Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 4-1

SECTION4 By Antonio Olivo ITRIBUNE REPORTER Stand long enough on the empty lot at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave. in North Lawndale and the urgency of the Civil Rights era echoes in the weeds and cracked asphalt. Martin Luther King Jr. and his family lived there in a third-floor tenement walk-up that 45 years ago served as the war room for the Chicago Freedom Movement.

After decades of neglect, not many people passing by know about that bit of history. But neighborhood leaders hope to change that with the unveiling Friday of the first phase of a plan for a three-block MLK Historic District. whole world will know he lived said Kim Jackson, executive director of the Lawndale Christian Community Development one of five organizations driving the 16th Street project between Hamlin and Harding Avenues they hope to complete by 2014. City and state officials will attend news conference, which is timed for the 41st anniversary of assassination. Four decades after building and other swaths of Lawndale were destroyed in the riots that followed his murder in Memphis, will no longer have to come to this site and say this is vacant Jackson said.

Planned since 2006, the historic district is part of a larger community effort to use rich history to lure new investment to the West Side neighborhood long wracked by crime and poverty amid stately graystone homes, fading former Jewish synagogues and about 2,000 vacant lots. The to cost about $42 million to be anchored by a 45-unit affordable housing complex for working class families at Hamlin Avenue and 16th Street that is expected to break ground this fall. That $17 million complex, Dr. King Legacy Apartments, Kim Jacksonof the Lawndale Christian Community Development Corp.stands at the vacant site of the building where Martin Luther King Jr. lived.

ABEL PHOTO Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta, (top floor) wave from the apartment at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave. in North Lawndale where they lived in 1966. TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO King historic district may rise from ashes Proposed MLK Historic District Planned site of Dr.

King Legacy Apartments Planned site of Dr. King Legacy Apartments 16TH CERMAK ROOSEVELT PULASKI HAMLIN HARDING INDEPENDENCE MILE MILE TRIBUNE 55 90 94 290 AREA OF DETAIL Chicago Chicago Site of civil rights 1966 stay is proposed for affordable housing Pleaseturnto Page4 By Ofelia Casillas TRIBUNE REPORTER back at the Corner. Suh- weet, one Twitterer reports at 12:02 a.m. is at says a second follower who spots him at another club later that night. Nearly 24 hours after the first post, Claudio brings his deliciousness to Club Foot, seems to sum it all up.

Claudio Velez, 42, who lugs his red cooler filled with tamales to bars on the Near Northwest Side is, simply, the Tamale near-cult figure embraced by many as one of the few remaining authentic parts of Chicago night life. Girls want pictures with him; guys dress like him for Halloween; more than 500 people his whereabouts on the social networking Web site. By the way, the tamales are good, too. Velez sells as many as 250 pork, chicken and cheese tamales a for a sealed bag of clubs and other venues. would definitely say iconic, in some situations, almost Clint McMahon, 28, said of Velezand his welcome intrusion on the night life.

reactions he just this yell, McMahon, a software developer, said a friend gave him the idea to collect Twitter posts on the Tamale Claudio Velez, 42, of West Town, known as sells a tamale to Matthew Irwin at a Humboldt Park bar. NOLAN FOR THE TRIBUNE would definitely say iconic, in some situations, almost McMahon, on Claudio Velez, known as the All a-Twitter over Pleaseturnto Page4 Fans of neighborhood vendor track his bar visits Product: CTMETRO PubDate: 04-01-2009 Zone: Edition: WED Page: CMETRO1-1 User: mrowan Time: Color:.