Victor Maggio's Bloody Chicago series is now firmly camped on the West Side. He's now at Number 3 in his countdown of Chicago's Top Ten Most Violent Neighborhoods--North Lawndale.
When I walked its streets two winters ago I encountered couple of menacing thugs and I thought this urban exploration venture might have been my last. North Lawndale is a nasty place.
Maggio looks back at the history of North Lawndale, from its transition from a predominately Jewish neighborhood to a mostly black one. And he reminds us that the catalyst of the violence in places like North Lawndale are street gangs, including the Conservative Vice Lords, one of the criminal collectives that conned the federal government out of anti-poverty funds in the aftermath of the riots after the assassination of Martin Luther King.
"Why is there so much killing in this neighborhood," Maggio recalls a conversation with a man in a hoodie. "It's about the rush, man, the adrenaline rush that no high can give you," he answered." It's about the kill, yo."
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