Chicago Fringe Festival Comes to Jefferson Park

Jefferson Park art scene is really expanding with the addition of the Fringe Fest. Chicago Fringe Festival Finds a New Home in Jefferson Park - DNAinfo.com Chicago

"Spider-Man" Robber Strikes Dunning

The Trib reports that the "Spider-Man" robber, who wears a Spider-Man mask, robbed two convenience stores on the 3700 block of North Harlem Avenue. The report states that he brandished a pistol. The weird thing about this troubling story, besides the Spider-Man angle, is that as far as I can tell, there's only one convenience store on that block, named Convenient. The story says there's a 7-Eleven on that block, but there isn't one there. They might be thinking of the 7-Eleven on the 2700 block of Harlem in Elmwood Park.

I've written about the north end of Harlem before. That area is in definite need of renovation. The strip mall where this robbery took place is a basin for trash and litter. I suspect that much of the litter might come from patrons of the Convenient store itself since that's where most of it accumulates. The owner and businesses of that mall should make a better effort to clean up the trash on its parkway along Harlem and particularly the area at the north end of the parking lot.

Further, the area is in governmental limbo, since it's designated to become part of the 38th Ward (Cullerton) from the 36th Ward (Sposato). Whichever way it goes, it desperately needs capital improvement. It's been a bit neglected. Decorative street lights, neighborhood identifying banners and entrance signs would go a long way to making the area more hospitable to shoppers and secure from crooks.

EveryBlock Bites The Dust

EveryBlock, the neighborhood-based social media site suddenly shut down today. Its parent company, NBC, was apparently behind the decision. The final blog post attributes the closure to "massive changes" in the news industry. It will be missed. We'll have to see if anything springs up to take its place.

Patio Theater Teams Up With Chicago Cinema Society

In what's making to be an extremely cool development for this area, the Patio theater has partnered with the Chicago Cinema Society to start showing independent and foreign movies. Upcoming screenings include Foo Fighter Dave Grohl's Sound City and the Chinese noir kung fu action flick Dragon. Of course your Hollywood faves will still be shown at budget prices.

In other promising news DNAInfo, in their Norwood/Jefferson/Portage Park edition, reports that the Chicago Rapid Transit Coalition and Ald. Arena (45th) are pushing to have a Blue Line stop built at Nagle (Narragansett) and Bryn Mawr. This stop was quashed when the Blue Line was originally built because of resident's fear of bla...er, crime. As the great bard once said, "the times, they are a-changin'." Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves here just yet.

Access to public transportation is generally proven to be an economic plus for an area, e.g., Rockwell Corridor. This is especially true today with gasoline and parking becoming more and more expensive.

Happy New Year to everyone in the Belmont Heights, Dunning area. May 2013 be a prosperous one for our community. Let's all work together to make our community the greatest in Chicago!

New Mariano's Under Construction in Harwood Heights

Mariano's is building one of their grocery stores on the southwest corner of Lawrence and Oketo. The structure is going to be pretty big. It is reportedly going to open in spring of next year.

CTA Claims Enhanced Ridership, Faster Service

Although written for the Ravenswood community, here is a good analysis of the CTA's recent plans to improve service. It does discuss improvements for the Irving Park Addison, and Montrose bus routes.

http://www.wellesparkbulldog.com/news/cta-claims-enhanced-ridership-faster-service

Nice Review of Harlem Avenue Eatery

Caffe Italia and Mercato de Pesce get a nice writeup on the blog Ambience Chaser. I went to Caffe Italia myself on Tuesday. Had the gelato and regular coffee. The coffee was great and the gelato was pretty glorious. Bellezza Gelato Caffe now has some worthy competition down the street. These aren't just the typical local haunts--these are destination businesses that are bringing greater vitality to the area. Now, if we can only get some streetscaping on North Harlem...

Harlem-Irving Plaza Expansion Concerns

Norridge residents raise objections to the expansion of the HIP in this article, Harlem-Irving neighbors calling for changes - Franklin Park Herald-Journal

Rogers Park Residents to Vote on Ward Budget

 Every alderman gets a $1.3M discretionary budget intended for capital improvements. Typically, the alderman decides where to spend the money, hopefully with good input from the residents. Alderman Joe Moore of the 49th Ward is using a different approach. It's called "participatory budgeting". He's allowing the residents to propose and vote on how the money is spent. I heard this story on NPR early this morning. It sounds like a marvelous idea. Not only would it enlighten residents but also give them a reason to gather, work together (or at odds) and really think about the entire community as a whole. Link to the NPR story and background information below.


Rogers Park Residents to Vote on Ward Budget
British site describing Participatory Budgeting
Participatory Budgeting on Wikipedia

Dunning Unique

 Hi there, yes I've taken a bit of a hiatus from the blogoshere after the elections. Just not a lot to blog about around these parts lately, IMHO. No news is good news, right? Well here's an interesting recent article from the Trib. It's part of their NATO nations series. According to the article, Dunning has the highest concentration of a single ethic group than all of the other community areas. And that ethnic group is...

Polish identity remains strong in Dunning

High School Senior on Charter Schools

Here's an excellent letter to the Tribune's editors critiquing their position on charter schools in Chicago. Written by a CPS high school senior. It's pasted here in its entirety.

I am a senior at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School. Having been a student in the Chicago Public School system since kindergarten, I take issue with the Tribune's continuous glorification of the charter school system.
"Alderman relents over NW Side charter school" (News, Dec. 22) is a prime example of this. The article quotes people describing Ald. Nicholas Sposato's decision to create a charter school in the 36th Ward as "great news," "best for the community," and a way to "alleviate school crowding." The fundamental flaws in the charter school system are not even touched upon in the article.
The charter school system is one of the biggest problems with our current education system. Charter schools are allowed to be privately operated yet publicly funded, which is a paradox. Instead of public tax dollars going solely to public schools, they are now split between the authentic public school system and the quasi-public charter schools. In a time when the public school system is heavily underfunded, this makes no sense.
Most charter schools prevent teachers from unionizing, leading to an overworked, underpaid work force. Although the media frequently demonize the Chicago Teachers Union, public teachers' unions are some of our most necessary institutions. Children cannot be educated properly if their teachers are not receiving adequate wages or guaranteed the rights all workers deserve.
The worst part about it all is that these charter schools are doing no better than the public schools. In general, charters score no higher than average neighborhood schools. A school like Whitney Young, which is admittedly a selective school, far outscores every single charter high school in the city. The top-scoring high schools in the state on the 2011 PSAE were Northside, Whitney Young, Walter Payton, Jones and New Trier. Those schools are not charter schools.
I challenge the Tribune to look carefully at the charter school system and the negative effect it has on CPS. Instead of publishing articles which essentially celebrate the creation of charter schools, why not publish articles on the need for more resources for existing neighborhood schools?
Clearly the public education system isn't perfect, but the solution is not to give up on it entirely and replace it with a potentially corrupt, more corporate-controlled alternative. We need to dedicate more time and money to CPS, especially its neighborhood schools, not to charters.
— Diana Rosen,Chicago