It’s 10:30 on a Thursday night and Bronzeville is jumping.
A crowd has poured out of the Harold Washington Cultural Center on the corner of 47th Street and Martin Luther King Drive, leading a valet parking crew to scramble for cars. Across the street, in the 47th St. Market Place, a throng of well-dressed businessmen and women mill about at the bar in Blu 47, many of whom have just left an art show at the Steele Life Gallery.
Welcome to the new Bronzeville, the beginning of Ald. Dorothy Tillman’s (3rd), grand plan of redevelopment for a once-blighted South Side community. It’s a rebirth that has brought the upwardly mobile African-American set back to a neighborhood that, in its heyday of the 1930s and 1940s, was known worldwide as a Mecca of jazz and blues before parts of the area succumbed to poverty’s grip in the 1960s and 1970s.
“It’s not just the ‘hood anymore,” said David Dixon, 39, sipping a cocktail at Blu 47, a lounge, jazz club and upscale soul food restaurant all rolled into one happening spot. “This is Bronzeville.”
Bronzeville generally is regarded as the neighborhood bordered by 35th Street to the north, 51st Street to the south, Michigan Avenue to the west and Cottage Grove to the east–though real estate agents trying to capitalize on regentrification continue to expand those parameters.
That regentrification process began, in earnest, five years ago, when prospective homeowners discovered the affordable housing the neighborhood had to offer. Businesses slowly began to follow, opening the door to revitalization and the rediscovery of history.
During the great migration of blacks from the south that began in the 1920s, many settled in this South Side community, which was dubbed the “Black Metropolis.” With it came black-owned businesses, restaurants and clubs that catered to a people who didn’t feel welcome downtown.
There was the Regal and Metropolitan Theatres. There was the Savoy Ballroom, Sutherland Lounge and Club DeLisa. There was Gerri’s Palm Tavern and the legendary Checkerboard Lounge, the blues club that served as the home to Muddy Waters, among others.
And anybody who was anybody, in those days, passed through what became known as “Bronzeville.” Duke Ellington. Count Basie. Cab Calloway. Miles Davis. Lena Horne. Redd Foxx. Langston Hughes. Richard Wright.
The list goes on and on.
“This is a very culturally rich neighborhood, in terms of its artists, authors and musicians,” said Desiree Sanders, who two years ago moved her Afrocentric Bookstore from the South Loop to the 47th St. Market Place. “Lorraine Hansberry grew up here. Gwendolyn Brooks grew up here. It has a lot of literary history. And there are a lot of old-timers in the community that come in and give us all the stories about who used to live here, what this building used to be.”
What is now the 47th St. Market Place–the hub of the new Bronzeville–was an old Walgreens, one of the first drugstores in the city that had a sit-down counter for blacks. The building now bustles on a daily basis with Sanders’ shop, the eclectic Spoken Word Cafe and the Jamaican Market. Upstairs, you’ll find the Steele Life Gallery and Blu 47.
It is the Spoken Word Cafe, with its poetry readings and jazz sessions, and Blu 47 that trumpet everything the new Bronzeville hopes to be. But there are other diverse stops in the neighborhood, such as the Negro League Cafe, which opened in July of 2004 on the corner of 43rd Street and Prairie Avenue, and Bronzeville’s 1st Bed & Breakfast, located in the old Goldblatt’s mansion on 39th Street and King Drive.
“The good thing about what’s going on is that Bronzeville doesn’t appear to be headed the way Harlem went–predominantly white-owned,” said Donald Curry, who first researched opening his Negro League Cafe in the area in 1997. “You’re seeing African-Americans, in their mid- to upper-30s, who have purchased condos and brownstones and businesses. It’s a beautiful thing.”
And the community has responded.
“We, as a people, are looking for opportunities to get together,” said Michael Fountain, director of consumer services for the Illinois Commerce Commission. “Places like Blu 47 offer us a place to get together and relax in our own neighborhood.”
Fran Bell, the group vice president of the South Side-Wabash YMCA, agreed.
“It’s refreshing to know that I don’t have to go downtown for everything,” said Bell, who recently joined Fountain and friends at Blu 47. “I love Bronzeville. It has a lot to offer. The history is rich, the people are progressive.”
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5 Bronzeville hot spots
BLU 47
4655 S. Martin Luther King Drive, 773-536-6000
The buzz: Executive Chef David Blackmon has created menu of soul food with a kick, with dishes like his catfish stuffed with Creole-spiced spinach and crab meat. But beyond the food, it’s the Thursday vibe, with live jazz. It has turned into Bronzeville’s place to see and be seen.
THE SPOKEN WORD CAFE
4655 S. Martin Luther King Drive, 773-373-2233
The buzz: This casual coffee house is open mostly during the day (and to midnight on Saturday), though the space is available for private parties. The draw is the poetry readings, but live blues and live jazz also figure into the mix.
BRONZEVILLE’S 1ST BED & BREAKFAST
3911 S. Martin Luther King Drive, 773-373-8081
The buzz: Located in the 5,500-square foot former Goldblatt Mansion, this place features butler service, a slammin’ restaurant, with a salon and day spa thrown in for good measure. It’s become a weekend gathering spot for women who just want to chill.
NEGRO LEAGUE CAFE
301 E. 43rd St., 773-536-7000
The buzz: One of the spots that launched the Bronzeville revival, Donald Curry’s sports bar turns into an improvisational jazz club on Tuesday nights, where musicians from all over the city pop in for late-night jam sessions. They also have live jazz on Saturday.
SOUTH SIDE COMMUNITY ART CENTER
3831 S. Michigan Ave., 773-737-1026
The buzz: It bills itself as America’s oldest African-American art center. Not only an art gallery featuring local and national artists, on any given day you can catch live jazz, hip-hop or neo-soul.
— Terry Armour
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tarmour@tribune.com
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