Opening day began at Boxville, Chicago’s first street food market and container mall located in Bronzeville. Below are my most memorable experiences and what I learned from the event. City As Lab is a celebration of the Bauhaus 100th anniversary and its influence on Chicago's experimental, creative legacy of "making as thinking". Male Mogul has a for-profit space in Boxville where young people in the community sell clothing, artwork, books and other accessories they’ve often produced themselves.As CreativeMornings’ Features Writer, I was able to attend City As Lab, an interactive two day experience led by Ashley Lukasik, former CreativeMornings speaker and co-producer of The New Bauhaus documentary film. Mendenhall is the founder of Male Mogul Initiative, a nonprofit that transforms the way young men live and lead in their communities through leadership, entrepreneurship and workforce development. They’ve received 32 applications, and will choose their top 12. He said they’re now in the process of recruiting more businesses for the summer months. You nurture it, and eventually it leaves,” Mendenhall said. Businesses develop their leadership capabilities. “Starting Seven on Sundays in Bronzeville and watching the community grow helped me find my passion and love for the sport.” ‘You nurture it, and eventually it leaves’īoxville is about providing opportunities for growth, said co-director Walter Mendenhall. “The running community is what motivated me to open this store,” said Gonzalez. He got choked up talking about how much the running community in Bronzeville has affected his life. As they stretched and mingled, Gonzalez spoke about what being in Boxville has meant to him. Over 50 people met in front of Gonzalez’s baby blue painted box on Sunday. But he said he’s only able to do so because he got his start in Boxville. Like many Boxville businesses, Gonzalez plans to move to a bigger location. Sunday morning was the last time the group will meet in front of the corner store. It’s a lot more collaborative now, and a lot more inviting. He said his group and another in Hyde Park transformed the culture on the South Side. “They met in their neighborhoods on the North Side, and what I would hear coming into the running group is that a lot of these groups are exclusive, elitist,” he said. and runs 7 miles around Washington Park and along South King Drive.īefore Seven on Sundays, the running space in Chicago was predominantly white and siloed, said Gonzalez. His running group, Seven on Sundays, brings together people of all ages and levels of fitness. Gonzalez opened in Boxville to offer a running store on the South Side, a part of the city he felt lacked running communities. Shiny sneakers line the walls of his box, and running shirts and shorts are folded neatly on the shelves. That’s when I fell in love with running.” “I had years and years of pent-up energy not going anywhere that I just let out. ”I did not know you could physically see salt on your body the way you do after training for a marathon,” Gonzalez said. Gonzalez has now run five marathons and two ultramarathons. Their stories inspired him to go on longer and longer runs - 5 miles, then 10, then 15. He said meeting the athletes who ran the race inspired him to try running for the first time. He barely ran, not even to the bus stop.īut he has always been an entrepreneur, he said, and while working his dream job at Nike Running Bucktown, he got hired to work the 2016 Chicago Marathon. Gonzalez said he read Harry Potter books and played “Grand Theft Auto” when he was a kid. She worked on his decal and helped him with on-site printing for different Nike events he hosted, she said. “I wanted to share all these wonderful titles that I’ve read and had exposure to with different people who may not know they exist.”ĭa Book Joint hosts two book clubs a month in the nearby incubator space.įrazier works closely with Ian Gonzalez, owner of Last Lap Cornerstore in Boxville, which sells running goods. “It has always been a dream of mine to have a bookstore,” Singletary told the Tribune. Walter Mosley and K’wan Foye are authors she’s been reading a lot lately, she said. She pours through publishers’ magazines to curate her selection, which ranges from children’s books to crime fiction. Singletary said she can’t have all the books she wants because her space is so small. It’s modern, and almost has the feel of a tiny speakeasy. There are bookmarks and notebooks for sale under LED light, and plastic green vines that drape down from the ceiling. The store has about 350 books on small shelves mounted to the wall. Store owner Courtney Woods works inside Da Book Joint, a Black author-focused bookstore on May 5, 2023, at Boxville in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood.
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