# Reflecting on 2024 | Urban Juncture

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- Published at: 2025-01-03 05:19:48 UTC
- Updated at: 2025-07-18 03:40:09 UTC

## Author
Bernard Loyd

## Subject
Urban Juncture

## Content
Dear Investors: I hope you had a productive 2024 and a restful holiday!You should have received your 2024 interest payment via Wefunder on December 23. While challenges abound and everything takes 3x as long as I think it should, I'm pleased with the progress of our Build Bronzeville initiative this past year. Here are reflections on five areas of progress that will continue to be a focus in 2025:Providing Allstate Bronzeville Grants.  We were invited by Allstate Foundation to be one of five Chicago community groups to provide a quarter million dollars in "Main Street" grants to neighborhood-based enterprises in each of our communities. Not surprisingly, there was great enthusiasm for this opportunity. We were able to provide more than fifty grants ranging from $1,000 to $25,000, while using the awards ceremony to kick off what became a very vibrant Summer Market season at Boxville. Allstate is now taking its program nationally, while we are finalizing a program targeted at enterprises seeking to join Boxville. Preserving Historic Scenery.  We were astonished by our 2023 discovery of the opening day Forum Hall backdrops - and even more so when the Black figures represented on the central 'drop' were determined to be original to the piece. Blacks comprised just 1% of The Forum's 1897 neighborhood. Moreover, per industry experts, no other known U.S. scenery from this era depicts Black figures. Since this discovery, we have been able to place Ida B. Wells, the early civil rights leader who together with Frederick Douglass protested the exclusion of Blacks from the 1893 World's Fair (held a few 'El' stops south and east of The Forum), on the same city block as the firm that produced our scenery. In 2024 we were finally able to professionally preserve the scenery, and we are now developing a plan to utilize its restoration as a central element in a visual arts program engaging Bronzeville youth.Understanding the Rise & Fall of the Black Metropolis. The "city-within-a-city" of commerce, culture, and civic activity that defined mid-20th century Bronzeville was lost in the 70s and 80s due to a confluence of forces that undermined our community from its beginning. Developing a 21st century version of such a metropolis is key to its revitalization, however such progress requires a robust understanding of its history. To that end, we developed a Forum Hall exhibit for Open House Chicago using The Forum and its immediate neighborhood as the lens through which to examine the Metropolis. We were encouraged by the response we received (see image below) and are now working to expand the exhibit and extend access beyond the 2-day OHC program.Convening Bronzeville Legacy Collective. In 2023 we convened 10 cultural enterprises developing real estate-based cultural sites within Bronzeville, including historical homes, major performance spaces, and an abandoned train embankment. We believed that we can learn much from each other and catalyze broader revitalization of Bronzeville if we work together. This past year saw the group make substantial progress, engaging state lawmakers, finding novel ways of working together even before our facilities are completed, and commissioning a community impact study to assess the benefits of our collaborative effort. A summary of that work should become public this year, providing the platform for engaging a broad set of stakeholders.Advancing Construction.  For the first time in years, we've had the capital to sustain construction on parallel fronts in 2024: at our culinary facility on 51st Street and at The Forum on 43rd. As a result, we are poised to (re)open up to 5 commercial spaces in 2025, which have the potential of substantially expanding the offerings and improving the "look and feel" of our transit hubs. Our major challenge in 2025 and beyond will be to help community partners use these spaces to establish their enterprises and to reengage neighborhood patrons that our city has long trained to shop elsewhere.As always, I'd appreciate your feedback and suggestions at bloyd@urbanjuncture.com.Thanks for all of your support and best wishes for 2025!BernardForum Hall OHC guests studying 'Rise & Fall' exhibit