Government
Can Historic Preservation Cool Down a Hot Neighborhood?
The new plan to landmark Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood aims to protect more than just buildings: It’s designed to curb gentrification.
CHICAGO—Eleazar Delgado watched the transformation of the Pilsen neighborhood from the storefront windows of Cafe Jumping Bean, the bustling coffee shop he opened on 18th Street in 1994. Back in the 1990s, he said, there were a handful of bakeries and taco bars. Gangs ran the neighborhood; gunshots rang through the night.
Delgado, a former bike messenger, opened the cafe as a gathering place for the artists then gravitating to Pilsen, home to the largest community of Mexican-Americans in the Midwest. “I wanted to make a place like those we had in Mexico,” he said.