Viewpoint: Spatial Ethnography of Devon Avenue, Chicago

Abstract

Viewpoint:Spatial Ethnography of Devon Avenue, Chicago Arijit Sen (bio) I study cultural landscapes of immigrants in North American cities. As an architectural historian I am interested in documenting the physical worlds of twentieth-century immigrants of color in cities such as Chicago. A section of Devon Avenue in Chicago—from north Ridge Boulevard to north Kedzie Avenue—is known for its immigrant-owned stores. Some call this area Little India because of the concentration of South Asian stores and cultural centers.1 Others refer to the stretch as the International Marketplace to acknowledge the presence of a more diverse community of immigrants from Asia, Europe, Africa, and South and Central America.2 One chilly fall morning in 2014, I stood in front of Hyderabad House (2225 W. Devon Avenue), an eatery serving Indian and Pakistani food at the intersection of Bell and Devon Avenues (Figure 1). I had heard that this restaurant served fabulous breakfast at an early hour for practicing Muslim residents returning from morning prayers at the local mosque on Campbell Avenue.3 It was early morning on a weekday and the streets were mostly empty, but the smell of freshly fried vadas crept out of the kitchen to greet me at the sidewalk. Mechanical sounds from city street-cleaning trucks and occasional speeding cars punctured the silence. When I entered the restaurant, I found it filled with middle-aged men and a few cab drivers who hurried in from their taxicabs parked in front of the store. The building itself was an old Sinclair gas station and repair shop with service bays, and the current restaurant occupied the office and counter areas of the old gas station. The auto repair garage, not open this early in the morning, still functioned as a car-mechanic shop. It was (and still is) a popular destination for the cab drivers who patronized Hyderabad House while they waited for a vehicle tune-up. At this early hour, life on Devon Avenue seemed quiet, intimate, personal, and small-group oriented. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Hyderabad House restaurant is located on an 83-by-125-foot lot that once held a retail gas station and auto repair shop. A 1983 property transfer document in the City of Chicago's permits office shows that Ali Khan leased the premises in order to run a gas station. The property was transferred to Anwar Dankha and others on September 17, 1983. Photograph by Arijit Sen, courtesy of the Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School Archives, 2014. Within a few hours, the ambience inside Hyderabad House changed. By noon, cab drivers filled the restaurant and the food menu reverted to the regular day-menu. Small television sets began to blare Bollywood musicals. On other days, if live [End Page 3] cricket matches between India and Pakistan were being telecast, customers huddled under the TV screen transfixed by the game. Outside, life on this stretch of Chicago's Devon Avenue changed too. It became more crowded with shoppers and traffic. Nearby stores opened by 10:00 a.m. and the streetscape—plastered with myriad signage in multiple languages, with narrow storefronts and bustling sidewalks—became animated. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. The North Town Recreation Building, built between 1928 and 1929 by the architectural firm Oldefest & Williams, had retail storefronts on the ground level and a second-floor bowling alley (Bud Schaibly Bowl). The upper floor is now used as a banquet hall rental space. Photograph by Jennifer Harrman, courtesy of the Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures Field School Archives, 2015. By late morning, public transit bus 155 connecting Kedzie Avenue to the Red Line stopped and offloaded all kinds of people on the street. They included young and old, men, women, and children, immigrants from the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, distinguishable by their dress and language. Many of them seemed to be shoppers: they milled in and out of the stores that sold clothing, groceries, phone cards, and utensils. But many were elders who appeared to gather socially with their friends on public seats provided by the city on the sunny south-facing intersections...