John Podmajersky II A Profile of "a Community Builder"

Pilsen's Artist Colony, Chicago As a young child visiting his parents' home in Slovakia, John Podmajersky was impressed by the way homes and gardens were melded together to create "one commonality." Although he started out helping his immigrant father deliver milk from a wagon in the early part of the century near South Halsted Street, Podmajersky eventually became a developer and property manager, buying up abandoned properties that others had placed in condemnation and were slated for demolition.

With little money but a lot of vision, Podmajersky blended his memories of the spectacular garden homes he saw in his parents' Slovakian village, and used it as a blueprint to revitalize a community on Chicago's near south side that has been fighting a battle against economic stagnation for nearly a half century. Podmajersky's persistence and grassroots approach tp his work has turned the tide and Pilsen East is on a new track forward.

Pilsen East is a multi-cultural community of artists, East Europeans, Mexicans, Chinese and Italian Americans. It can be strengthened, he believes, by helping Pilsen East residents better define the "American Dream," as Podmajersky's efforts spread throughout the neighborhood. "I was born here. My son was born here. I have lived all my life here and I just don't want to see the neighborhood fall apart because people don't feel strong enough to invest here or because the economic times might be hard," Podmajersky vows. "This is a strong community, rich in new culture and longstanding traditions that span four or five generations. When you build up the housing stock, and make affordable homes available without sacrificing quality, you can do a lot to strengthen the community spirit."

Today, Podmajersky won't say how many properties he owns in a stretch that hugs Halsted Street between 16th Street and 21st Street, but he enthusiastically points to three clusters of buildings that he calls "communities." These communities incorporate new style apartment designs that encompass beautifully landscaped, lush gardens at their centers. The gardens take the forms of the buildings, and residents on second and third floor apartments also enjoy gardens and patios at their levels, too. "A community is a group of living spaces and buildings where people relate not only with their own needs in a home, but with the outside environment," says Podmajersky, now 75 and still living a few blocks from the home of his immigrant parents at 18th and Jefferson where he was born. "I have three Communities and I am developing the fourth now."

Most of the buildings that make up these Podmajersky Communities were built in the 1880s and the 1890s. Some were built in the 1860s during the American Civil War. All were slated for eventual demolition when Podmajersky bought them. Not wanting to see the neighborhood where he grew up be overrun by hard economic times and the growing problem of gangs and drug abuse, he invested what little money he had in renovating the properties and making them suitable for new tenants.

At first, he recalls, it was rough. In the early 60s, after reading reports that the once famous Hyde Park Artist Colony was breaking up, he contacted several residents there and promised them the same kind of freedom on living expression that drew artists to the city's East Side years before. "At first, I wanted to set up an ethnic Village with ethnic motifs, designs and surroundings," Podmajersky said. "But I was contacted in early 1965 by several people who had lived at 57th and Harper in East Hyde Park, whose properties were being destroyed as a part of the city's sprawling Urban Renewal Programs. I reached out to them." Podmajersky saw artists as being essentially an ethnic community in a sense, too, striving for their own identity and to improve their living environment.

Back then, Podmajersky recalls, no one really cared about Port of Entry, which was the official city name for the community that is today known as Pilsen East. "No one could understand why I was buying up the properties here," Podmajersky says with a smile. "They all said I was nuts. That 18th and Halsted was doomed to be a vacant area, abandoned by developers and plagued by hard economic times. And it almost would have become vacant land with crumbling old abandoned buildings. I just wouldn't let it happen. I felt I had a vision here. It was my home." He adds, "If I didn't fix these buildings up, there wouldn't be a neighborhood. Every building I bought was in condemnation. Today, well, look at them." In fact, he might not have been successful had it not been for the ability to purchase groups of buildings together, allowing him to redevelop them not just one building at a time, but from a "bigger picture," groups of buildings at a time together with the same vision and planning. Despite his age, Podmajersky can be seen nearly everyday scurrying through the maze of apartment designs and gardens, talking with tenants about new ideas to enhance the gardens or to create new designs.

In a tour of the 4th Community he is planning, Podmajersky walked through the dilapidated structures pointing to barren walls and proclaiming to no one in particular, "That'll make a great floor to ceiling window ... we need a lot of lighting here ... we can give this a lot of new space ... a winding staircase here would open this up into a cathedral foyer or living room." He'll be upfront about what he does, when you stop him just long enough to ask what's on his mind: "I like to take groups of buildings and relate them together so they are not the same individual buildings that they once were." One of the communities at 18th and Halsted has 7 separate gardens that zigzag among the building clusters and the patios and portals.

"The residents get involved and care for their own gardens," Podmajersky says. One of Podmajersky's first buildings was purchased in 1965 with his father. Located at 731 W. 18th Street, it was in condemnation. The 88 people who lived in the building included 55 children, all with no place to go if the building were torn down as was planned by the city. Words like "developers" and "change" muster up controversial images of "community gentrification," a frequent label thrown at the Podmajerskys. But, it's a label that hasn't stuck in the more than 30 years that it has been used. "They have been saying that I am gentrifying Pilsen and that's not true. If I am gentrifying, I'm proud to say I am a failure," Podmajersky laughs.

The struggle to achieve his vision brought him up against some of Chicago's more outspoken and active community leaders, including Saul Alinsky and others. Podmajersky just says simply that no vision can be reached quietly or without a real struggle to invigorate a population into believing that they can stand up and make their community better. "I remember working on that building while the gangs were shooting at each other around us," Podmajersky recalls. "It was a tough neighborhood. But, I turned to some of the building's residents and got them involved. A lot of them were enthusiastic to save the property, but mostly because they seemed to feel that some one did care. I told them I did care and that I was born here and I wanted to stay here and I wanted to work with them. We did."Several of the tenants ended up working for Podmajersky, helping to renovate the properties, and bringing families together to fight the street gangs. "This was always an immigrant community. When we were here, it was Eastern European. Today, it's a strong ethnic mix of Mexicans, Italians, East Europeans, Chinese and even a strong presence of people who just call themselves Ôartists.' The only thing that has changed is that the ethnic diversity has become richer and more diverse and that's good," Podmajersky says. Podmajersky will tell you that one key to a solid community is the presence of "constant change" and improvements. "You know, in some places, if you were constantly working on a property, some people might get mad and leave. But here, people found the sound of the carpenter's hammer or saw soothing, giving them a sense of security, that things were improving and getting better. I always kept that going. We are constantly improving and changing." That meant bigger windows, open planning, connecting indoor and outdoor areas, while all the while constantly searching for the uniqueness of a particular building and highlighting it.

"Every building has its own uniqueness and I try very hard to find it and then make sure it is visible for all to see," Podmajersky says. Podmajersky finds it easy to reminisce among the buildings of his days as a youth. He father had immigrated to Chicago in 1913, fleeing the ravages of the beginnings of World War I. The dairy that they set up brought together their entire family and their cousins into one close knit circle. When the dairy closed around 1934 during the Depression, the families broke up and went different ways to survive. Those brief years as a boy left a lasting impression on Podmajersky, who acknowledges, "I guess the more I try to bring people together, I am just acting out a desire I have to find that lost family in me."