Maxwell Street is back this Sunday. Somewhat. After a brief return to its namesake street, the open-air Maxwell Street Market will now operate from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. around 800 S. Desplaines St. — one mile from its historic location.
This year, Maxwell Street Market is on six Sundays: May 18, June 8, July 13, August 10, Sept. 14, and Oct 5.
But what happened to the original site?
OG Maxwell Street
Jewish sellers began Maxwell Street as a Sunday event on Chicago’s Near West Side in the late 1800s. It became, at one point, the world’s largest open-air market, taking up nine city blocks.
Certain images from that era still come to mind when Chicagoans hear the words, “Maxwell Street:” A diverse mecca of wares-hawking immigrants. (My own grandpa sold faucet parts and fluorescent lights.) Electric blues music. Polish sausages sizzling on outdoor grills … But most of us have never truly seen it.
The decline of Maxwell Street first began in the 1950s, sparked by white flight and spearheaded by Mayor Richard J. Daley.
Men buying shoes on Maxwell Street amid rubble, during the 1960s. (Photo by Stephen Deutch/Chicago History Museum/Getty Images)
‘Urban Renewal’ and UIC
As middle-class white Chicagoans flocked north after World War II, employment went down on the Near West Side. Enter the Boss and his bulldozer: During six terms as mayor, Daley oversaw a host of urban renewal projects meant to clear perceived urban blight.
That included the construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway, which started in 1957, bisecting Maxwell Street, eventually choking off its east half.
In 1965, the University of Illinois at Chicago opened — another project championed by Daley. The following year, Maxwell Street was deemed “a slum and blighted” by the city. The year after that, UIC received permission to exercise eminent domain on it, though the school held off for years, which drove down real estate prices throughout the area.
Though diminished, Maxwell Street Market technically continued on Maxwell Street until 1994, when the city moved it to Canal Street. After failing to gain Historic District status, its final buildings were demolished in 2002. Under the Boss’s son, Richard M. Daley, the stretch became University Village Marketplace.
Maxwell Street Today
Presently, Maxwell Street — the actual street — stretches between Blue Island Ave. and Union Ave. (It also exists for one block between Jefferson and Clinton Streets.) The Maxwell and Union intersection is just over half a mile from Sunday’s market.
Last year’s Maxwell Street Market featured 35 sellers. There were over 1,200 in the flea market’s heyday.
A map showcases the stretch of Maxwell Street between Blue Island Avenue and Halsted Avenue, plus the present-day market on Desplaines Street. It’s a little over a mile to walk the whole route. (Google Maps)
