Halsted Street - A Portrait of Chicago

Chicago - Southside to Northside

I look at the city by looking at one of it's longer streets.  The photographs of Halsted Street paint a picture of poverty, decay, worship, blight, abandonment, destruction, gentrification,
renewal and hope.

In Chicago's grid system, Halsted street marks 800 West, one mile (1.6 km) west of State Street, from Grace Street (3800 N) in Lakeview south to the city limits at the Little Calumet River (13000 S) in West Pullman. (From Grace north to Lawrence Avenue (4800 N) in Uptown, 800 W is marked by Clarendon Avenue.)

North Side

In Lakeview, Halsted is lined with gay bars and clubs as one enters Boystown, Chicago's main gay and lesbian community and one of the city's busiest shopping districts. As it continues south past Belmont (3200 N), it goes past DePaul University and through the Lincoln Park area.
Near North

The sole remaining building of the Cabrini–Green housing project is at Halsted and Division (1200 N) in the Near North Side neighborhood. Halsted Street has two bridges to mark its passage over Goose Island; it is one of only two streets to completely traverse this, the Chicago River's only island.

Near West

Continuing south, Halsted soars high above feeder ramps to the Kennedy Expressway, Union Pacific Railroad and Canadian National Railway and finally the Kennedy Expressway itself to enter the West Loop. One then passes through Chicago's Greektown at Jackson Blvd (300 S). South of a high bridge over the Eisenhower Expressway, Halsted forms the eastern border of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The Jane Addams Hull House, America's first settlement house, was located at Polk (800 S) and Halsted. The "Hull House Neighborhood," which was served by the Jane Addams' settlement house, consisted of recently arrived immigrants at the turn of the 20th century.

The Legendary Taylor Street (1000 S)...the port-of-call for Chicago's Italian American immigrants.Taylor Street Archives, became known as Chicago's Little Italy. Italians were the only ethnic group that remained after the exodus of Jews, Greeks, Irish, etc. that began shortly before the Great Depression of the 1930s. Greektown and Maxwell Street (Jewtown) business establishments continue to exist as remnants of the mass emigration of Southern Europeans...terminated by an act of congress in 1924.

South of a half-kilometer-long underpass allowing Halsted to cross the BNSF Railway tracks at 16th street, parallel to the Dan Ryan Expressway, Halsted grazes the eastern edge of the Pilsen neighborhood, then bridges across the Chicago River's south branch.

South Side

Here Halsted Street enters Bridgeport. Traditionally working-class Irish and Italian community, its been home to five mayors, including current mayor, Richard M. Daley. Continuing south, Halsted passes along the borders of the Canaryville neighborhood between 40th and 49th Streets, which historically housed many Union Stock Yards workers. The Stockyards themselves were located to the west of Halsted between Pershing (39th) and 47th. Further south, Halsted Street passes into Englewood. Kennedy-King College has it campus in the heart of Englewood at 63rd Street and Halsted Street. Further south, Halsted intersects with 71st Street, which was honorarily named for Emmett Till, a martyr in the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968). Just south of 95th Street is the Carter G. Woodson regional branch of the Chicago Public Library. It continues south towards the city limits at the Little Calumet River near 129th St, where it then continues into the south suburbs. Illinois Route 1 begins at Halsted Street's interchange with Interstate 57 (at 99th Street) on the far south side, and follows Halsted through much of its length through the suburbs. In the city of Chicago Heights, Route 1 breaks off and is called Chicago Road, then Dixie Highway, ending at the Ohio River, at the border with the state of Kentucky. Halsted Street continues through downtown Chicago Heights, where it ends.


Professional wrestlers One Man Gang and Colt Cabana have been billed from Halsted Street, as well as Ace Steel and CM Punk.

The street derives it name from the Grandfather of William Stewart Halsted, the illustrious Johns-Hopkins surgical innovator.

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coffeeshop racism

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