While Mayor Daley and the city’s movers and shakers rally the citizenry behind their campaign to bring the Olympics here in 2016, a documentary by local filmmaker Phil Ranstrom depicts a side of the city that’s not likely to win many friends on the International Olympic Committee–unless they like bullies.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Cheat You Fair: The Story of Maxwell Street, which debuted earlier this month at the Chicago International Documentary Festival, is divided into three parts. The first third tells the history of Maxwell Street as a port of entry for eastern European Jews and black migrants from the south looking to make a buck in the large open-air market that used to run along Halsted from Maxwell Street, two blocks south of Roosevelt, to about 16th Street. The second third tells the tale of the blues musicians who used to play in the market, inventing urban blues, the forerunner of rock ‘n’ roll. The movie, narrated by Joe Mantegna, features interviews with Buddy Guy, Bo Diddley, Junior Wells, Charlie Musselwhite, and Jimmy Lee Robinson, among others.
“You play by the rules and then they change the rules so you can never win,” says Ranstrom.
The destruction of Maxwell Street undercuts the city’s efforts to promote Chicago to the Olympic committee as a distinctive city with its own colorful culture. While Olympic boosters circle the globe promoting their vision of a new Chicago, Ranstrom will be showing the world the neighborhoods and traditions the mayor and his allies decimated.
