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Chicago’s Argyle Street sits in Uptown, a North Side neighborhood shaped by successive waves of immigration, economic change, and activism. Over the last century, Argyle has evolved into a multicultural corridor.
Today, economic and social factors like gentrification and rising costs are presenting the community with challenges—while also driving new efforts to sustain and grow the corridor.
Shifting demographics and early economic troubles
Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood has been one of constant evolution. In the early 20th century, transit rail expansion turned it into a commercial destination. Restaurants and theaters lined the streets; Argyle was even home to Essanay Studios, which distributed several Charlie Chaplin films.
Living conditions in Uptown deteriorated during the nearly three decades following WWII.
Discriminatory housing practices like redlining created a mass migration of affluent white residents to Chicago’s suburbs. Policies like the Blighted Areas Redevelopment Act and the U.S. Housing Act of 1949 contributed to declining housing values, leaving owners limited resources to maintain properties.
The same acts placed blame on low income urban populations for areas’ poor conditions, allowing landlords to neglect housing units and evict tenants with impunity.
Forced relocation pushed Native Americans from Midwest reservations to Chicago with many settling in Uptown. During this period, harsh economic conditions brought Appalachian migrants to Chicago following the Great Depression.
Social activism proliferated in Uptown as diverse groups settled there, drawn in by inexpensive housing. In 1966, JOIN (Jobs or Income Now), an activism group that challenged racist welfare practices, set up an office in the heart of Uptown. Led by Black and Appalachian women, JOIN advocated for the use of tenant strikes and protest marches challenging police brutality.
In the early 1970s Jimmy Wong, a restaurateur and president of the Hip Sing Association, a Chinese “tong” or cultural association, planned to create a “new Chinatown” on Argyle. The association moved its offices and bought 80% of the street, bringing an influx of Chinese residents. That decade also saw an influx of Southeast Asian immigrants from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.
Asia on Argyle, a neighborhood revitalized
In 1979 a businessman named Charlie Soo came to Argyle, determined to bring a renaissance to the community. He founded the Asian American Small Business Association and rallied for the city to invest in redevelopment.
Previously sitting at 40 percent vacancy, Asian businesses filled the street – there wasn’t an empty storefront by the early 1990s. Events like the Argyle Street Fest and the Chinatown Summer Fair brought tens of thousands of people to the vibrant commercial corridor, which raked in upwards of $70 million in business annually. In a 1993 Chicago Tribune feature on Argyle’s distinctive culinary scene, it was declared a “street of dreams.”
Men working on Argyle in 1986, during the areas’ heyday. (University of Milwaukee Wisconsin, Digital Collections)
Continued change and the future of Argyle Street
In recent decades, Argyle’s bustling streets have quieted again. “In the early 2000s there were a lot of changes that occurred in the neighborhood,” said Hạc Trần, co-founder of cultural nonprofit and cafe on Argyle HAIBAYÔ. “A lot of Vietnamese people left.”
The street became known as “Asia on Argyle,” a moniker that has been criticized by some residents for homogenizing the distinct cultures represented in the area. An L stop renovation in 2013 was heavily criticized, in part, for using that branding. (Paul R. Burley/Wikimedia Commons)
“We don’t have the community, there’s no more community,” said May Dang, who owns an acupuncture, herb and gift shop called Xin He Tang off the Argyle Red Line stop. A refugee of the Vietnam War, Dang has lived in the area since the 1980s. She listed about 10 businesses that have remained on the street in that time, but has seen many others boarded up.
Joe Trinh also came to Argyle as a Vietnam war refugee. He runs Viet Hoa grocery, which his parents first opened when they arrived in the U.S. in the 1980s. He says that rent costs and property taxes have been a major issue for businesses on Argyle, pointing to a liquor store across the street that recently had to move due to rent increases.
Trần says that generational divides have also seen many of his fellow second-generation immigrants leave the area.
He and his business partner Jennifer Pham hope to buck that trend. He pointed to several newer businesses like his that have opened in recent years. “We hope that inspires other young entrepreneurs to potentially come and reinvest in the neighborhood.”
Still, keeping Asian businesses on Argyle has been a challenge, one that Trần says is familiar across many communities of color in Chicago that face gentrification.
Despite these economic pressures, Trần believes Argyle’s cultural history is too important to lose. “I think America tends to preserve dominant histories,” he said. “It’s about claiming stake in your identity, your home, your existence on a broader level.”
