WEBVTT 1 00:00:21.400 --> 00:00:27.280 Maxwell Street is west of the center of Chicago and has long been a thriving second heart. 2 00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:40.660 Named after Chicago's first practicing physician, Dr. Philip Maxwell, who came as an army surgeon to Fort Dearborn, it was up until the 1880s a rich residential area for the Lace-Curtain Irish. 3 00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:48.880 Then a market opened on Jefferson Street to serve the needs of the new Russian Jewish and Eastern European immigrants who were moving into the area. 4 00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:57.760 By the 1890s this market moved to Maxwell Street and became known as the Maxwell Street Market, or simply Maxwell Street. 5 00:00:58.700 --> 00:01:07.880 By 1896, Maxwell Street was a bustling commercial area set in a wilderness of narrow, dingy by streets with garbage boxes everywhere. 6 00:01:08.920 --> 00:01:17.120 It was said that if a man had enough suspicion of his fellow man and enough greed for money, he would do well in the business world of Maxwell Street. 7 00:01:18.100 --> 00:01:30.360 From 1900 to 1912, the increase in immigrants expanded the clothing trade and Maxwell Street became an outlet for sweatshops, where cheap labor resulted in cheap prices and good business. 8 00:01:31.200 --> 00:01:41.620 By 1919, it was recognized by the city council. At first there were no fixed stands. All the sellers would assemble at 13th and Union Streets at 8 in the morning. 9 00:01:41.620 --> 00:01:49.460 The market master would blow a whistle to start the race for locations, which were rented from the city council for about 11 cents each. 10 00:01:50.620 --> 00:02:02.340 In the 20s, sideshows and free shows began to appear. The stores employed pullers, who would stand outside and firmly entice customers into interiors heavily laden with merchandise. 11 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:10.700 Competition between stores was at an all-time high, and amid the many smells were heard voices of sellers and beggars in many different languages. 12 00:02:10.700 --> 00:02:16.020 With the coming of prohibition, the 42nd Street Gang roamed the street. 13 00:02:17.160 --> 00:02:25.000 Gradually, the pullers and sideshows disappeared. The five-block area was cut by the Dan Ryan Expressway to less than four. 14 00:02:25.980 --> 00:02:39.040 The O'Leary's, Dooley's, Flanagan's gave way to the Jews, with Italians on the outskirts, Greeks along Blue Island, Lithuanians and Bohemians to the south and west, and finally to the blacks and Mexicans. 15 00:02:39.040 --> 00:02:52.040 As part of a near westside redevelopment project and its location importance to the expanding University of Illinois Circle campus, the life of Maxwell Street is nearing its end. 16 00:03:04.860 --> 00:03:19.980 Well, it's peck, would peck, would peck, would peck your head so red. Working under the living, the sun done bright, honey, Lord, Lord, the sun done bright. 17 00:03:21.540 --> 00:03:37.140 John Henry says, why did you get your, put a little shoe on your dress so fine? I got the shoe off of Maxwell, the dress off of Halstead. 18 00:03:37.540 --> 00:03:40.140 Lord, Lord, the dress off of Halstead. 19 00:03:41.340 --> 00:03:47.560 Yeah, John Henry was a steel driving man. Lord, Lord, Henry was a real man. 20 00:03:48.940 --> 00:03:49.980 Thank you. 21 00:03:51.100 --> 00:04:01.400 Don't get us ashamed, you know, a place that has the flavor of Maxwell Street has to move, you know, because of, when a lot of people turn, progress. 22 00:04:04.040 --> 00:04:10.640 I'm proud, I'm probably some of the best entertainer down here. I was watching the street man last time I was down here. 23 00:04:11.200 --> 00:04:15.140 Nigga, nigga, nigga, don't care what you do. Play the research tonight. 24 00:04:15.980 --> 00:04:19.660 I read, read it in the door with you. Play the research tonight. 25 00:04:20.220 --> 00:04:24.040 The madness pours up round your throat. Play the research tonight. 26 00:04:24.460 --> 00:04:28.480 Red from their last day of life. Play the research tonight. 27 00:04:29.560 --> 00:04:35.600 Come along, let's show them, come along. Wild and warm and shiny bright. 28 00:04:36.880 --> 00:04:46.720 Millionaires and rich people, they come out here for the change of pace and the mangle with the people, you know, and they kind of be lonesome. 29 00:04:46.920 --> 00:04:52.680 And some of them just come out for the kick. Now I know there was a couple of young girls from up here on the Gold Coast. 30 00:04:52.680 --> 00:04:58.080 They come over here and they just say they just want to rub elbows with different classes of people. 31 00:05:07.280 --> 00:05:10.740 I want everybody down here. 32 00:05:11.940 --> 00:05:17.060 There has been a time that half of the people out here was policemen. 33 00:05:17.340 --> 00:05:28.600 I'll tell you why they come in, is because your hijackers and things used to get truckloads of shirts and any other merchandise, radios and things, they come out here. 34 00:05:28.600 --> 00:05:37.600 Sell them so the police come out here and sometimes you see them take a whole stand and everybody with them. It's all in the game. 35 00:05:43.280 --> 00:05:45.120 Coach, why don't you buy me a coat? 36 00:05:46.340 --> 00:05:50.500 Don't you love your wife? Don't you think she deserves something like this? Look, man, feel it. 37 00:05:50.660 --> 00:05:56.100 Standing like this in the world, come on. If the police don't meet you, go and say the rap to the man. He understand your points. 38 00:05:57.580 --> 00:06:06.720 This is the eye of Chicago, another drawer. I don't care if you're not buying nothing. You walk around and see the different things. It's like a sight tour. 39 00:06:19.800 --> 00:06:27.260 Here's the pitchman on selling medicine on all these corners. My sister was on the other corner over there with a snake. 40 00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:40.720 Years ago, selling medicine, you'd work out the back of a car or a platform like I got right here. And believe it or not, we've been on the market with that particular liniment over 33 years. No complaints. 41 00:06:57.700 --> 00:07:21.260 I've been kicking around here with these musicians on the street. As a matter of fact, there was a little Walter got his start from his own Macpherson Street, Muddy Waters on Macpherson Street, Jimmy Rogers on Macpherson Street, Big John Meek on Macpherson Street, with Howlett and Wolf. He came from down in the rural piece, Mississippi. 42 00:07:32.800 --> 00:07:54.740 This used to be a good prostitute place for the women's too. And I would ask the women, I said, because some of them was doctor wide and business men wide, I said, why you come over here, you know, and do something like that when you got all the money you need. And they just said, just come over here for the change of pace. 43 00:07:57.540 --> 00:07:58.940 Yeah. 44 00:08:43.500 --> 00:08:57.240 I'm like a roamer. I'm here with the AM gone tomorrow. This is not my work. I'm a construction worker. I like vacuum out of this more for the fun and the kicks out of anything else. That guy called me up here one time. He needed somebody to come and get it. 45 00:08:57.240 --> 00:09:10.800 I'm here on the Sundays for him, you know, but ordinarily I don't do this for the money. There's too much aggravation. You know, the poorest people and the chattin people are the hardest damn people in the world to sell anything to. They want everything for nothing. 46 00:09:18.380 --> 00:09:34.600 All over the world. I've had people who can't say come from Italy. I was in Italy during the war. They even told me about, hey, you ever eaten hot dogs on the next street? In Germany, France, in London. They asked me the same thing. You ever eat hot dogs on the next street? 47 00:09:35.980 --> 00:09:39.760 I'm a toad. Give me one toad. 48 00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:42.680 It's doomed to go. 49 00:09:44.400 --> 00:09:51.740 No, Max's been snacking on it. See those buildings that are tearing down over there? I think Max's people last went on the evening. 50 00:09:54.140 --> 00:09:55.540 About two years at most. 51 00:09:56.760 --> 00:10:05.140 There used to be two crowds. A morning bunch and then a bunch that went to whatever church they went to. They would come in the afternoon. They don't get that no more. 52 00:10:06.600 --> 00:10:11.700 Because everybody was afraid of all that was going on there. It was wild. 53 00:11:47.740 --> 00:11:52.060 Everybody tell me, baby. 54 00:11:53.540 --> 00:11:55.520 Max the Spree is coming to town. 55 00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:04.800 Everybody tell me, baby. 56 00:12:06.360 --> 00:12:09.700 Max the Spree is coming to town. 57 00:12:14.240 --> 00:12:17.180 Well, I know, I know, you know, man. 58 00:12:18.180 --> 00:12:22.520 They're up in the little street of town. 59 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:31.200 They walked down Max's street, baby. 60 00:12:33.380 --> 00:12:35.900 Right down by town. 61 00:12:40.920 --> 00:12:44.360 Walked down Max's street, baby. 62 00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:48.760 Ran our homes out. 63 00:12:53.400 --> 00:12:56.740 Well, that's why I had all my fun, man, you know. 64 00:12:57.960 --> 00:13:00.160 Right down in Newtown. 65 00:13:00.300 --> 00:13:04.100 I was around here when this was a beautiful place here, just like a column bowl. 66 00:13:04.900 --> 00:13:11.220 And they stayed open until two and three o'clock in the morning. They had lights strung across the street. 67 00:13:11.220 --> 00:13:14.960 You know, like they do at the wedding, you know, go up and curve down. 68 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:25.540 They couldn't have a Max's street like they had back in them days because anybody out here could hustle and make, you know, a little change, you know, survival. 69 00:13:26.560 --> 00:13:32.620 Because you could get out, just go out here in the suburb and pick up some dirt and come in and say, some dirt from our jails. 70 00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:39.240 Get you some peanut shells or anything. It was a way you could, you know, make it in them days. 71 00:13:39.240 --> 00:13:42.080 And you wasn't hurting nobody either, you know. 72 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:49.620 These young people there, they're wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. They don't even know what's happening. They're going too fast.