Calumet City
| Calumet City | |||
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| Nickname : "Cal City", formerly "Sin City" | |||
 One of the two smiley water towers in Calumet City |
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| Location in Illinois | |||
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| Basic data | |||
| Foundation : | 1893 | ||
| State : | United States | ||
| State : | Illinois | ||
| County : | Cook County | ||
| Coordinates : | 41 ° 37 ′ N , 87 ° 32 ′ W | ||
| Time zone : | Central ( UTC − 6 / −5 ) | ||
| Residents : | 37,042 (as of 2010) | ||
| Population density : | 1,970.3 inhabitants per km 2 | ||
| Area : | 18.8 km 2 (approx. 7 mi 2 ) | ||
| Height : | 180 m | ||
| Postal code : | 60409 | ||
| Area code : | +1 708 | ||
| FIPS : | 17-10487 | ||
| GNIS ID : | 405372 | ||
| Website : | www.calumetcity.org | ||
 Calumet City with neighboring municipalities |
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Calumet City [ ˈkaljəˌmet ˈsɪti ] is a city in Cook County in the northeast of the American state of Illinois . The city borders the state of Indiana to the east ; to the north is the Lake Michigan coast three miles away . The center of Chicago , of which Calumet City is part of the metropolitan area , is located 30 kilometers northwest of the city, which is completely surrounded by populated areas. As of 2000, Calumet City had about 39,000 inhabitants, the number of which has since fallen by 5%.
The first settlement of the urban area by German and Polish immigrants took place from the middle of the 19th century. In 1893 the resulting place was officially founded under the name West Hammond . During the Prohibition era , the city became a center of alcohol smuggling and consumption, gambling and prostitution , benefiting from its location on the state border . In 1923, the city was renamed Calumet City to shake off its image as Sin City (" City of Sin "). Away from the extensive red-light district , it retained the character of a working-class town, with residents working in the surrounding steel mills and refineries . With the decline of these industries, there has been a significant change in the composition of the formerly almost exclusively white population since the 1970s, whose proportion fell to 13% by 2010, while the proportion of the black population rose to 70%.
geography
Location and topography
The eastern border of Calumet City is formed by the dead straight, north-south running state border between Illinois and Indiana , which at this point is also the city boundary with Hammond .
Further clockwise are the neighboring towns in the south of Lansing , then in the south-west and west of South Holland , in the north-west of Dolton and in the very north of Chicago . The northeastern neighboring municipality is Burnham , which in turn adjoins Hammond.
The southern city limit to Lansing is largely formed by the Little Calumet River and is therefore irregularly shaped. The Little Calumet flows west into the Cal-Sag Channel and is around ten meters wide at the city limits. As with all rivers and canals in the area, there are no high flow velocities due to the low gradient and the locks . The pollution of rivers by the environment is sometimes very high.
On the northeastern border with Chicago, the Calumet River , which is about 150 meters wide, flows with a river loop over the area of Calumet City. The area north of the river by the River Bend and the Bishop Ford Freeway is part of Calumet City up to 138th Street and is used as a landfill for industrial and household waste . The operator of the CWM CID landfill is Chemical Waste Management Inc. (CWM), the landfill company is Calumet Industrial Development Corp. (CID). The landfill is partly in the Calumet City area and partly in the Chicago area. About 600 meters north of the city limits, the Calumet River is separated by the TJ-O'Brien Dam, which is supposed to protect the Lake Michigan water system from contaminated runoff from the Calumet River system during storms and floods. The dam is equipped with a lock measuring 305 x 33 m and allows pushed convoys with up to 14 barges to pass .
The north-eastern border to Burnham is partly formed by the Grand Calumet River , here less than eight meters wide.
The western city limit to Dolton runs on the Bishop Ford Freeway ( Interstate 94 ), further south the course of the western city limit to South Holland is more irregular due to the incision of the Sand Ridge Prairie Nature Reserve . The protected prairie area is part of the Cook County Forest Preserve . The nature area is approximately 1.5 x 1.5 km and forms a green belt through the urban area together with the eastern cemetery Holy Cross Cemetery and the adjoining Calumet Park and Wentworth Woods .
geology
The deep subsurface of Calumet City is mainly formed by Precambrian and Paleozoic rocks from the Cambrian to Silurian . The approximately 1000 m thick Paleozoic rocks consist mainly of carbonate rocks ( limestone and dolomite ) and in the upper area of Upper Carboniferous slates . The area experienced a decisive overprinting of the morphology in the Quaternary . Several glacier advances left massive sediment deposits in the area of ground and terminal moraines in the urban area . The most recent deposits are the glazio - lacustrine sediments of the Chicago Lake Plain , which form the northeastern part of the Upper Illinois River Basin (“Upper Illinois River Basin”). The Quaternary deposits are mainly built up by band clays , silts and sands, in which individual gravel banks and local moraines are embedded. These sediments form part of an important groundwater reservoir that supplies the greater Chicago area with drinking water.
climate
The city is located in the continental warm temperate climate zone ( Köppen classification Dfa), which is characterized by cool winters and warm summers. In summer there is more precipitation than in winter, whereby the proximity of Lake Michigan characterizes the climate with humidity and winds. The average daily maximum temperature in summer is 27 to 28 degrees Celsius, in winter the average daily minimum temperature is −7 to −10 degrees Celsius. The average annual rainfall is 967 millimeters.
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Average monthly temperatures and rainfall for Calumet City
Source: city-data.com
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history
Prehistory and settlement of today's urban area until 1893
In the area of what is now Calumet City, arrowheads and other traces dated to the time before European settlement were found, which suggest an at least temporary presence of Indians . At the Sand Ridge Nature Center on today's Paxton Avenue was an Indian "chipping station"; Stone arrowheads were made there using striking techniques . The area is a natural passage point for footpaths to the southern Lake Michigan bypass as the High Tolleston Shoreline runs here. To the northeast of this line to Lake Michigan , the area is difficult to pass due to the dunes, swamps and bumps that run at right angles to the lake shore. The historic footpath runs near the High Tolleston Shoreline and roughly corresponds to today's Michigan City Road. In the area of Calumet River , which flows through the city and gave it the name, lived before the arrival of Europeans, the Miami , the beginning of the 19th century by the Potawatomi were displaced, which was in turn ousted by the whites from their settlements in eastern Michigan were. Also Ottawa came to the area.
The first European settlers in today's urban area were Germans: Hans and Louise Schrum from Hamburg settled in the south of today's urban area in 1863, right on the border with Indiana, and set up their farm there. Other German immigrants followed and the resulting settlement was named after the Schrumville family. On their farm, the Schrum family later ran a dairy (Calumet Dairy) and a business for the production of pickles (Schrum Pickle Works), which existed until 1973. The Calumet City Historical Society has preserved the family's log cabin , but it has been moved from its original location. In 1868, the slaughterhouse G. H. Hammond Meat Packing Plant was founded east of the Schrums farm - in the neighboring state of Indiana, which was soon named after the company's founders, Hammond . The job opportunities in the slaughterhouse attracted many German immigrants. Some of these workers settled west of the Illinois-Indiana border. Their settlement was called West Hammond, Illinois.
From the late 1880s onwards, some Polish immigrants came to the area and settled near the High Tolleston Shoreline , now the Pulaski Road area. In September 1890, an investor syndicate led by Oliver Brooks bought 1.3 million m² of land not far from the Hammond slaughterhouse in order to develop a settlement on it and to sell the individual plots at a profit. The investment cost the syndicate USD 200,000 including planning, clearing and division costs, which corresponds to USD 0.15 / m², today around USD 4.34 / m². In January 1891 the land was divided into 36 blocks with 48 house lots each; a total of 1,728 plots. Compared to the then only 8,000 residents of Hammond , that was a considerable number and the largest property development in Chicago and the surrounding area to date . The land was deliberately marketed to immigrants of Polish origin. In order to promote the settlement, a Polish broker was commissioned with the sales and the establishment of a Polish church was organized. The first mass was held there in 1892. The place was called Sobieski Park, after the Polish general and national hero Sobieski . In 1900 there were 234 Polish families living in the new housing estate, a total of around 1,400 people.
The two oldest churches in today's Calumet City reflect the German-Polish composition of the first settlers: The German community built the Lutheran Church of St. John in 1888 and the Polish community followed in 1891/1892 with the Catholic Church of St. Andrew.
From the founding of the city to city status (1893–1911)
In 1893 the three settlement centers Schrumville, West Hammond and Sobieski Park together had 500 inhabitants, with the majority of people of German origin. In the same year, after approval by the residents, the area was merged as a Village under the name West Hammond. The first post office opened in 1898. In 1900 West Hammond already had 3,000 inhabitants.
In October 1901, the GH Hammond Meat Packing Plant in Hammond burned out completely. At that time, the annual processing capacity there was more than 300,000 head of cattle, and more than 2,000 people were working in front of the fire on an area of 120,000 m². The meat magnate J. Ogden Armor then acquired the Hammond Holding, but after an anti-trust court prohibited this merger, Ogden Armor closed the slaughterhouse in Hammond completely and consolidated the operations in Chicago. Many of the 2,000 slaughterhouse workers who lost their jobs lived in West Hammond. Some of them found employment in the Stein, Hirsh & Co starch factory , in Bernard Burczyk's printing works and in the West Hammond Brewing Company .
In 1907 a man of Polish descent was elected mayor ("village president") for the first time.
In 1910, Village President John Hessler made the first attempt to give West Hammond City status . In addition to the possibility of easier integration of the surrounding areas and the resulting tax revenues, the differences in the political organization between the village and the city spoke from the point of view of non-Polish politicians and business people . The Polish population in West Hammond now had a clear majority. In a village, only one municipal council would be elected, which would be dominated solely by Poland under the majority vote . In a city, however, there would be several wards , each of which would send a locally elected Alderman to the city council. The North Side of West Hammond was still dominated by Germany; in a city, at least the northern wards would ensure continued political power participation by the Germans and also the Irish. A vote was held to convert it into a city, which, to the surprise of all observers, did not go in the direction of Hessler and his supporters Samuel Markam and Tom Finneran. City status was "thwarted by a girl", as the headline read. The "girl" was Virginia Brooks , 24 , daughter and heir to Oliver Brooks, the real estate developer at Sobieski Park. After her father's death, she had moved with her mother to West Hammond, where she owned a number of his unsold properties. For these, she was supposed to pay a special tax of $ 20,000 to the place, approximately $ 554,287 today. There she started a campaign against the city vote, which in her opinion would lead to even higher taxes. She cleverly combined the issues of corruption and inefficiency in the city administration. In the 1910 vote, there were 161 votes for city status and 181 against. This made Brooks - before the introduction of women's suffrage in the USA and Illinois - a regional celebrity who was celebrated by the newspapers as the " Joan of Arc of West Hammond". Brooks fought publicly against prostitution, unsanitary conditions, alcohol and other "sins", gave lectures and wrote books.
In 1911 the limit of 5,000 residents was exceeded, and West Hammond was granted City status after a fourth vote on December 27, 1911 beginning in 1912 .
West Hammond until renaming (1912–1924)
In 1920 West Hammond had 7,492 inhabitants, the inhabitants of Polish descent now clearly formed the majority ahead of the Germans; Residents of Irish descent formed the third largest population group.
The prohibition , which entered the country early in 1920 into force, was introduced in Indiana already 1916th In Illinois and thus West Hammond, which was easily accessible by road and train traffic, directly behind the state border, the alcohol ban was not yet in force. West Hammond quickly became a popular place to continue indulging in alcohol, drawing visitors from across northwestern "arid" Indiana. The town's main street, State Street, was nicknamed "The Strip" and the whole city was soon called "Sin City". After Prohibition also applied in Illinois four years later, West Hammond developed on this basis into the center of alcohol smuggling and other illegal activities, which were largely controlled by the Chicago mafia , i.e. the Chicago Outfit . First there were various small gangster groups from Chicago Heights , then Al Capone initiated a "gang war" in 1923 and killed these competitors with murder. Al Capone, alleged to have maintained a personal getaway apartment in town, had a number of his gangsters live in West Hammond so the Syndicate beer trucks were escorted to the drop-off points.
In 1923 the citizens voted to rename their city Calumet City; mainly to escape the stigma attached to the West Hammond name. The name change came into effect in 1924. Nothing fundamental changed in the character of the city's nightlife. The naming was based on the Little Calumet River and the Grand Calumet River. "Calumet" is an originally French-Canadian word for the Indian peace pipe .
Calumet City as a white working-class town with an entertainment district (1924–1974)
In 1930 there were more than a hundred licensed and officially alcohol-free bars in Calumet City ("soft drink parlors"), in which alcohol was regularly sold. There were also many illegal bars and pubs (“ speakeasy ”), the number of which increased every time a number of licensed bars were closed for violating prohibition laws in a campaign. With the end of Prohibition in 1933, the type of bars on the Strip changed, but the control of organized crime did not change. After the sale of beer and spirits was legal again, there were no longer any exorbitant profits to be made through smuggling and distribution controls. The Mafia shifted its activities in Calumet City to striptease , prostitution and illegal gambling .
During the Depression and especially in the economic boom of feverish armament at the beginning of the 1940s, Calumet City remained the “paradise of sins” for workers in the surrounding steelworks, armaments factories and slaughterhouses. In 1941, Life Magazine counted 308 bars and nightclubs in Calumet City in a sensational portrait, which is the highest rate in the United States, with one bar per 46 residents. Anyone who went out in Calumet City “starts at 10 p.m. on State Line Avenue, and then drinks his way west, always zigzagging from club to club, spending 50 cents to $ 1 in each club, staring at half a dozen Striptease girls, and is then ready at 5:00 am, sleepless and broke ”. The photos for the story were taken in December 1940 by Robert Capa , who clearly showed sympathy for the nocturnal hustle and bustle. The rapid change from club to club (“club hopping”) was so common that most of the guests in the photos did not even take off their winter coats.
One of the most famous addresses on the "Strip" was the Owl Club on the corner of Douglas and Plummer Avenues, which was run by Tony Accardo and his partners from Chicago Outfit as an unlicensed casino , complete with specially minted chips . Accardo reported personal income of $ 1.1 million from the Owl Club alone from 1940 to 1955 . While illegal gambling had largely been pushed out of Chicago in the early 1960s , it remained in Cicero and Calumet City, as in these places the law enforcement agencies were "weak, inexperienced and easily corruptible " compared to Chicago . Well-known striptease clubs were the 21 Club , Play House and Show Club . Well-known dancers such as Gypsy Rose Lee or Tura Satana with a certain artistic claim also performed here, which was announced in connection with stage entertainment as " burlesque " or "exotic dancing".
In the 1940s, live music was played in the clubs of Calumet City, where headliners and others performed. a. Louis Armstrong , Dizzy Gillespie , Tommy Dorsey and Eartha Kitt . Primarily jazz and swing were played . Musicians from Chicago sometimes came to Calumet City late in the evening - after their downtown shows had ended - in order to earn a little extra: the striptease clubs played live music until 5 a.m. Sun Ra and Von Freeman played here a lot. Even in the post-war period, Jim Crow laws prohibited blacks from seeing white women naked. Sun Ra therefore had to play behind a curtain with his black band in 1951 in the striptease bars of "Sin City" .
In 1963 Elizabeth E. Tocci opened Club 307 in Calumet City , a bar for lesbian and gay people and the first openly lesbian bar in Chicagoland . Lost & Found on the Northside didn't open until two years later. Before Stonewall (1969) and well into the 1970s, Chicago was not a good place for openly gay and lesbian people. Although Illinois was one of the first states to decriminalize private, same-sex, sexual relationships between adults by mutual consent in 1961, "public lewd behavior" and cross-dressing ("wearing clothing of the opposite sex with the intent to conceal his or her sex ") in Chicago by municipal ordinance made a criminal offense. In 1974, the Chicago Police Department used these ordinances to criminalize public homosexuality. Thousands of gay and lesbian people were arrested in raids ; Women in lesbian bars were considered “cross-dressers” when they wore zippered trousers at the front instead of the side or the back; were arrested and photographed with bared genitals by the police "as evidence". During election campaign times, gay and lesbian bars in Chicago were put under pressure; that was not the case in Calumet City. In 1971 Tocci started The Patch in Calumet City on 155th Street and Wentworth Avenue with a similar concept , which she ran herself as an openly lesbian bar owner until 1998. Elizabeth E. Tocci (1935-2010) was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame six years before her death . In 1972 the newly elected Mayor Stefaniak closed a number of bars on the Strip, including gay bars, as part of his election manifesto. But a few months later, new bars opened in their place. The authors of a guide for gay and lesbian youth summed up the importance of Calumet City for gay and lesbian people in Chicago:
“Calumet City […] remains an oasis of gay bars right behind the city limits. For many years, Chicago mayors closed down morally objectionable institutions in the campaign crusade. Not so in the corrupt little Calumet City; directly behind the city limits. "
In 1972 a student suggested painting a large concrete water tower with a smiley face . In 1973 the tower was painted light yellow, with a smiley face on the water tank facing west and east. After the Chicago Bridge and Iron Company built another water tower, this was also given the smiley face, this time with a bow tie on its "neck" to identify the second water tower as "male". The two water towers were now "Mr. and Ms. Smiley ”and became the city's mascot .
From November 1973 to March 1975 the US was in a recession , triggered by the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the oil crisis . At that time, the working population of Calumet City was predominantly employed in the steel industry, where, as a result of decades of unionization, there was well-paid work for unskilled workers. The main employers for Calumet City were Wisconsin Steel and the South Works of US Steel at the mouth of the Calumet River. The South Works alone employed 20,000 people in the late 1960s. From 1973 onwards, US Steel began to downsize its workforce, which was reduced to 10,000 by 1980.
Section 8 and the Change in Population Composition (1975–1992)
In 1975, a housing benefit law was introduced in Illinois to support people on low incomes, which was primarily intended to benefit the black residents of slums and socially disadvantaged areas. In addition, the law should reduce de facto segregation . The law and grants are usually referred to as “Section 8” for short after the relevant section in the United States Code . Since the 1980s, the core of the program has no longer been the construction of large residential complexes for people with low incomes, but the social mix, which should be achieved through a voucher program. In Chicago, as elsewhere, this had the effect that voucher recipients from socially disadvantaged areas in the city center moved to the surrounding suburbs with low rents and concentrated there again. In Chicago in 1992, 65 percent of all Section 8 voucher recipients lived in just 14 southern suburbs: Blue Island , Calumet City, Chicago Heights , Dolton , Ford Heights , Harvey , Lynwood , Markham , Matteson , Park Forest , Richton Park , Riverdale , Robbins and Sauk Village . Since the majority of voucher recipients and 90 percent of the families who received vouchers were black, the composition of the residents of Calumet City changed.
The steel factory of Wisconsin Steel , which in 1977 marked by the steel crisis of International Harvester sold to Envirodyne, was closed abruptly on March 28, 1980 after end of shift. 3,000 workers lost their well-paid jobs, and strikes did nothing to change that. This symbolic day was followed by similar events that finally made the area part of the Rust Belt . By the mid-1980s, the Chicago Southeast Side steel industry was only a shadow of its former strength. On April 10, 1992, US Steel's South Works were also completely closed after a long decline.
In 1989, Richard M. Daley became mayor of Chicago. Part of his political project was to change the South Side of Chicago and other social hot spots in the city, which were characterized by black ghettos in social housing ("the projects"). As a result of the demolition of housing projects that had fallen into disrepute through the “Plan for Transformation” of the Chicago Housing Authority and through gentrification , parts of the black residential population were displaced from the inner city. Between 2000 and 2009, the black population in Chicago fell by 11 percent. The displaced black population left the metropolitan area of Chicago in part, and otherwise moved primarily to older suburbs of Chicago, which belong to the southern inner ring of suburbs. In addition to Calumet City, this particularly affected Matteson , Lansing , Park Forest and Richton Park . The proportion of the black population in Calumet City rose from 6 percent in 1980 to 54 percent in 2000 and to 71 percent in 2010. At the same time, the average household income fell.
In fact, the objectives of Section 8 were only partially achieved. Admittedly, the quality of life and living in socially disadvantaged suburbs like Calumet City is still better than it ever was in high-rise “ghettos” like the Cabrini-Green, which has since been demolished . However, the redistribution of socially disadvantaged blacks has not led to a mixture, but only continued segregation in a new geographical constellation. Added to this were problems such as an increase in crime, especially drug and gang crime, a declining quality of the school system and a decline in the community's tax base. Together, these problems have resulted in the former Polish, Italian and Irish-born residents largely leaving Calumet City. This self-reinforcing process (" white flight ") made the white population of Calumet City a minority by 2010.
From the end of the "Strip" until today (since 1993)
In 1993 the then 30-year-old Jerry Genova was elected mayor. One of his campaign promises was to "clean up" the red light district around State Street. In 1995, the city declared five blocks of State Street and the parallel Plummer Avenue to Burnham Bridge and four blocks of Stateline Road, which forms the border with Indiana, down to Pulaski Road, to be dilapidated slums. The owners had to sell their land on the "Sin Strip" to the city, the legal basis was the expropriation law of the state of Illinois ("law of eminent domain"), whereby security and order were brought forward as a public benefit. The area already had a number of vacant lots and neglected houses where homeless people sought shelter and drug trafficking. The compensation payments to be made by the city to the owners came from a special-purpose loan of 15 million, which was to be repaid through tax payments from businesses newly settled there and an increase in the value of the property. For this purpose, the area was declared a TIF area (TIF = Tax Increment Financing).
The crime rate in Calumet City in 2008 was 84 crimes per 1,000 people per year. Only homicides reported to the police, sexual crimes with the use of force, serious bodily harm, burglary, robbery, aggravated theft and car theft, and arson counted for these statistics. In 2008, Calumet City's crime rate was the highest of any city or town in the northwest Indiana area and southern Chicago suburbs. However, the city does not hold this “top position” when it comes to pure violent crimes, it is primarily based on property crimes. While the crime rate in Calumet City stagnated or fell slightly since the late 1990s, the nature of violent crime has changed: in the past domestic violence and robbery predominated, today homicides are mainly committed in connection with gangs . This type of violence is more visible and thus contributes to the poor image of Calumet City, Chicago Heights , East Chicago , Gary and Hammond .
Politics and administration
Calumet City is now divided into seven electoral districts ("wards"). The first, fifth and sixth Ward form the border with Indiana in the east of the city from north to south. In the north of the city lie the second and third ward next to the first. The seventh ward is to the south and also contains the city center, while the fourth ward is to the east.
mayor
Before it was converted into a city, the mayors had the title “village president”, then “mayor”. Mayors of the city were u. a .:
- 1893-1907: John Hessler; first mayor after founding West Hammond
- 1907-1909: Jacob Czaszewicz; first mayor of Polish origin
- 1909-1911: John Hessler
- 1912–1914: Konstantine Woczszynski
- 1915–1925: Paul M. Kamradt; Robert Stefaniak's maternal grandfather
- 1925-1935: John W. Jaranowski ( Republicans ); Father-in-law of Stanley E. Bejger.
- 1935–1941: William F. Zick ( Democrats )
- 1941–1945: John W. Jaranowski ( Republicans )
- 1945–1953: Frank L. Kaminski
- 1954-1960: Stanley E. Bejger
- 1961-1972: Joseph W. Nowak; brought the Mall River Oaks to the city in 1966 and tried to push back the red light district with the appointment of Casimir Linkiewicz as police chief. Had to resign from mayor's office because he was convicted of fraud and forgery of documents in 1970 as a lawyer for his client, a savings bank, against the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (now FDIC ).
- 1972-1993: Robert Stefaniak ( Democrats ); did not run again after five terms of office of four years each. In 1988 Robert Stefaniak was accused by Alderman Greg Skubisz of having awarded lucrative contracts from the city to his brother Thomas Stefaniak and to the Democratic state representative Frank Giglio for years.
- 1993-2003: Jerry Genova ( Democrats ); ended the red light district around State Street by forcible sale and demolition, was found guilty of corruption in 2001 and sentenced to five years in prison the following year.
- Since 2003: Michelle Qualkinbush ( Democrats ); after successfully contesting the election of Greg Skubisz in 2003.
Congress and presidential elections
Calumet City belongs to the 2nd Congressional Constituency of Illinois , which is firmly in the hands of the Democratic Party . No Republican Congressman has been elected in this congressional district since 1951 . Since 1995 the district, and thus Calumet City, has been represented in the House of Representatives by Jesse Jackson, Jr. Jackson received a good 97% of the vote in the 2008 congressional election in Calumet City. On the same election date in Calumet City, a good 91% of the votes in the presidential election went to Barack Obama .
Economy and Infrastructure
economy
Calumet City has been a working-class town since it was founded, but at no time did it have any large manufacturing sites. Instead, workers of Polish, German, Italian and Irish descent lived here who worked in the Hammond and Chicago slaughterhouses or in the steel mills on the shores of Lake Michigan. With the industrial decline since the 1980s, this employment decreased. The paid work residents of Calumet City are now employed in retail, hospitality, local government, and healthcare. The city's largest employers are the two department stores Marshall Field and JC Penney , both anchor stores in the River Oaks Mall.
The median income per inhabitant in 2009 was $ 20,339, nearly 30% less than the median income in Illinois.
In 1966, the River Oaks Shopping Center was opened on US Route 6. The investment totaled USD 35 million, and initially there were 80 stores in the mall . In the early 1990s, the mall was renovated, with the inner area being roofed over. Today the River Oaks Center is operated by Simon Property .
traffic
The city is surrounded by major interstate highways: I-94 passes to the west and south, and I-90 to the east .
Calumet City is served by five Pace bus routes, most of which stop at least at the River Oaks Mall. These buses can be used to reach METRA , either the South Shore Line ( Hegewisch station ) or the Main Line ( Harvey station ). The journey time by bus and METRA from Calumet City (River Oaks Drive / Wentworth Avenue) to the METRA terminus Millennium Station is approximately an hour.
Which lie on the northern outskirts of bypass lanes of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad (IHB) and the Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal (now CSX ). The routes are used, among other things, to transport liquid iron to and from the ArcelorMittal ironworks . The Calumet Yard marshalling yard on the IHB route has been closed. In Calumet City, a dispatcher center is operated for the CSX and IHB routes.
The main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad , built in the 1860s and now disused, ran through the urban area in the southwest from the Maynard junction in a northwest direction to Dolton and on to Chicago Union Station . The route of the South Chicago and Southern Railroad (later the Pennsylvania Railroad) , built in the 1880s, ran north from the Bernice junction to the Calumet Park junction . From the area of Calumet Park (Louisville Junction) to the southeast and then to the east, a line of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway , which is now disused, led from the 1900s .
media
Calumet City no longer has its own daily newspaper. The most important local newspaper is the Hammond edition of the Times of Northwest Indiana (formerly Lake County Times ), mostly NWI Times or just "The Times" for short. The two major Chicago daily newspapers, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times , also have editions for the region.
The Calumet City Times was a local paper with shell sides of the Lake County Times . The publisher stopped this local newspaper in 1933 as a result of the Depression . Hammond newspapers dominated the media market in Calumet City and the surrounding areas from the late 19th century to the 1950s, as Hammond was the main mall in the area; Easier to get to by rail than Chicago. Accordingly, the retailers placed their advertising budgets in Hammond and real local newspapers could not economically survive outside of it. This dominance then disappeared through television advertising , increasing motorization and the emergence of malls and national chain stores.
Regional television stations from Chicago, which belong to the major networks such as NBC , ABC and FOX and broadcast their shell programs, can be received via cable . About thirty regional and national radio stations of various genres can be received via FM . In Calumet City itself there are neither television nor radio stations. The NPR network with the stations WBEW from Chesterton and WBEZ from Chicago offers a non-commercial alternative .
education
The urban area is covered by the four elementary school districts Calumet City (SD 155), Dolton (SD 149), Hoover-Schrum Memorial (SD 157) and Lincoln Elementary (SD 156). In these elementary school districts, six state primary schools and four state middle schools are responsible for city residents . Two state high schools are responsible for Calumet City . The Thornton Fractional North High School is located in Calumet City itself, while the Thornwood High School in neighboring South Holland is located. The catchment areas of the two high schools are separated from each other by Torrence Avenue: east of it to the state border is Thornton Fractional North, west of it is Thornwood High. Thornton Fractional North was founded in 1926 and has over 1,700 students in four grades. Student performance in reading and mathematics in the Thornton Fractional school district's state schools in 2009 was well below the minimum requirements. In 2007, two students from Thornton Fractional North High School were shot dead by gang members outside of the school premises within a week.
A family's address clearly determines which elementary school, middle school, and high school the children go to; there is no option within the public school sector. In addition to state schools, there are private schools up to high school graduation, some of which can be chosen regardless of where you live, but cost a considerable amount of tuition. In Calumet City itself there are two Catholic private schools that lead up to junior high (8th grade). Private high schools are only found in neighboring cities with higher average incomes. 84% of city dwellers 25 and older had graduated from high school in 2009, just about the Illinois average.
The only college in the city is one of 17 nationwide branches of Westwood College , a for-profit private college . This only offers vocational qualifications. In 2012, Westwood College was sued by the Illinois State Attorney General for fraud. The college offers a course in "Criminal Justice" and is marketing it as a course for obtaining employment with the police. However, since Westwood College is not accredited by the Illinois State Police , students after obtaining their diploma would have little to show apart from Tuition debts of tens of thousands of dollars. In 2009, 15% of city residents had a bachelor's degree or higher, nearly half the proportion of Illinois residents who graduated from college in the same year.
Personalities who have worked on site
- Virginia Brooks (1886–1929), suffragette and author
- James V. Buckley (1894–1954), politician
- DJ Rashad (1979–2014), DJ, musician and music producer
literature
- Joseph C. Bigott: From cottage to bungalow: houses and the working class in metropolitan Chicago, 1869–1929 . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2001, ISBN 0-226-04875-6 . (Based on Bigott's dissertation entitled "With Security and Comfort for All": Working-Class Home Ownership and Democratic Ideals in the Calumet Region, 1869–1929 (University of Delaware 1993), which deals in more detail with Hammond and Calumet City .)
- Robert D. Lewis: Chicago made: factory networks in the industrial metropolis . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2008, ISBN 0-226-47701-0 .
- Cynthia L. Ogorek: Along the Calumet River . Arcadia Publishing, Charleston SC 2004, ISBN 0-7385-3344-0 . (Ogorek is a regional historian of the Calumet region)
- Kenneth J. Schoon: Calumet beginnings: ancient shorelines and settlements at the south end of Lake Michigan . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2003, ISBN 0-253-34218-X .
Web links
- Official website of Calumet City
- Entry on Calumet City, IL in the Chicago Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Chicago
- Sin Strip of Calumet City on the NWI Times website - Stories, Photos, and Videos about the Red Light District
- Statistics on Calumet City on city-data.org
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Census Quick Facts ( Memento of the original from January 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. for Calumet City.
- ↑ Rod Sellers: Calumet River Highlights ( Memento of the original from June 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 2.6 MB) , Southeast Historical Society, October 2004.
- ↑ The Forest Preserve District of Cook County ( Memento of the original from May 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 6.2 MB), Region 9 Map.
- ^ Geology of the Upper Illinois River Basin, June 25, 2002 , accessed April 11, 2012
- ^ Illinois State Geological Survey: Pleistocene glaciations in Illinois, 1973, Edu. Extens. Publ., 10 p., (Revised 1988)
- ^ Upper Illinois River Basin Water Management, June 25, 2002 , accessed April 11, 2012
- ↑ a b Average climate in Calumet City, Illinois on city-data.com
- ↑ CLR Search ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. : Weather-Forecast-Temperature-Precipitation.
- ↑ a b c d e Kenneth J. Schoon: Calumet beginnings: ancient shorelines and settlements at the south end of Lake Michigan . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2003, ISBN 0-253-34218-X , pp. 113-115 .
- ^ Cynthia L. Ogorek: Along the Calumet River , Arcadia Publishing, Charleston SC 2004, ISBN 0-7385-3344-0 , p. 23.
- ^ A b Ann Durkin Keating: Chicagoland: city and suburbs in the railroad age . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2005, ISBN 0-226-42879-6 , p. 193.
- ↑ Pam Jiranek: 100 years ago, there was no Calumet City . In: NWI.com of June 30, 1992.
- ^ Joseph C. Bigott: From cottage to bungalow . Chicago 2001, pp. 151-157 .
- ^ History of Saint Andrew the Apostle Parish on the parish website. (Accessed January 16, 2011)
- ^ A b Ralph D. Gray: Indiana history: a book of readings . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1994, ISBN 0-253-32629-X , pp. 203-204 .
- ↑ GH Hammond Meat Packing on the Hammond High School Class of 59 website. (Retrieved January 18, 2012.)
- ↑ Calumet City History ( Memento June 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) from the city's website. (Retrieved January 18, 2012.)
- ↑ a b c d e Ann Durkin Keating: Chicago neighborhoods and suburbs: a historical guide . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2008, ISBN 978-0-226-42883-3 , pp. 120-121 .
- ^ A b Joseph C. Bigott: From cottage to bungalow . Chicago 2001, pp. 169-171 .
- ^ A b Joseph C. Bigott: From cottage to bungalow: houses and the working class in metropolitan Chicago, 1869-1929 . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2001, ISBN 0-226-04875-6 , pp. 202-203 .
- ↑ Calumet City draws name from bordering rivers . In: Chicago Tribune, February 6, 2009.
- ^ Edward Callary: Place names of Illinois . University of Illinois Press, Chicago 2009, ISBN 978-0-252-03356-8 , p. 55 .
- ^ Life Spends Saturday Night in Calumet City . In: Life January 20, 1941, pp. 74-77 .
- ^ Richard Whelan: Robert Capa: A Biography . University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 1994, ISBN 0-8032-9760-2 , pp. 172-173 .
- ^ A b Virgil W. Peterson: Chicago: Shades of Capone . In: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science . Vol. 347 (May 1963), pp. 30-39, JSTOR 1036550 .
- ↑ John J. Binder: A Batch of Illegal Chips from Cicero ( Memento of the original from July 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Casino Chip and Token News (Spring 2007), p. 84. (The chips of the Owl Club were stamped with OC.)
- ^ Earl Johnson, Jr .: Organized Crime: Challenge to the American Legal System. Part I: Organized Crime: The Nature of Its Threat, the Reasons for Its Survival . In: The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science . Vol. 53, No. 4 (December 1962), pp. 399-425, JSTOR 1140572 .
- ^ Cooch and Crime in Calumet City . In: Vintage Sleaze , website by Jim Linderman. (Accessed April 2012.)
- ↑ Lauri Harvey Keagle: Remembering Sin Strip . In: NWI Times , History of the Sin Strip.
- ↑ Dave Hoekstra: Sun Ra's Calumet City ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 27 kB) In: Chicago Sun-Times of August 30, 1987.
- ↑ John Corbett: Extended Play: Sounding Off from John Cage to Dr. Spark stone . Duke University Press, Durham 1994, ISBN 0-8223-1473-8 , p. 218.
- ^ A b c Anne Enke: Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism . Duke University Press, Durham 2007, ISBN 0822340836 , pp. 50-51. (Along with related footnotes 79–82, p. 284 ).
- ^ Gays and Lesbians in the Encyclopedia of Chicago (Retrieved April 2012.)
- ↑ Section 192-4, Municipal Code of the City of Chicago (1964)
- ↑ Cf. City of Chicago v. Wilson , Illinois Appellate Court, First District (4th Decision), judgment of December 1, 1976.
- ^ The Patch . In: Lost Womyns Place, October 24, 2011. ( Accessed April 2012.)
- ↑ Elizabeth E. Tocci: Inducted 1994, Now Deceased ( Memento of the original from April 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame (Retrieved April 2012.)
- ^ Gilbert H. Herdt, Andrew Boxer, Children of Horizons: How gay and lesbian teens are leading a new way out of the closet . Beacon Press, Boston 1993, ISBN 0807079286 , p. 38. (“Calumet City […] continues to offer an island of gay bars just outside the city. Over many years the crusading mayors in Chicago have often shut down establishments of vice, but through it all corrupt little Cal City, just over the border, always remained. ")
- ^ Calumet City Water Department: The History of the "Smiley" Water Towers ( memento June 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) from the city's website. (Retrieved January 16, 2012.)
- ↑ Section 8 of the Housing Act of 1937 (42 USC , § 1437f. )
- ↑ Janita Poe: Rent Aid Isn't Breaking Segregation In Suburbs . In: Chicago Tribune, September 9, 1992.
- ↑ Terry Brown: The closing of Wisconsin Steel: March 28, 1980 . In: Chicago Tribune , 2012.
- ^ Jacob Kaplan: South Works . In: Forgotten Chicago. (Accessed April 2012.)
- ↑ Dan Mihalopoulos: Face of City Has Changed Dramatically, Census Estimates Show ( Memento of the original from January 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Chicago News of January 1, 2011.
- ^ Aaron M. Renn: Chicago Takes a Census Shellacking . In: new geography of February 16, 2011.
- ↑ a b Bernadette Hanlon: The decline of older, inner suburbs: A new reality in the US University of Maryland, Baltimore County 2007, pp. 169-170.
- ↑ Hanna Rosin : American Murder Mystery . In: Atlantic Magazine July / August 2008.
- ↑ Lauri Harvey Keagle: Making way for change . In: NWI Times , History of the Sin Strip.
- ^ Marisa Kwiatkowski: Local police "hold the line" . In: NWI Times, September 12, 2010.
- ^ Map of the Wards ( memento of November 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) from the city website. (Retrieved January 15, 2012.)
- ↑ Kym Liebler: Calumet City Centennial: First Families of Cal City . In: NWI Times, June 29, 1993.
- ↑ a b c Ex Mayor of Cal City dies . In: Hammond Times, Jan. 11, 1960, p. 1.
- ↑ Mayors of Calumet City, Illinois . In: The Political Graveyard: A Database of American History . (Accessed April 2012)
- ↑ Kenan Heise: Ex-calumet City Mayor Joseph Nowak . In: Chicago Tribune, August 8, 1995. (Obituary for Joseph W. Nowak)
- ↑ The People ex Rel. Adolph S. Taborski (petitioner) vs. The Illinois Appellate Court, First District (Respondents). Judgment of the court of appeal of January 28, 1972 ( summary of the judgment )
- ↑ Kym Liebler: Stefaniak bows out in April . In: NWI Times, December 11, 1992.
- ^ Rob Karwath: Contracts Are Cozy In Calumet City . In: NWI Times, February 1, 1988.
- ^ Matt O'Connor: Cal City's mayor found guilty of corruption . In: Chicago Tribune, August 28, 2001.
- ↑ Kenan Heise: Ex-Cal City chief gets prison term . In: Chicago Tribune, March 14, 2002.
- ↑ Manya Brachear, Stanley Ziemba: Calumet City gets new mayor . In: Chicago Tribune, September 3, 2003.
- ↑ Cook County Clerk's Office: Suburban Cook County Election Results, Nov. 04, 2008 Presidential General Election : Calumet.
- ↑ Find lines in Calumet City on the Pace website.
- ↑ Pace line 355 ( Memento of the original from July 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 143 kB) with coordinated timetable, Hegewisch change.
- ^ JD Santucci: Hot iron on cold steel . In: Trains , Kalmbach Publishing. February 2008, ISSN 0041-0934 , pp. 52-55.
- ↑ Michael W. Blaszak: Chicago: City of change . In: Trains , Kalmbach Publishing. July 2003, ISSN 0041-0934 , pp. 40-55.
- ^ Mike Walker: SPV's Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America: Great Lakes West . SPV, Upper Harbledown 2005, ISBN 1874745056 , p. 12.
- ↑ About The Times of Northwest Indiana on the NWI Times website. (Accessed April 2012.)
- ^ Powell A. Moore: The Newspaper Press of the Calumet Region, 1836-1933 . In: Indiana Magazine of History . Vol. 52, No. 2 (June 1956), pp. 111-140, JSTOR , 27788347 .
- ^ Radio Locator for Calumet City, IL (Retrieved January 19, 2012.)
- ↑ Thornton Fractional Twp HSD 215 (PDF; 167 kB), Calumet City, IL. School Report Card.
- ↑ Emma Graves Fitzsimmons: Calumet City man charged in slaying of popular Thornton North student . In: Chicago Tribune, December 28, 2007.
- ↑ Sophia Tareen: Illinois AG files lawsuit against for-profit college ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: NWI Times (via AP) January 18, 2012.
- ^ Website of Cynthia L. Ogorek
