This is what the 32nd and May Street crowd is doing this summer in Bridgeport: Playing baseball, watching TV, playing kickball, sitting around, playing practical jokes, washing cars, playing with water guns, baby-sitting and sometimes simply playing.
”We don`t have to call each other,” says Felix Contreras, 10. Dribbling a purple liquid confection onto his Bart Simpson T-shirt, Felix explains:
”Somebody just yells, `Play Ball!` and we all come to the corner.”
Robert Lundquist, Larry Grezlik, both 14, and their friends are junior lifeguards at Montrose Beach. The attraction is either an abiding love of the water, or the young female lifeguards who are also in training.
”Girls and sports, what else is there?” says Robert, a towel flung jauntily over his shoulder as he prepared to leave the beach one afternoon.
Summertime in the city is not much different for many children and teenagers than it has always been, a sun-soaked panorama of bicycle rides, swimming and friends in a seemingly elastic stretch of time.
The playgrounds and parks are filled with youngsters; pickup basketball games abound with teens of all races and ethnic backgrounds playing together. The city`s beaches and pools are packed.
Summer public school has attracted 57,000 children; that`s where brothers Howard and DeShun Hughes will be found most weekday mornings, studying computers at O`Toole School on the South Side.
But life is not all work and no play.
”After school gets out at noon, we hang around the house, then we go to the arcade and play videos,” says Howard, 11.
The situation is less idyllic for thousands of poor children, especially those who live in public housing developments.
Summer is also likely to be a heartbreaker for thousands of teenagers who are searching for summer jobs in the recession-squeezed economy.
According to the state`s Department of Employment Security, seasonal hiring in 1991 was 19,000 jobs, down from 29,000 the year before in the Chicago metropolitan area, including Cook, McHenry and Du Page counties.
This year, the department predicts, the hiring will be the same as 1991, making life difficult for teens who had hoped to bring badly needed income to their families.
Many of those families live in Chicago Housing Authority apartments. The CHA is home to 46,000 children; approximately 36,000 are 15 or younger. The CHA runs a limited sports program, midnight basketball, and provides 20,000 meals a day to make up for the free meals children are not receiving at school.
But summer in the CHA developments still is bleak: At Ida B. Wells, on the South Side, youngsters played recently in dirt piles, and ran around garbage-strewn lots.
Children at Cabrini-Green, on the Near North Side, gathered around one small open water spigot outside 534 W. Division St. They sat in the sun on the bare ground against a building wall, and shot basketballs into a garbage can. The playground was devoid of swings or other equipment. No children played there.
The Chicago Park District, Board of Education, YMCAs and a host of other institutions make day camps and other recreational activities abundant, affordable and available, if children and their parents know where to look and get there in time to sign up.
”Parents should get their kids involved in sports, keep them busy in any kind of activity,” said Police Youth Officer Bill O`Malley.
Many organizations charge only minimal fees, or none at all if the family cannot afford it. A lot of activities, such as recreation, sports, and drama and crafts available at 114 public schools across the city, are free.
”We think kids are looking for places to go where they feel safe,” said Bill Harden, director of health, physical education, recreation and safety for the Board of Education.
The Park District expects to enroll 25,000 children in its summer camps, for children ages 3 to 12, on a sliding fee from $1 to $60 for the six-week session. The parks this year also began a new program to teach swimming each Saturday to adults and children at all 58 outdoor pools, from 10 a.m. to noon. The youth baseball rookie league has also been expanded, via the use of pitching machines, to 34 parks. More than 3,000 children, ages 6 through 12, are participating.
The Park District also distributed its cultural performances more widely; events usually held at Grant Park will be staged this year at parks, schools and social centers throughout the city. There will be 84 concerts at 68 parks from now through Sept. 6. Children`s theater will also be sent to public schools.
”We want to get the word out-we have something going for everyone,”
said Gene Sullivan, deputy general superintendent of parks.
The Elliot Donnelley Youth Center at 3947 S. Michigan Ave. has 100 children, ages 5 to 14, enrolled in its summer program, which costs $50 for seven weeks. The day consists of swimming, field trips, arts and crafts, computers, educational support, plus breakfast, lunch and snacks.
The Chicago Initiative, a joint project of United Way of Chicago and the Chicago Community Trust, for the first time this year raised $2.5 million from the corporate community to expand existing summer programs run by United Way and other community groups.
”There are a lot of kids in the city who have absolutely nothing to do this summer,” said Bruce Newman, executive director of Chicago Community Trust. ”The funds are not there anymore. A lot of the community groups can`t do the things they used to do-everything from keeping pools and gyms open, to staying open later hours, to basic arts programs.”
Teens searching for jobs find many employers are bypassing summer employees in favor of people who will be available permanently. And there has been a decrease in hiring at restaurants and bars, which have been especially hard hit by the recession, and where employees who customarily would hold jobs temporarily are now staying on permanently because they can`t find anything new.
”In this type of economy, many students are the only earning members of the family,” says Tracy Parsons, executive director of Hire the Future, a privately funded agency linking high school students to employers.
The federally-funded Mayor`s Summer Jobs Program has provided jobs for 14,000 students beginning July 6 at not-for-profit and government agencies such as YMCAs, the Park District, libraries, schools, and community organizations. The program hopes to place the 8,000 youngsters on its waiting list in jobs as well, aided by an additional $14 million recently allocated by the federal government.
Applications are available at major park fieldhouses and at community service centers throughout the city.
Chante Stepney, 18, a senior at Dunbar Vocational High School on the South Side, is working at the University of Chicago Hospital through the Hire the Future program of Chicago United.
Stepney works in the patient special services department, delivering flowers, escorting patients to the lab or to X-ray, and performing other non- medical tasks.
”I enjoy it,” she says. ”I am a person who likes to try to do diffeent things, so this is very worthwhile. I was a little worried that I would not find a job this summer.”
Leonard Schillen and Nathan Rowan are enjoying their summer vacation at a different pace.
At the end of one day recently, the boys, both 14 and students at St. Patrick High School, left Montrose Harbor satisfied with the result of their day`s work: two perch neatly arranged in a cooler.
”Today, we fished,” Leonard said. ”The day before that, we fished, and the day before that we went golfing. And tomorrow, me, my mom and my brother are going to fish.”
