I was born on the West Side and so were the two generations before me.

Up until the mid '50s, the West Side of Chicago as the second largest concentration of Jews in the U.S. However, it was also very diverse, but white diverse, Germans, Polish, italians, etc. In the mid '50s, what was known as the "color line" crept closer and encroached ever so uncomfortably for most. There was a white plight to the suburbs, where WWII vets exercised their GI loan rights and bought homes in pursuit of a better life for their families. They were for the most part, entirely succesful.

Over the next decade or so, the West Side continued to decay, and a good chunk of it was burned out during the race riots following the April 1968 assasination of Martin Luther King. For the next 30+ years, it became very notorious as a ghetto and for crime.

But the fabulous grey stones and boulevard parks are winning out albeit by gentrification. The west side is making a comeback due to it's always great proximaty to the downtown Loop. People though are being displaced as the yuppification process evolves. Oh well. Too bad. My family was displaced also. That's life in the big city. Thanks for asking Little Hawk.