A Nice Place to Live
Maria Moraites’ National Endowment for the Humanities-sponsored documentary, A Nice Place to Live (1974), examines neighborhood roots, property values, urban revitalization, and Black and White race relations from the perspectives of established and incoming residents of Chicago's Austin community area. Her observations come amidst a rapid demographic turnover propelled by the Federal Housing Authority, real estate interests, mortgage lenders, and insurance companies’ redlining and blockbusting tactics imposed upon the neighborhood through the early 1970s.
Despite a significant variation in resident sentiment regarding neighborhood identity and race relations, the film’s story passes from one testimony to the next with unfaltering cohesion. This may be due in part to Moraites’ uncanny ability to consistently elicit honest responses from her subjects, or it may draw from a relative anonymity afforded to nearly all of the participants--those interviewed are rarely introduced by name. One exception is Lorenzo Harbin, representative of the West Garfield Urban Progress Center and a Waller Avenue apartment resident, who guides the camera on a tour of neighborhood blight and also spearheads his apartment complex’s list of grievances for court intervention. The other exception is Gale Cincotta, co-founder of Organization for a Better Austin, who delivers a fervent speech at the 1972 National Housing Conference held inside St. Sylvester Catholic School. Harbin and Cincotta both observe grassroots organization as the viable countermeasure towards the presented housing crisis.
Footage includes shots of Grocerland, 5920 W Division St; Supreme Cleaners, 429 N Laramie Ave; Jim Moy Laundry, 427 N Laramie Ave; Washington Liquors, 425 N Laramie Ave; Austin United Presbyterian Church, 5720 W Fulton St; New Apege Club, 3124 Roosevelt Rd; the future Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza near Madison St & Kedzie Ave; Acorn Neon Sign Co., 3846 W Madison St; Midwest Chop Suey, 3854 W Madison St; Crest Hotel, 1519 W Adams St; St. Sylvester Catholic School, 3027 W Palmer St.