art-pilsen

art-pilsen is a comprehensive guide to events happening in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood which borders Cermak Ave. (2200 S.) to 16th ST and Canal St. (500 W.) to Western Ave. (2400 W.). For more than 150 years, the Pilsen neighborhood has been a port of entry for immigrants from the mid 1850s Bohemian (Czech) influx to the early 1950s Mexican beginings. Currently the area attracts a lot of working creative artists in part due to it's affordable rent. But for how long?

from the Chicago Historical Society:

" Long used as a water passage for Native Americans traveling between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, the Pilsen area continued to be of vital importance after European settlement, becoming an economic and cultural crossroads. As a port of entry for recent immigrants, the Pilsen area has welcomed countless immigrants to begin a new life in America. In the 19th century, workers arrived to build the Southwestern Plank Road; the Illinois and Michigan Canal; and the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad. Many stayed to live in the neighborhood.

By the late 19th century, rapid industrialization and urbanization had transformed the largely Czech and German working-class neighborhood into a national center of labor activism. Poles, Croatians, Lithuanians, Italians, and members of other ethnic groups settled in the area, and all have left their imprint. Now one of the largest Mexican communities in the United States, Pilsen/Little Village and its residents have, for more than three decades, engaged in a struggle for political representation, educational reform, social justice, and workers' rights."