Conscious Choice: A Cure for Blight on Chicago's Far South Side

November 2006

A Cure for Blight on Chicago's Far South Side

How a proposed Underground Railroad historical site could bring a bright green future to a forgotten neighborhood on the Little Calumet River

By Bryan W. Brickner

There is a verse from an old book by Lao Tzu that reminds me of the area bordering what was the Jan Ton farm on the north bank of the Little Calumet River on Chicago’s Far South Side. The line I am reminded of is: Best to be like water . . . as it pools where humans disdain to dwell, close to the Tao.

The Ton farm was a stop on the Underground Railroad as runaway slaves made their way north to free Canada. Today, the property is the focus of efforts to erect a memorial and build a development of some kind to try and breathe life back into an economically depressed area. Many are pushing for it to be a green “eco-village” with sustainable architecture and neighborhood planning. The group marshalling the efforts to preserve and develop this historical site into a living heritage farm and village is C/CURE, the Chicago/Calumet Underground Railroad Effort.

A Brief History

At the time of the Civil War, helping a runaway slave was a federal crime. Using the cover of darkness, freedom seekers found safe houses or “stations,” places to rest, on their way to Canada. Like the runaways themselves, the men and women of the station houses displayed initiative by stepping forward to help those seeking freedom. One was Dutch immigrant Jan Ton, who made his property near today’s 134th Street and Ellis in Chicago’s Riverdale area a sanctuary.

The Underground Railroad was a one-way partnership. If you look at the people involved, from the runaway slaves to the abolitionists who helped along the way, everyone was breaking a federal law in support of a new way of thinking. In basic terms, by either escaping or helping the escaped, by consciously committing civil non-compliance, a new way of thinking was made manifest. It grew into a higher law: mainly, freedom is a human right.

Today, the property and surrounding area is in the Riverdale neighborhood, home to a patchwork of open space bounded to the south by the Little Calumet River; rogue vegetable gardens, a few houses, and a couple of Seventh Day Adventist churches are situated along the short-lived 134th St. Nearby along the river is an abandoned marina. To the west is Indiana Avenue and the river again as it bends north. To the north looms the largely blighted Altgeld Gardens housing project, which itself is almost completely isolated from the rest of the city by Lake Calumet, a sprawling water-treatment facility, the Bishop Ford/I-94 Highway, and the Beaubien Woods of the Cook County Forest Preserve. Yet Sundays are marked by family picnics And softball games in Altgeld Park. There is even a powerful sense of community amongst the blight.

C/CURE began in 2001 to raise public awareness about the role the Ton Farm, and the whole Chicago/Calumet region of Cook County, played in the Underground Railroad and the struggle for freedom. The evidence for official historical preservation status, and protection, is pretty clear.

The Proposed Cure

The Ton farm site is little more than a series of undeveloped lots of mostly wooded area, owned by different parties, without any cohesive element. There are access roads that dead end at the river. Despite a sign that forbids dumping, a garbage heap marks the riverbank.

“Everything would have to be rebuilt, says, C/CURE’s Naomi Davis. “Much like [the metaphor of] rebuilding our own communities.”

Arriving there, you see she is right. Like many isolated and economically depressed South Side neighborhoods, Riverdale is in desperate need of a jobs-driven development to produce new housing stock and bring some commercial life back to the area. Given the land available for development, and the CHA’s need to rebuild Altgeld Gardens, Davis called it an opportunity “to build a green village in a black neighborhood.”

“There are entrenched problems in Riverdale that will not go away on their own,” she adds. “We need development without displacement. The Calumet area is a wonderful natural resource, and we see the history of the Underground Railroad as an asset upon which to build a heritage farm and surrounding green village.”

Davis said that they are actively seeking to partner with local developers, the banking industry, and state and local officials, to make this dream happen. It helps that it both can be a historical preservation site, and a working local farm to serve the Riverdale community.

The next step, according to UIC Urban Planning professor Douglas Gills, is “to bring in the property owners, the city, and the people who have a stake in the African American community – both those who live in the community and those who don’t.”

This project has nearly everything: people, heritage, land, water, volunteers, and a great city. What is missing is the proverbial next step. Martha Boyd of C/CURE stressed that sustainable development is the key to progress, but it means nothing without affordability.

“The community needs a truly mixed income development with entry-level positions,” Boyd said, “with some thought and planning for affordable housing.”

With acres of open space, hiking trails and some remnants of undeveloped nature, the area is rich in opportunities for green development. It is a beautiful, basically new canvas upon which some enterprising green architect or developer could design a visionary project that could be held up as a model for areas like it all across the nation.

Some politicians have noticed. Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley openly supports C/CURE’s efforts. Quigley spoke eloquently about the need to preserve this heritage at an August event held on the Ton farm site.

Quigley is also an adjunct professor of political science, and likes to focus on the area’s history and environment. When he teaches his students about the Underground Railroad, many ask why runaway slaves had to hide once they got north. He reminds them they had to hide because it was against the law to help them to freedom. That is why he believes places like the Ton property are important.

“We have to remember what happened here in Cook County. More than a memorial, it should be a cultural center that tells the story of what happened here in order to keep the history alive.”

Quigley maintains that any future development should be developed with the environment in mind. He said that County Board President Bobbie Steele, Alderman Anthony A. Beale and others had expressed interest in this area. There is also the support of Dr. Carol Adams of the Illinois Department of Human Services and former U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun.

“It is nice now with the eagles and the egrets and the river,” Quigley muses. “Yes, it should be developed, but keeping nature and progress in mind.”

Quigley makes the case for combining some of the Ton property with an expansion of the Beaubien Preserve.

“It is not that expensive, we just need to raise awareness. It is an issue the mayor’s people might be interested in, and I like to think we have an opportunity with the new county administration.”

The City of Chicago owns a large percentage of the land available for development along the Little Calumet River, and the Riverdale area itself has lots of needs. In the Lao Tzu verse quoted above, he concludes by saying, among other things, that to be close to the Tao is to “Do the right thing.” In the case of the Ton property, the City of Chicago, and the Cook County board, doing the right thing seems like the perfect fit.

Bryan Brickner is a Chicago-based freelance writer, activist and author of Article the first of the Bill of Rights (2006).

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: