Uptown: Portrait of a Chicago Neighborhood in the mid-1970s

This book of striking black and white photographs forms a fascinating time capsule. The photos, taken during the mid 1970s, depict life in the aging North Side Chicago neighborhood called Uptown. More than 250 evocative photographs comprise a portrait of this neighborhood in transition. The author's photos allow the reader to experience the conflicts and ironies of life in one of Chicago's poorest, most diverse and densely populated neighborhoods. As the author notes in his introduction: From the L, I caught glimpses of streets littered with garbage, broken pavement, flop houses, winos sleeping on sidewalks, stripped and abandoned cars, buildings covered with gang graffiti, plus day labor agencies, taverns, pawn shops, and resale stores stretching to infinity. But after the author overcame his initial fears, he also discovered many incredibly strong, kind, welcoming and open people, struggling to eke out a living and raise families in difficult circumstances. He fell in love with photographing the people of Uptown and spent virtually all of his free time there from late 1973 to early 1977. His text also describes a perfect storm of converging economic, political and social forces that stalemated the redevelopment of this great urban melting pot thus turning it into a cauldron of conflict.