Neighborhood Fractured by New Stadium

By: Curtis LawrenceOn April 18, swarms of Chicago White Sox fans, most from the suburbs, will flock to a new $120 million stadium they hope will symbolize new life for the team and a 1991 championship.
But the black low-income residents of the Wentworth Gardens housing development and a senior citizens building in the area said the new stadium symbolizes the death of their community

While homeowners who once lived on the site of the new ballpark were either relocated or given the fair market value for their property, residents who stayed said they are bitter because they have been forced to live in the ruins of a once-vibrant neighborhood.

"I feel like every time I walk up this way I get sick," said Marcella Carter, after walking north toward the new stadium from her home in Wentworth Gardens, a 422-unit, low-rise development located on the 3700 to 3900 blocks of South Princeton Ave. Carter is president of the South Armour Square Neighborhood Coalition, which has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Chicago, the Illinois Sports Facility Authority (ISFA) and others charging that the site selection for the ballpark was racially motivated.

When the 77 homes and apartment buildings and 17 businesses were bulldozed to make way for the new stadium, the sense of community also was destroyed, Carter said.

Residents of the T.E. Brown Apartments for the Elderly, an 11-story building at 3600 S. Wentworth Ave., will be affected most by the new stadium. A new exploding scoreboard will sit only a few hundred feet from their windows.

"I'm disappointed with the stadium being so close," said Milirage Humes, 69, a widow who has lived in T.E. Brown for three years.

Both Humes and Carter are active members of the coalition's class action lawsuit, which charges that the South Armour Square neighborhood, bounded by 35th and 39th streets and Wentworth and Princeton avenues, was targeted for the new ball park because its residents were black and poor and perceived as unlikely to mount a strong challenge.

The coalition cites a draft document prepared by the city's Department of Economic Development in the early stages of planning for the ball park. The document lists positive aspects of locating the ball park in the southern section of the community as opposed to the north side of the neighborhood which is predominantly white.

One of the arguments for moving the ballpark to South Armour was that there was "no political support evidenced for black residents in (the) 11th Ward." Another said South Armour was a "community isolated from all possible support organizations."

Carter said that though the new stadium is a reality, she won't quietly accept the devastation of her neighborhood. Her group wants the ISFA to replace small stores like Wells Food and Liquors, which was formerly at 36th Street and Wells Avenue. Stores like Wells are important to neighborhoods like South Armour with large senior populations, Carter said.

Back in 1988, Carter and other coalition members thought they still had a chance to save their neighborhood. Initially, the coalition consisted of South Armour home owners, residents of Wentworth Gardens, and some Bridgeport residents who also feared that area development would eventually force them to move.

But the coalition splintered when some homeowners decided to accept new homes built for them on the 3300 blocks of south Prairie, Indiana and Michigan avenues, in the Gap, a gentrifying area just to the east. Others decided to take the fair market value for their homes and relocate on their own.

Carter and others are still bitter toward the homeowners "because they split the coalition and they lied."

"The sports authority was very clever," said James Chapman, the attorney who now represents the coalition free of charge. "They were able to find out where the weaknesses were and how to buy out the leadership." The ISFA refused to comment on the charges.

The lawsuit claimed that the original coalition's leadership, who were all homeowners, signed a relocation agreement without the approval of the coalition's board of directors. The agreement, according to the lawsuit, waived all claims the coalition could bring against the ISFA.

George Marshall, the coalition's former president, and Susie Myers, the former vice-president opted to move to the Gap. They claim that they had the consent of the majority of the coalition members when they signed a resettlement agreement with the ISFA.

"We thought for the residents of the projects as well as for ourselves," said Myers, 60, who bought her South Armour Square home in 1946.

But even Myers said that although she is happy in her new home, she is not a fan of the new ballpark. "They went and put a ball park in a place I had purchased to live in for the rest of my life."

Remaining members of the coalition also charge they were betrayed by their former attorney, Mary Milano.

"The coalition's lawyer and the negotiating committee sold out the rest of (the members) contrary to the wishes of the board of directors," Chapman said.

Chapman said that after the coalition hired Milano to represent it, she abandoned the group to work for the newly formed South Armour Square Development Corp. which represented homeowners seeking to be relocated.

Baker and McKenzie, Milano's law firm, received more than $200,000 in legal fees from the development corporation over a year beginning in September, 1989. Marshall said the ISFA gave the development corporation a grant of approximately $350,000 to pay legal fees and other expenses.

A Baker and McKenzie spokesman refused to comment; Milano did not return telephone calls requesting comment.

Regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit, the White Sox have scheduled a gala opening day that will feature a downtown rally and jets whizzing above the ballpark. Sports celebrities and politicians will be on hand to participate in the hoopla.

Although Carter won't be at the game, she undoubtedly will be keeping her own scorecard. It will probably read White Sox--everything, residents of Wentworth Gardens and T.E Brown— nothing.