Madonna Driver runs in her front yard before she and
her family moved to another neighborhood. Vacant lots that used to sell for
$1 in the 1980's are valuable real estate and developers all over the South
Side are clambering to scoop up the land that at one time was considered
almost worthless. These developers and the city's politicians have worked
together to ensure that the city will be a place for the wealthy, but have
created few reassurances that poor people will be welcome in the new city.
Pockettown: Change and Transformation on Chicago's S. Side This is a story
about place. Pockettown, or "the Pocket," is a tight-knit African-American
neighborhood in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood on Chicago's South
Side. In 2001, Gary Comer, founder of Lands' End and a Pockettown native,
asked me to teach photography at Paul Revere Elementary School and to
document life in the neighborhood. A Revere alumnus, Comer was providing
substantial resources through his foundation to his alma mater and childhood
community, which had shifted from a white ethnic area to a predominately
black neighborhood. I agreed. In January 2002 I began working at Revere
and in the community. For the first 18 months I photographed primarily
within the school. But I felt that my role needed to be more than a
photographer, so I also coached basketball and worked on a community
newspaper. As I became more known, I started to concentrate on life outside
the school. Since 2000 the South Side has seen major changes, including
the destruction of many Chicago Housing Authority projects and the continued
gentrification of many communities bordering Lake Michigan. As part of
documenting life in the Pocket, these photographs attempt to illustrate
larger trends of renewal, change and transformation on the city's South Side.
The project also includes audio interviews with neighborhood residents that
record their feelings about the changes occurring in their neighborhood.
