Further north, Cabrini-Green terrified me thanks to the 1992 film “ Candyman.”Įven though my personal experiences in these neighborhoods were always positive, I feared them. The Robert Taylor Homes, a public housing project in the Bronzeville neighborhood, was a notable landmark driving into the city on I-90 from Indiana, or if you were catching a White Sox game at what was then referred to as Comiskey Park. I spent a lot of time visiting and traveling in South Side neighborhoods, but my perception of the area was rooted in myth and innuendo - mostly stemming from public housing. I grew up in predominantly white northwestern Indiana - about 25 miles from Moore - in what is the southeastern portion of the Chicago metro.

From where she lived, how houses were sold, to where she went to school and the businesses that were incentivized to operate in Chicago’s predominantly Black neighborhoods. While she didn’t realize it at the time, her life was impacted by legal segregation in almost every way. While our upbringings were not vastly different, where we lived was, and it created unique perceptions about the city around us.įor Moore, raised 11-miles south of downtown in the Black middle class enclave of Chatham (which she jokingly refers to as “the Black Mayberry”), she benefited from a tight knit community that had a thriving business district and culture before it was largely decimated by the 2008 housing crisis.

Moore, I’m a child of the south side of Chicago.

Natalie y moore the south side