Maxwell Street history: Street of dreams
"For about one hundred years," author Ira Berkow wrote, "Maxwell Street was one of Chicago's most unconventional business -- and residential -- districts.
About a mile long and located in the shadow of downtown skyscrapers, it was a place where businesses grew selling anything from shoestrings to expensive clothes." Jews fleeing Eastern Europe were the most prominent of the early immigrant groups who lived there and worked hard to escape poverty. Among them were CBS founder William Paley, big band leader Benny Goodman and lawyer / judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz. And also Jack Ruby, who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald.
Maxwell Street's merchants sold their goods from stores and two-wheeled pushcarts and boards laid across sawhorses on the street. On Sundays, the busiest day of the week, you could hardly move, for all the crowds.
The Maxwell Street Polish sausage got its start there. And the Chicago blues sound.
So did Ron Popeil, who worked at a stand on Maxwell Street before he became famous for gadgets like the Veg-O-Matic and Popeil's Pocket Fisherman that he got rich selling on TV.
Fluky's Hot Dogs started on Maxwell Street. So did Morrie Mages Sports. And Hart, Schaffner & Marx, the now-financially troubled clothing maker whose suits President Obama favors.
If you could get it somewhere else, you could probably find it on Maxwell Street -- at a discount. "Yeah, I'll cheat you fair," one street seller of roach clips and umbrella hats and incense in the late 1970s famously called to could-be customers.
The old Maxwell Street is gone. But you can see glimpses of it in movies like "Blues Brothers" and "My Bodyguard" -- and in this photo gallery.