Chicago’s South Side has experienced major changes over the past decade. Covering more than half the city of Chicago, the area has seen the dissolution of the world’s largest public-housing development, a multi-million-dollar rehabilitation of the lakefront area, and a spike in crime and violence in neighborhoods like Englewood and Little Village—that resulted in 49 shootings in March alone.
Photographer Jon Lowenstein, who recently received a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, has spent a decade documenting the neighborhoods and the lives of the people living on the South Side. On assignment for Newsweek and The Daily Beast, he photographed the neighborhoods of Englewood and Little Village, among others, to look at the rise in violence and the impact it is having on the people there.
A few of the hundreds of family and friends who attended Tania Gist's funeral. Gist, who was shot and killed in the Roseland neighborhood, had survived another shooting in 1993. Her 15-month old son however, was killed in that shooting.
Young members of Revere Care Neighborhood Association attend a press conference celebrating 'Operation Take Down'—a Chicago Police Department program designed to reduce crime.
A memorial to Chicago police officers and firefighters who died in the line of duty sits on a viaduct wall at the intersection of Loomis and 49th St.
Looking east from Halsted St., south of 63rd St. in Englewood. This area is almost completely abandoned.
A view of one of the many buildings at Cook County Jail. Police in Cook County arrest more people than in any other county in the United States, yet the vexing and painful issue of violence still impacts people throughout the poor neighborhoods of Chicago. 44% of Englewood residents alone live below the poverty line.
Hundreds of family and friends attended the funeral of 44-year-old Tania Gist at St. Andrew's Temple in the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.
Youth Boxing at Taylor Park on 47th St. At one time this neighborhood was home to America's largest public housing projects, the Robert Taylor Homes and Stateway Gardens, but they were dismantled during the past decade.
Jon Lowenstein / NOOR for the Daily Beast
Hundreds of family and friends attend the funeral of 44-year-old Tania Gist at St. Andrew's Temple in Englewood. Gist was shot and killed in the nearby Roseland neighborhood.
Jon Lowenstein / NOOR for the Daily Beast
A thrift store on the 5100 block of Ashland on Chicago’s South Side.
A community mural in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood.
Shrines and informal memorials pop-up throughout the South Side for people who die unexpected and violent deaths.
'Flawless' reads the billboard for beauty products posted on bus stops throughout the South Side neighborhoods.
A young woman who attends the Gary Comer College Prep in the S. Oakwood/Brookhaven Neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.
Used wedding dresses hang in the window of a thrift store on the 5100 block of Ashland (left). A Santa Muerte statue sits in the window of a local store in the Little Village neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.
Police and abandoned buildings on the 6200 block of S. Martin Luther King Drive in the Woodlawn Neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. The adjacent neighborhoods have street nicknames such as MurderTown, Terror Town, The Wick and Pocket Town.
