutherland’s enrollment dropped its rating increased to 1 and it recruited a new principal with such a stellar record that the Local School Council voted unanimously to hire her without having to narrow its choice down to a set of finalists.

Like our burgeoning art and microbrewery scenes, this all happened because of people who stood up for the kind of community they wanted to see thrive here. But in the case of our public schools, it required them to stand up against Chicago’s ward/machine politics and literally fight City Hall.

rahmosheaschoolemailSee, back in July of last year, it turned out that Alderman Matt O’Shea was talking to Mayor Emanuel about his schools plan – a month and a half before he talked to any school administrators, LSC members, public school parents or the general public. All this was revealed in the email dump spurred by a FOIA request from the Chicago Tribune and the Better Government Association.

 

BEING THE CHANGE WE WISH TO SEE

19th Ward Parents United in a press conference before a CPS board meeting to speak out against the OShea/Emanuel school closing plan.
19th Ward Parents United in a press conference before a CPS board meeting to speak out against the O’Shea/Emanuel school closing plan.

It’s great to see Beverly’s arts scene, new restaurants and public schools creating an atmosphere where home sales and prices are on the rise. There are two lessons here:

1. If you have a vision for change in your community, you and your friends have the power to make it happen
2. Decisions about our communities – especially our schools – should be participatory, not hatched in secret.

When the 2019 mayoral and aldermanic campaigns roll around, I expect that Alderman O’Shea and Mayor Emanuel will talk about Beverly’s home prices on the rise and take some credit for that. But I wonder if they’ll mention the people who actually made it happen, sometimes in spite of their own wishes.

They’ll talk about how much money they’ve brought to two schools in our community. (I’ll never forget how Mayor Emanuel said the money was coming to Mt. Greenwood “because your alderman was nice to me.”) They’ll hope we’ll forget they tried to damage three schools experiencing growth and success.

I hope we won’t.

May the tavern rise up to meet you: The Frunchroom – 07.16.15

Communities, , ,

This is the piece I read at The Frunchroom back in July.

img_2192Oh hey, did I mention I produce/host a South Side reading series called The Frunchroom now? (Not here, apparently, because I’ve only written seven posts in all of 2015 so mostly I get my creative juices flowing by producing/hosting The Frunchroom, going on WGN Radio to talk about media stuff and directing editorial things at work.)

I explained here that me doing a reading at The Frunchroom was somewhat unintended. But it was good for me because I’ve been on a bit of a dry spell lately. The ideas for this piece had been rolling around in my head for a while and it made a lot of sense to do it at O’Rourke’s Office, where The Frunchroom is held, for reason’s that will become clear.

—

Can we talk about bars for a minute? I really love bars.

They’re like going to the gym but in reverse.

Have you ever heard of the idea of the third place? It’s the idea of a place other than your home or work that offers neutral ground, is open to everyone and – most importantly – features conversation as its main draw. There are lots of kinds of third places from parks to barber shops to churches or libraries. But most are somewhat purpose-driven or encourage conversation only amongst those you came in with.

Bars are different. By design, they force you into conversation with someone that isn’t family but might be a friend by the time you leave. No less than Mike Royko called the neighborhood tavern “the working man’s country club” or a kind of “group therapy.”

I’ve spent many a meaningful moment in a bar. I celebrated turning 30 at Blackie’s in the South Loop. I courted my wife in a number of bars on the North Side. Earlier this year, I mourned the death of one of my closest friends at Celtic Crossings. It was an Irish wake. (He wasn’t Irish.)

If I have to write something important, I prefer to do it in a bar. If I have an hour to kill somewhere, it’s my first choice of a place to spend the time. But it’s a culture that, in Chicago, has been in decline.

Back in 2012, Whet Moser at Chicago magazine took a look at some of the facts and figures behind this. According to USA Today, in 1990 there were 3300 places in Chicago with tavern licenses. By 2009, the number fell to 1200. Mayor Daley seemed to take a particular interest in closing bars but there were trends like more drinking at home and restaurants that figured into this, too. In fact, if a bar opens in Chicago nowadays it’s likely to get most of its revenue from food sales. Not just because of changing habits but because it’s a bit easier to get the nod from the city that way.

Even though they’ve changed a bit and are as likely to offer small plates as shots, we’re losing many of our third places. But if it weren’t for a bar, specifically this one, my wife and I might not have moved here.

Now, before you start whispering to the person next to you (“Oh god, the host of The Frunchroom has a problem with the drink….), let me assure you we looked at things like schools and property values and what have you. Also, you are in a bar on a Thursday so calm down and don’t be so high and mighty.

We were in the final stage of house-hunting when we drove down from Roscoe Village one Saturday to see what the Beverly/Morgan Park nightlife was like. This was in 2009 before we had a child and “nightlife” to us then had not yet become sitting on the couch and passing out in front of episodes of The West Wing.

The people at O’Rourke’s seemed nice, they served a decent cocktail and it also had a cool little back room that seemed like it could be interesting.

Prior to that we’d had a post-looking-at-houses dinner at the bar/restaurant on 111th called Ritchie’s (it’s now been renamed Joseph’s under new owners) and warmed to both classic Italian menu and our server Adam who was apparently given to sitting down at an old piano against the wall and banging out Billy Joel and Elton John songs. As he hit the second verse of “New York State of Mind” Erin and I looked at each other and said “We’re definitely moving here.”

We needed a sense of the neighborhood so we came to a bar. I hope the folks from BAPA are taking notes.

But our neighborhood’s had a weird relationship with bars. For example, there are – if my math is right – 16 bars along Western Avenue from 99th to 119th. Many of them are Irish in nature, in keeping with the tradition of the neighborhood. They’re full of friends, family and memories. But there’s a nickname for it. The Western Avenue Death March. (Editor’s note: I’ve since learned there are about five other names for it.)

It’s an odd dichotomy – a culture that’s at once celebrated and maligned.

The South Side Irish Parade – which, full disclosure, I volunteer with – became the legendary powerhouse it was – hosting mayoral, gubernatorial and presidential candidates – in part because of the bars along Western. Yet the attraction of drink drew busloads of Iowa college students and caused it to be shut down for two years before coming back more in the family-friendly spirit of its founders.

And sure, we have 16 bars along Western Avenue but nothing to the east of it as those precincts are dry. Both candidates in the most recent aldermanic election said they believe a restaurant serving beer and wine would help anchor development along 95th street or 103rd. Yet in 2009, the last time the matter was put to a vote by the residents of one of those precincts, an effort to open development of this type between 103rd and 107th on the north and south and between Longwood and Walden on the west and east ultimately died in the face of stiff opposition from the community and a confusingly worded referendum.

The theory goes that if the area east of Western was wet again, we’d be besieged with package liquor stores or the dark spirits of rowdy taverns. That this would bring in the wrong element.

It’s worth noting here that the area in question isn’t zoned for either liquor stories or a standalone tavern. It’s only zoned for restaurants or specialty grocery stores.

But I also think about the last bar/restaurant that opened in this neighborhood, Horse Thief Hollow. And what it’s done to change bar culture on Western Avenue, from the number of places that now proudly proclaim the number of craft beers they have to the rehab of Keegan’s to allow for a different kind of atmosphere. Not to mention the number of gallery showings or parties it’s hosted for the Beverly Area Art Alliance. (Note: Keegan’s has, post-rehab, been named Barney Callaghan’s.)

I also think back to a few months ago when one of our readers, Dmitry Samarov got up on this stage and lamented that Hardboiled Coffee, another wonderful third place at 91st and Western, might not make it. Sure enough, earlier this month owner Gregg Wilson announced he was closing the shop. But the wholesale coffee business would remain a growing concern and move inside another local business: Horse Thief Hollow.

And not for nothing but hosting The Frunchroom here at O’Rourke’s was a considered choice. I wanted it to be in a bar, to be in a third place. To add to the place, to the culture that made me want to move here.

If we want more arts, if we want more businesses – the kind that can help other businesses – if we want to reflect more of who we are to people who might want to move here and help carry on our traditions…if we want all that…then maybe it’s time to think about attracting that kind of element to areas east of Western. To 95th Street. To 103rd Street. Maybe 2016 should be the year we try again and pass a referendum allowing restaurants and grocery stores to offer beer, wine and liquor.

We could use a few more third places here.

Because I really hate going to the gym.