Englewood

Nick's ears, to their fond gaze, presented an honest red surface protruding from either side of his head.

His feet, in tan laced shoes, were ordinary feet, a little more than ordinarily expert, perhaps, in the convolutions of the dance at Englewood Masonic Hall, which is part of Chicago's vast South Side.

No, a fawn to Miss Bowers, Miss Olsen, Miss Ahern, and just Gertie was one of those things in the Lincoln Park Zoo.

Perhaps sometimes they realized, vaguely, that Nick was different.

"Tennis.

Tim taught me." "Who's Tim?" "The--a chauffeur." Nick leaned closer.

"Say, do you ever go to the dances at Englewood Masonic Hall?" "I never have." "You like to go sometime?" "I love it." She grinned up at him, her teeth flashing white in her brown face.

"It's swell here," he said dreamily.

The neighborhood had earned that name honestly.

Multiple rail lines converged near the intersection of 63rd Street, and the district that grew up around those crossings, later renamed Englewood after a town in New Jersey, had become in the years following of the fire a magnet for families displaced from the burned northern wards, drawn south by cheap land and the promise of a rail connection into the city center.

By 1886, it was a modest, striving, entirely respectable place, three years shy of formal annexation into Chicago proper, its streets lined with the kind of small brick storefronts and wood-frame houses that spoke of a population still building its middle class one mortgage at a time.

It was, in other words, exactly the sort of place where a personable young doctor with a pharmacist's license could arrive as a stranger and be welcomed as a professional man rather than questioned as an unknown one.

Glass-fronted cabinets holding rows of labeled bottles, a marble-topped counter worn smooth by two decades of coins and prescriptions sliding across it.

A neighborhood drugstore of that period functioned as something closer to a clinic than a shop.

In a working-class district like Englewood, few families could afford a physician's house call for every minor complaint, and the man behind the counter, particularly a man who could style himself doctor, became by default the closest thing to medical authority most of his customers ever consulted.

It was, for someone with Holmes' particular combination of training and charm, an almost perfectly designed stage.

Chief Keef has stayed away from O Block ever since he became famous, though, for fear that his life would be in danger by rival gangs if he were to return.

And then there's Lil Durk, who is technically from nearby Englewood, Illinois, but is heavily associated with O Block.

In 2021, Lil Durk publicly said that he wanted to buy Parkway Gardens when a rumor came out that the neighborhood was up for sale.

Lil Durk tweeted out, "I'll buy it.

Between the years of 2011 and 2014, O'Block had more shootings than any other block in Chicago.

Since 2014, crime has still been rampant, where every year O'Block averages 145 violent crimes, 280 property crimes, 114 acts of vandalism, and 31 motor vehicle thefts.

Other areas around Chicago also have high crime rates, like Englewood, Washington Park, and Woodlawn, but O'Block stands out because of how many crimes take place in such a concentrated area.

Because of how extreme this block had become, the Chicago Police knew that they needed to make some massive changes.

And I'm known in the hood 'cause I'm heavy there.

This is how we hang in Inglewood.

We slang in Inglewood.

Gang bang in Inglewood.

Do our thing in Inglewood.

This is my hood.

This is, this is my hood.

This is my hood.

"Tennis Tim taught me." "Who's Tim?" "The--a chauffeur." Nick leaned closer.

"Say, do you ever go to the dances at Englewood Masonic Hall?" "I never have." "You like to go sometime?" "I love it." She grinned up at him, her teeth flashing white in her brown face.

"It's swell here," he said dreamily.

"Like the woods?" "Yes." "Winter, when it's cold and dirty, I think about how it's here summers.

The 63rd Street car.

He could make it back in plenty of time.

Nick lived in that section of Chicago known as Englewood, which is not so sylvan as it sounds, but appropriate enough for a fawn.

Not only that, he lived in South Green Street, Englewood.

I am Shawn Duncan, the founder of Congruence Partners and your host for Places People Change.

I am so thrilled that in today's episode we get to learn from the amazing work happening in Englewood, a historic neighborhood on the south side of Chicago.

Taking us on this journey is Asha Butler, the co-founder and CEO of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood.

Try that again.

I am so thrilled that in today's episode we get to learn from the amazing work happening in Englewood, a historic neighborhood on the south side of Chicago.

Taking us on this journey is Asha Butler, the co-founder and CEO of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood, also known as RAGE.

She is a community strategist, real estate developer, innovator, and change agent.

I first learned about Asha through her leadership at Weave, the social fabric project by the Aspen Institute.

Then, on September 10th, 34-year-old Rio Renee Holyfield was found inside a garbage truck.

She had grown up in Englewood on Chicago's South Side.

She loved singing, and her family compared her voice to Lauryn Hill's.

Rio was especially close with her cousin, Ricardo, who said their relationship felt more like brother and sister than cousins.