The Chicago Reporter articles from November 2005

The Chicago Reporter archives from November 2005

Editor's note.
November 1, 2005... Older friends of mine blame integration. Before it, they recall, black bankers rived on the same blocks as mail carriers, teachers and maids. Children saw men in suits and social workers alongside plumbers and janitors. Integrated...

Letter to the editor.(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2005... Our thanks to The Chicago Reporter for giving homeless youths a voice in the article "Seeking Acceptance" [September/October 2005]. Teens like Hector need us to listen and support them as they mature into adulthood. As Amy Rainey reported,...

Correction.(Correction notice)
November 1, 2005... Correction: A photo caption in "Taken for Granted" [September/ October 2005] mistakenly identified the man pictured as Ledall Edwards. The correct photo appears on our Web site. We regret the error.

Shop talk: a health educator targets beauty and barber shops to promote AIDS awareness.(New Voices)
November 1, 2005... It's a typical Friday morning at Let's Straighten It Out Hair Salon. A middle-aged woman in a black plastic smock is sitting under one of the dryers that line the wall. Three other women gather around a manicurist's table so casually that it's...

Turf battles: the presence of day laborers at the Home Depot's parking lot stirs controversy in Cicero.(KEEPING CURRENT)
November 1, 2005... Around 7:30 a.m. on a cold November day, about 40 day laborers with attentive eyes, layers of clothes and marked-up boots gathered in a nearly empty parking lot in front of Home Depot at 28th Street and Cicero Avenue. The parking lot is a...

Retail runaround: with few shopping choices close to home, residents of Chicago's black neighborhoods are most likely to experience the ...(INVESTIGATION)
November 1, 2005... It's 7:45 a.m. Tina Saphir has been awake and milling about for hours. She glances at the corner of her vestibule at a heap of recently purchased merchandise. Everything must go. Either it didn't fit or didn't work. But the mother of three...

Luring retailers: black aldermen say they have to work overtime to bring business to their wards.(INVESTIGATION)
November 1, 2005... Leslie Hairston was brimming with ideas after winning the election to head Chicago's 5th Ward in 1999. She surveyed contituents to find that they wanted shops like Starbucks, Old Navy, and Bed, Bath and Beyond. Starbucks was a popular symbol of...

Taxed to the limit: as land prices swell, so do property tax bills. That could force some of the county's poorest homeowners to pack up and leave.(INVESTIGATION)
November 1, 2005... Families with low to moderate incomes could be hit the hardest if Cook County's controversial property tax cap is not renewed in 2006, sources say. Some fear longtime residents, particularly those riving in gentrifying black neighborhoods on...

November 2, 2005.(Parting Shot)
November 1, 2005... A heavy police presence accompanied the "World Can't Wait" protest against the war in Iraq in Federal Plaza. Photo by Jason Reblando. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]