Maxwell Street
Maria Moraites’ Maxwell Street chronicles the eponymous residential and market district’s emergence in the late 1800s, its cultural and commercial evolution through the turn of the century, and the neighborhood’s decimation caused by expansions of the Dan Ryan Expressway and the University of Illinois Circle Campus.
The documentary utilizes photographs, map graphics, live action footage, and interviews to explore Maxwell Street’s historic open-air market and its cultivation of electric Chicago blues music. Footage captures performances by local blues musicians while peddlers exhibit and sling gyroscopes, fur coats, hardware, hubcaps, ceramic dolls, earrings, fresh produce, candied apples, Maxwell Street Polishes, and a myriad of assorted novelties.
Shots include Mackevich's Department Store, 712 Maxwell St; L. Pressman “Fur Matching of All Kinds,” 835 Maxwell St; Hass Brothers Clothing, 726 Maxwell St; Leavitt's Restaurant, 1328 S. Halsted; and Buck's Red Hots, near the intersection of Maxwell St and Union Ave.