# Advancing Build Bronzeville in 2023 | Urban Juncture

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- Published at: 2024-01-15 19:15:23 UTC
- Updated at: 2025-07-11 16:07:38 UTC

## Author
Bernard Loyd

## Subject
Urban Juncture

## Content
Dear Investors:I hope you and yours are well!I am writing to highlight a recent (and upcoming) payment of interest on your loan to Urban Juncture, to provide a brief update on our Build Bronzeville effort, and to share news about a unique discovery that was a highlight of 2023.Interest Payment(s)You should have received notice this past Tuesday (Jan. 9) of a Wefunder cash deposit to your account representing the 2023 interest payment on your loan to Urban Juncture. I recommend that you click on the link provided there and transfer your funds to an account of your choice.As I reviewed my own interest payment, I discovered that it wasn't quite correct. It was a fraction of a percent short, approx. 4.858% rather than the promised 5%, apparently the result of my first interest calculation missing a late arriving loan. My apologies! You will be receiving a second payment of approx. 0.85% of your loan, ie., the gap in this interest payment times the six years we've made the error.  2023 Build Bronzeville UpdateThis past year was both challenging and productive for our Build Bronzeville effort to revitalize our community by rebuilding key hubs of neighborhood enterprises.  Three key challenges stood out. Our creation of street-level and rooftop gardens, establishment of Boxville, and rehabilitation of the adjacent structure into a culinary facility is transforming the area around the intersection of 51st Street and the CTA Green Line. However, 2023 saw a substantial increase in loitering and apparent drug transactions centered on CTA property underneath the "El" tracks right opposite the station, as well as increased drug and prostitution activity along Prairie Avenue, half a block away. These dynamics are challenging our enterprise-building initiatives and forcing us to reconsider "hyperlocal" investments in addressing a broader set of social issues.Our Boxville shipping container market, which abuts this area, ran into its own challenges, driven in part by the departure of four of our leading box-based enterprises and by our difficulty securing effective leadership for the initiative. While we celebrated two of these departures, in particular, as they moved on to much larger "brick & mortar" spaces, their exits and our leadership challenge is forcing us to rethink how we organize and lead this effort in order to make it into what we know it can become.A final major issue was the unanticipated interruption of funding from 3 of our 6 largest program funders. After recognizing 15 years ago that even a socially-focused, "triple bottomline" for-profit couldn't possibly make the community investments needed to catalyze community revitalization, we've made significant progress starting and growing Urban Juncture Foundation as a non-profit partner to Urban Juncture Inc. and developing philanthropic partners to support much of Build Bronzeville's programming. Having almost half of our funding put on hold in mid-2023, due to factors unrelated to our work, came as a rude shock. The three situations were finally resolved in the second half of the year, though promised funding from two of the partners is still outstanding.We've also been able to make significant progress. This year has also been one of the most productive of the past decade in advancing locally-led capital investments in and around our projects on 51st Street and 43rd Street. Withe the support of the Mellon Foundation, Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation and several other partners, we've made great progress at The Forum, our historic complex at 43rd and the Green Line, rebuilding the two-level 318-322 East 43rd Street spaces that comprise its West Annex. We expect to place at least one of these three spaces in operation within the next 9 months with the second and third spaces opening by Q1 2025. These openings will bring key cultural offerings to this neighborhood, while allowing us to refocus on securing the capital needed for the rehabilitation of the remainder of the complex.Team reinforcing roof joists in West Annex (credit: Bernard Loyd)We were able to secure a $1.5M investment from the Chicago Community Trust's "We Rise Together" fund to complete the street-level build out of our culinary facility at 300-314 East 51st Street. Although we purchased this building in 2005, we've been able to complete just 2 of 8 retail spaces in the building due to capital constraints. Moreover, the work enabled by this investment should unlock funds from our original 2012 TIF commitment from City of Chicago, allowing us to continue investing in 51st Street.The past year also brought particular progress in complementary investments by other local developers in 51st Street. The Policy Kings initiative, co-led by a Boxville "graduate", that is bringing three additional food as well as complementary fashion and wellness enterprises to the SW corner of 51st & King Drive, made good progress, as did Soul City Kitchens, which is developing 8000SF of test kitchen and shared culinary incubation space at 51st and Wabash, 3 blocks west of our facility. In addition, a 49-unit apartment building with ground-floor retail across the street from our building, which represents the first major residential investment in our half-mile stretch of 51st Street in a century, started its site preparation work in December.  Forum Historic SceneryWithin the year's ups and downs, our discovery of The Forum's opening day scenery assets was a seminal moment. These seven over-sized rolls of hand-painted fabrics - including three full backdrops, all initially guaranteed for just 12 years - were used to provide scenic backdrops for events in Forum Hall and apparently had been tucked away in a corner of its attic more than half a century ago. We found them during our repairs to the roof structure 4 years ago and, recognizing their extreme fragility, put them aside, finally unrolled them this past summer with the support of three expert scenic artists.  Team leaders & scenic arts experts with Forum Opening Day backdrop (credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago)The fact that these fabric paintings have survived at all is amazing, but we were beyond excited to discover the backdrop that we believe was displayed on The Forum's opening day on September 28, 1897. Despite being 10x past its formal "expiration" date and showing extensive signs of wear and water damage, this backdrop shows a compellingly vibrant and accurate image of the ruins of the Forum in Rome, Italy, adorned with several visitors and spectators, notably including three prominently-located Black figures. Per our experts, these figures are the only Blacks depicted on an extant scenery piece of this era. Moreover, they were presented at The Forum two full decades before the Great Migration would transform a tiny South Side Black population into a majority force within a booming 'Black Belt'. We believe the presence of these figures on the backdrop is a key to understanding Black agency and the role of The Forum in early Chicago and is directly connected to the successful Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass-led effort to make an issue of the lack of appropriate Black representation at the 1893 World's Fair, just 4 years earlier and a few elevated train stops away.  We're just beginning to unpack this image and unravel all of its connections, and I'll report back as we learn more. In the meantime, you can read more about the backdrops here.* * *Thank you for your support and happy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day!Bernard