{"id":851021,"date":"2026-09-17T14:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851021\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T14:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:10:11","slug":"halsted-street-to-be-the-focus-of-a-third-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851021\/","title":{"rendered":"Halsted Street to be the focus of a (third) documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

A number of Chicago thoroughfares have been immortalized in song over the years, from State Street to Lake Shore Drive. But it is Halsted Street that has been the subject of not one but two documentaries. Soon enough, a third will be set in motion.<\/p>\n

The project is an effort to expand upon the two previous films. The first is a 16-minute silent film, titled \u201cHalsted Street,\u201d that captures \u201ca cross section of Chicago as seen on Halsted Street from the city limits at the southern end to Lake Michigan on the north,\u201d per the description at the film\u2019s beginning, which can be watched at mediaburn.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It dates from 1932 and was made by filmmaker and labor organizer Conrad Friberg. It\u2019s about a stretch that includes both farmland and more urbanized settings, full of streetcars and automobiles. There are also plenty of pedestrians, and the footage captures all kinds of wonderful details about local businesses of the era. One is called Swedish Records. Another has live ducks waddling about in its front window, which advertises the sale of eggs and pigeons. Another is a public bath house for curing \u201crheumatism. Neuritis. Colds. Poor blood circulation. High blood pressure. Great for reducing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The street is full of life and activity.<\/p>\n

The other film is director David Simpson\u2019s \u201cHalsted Street, USA\u201d<\/a> from the 1990s, which directly references Friberg\u2019s film and is an \u201chourlong kaleidoscopic look at the city as seen all along Halsted Street, beginning outside the city in the towns of Southern Illinois and running north to its merge with Broadway,\u201d according to the Tribune\u2019s review. The film captures a 400-mile stretch and incorporates footage from the earlier film to underscore the contrast.<\/p>\n

Studs Terkel narrates, calling Halsted the backbone of Chicago and the melting pot at full boil. But if this is the melting pot, \u201cCan it melt? Should it melt? And who are the people today who make up this stew? What thoughts and dreams, conflicts and tensions, simmer up from the cracks in the pavement?\u201d The film begins at the southernmost tip of Halsted at the Ohio River, where it \u201ccreeps out of the water at a sleepy town called Cave-In-Rock, or as it\u2019s officially known, Route 1.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JoseJose Perez, right, gives instruction to fellow member Reeham Mourad while she tests a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema camera during a Camera 101 workshop at the Mouse Arts and Letters Club on Sept. 13, 2026. (Eileen T. Meslar\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Now, decades later, a collection of artists, poets, journalists and neighborhood people are embarking on the latest study of Halsted.<\/p>\n

They are members of the Mouse Arts and Letters Club, a social club that launched earlier this year and is based in the Bridgeport neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a combination of a salon and an attempt to reincarnate Chicago\u2019s storied old bohemian clubs like the Dill Pickle Club,\u201d said co-founder Morley Musick, \u201cwhere poets and activists and musicians and anyone, really, can come and discuss ideas and art together, and make art together, and learn about hyperlocal goings-on as well as the broader world.\u201d Musick\u2019s day job is at the Indo-American Arts Council. He works as a freelance reporter, as well.<\/p>\n

While conversations on social media often become contentious, the social club aims to subvert that while allowing for different kind of experience. \u201cIt\u2019s at the heart of what we do,\u201d said co-founder Blair Paddock, who is a reporter with WTTW. \u201cWe want to bring people together to participate in a discussion with an expert, or work on some sort of group project, so we can learn from one another. But we\u2019re really anti-lecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

One series of discussions is called \u201cJob Night.\u201d Inspired by Terkel\u2019s 1974 nonfiction book \u201cWorking,\u201d each event features three people from a particular industry who take questions about their jobs. Musick and Paddock are planning an upcoming \u201cJob Night\u201d that will feature a wig manufacturer, a toupee installer and a hair stylist, for example.<\/p>\n

The club also functions as an answer to the question: How do you meet people and make new friends as an adult?<\/p>\n

The Halsted documentary is a natural outgrowth of the club\u2019s interests and proclivities, with an intention to expand upon the first two Halsted films.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a Trib article from the 1920s that\u2019s very grand in how it describes Halsted Street as this melting pot,\u201d Paddock said. \u201cThe Polish are here! The Germans are here! It seems like Halsted was big in the imagination of Chicagoans in terms of how the city is able to bring all walks of life together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Stills<\/p>\n

Stills from the 16-minute silent film \u201cHalsted Street\u201d capture a cross section of life along Halsted Street from the city limits at the southern end to Lake Michigan on the north in 1932 Chicago. (Film and Photo League of Chicago)<\/p>\n

\"Stills<\/p>\n

Stills from the 16-minute silent film \u201cHalsted Street\u201d capture a cross section of life along Halsted Street from the city limits at the southern end to Lake Michigan on the north in 1932 Chicago. (Film and Photo League of Chicago)<\/p>\n

\"Stills<\/p>\n

Stills from the 16-minute silent film \u201cHalsted Street\u201d capture a cross section of life along Halsted Street from the city limits at the southern end to Lake Michigan on the north in 1932 Chicago. (Film and Photo League of Chicago)<\/p>\n

\"Stills<\/p>\n

Stills from the 16-minute silent film \u201cHalsted Street\u201d capture a cross section of life along Halsted Street from the city limits at the southern end to Lake Michigan on the north in 1932 Chicago. (Film and Photo League of Chicago)<\/p>\n

\"Stills<\/p>\n

Stills from the 16-minute silent film \u201cHalsted Street\u201d capture a cross section of life along Halsted Street from the city limits at the southern end to Lake Michigan on the north in 1932 Chicago. (Film and Photo League of Chicago)<\/p>\n

\"Stills<\/p>\n

Stills from the 16-minute silent film \u201cHalsted Street\u201d capture a cross section of life along Halsted Street from the city limits at the southern end to Lake Michigan on the north in 1932 Chicago. (Film and Photo League of Chicago)<\/p>\n

\"Stills<\/p>\n

Stills from the 16-minute silent film \u201cHalsted Street\u201d capture a cross section of life along Halsted Street from the city limits at the southern end to Lake Michigan on the north in 1932 Chicago. (Film and Photo League of Chicago)<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 7<\/p>\n

Stills from the 16-minute silent film \u201cHalsted Street\u201d capture a cross section of life along Halsted Street from the city limits at the southern end to Lake Michigan on the north in 1932 Chicago. (Film and Photo League of Chicago)<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a>
\nThat is why \u201cwe are very strictly staying on Halsted\u201d for the film\u2019s focus, she said. \u201cThis isn\u2019t a neighborhood portrait. It\u2019s a street portrait. We don\u2019t want to stray away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any point in history is fair game, \u201cbut it\u2019s not going to be as straightforward as the preceding two films because of how many different disciplines the many collaborators at Mouse are going to bring to bear,\u201d said Musick.<\/p>\n

To cover the expansive length of the street, the group will split into teams, each with a checklist of things they need to capture or create. In essence, there will be several mini-documentary crews working on specific sections of the street.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will conduct interviews on a certain span of blocks or miles,\u201d said Musick. \u201cThey will do some kind of historical re-enactment of something from Chicago\u2019s newspaper archives that happened on that section of Halsted. They will produce visual art representing that section in some way. They\u2019ll also find someone from that section of Halsted to write and record a poem about the street. They\u2019ll take photographs of that section. And then all of that will be available to be collaged into the final film.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are animators, as well as historical re-enactors in the club who will bring their talents to bear, including Paul Durica, who is the director of exhibitions at the Chicago History Museum. \u201cFor years, he has done historical recreations of the Battle of the Viaduct, which was a workers\u2019 uprising in 1877,\u201d Musick said. \u201cHe\u2019s planning the biggest re-enactment yet for next year. So we\u2019ll be filming their planning meetings as well as the historical re-enactment itself, which happens on Halsted Street.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Co-founderCo-founder Morley Musick, center, watches the non-narrative short film \u201cOnomichi\u201d by director Nobuhiko \u014cbayashi during a Camera 101 workshop at the Mouse Arts and Letters Club, Sept. 13, 2026. (Eileen T. Meslar\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

When everyone is done, all the work will be assembled chronologically, or maybe geographically, or by some other framework to be determined later. It\u2019s a shoestring operation. \u201cEveryone is volunteering,\u201d said Paddock. They already have access to a few cameras through friends who are filmmakers and are \u201cfundraising to get one more nice video camera,\u201d according to Musick.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a project that\u2019s designed to appeal to anyone with an interest in Chicago history and a curiosity about the city\u2019s nooks and crannies and footnotes. \u201cWe\u2019ll be doing a fair bit of historical research for the project,\u201d Paddock said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we film,\u201d Musick added, \u201cthere\u2019s a hope that we\u2019ll assemble a merry band of people spanning the North and the South Sides who want to become collaborators and start to interview each other so the North and South Sides learn about each other more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A number of Chicago thoroughfares have been immortalized in song over the years, from State Street to Lake…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[359625,359622,359623,89372,88,359620,359624,359621,206,359626,219629],"class_list":["post-851021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-blair-paddock","tag-chicago-documentary","tag-conrad-friberg","tag-david-simpson","tag-entertainment","tag-halsted-street","tag-morley-musick","tag-mouse-arts-and-letters-club","tag-movies","tag-social-club","tag-studs-terkel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}