Four Boys, Uptown, Chicago, 1965If you click on the thumbnail image above, you will be taken directly to the George Eastman House online archives. The vast digital collection includes several images by well-known photographer Danny Lyon, who photographed people in Uptown, such as this group of boys, in the mid sixties. Another image can be found at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Born in 1942, Danny Lyon grew up in Queens, New York. Inspired by the novel On the Road, he hitchhiked across the U.S. when he was 20. He first spent time in Chicago as a student of the University of Chicago, studying history, and returned in 1964, when he joined the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club. He rode with the club for two years, and published his photos in the book The Bikeriders. Other books include Conversations with the Dead, a series of photos from the Texas prison system. Today, Lyon lives in New York, where he continues his photography and filmwork.
2 comments:
that's an interesting picture. .That picture looks just like how i remember uptown kids were in the 70s also. The world changes so much. I wonder how uptown will look in the next 30 years. Frank. Ps from all my post on stewart school and such this one picture explains it all. As they say a picture tells a thousand words.
I was growing up in the Uptown neighborhood exactly at the time this photo was taken. Many kids at that time were children of transients from Appalachian areas who moved to Uptown to live. In laymen terms...Hillbillies...Street gangs were prevelant at this time such as the Gaylords, the Wilson Boys, the Dover Boys, the Uptown Rebels just to name a few. Most wore baggy type pants with those pointy dress shoes like the kid on the right...and sweaters like the letterman had in high schools back at that time.. Many of the gangs were territorial with their turf being a particular stretch of a block or blocks, but all were united against gangs such as the Simon City Royals who were in Albany Park, and the Latin Kings from Humboldt Park who in this time period actually had some white membership.
You are correct though that kids looked much the same in the early 70's, but things did a 360 in this part of the city,,If you were to take a photo of today's Uptown youth..it would be drastically different from what you see here..
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