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Maxwell Street: Survival in a Bazaar
Hardcover, DJ with edge wear ans a tear near spine, owner name in front cover, pages good
532 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
1 person is currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Ira Berkow
41 books8 followersIra Berkow was a sports columnist and feature writer for THE NEW YORK TIMES for more than 25 years. He won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting and was a finalist for the Pulitzer for commentary. He is the author of numerous books, including THE CORPORAL WAS A PITCHER, ROCKIN' STEADY, and SUMMERS IN THE BRONX, the bestsellers MAXWELL STREET: SURVIVAL IN A BAZAAR and RED: A BIOGRAPHY OF RED SMITH, as well as two memoirs, FULL SWING and TO THE HOOP. He was the coauthor and editor of HANK GREENBERG: THE STORY OF MY LIFE, which was a primary source for the award-winning documentary The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg. He lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 9, 2020
The allure of Maxwell Street in Chicago was always, for me, its vibrant atmosphere and reputation as a market where you could get almost anything, as long as you didn't ask about its provenance, complain about its condition, or pay the asking price. I never thought about the street's history or how it came to be the place I encountered in the 60's and 70's. After reading Ira Berkow's "Maxwell Street: Survival in a Bazaar," I wish I had known more years ago. By the time I experienced the street, it was already a shadow of its former self, still lively, but only on weekends, smaller, and in decline. Today, a New Maxwell Street Market is a shopping bazaar and street music venue, more family-oriented, that gets mixed reviews, but whose history begins years after this book was completed (and it's been closed due to Covid-19 restrictions).
The book was published in 1977, and the last two chapters, "Demolition" and "Dusk," recount the decline of the street as it suffered through the construction of the Dan Ryan expressway, the University of Illinois Chicago Circle campus, stores closing, crime increasing, and becoming a place of nostalgia for what it used to be - "a neighborhood that was the melting pot of melting pots. Italians, Greeks, Swedes, Gypsies, Mexicans, Jews, and Blacks worked and lived side by side." (515)
While Berkow does provide a chronological history of the street, most of the book focuses on Maxwell Street during its heyday - from the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 through the 1950's, when the threats of its demise started to become serious and imminent. What I enjoyed most was that the history is told primarily through the lives of the people who lived there. Most of the people whose stories are told were still alive at the time of the book's writing, and the first-hand accounts of immigration and becoming established are what make the book so fascinating.
The biographies are arranged chronologically, beginning with the Russian Jewish immigrant Jack Greenberg, who tells about the pogrom in his village that killed 5,000 people in 1918, and finally leaving Russia in 1924. The biographies end with Mario Dovalina, who crossed the Rio Grande at age 24 in 1947 and became the owner of a taqueria on Halsted, just south of Maxwell Street. It is not necessary to read these people's stories in sequence, however. Look through the table of contents and find a name that interests you. There are many well-known people who trace their roots to Maxwell Street - the actor Paul Muni; Admiral Hyman Rickover; Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg; or Dr. Beatrice Tucker, the first woman resident at the University of Chicago Hospital. There are those whose names suggest a lot about them - scam artist Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, blues guitarist Theodore Roosevelt "Hound Dog" Taylor, or detective Michael "Meathead" O'Connor. And there are people who, not famous or notorious, made up the fabric of life on Maxwell Street - Bertha Epstein, wife of a milkman; King Levinsky, boxer and tie hustler; or Shirley Walker, a prostitute known as "the princess whore of Maxwell Street."
My favorite is the story of Benjamin David Goodman, whose parents had emigrated from Russia in the 1890's and moved to the Maxwell Street area in 1902. Born there in 1909, Benny Goodman would become the King of Swing, starting his musical career in the Hull House band in 1919 and starting his own band in 1934. The first white bandleader to integrate black musicians into his ensemble, he became by 1938 a national phenomenon, with bandmembers such as Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton, Harry James, and Lester Young, who would all go on to form their own bands. In 1962, Goodman's life came full circle when he returned to the Russia (now the USSR) that his parents had left and played to a roaring crowd. He later got into an extended conversation about art and music with Premier Nikita Krushchev. I grew up listening to my parents' big band LP's in the 50's and 60's (I had to go to a friend's house to listen to rock until I finally got my own transistor radio), but was completely unfamiliar with Goodman's life story. Now, thanks to Ira Berkow and "Maxwell Street," I want to read Goodman's complete biography.
The book was published in 1977, and the last two chapters, "Demolition" and "Dusk," recount the decline of the street as it suffered through the construction of the Dan Ryan expressway, the University of Illinois Chicago Circle campus, stores closing, crime increasing, and becoming a place of nostalgia for what it used to be - "a neighborhood that was the melting pot of melting pots. Italians, Greeks, Swedes, Gypsies, Mexicans, Jews, and Blacks worked and lived side by side." (515)
While Berkow does provide a chronological history of the street, most of the book focuses on Maxwell Street during its heyday - from the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 through the 1950's, when the threats of its demise started to become serious and imminent. What I enjoyed most was that the history is told primarily through the lives of the people who lived there. Most of the people whose stories are told were still alive at the time of the book's writing, and the first-hand accounts of immigration and becoming established are what make the book so fascinating.
The biographies are arranged chronologically, beginning with the Russian Jewish immigrant Jack Greenberg, who tells about the pogrom in his village that killed 5,000 people in 1918, and finally leaving Russia in 1924. The biographies end with Mario Dovalina, who crossed the Rio Grande at age 24 in 1947 and became the owner of a taqueria on Halsted, just south of Maxwell Street. It is not necessary to read these people's stories in sequence, however. Look through the table of contents and find a name that interests you. There are many well-known people who trace their roots to Maxwell Street - the actor Paul Muni; Admiral Hyman Rickover; Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg; or Dr. Beatrice Tucker, the first woman resident at the University of Chicago Hospital. There are those whose names suggest a lot about them - scam artist Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, blues guitarist Theodore Roosevelt "Hound Dog" Taylor, or detective Michael "Meathead" O'Connor. And there are people who, not famous or notorious, made up the fabric of life on Maxwell Street - Bertha Epstein, wife of a milkman; King Levinsky, boxer and tie hustler; or Shirley Walker, a prostitute known as "the princess whore of Maxwell Street."
My favorite is the story of Benjamin David Goodman, whose parents had emigrated from Russia in the 1890's and moved to the Maxwell Street area in 1902. Born there in 1909, Benny Goodman would become the King of Swing, starting his musical career in the Hull House band in 1919 and starting his own band in 1934. The first white bandleader to integrate black musicians into his ensemble, he became by 1938 a national phenomenon, with bandmembers such as Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton, Harry James, and Lester Young, who would all go on to form their own bands. In 1962, Goodman's life came full circle when he returned to the Russia (now the USSR) that his parents had left and played to a roaring crowd. He later got into an extended conversation about art and music with Premier Nikita Krushchev. I grew up listening to my parents' big band LP's in the 50's and 60's (I had to go to a friend's house to listen to rock until I finally got my own transistor radio), but was completely unfamiliar with Goodman's life story. Now, thanks to Ira Berkow and "Maxwell Street," I want to read Goodman's complete biography.
July 27, 2022
Fantastic interviews from a variety of people who were born in the Maxwell Street area, grew up there, or moved there.
August 29, 2022
So many amazing stories of the varied people who lived and worked on Maxwell Street. An essential read for any Chicagoan, and anyone interested in Jewish history in America.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews