See more of what Calumet City, Illinois looks like here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1OnSw0tEuJA.html Illinois Playlist: ru-vid.com/group/PLkAKbwTlGHeKoOBxconpFSyUSO32NKREy Chicago Suburbs Playlist: ru-vid.com/group/PLkAKbwTlGHeILgN75aeaBe0EHvhBHyagP Help me grow my other channels! Chris Harden's Travel Archives: www.youtube.com/@chrishardenarchives Nostalgia Tours Radio: www.youtube.com/@Nostalgiatoursradio ==================================================================== EVERYTHING THAT I USE IN THE FIELD: Main Camera: amzn.to/3iS4vvF Side Cameras: amzn.to/2WuCYIs Media Mod for Camera: amzn.to/3j7CMGF Lav Mic: amzn.to/3lsMkz9 Drone: amzn.to/3ITcKBV SD Cards: amzn.to/3C2co9O Camera Mounts: amzn.to/2UXVR6p Cables Required for Longer Recordings: amzn.to/3BYnr3Q Computer: amzn.to/3787b2j External Hard Drive: amzn.to/3lb23Tf WHAT I USE AT HOME: Computer: amzn.to/3rKIdiN Sound Mixer: amzn.to/3C15Ubx Microphone: amzn.to/2VaCjvo Microphone Accessories: amzn.to/3v7A35Z INTERACTIVE MAP that shows you all of the places that I've made videos on: (Doesn't always work on mobile devices. Will always work on PC.) www.google.com/maps/d/u/2/edit?hl=en&mid=1Lhzf04ocimPu-ROkg4cfXEYEvKMNnlI5&ll=34.29834970801405%2C-91.53765609999999&z=5 SOCIAL MEDIA & CONTACT INFO: Email: ChrisHardenYT@Gmail.com On Twitter: twitter.com/Chris_Harden55 On Instagram: instagram.com/c_harden7 On Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisHardenYT DISCLAIMER: Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you. As an Amazon Associate I do earn a small commission on qualifying purchases. As always, thank you for supporting my channel!
I've walked through and played around in Calumet. Hey, I just had an idea. They have drag racing spots around certain areas in Chicago like Doherty Road. That's in the south suburbs I believe... Would you drive through them during the daytime? Just a content idea😊
@@ChrisHarden found this: "As of August 2005, street racing on Doty Road, also known as Stony Island Ave, in Chicago has been shut down. However, in July 2022, Axios reported that drag racing was taking place on Doty near 115th Street."
I grew up a couple miles from Cal City. It used to be really nice. And River Oaks Mall was our go-to for everything. Shopping, restaurants, movies, etc. it's a shame.
Same!!! I grew up in Cal City in the 90s and remember PLENTY OF DAYS of hanging out at the mall and going to the movies out there!!!!! A trip down memory lane. Man ……. It was a great community back then ❤
Man i remember growing up in the 2000s I lived in the city but weekends I use to go to my aunts house in Cal City. I remember when river oaks mall use to look like Chicago ridge mall 😭 literally filled with stores like Toys R Us and Game stop. The food court use to be filled with restaurants and people, I even remember the old movie theater. It’s just sad seeing river oaks mall now I have so many memories there
I hope your business continues to do well despite the mayor’s lack of interest in making the city better. Seems like he is more interested in funding his pockets.
This place looks pretty well kept. The beautiful trees and grass are nice vs. all the negative take in the video not too bad ! Thanks for sharing this take it was very informative! 😂
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Worked for 4 years in the destroyed 6 story office building in River Oaks Mall, directly across from the water tower. It was there that I met my overseas roommate seven years after discharge. Small world. You also took us past our first apt. after getting married. Moved in 1971 to Chesterton Indiana.
Thanks for shareing this neat story! I miss the times when the old malls used to be full of working stores and almost too many people. Hey you know what will happen if you'll go to Hamond and have a cheese sandwich? You'll have a Hamond cheese sandwich 🐖🧀🥪 👍
I lived there in 2007-2012. Seen a lot change as a teenager and lived on State line Rd. Before the split of the road. River Oaks was the stuff back in the day. Had a date at the movies that’s was right across the lot. 😢😢😢😢😢😢 I’m now 30 years old so it’s crazy to see this video ❤😮😢
Thanks for the video Chris! I can recall seeing some bad crime incidents on the news for Cal City back in the day. Glad that it's doing better today. There's a lot of hard working people out there just trying to live their best lives.❤
Chris i love your videos of the Chicago suburbs and the research you do. I hope you can do the west suburbs as well...starting with Oak Park, Maywood, Bellwood, Berwyn etc
@ArethaRenee I'm there now. Actually a good place. Definitely on the upswing with all the new houses. Prices have more than doubled. Taxes are high unfortunately but not higher than the South suburbs
I grew up in Oak Forest in the 60s & 70s. Depending on traffic, maybe 20-25 minutes to Cal City on 159th street. The mall was lovely. I saw Apocalypse Now with 3 buddies at the mall theater in 1979 - $7 tickets but you got a program; a line around the block. Very nice people. Hard working, high end blue collar. Always felt safe and welcome. Wish them the best.
@@swannoir7949 It was well and truly hyped; tickets were jacked 40%; and there was a printed program which you didn't usually see by 1979. It made money. Not Star Wars money, but Brando gave it class. And girth.
just brought back alot of memories. i left Cal City in 91. went to TF North. lived at 647 Gordon. seeing all this makes me realize i left to florida at the right time. i dont miss it
I called Calumet City home from September 6, 1976 to July 10, 2001. I spent the first 25 years of my life there. I have so, so many memories of growing up in CC.
Marshall Fields at River Oaks was special especially if you couldn’t get to the downtown Chicago one. Plus River Oaks was best when it was an all outside mall. Enclosing the place was cool at first but when the city went downhill, so did the mall. But Fuddruckers, Beginngans, Outback Steakhouse when it first opened, man, Cal City used to be poppin.
Lived in Calumet City Illinois 1966-1985 I though Kim F cousin had the idea to paint that water tower yellow Kim and I went to same elem school Sandridge Elem. GREAT Video Thanks
14:44 ROFL I can just see at a tourism board meeting "Let's see, what could we use to draw people to our town. What might they like to visit... Oh, I know! They could come see our dirt pile!" 🤣😂 No for real, thank you for putting these videos on. They let me see places I'd probably otherwise never see. Even being mostly a lifelong IL resident, I likely never go to Calumet City.
@@techiegirl2927 I know well it's a sincursed earth. We know nothing as we ought. I always reorient my mind on greater heavenly things when I get too anxious or depressed(which is lots of times, really every day)
Current resident, I love Cal City. In the Hammond/Lansing border; it is very quiet with forest all around. Besides my horrific tax bill, I don't mind at all.
South Hammond has some beautiful homes. South of 165/159th to the border with Munster along Hohman Ave. Gorgeous houses. Lifelong Lansing resident here. Have lots of friends from Cal City, and work in Hammond. The area is getting worse though. Hear lots of gunshots in Lansing now. Unheard of 20 years ago.
My dad was raised in this town (through the 50's & 60's). No one on that side of the family lives there anymore (the last to leave Illinois all together was my aunt & grandmother in the 2010's). Most of my dad's old neighborhood got mostly razed (he lived near State St.).
Chris great videos on the south suburbs including cal city ive noticed you're getting really close to northwest indiana hopefully you'll be doing some videos here in nwi where I live but still appreciate all the videos in cook county because that's where I grew up
I met Kanye at River Oaks. When College Dropout came out. He was filming MTV the Diary. I was working at a cell phone kiosk. I didn’t make the show but I know 20 people in it…
My aunt n uncle have lived out there for almost 50 yrs.. They updated n remodeled thw kitchen and inside.. but man their property has went to crap.. they was gone leave the house to my cousin but he passed.. the only thing it has going for it.. is the fact its tucked away on a quiet street across from a forest preserve.. so they cant build across the street.. always use to travel the 20 min to river oaks back in the day..
Back in my long-gone youth (around 1978-80) I often roller skated at the Roller Dome in Hammond, not far from Calumet City. I met a lot of really nice girls at that rink, from Calumet City, during its couples only skates.
You should do Alsip Illinois not far from there, also an hour away Bradley Illinois is having some big changes you should stop their when u have time as well
I grew up in Lansing, right next to cal city. I remember going to river oaks mall with my grandma and always being excited to see the smiley face tower. Miss those days. Lansing used to be really nice too and has went downhill. Can you do a video about Lansing?
Sure flood wall. We can call it that. Thank you for all your efforts. Enjoy your videos. Appreciate your research. Look forward to viewing your videos. Recently found your channel.
Cal City was a nice affordable place to live in the 70's. The Strip was always open, John's Pizza. Lauer's Restaurant on 154th Place had Prime Rib on Saturday night, King Cut was 6" thick!! Every other corner in the neighborhood had a tavern, plenty of revenue, plus River Oaks Shopping Mall! Only mall I'd ever seen that had Marshall Fields and Carson Pierre Scott next to each other? Point is with all that tax revenue the Calumet City PD was cool as hell, they didn't need to be writing traffic tickets constantly? Furthermore the Winter's in the late 70's there were horrible. Tons of snow! But unlike any other Southside Chicago area, which would ticket your parked car, or bury it plowing around it? Calumet City would have snowplows, along with City tow trucks remove the vehicle, plowing and put the f--king car back! I saw it living there, my first apartment! But as this documentary points out the demographics shifted,like my hometown of Dolton did. And, well you can fill in the blanks as to the downfall! I gotta say 1 thing most of the brick and cut stone walk up apartment buildings still look well kept!
Dolton is straight up terrifying......like for real I will, in a tesla, cut through Altgeld Gardens to go to Blue Island and skip Dolton.....that place went to shit BIG TIME when you prefer driving through Altgeld over Dolton you know its badddddd
Corrupted politics combined with apathetic voter base(true for the entire country if you really look) has destroyed the once great, still posessing massive potential, state of Illinois
First name of this town was shrumsville after the first family to aquire 600 acreas . They started many business to produce dariy and pickels. Shrum pickels and the dairy became part of borden.
The Schrum pickle plant was near State Line by 165th St. across from the forest preserves. Us Hammond kids would ride our bicycles in the woods and see Schrum workers sitting on the back dock drinking out of brown bags.
I grew up in Cal City in the 80's and 90's. The reason for the blight isn't because of the economy, it was because of what happened in the Mid 90's. The projects started closing on the near south side, and pushed all of the bad characters south. That is the main reason why all of the people who built cal city left and closed their businesses. Joe's Video, John's pizza, Burnham Pharmacy are to just name a few. There was even taverns on almost every block, sometimes in the middle of the block. My grandfather lived a couple of blocks away from us, and he built his own home there in the 40's. I still take a ride out there occasionally, and I am sad to see what that town has become. People look at me like I don't belong there, and I just stop and tell them "this is my town" LOL........
I'm originally from the near west side of Chicago, and I don't even feel safe going to Sunday Mass at the old Catholic church I went to grammar school at. Stay away from Cook County,
This is the truth. Then Mayor Daley had promised to rebuild and relocate the people in the projects. Instead, the City of Chicago kept the 500 million federal dollars, and used it to gentrify Chicago (along with the pension fund, which is why there's a shortage today). People who have grown-up in projects have a different way of life. But when you house ppl like animals for decades, how do you expect them to act? Unfortunate for the South Suburbs. Thanks for your post.
I still live here by the video, state line and sorry to say, Calumet city is starting to boom again 😊, house property values went up by 30% to 40% , a lot of new Mexican Families with very young kids, no one to bad influence them lol, almost no abandoned borded house around 😅. We have easy bus and train acces witch helps get jobs from downtown, we have acces other towns like Harvey , dolton, the and village dont have
Cal City is pretty much ghetto now, I would avoid it. Best advice is to stay away from any South Suburbs in Cook County if possible. It's not worth the risk. Indiana still recognizes bail laws, so it remains much safer than Chicagoland's suburbia. A word to the wise....
I worked as a county police officer in the area and I’ve never seen anything more than some gang activity.. the state line road portion was pretty much empty by the mid 90’s
Just recently moved to Cal City. They have some good food/restaurants. I knew that b4 I moved here from Addison because I'm familiar and be all over the state of Illinois. Goals of moving to Hyde Park or the south Loop
Calumet City isn't the only place that's had a happy face on the water tower. During the 1980's, Goodfellow Air Force Base, San Angelo, TX had a happy face on the base water tower.
Man watching this makes me sad. I grew up in Lansing and during my Highschool years in the early 00's. River oaks mall was the place to be on the weekends.
I worked at River oaks Mall in the mid 80's. It was a nice community had a lot Polish, Ukrainian and Hispanic people. Everybody was nice and polite and I enjoyed working there but things have changed.
Mike Tomczak, the Polish Prince of Calumet City! He was good enough at TF North to be QB at Ohio State. Believe he was an UDFA when Ditka had him signed as a backup QB in 1985 since Mike was tough enough to get into fist fights with Dan Hampton, Steve McMicheal and others during practice. Mike played as a starter for the Bears, Green Bay and a few others before ending his NFL career with Pittsburgh. Mike holds the NFL record for having the most personal fouls called against a QB.
@billwilson-es5yn Mike also has the most yard return for a touchdown interception! Against the freaking Vikings in Minnesota. The Vikings defense took McMahon out in the 1st half with the Bears down by 21 points! Mike came on and was brilliant in the 2nd half tied the score in the 2 minute warning. Ist and goal, clock running out he throws the ball on 3rd down instead of calling the play dead and bringing on Kevin Butler for the FG? Ditka chewed his a$$ out!
Valparaiso Indiana for a $200,000 home Is around $2400 a year.. I live in Crown Point Indiana, And my home is valued at 200000 and I pay $2100 a year. So the $1600 per year in Indiana is a little bit on the low side
My parent's families arrived in Hammond from 1876 to 1900 to build homes and police the drunk Germans. Much of that area back then was similar to the landscape in the Cook County Forest Preserve District that runs thru Cal City. The land close to the Grand Calumet River was covered with low sand dunes with swamps in between them. State Street was extended west from Hammond so developers could move big houses from Hammond's growing Downtown into West Hammond. All those empty blocks around State Street used to be full of smaller workman's houses that were spaced 6 feet apart on narrow long lots. Calumet City used to be full of older houses and commercial buildings. They started building the nice brick houses in the 20's and after WW2. The Little Calumet River started flooding around 1960. Hammond raised it's levees a few times before I moved to Texas in 1977. Calumet City didn't so their Gold Coast would experience occasional flooding. I believe there was a flood in the early 80's where Hammond built a sandbag wall down the center of State Line to keep the flood water in Calumet City. I was watching the national news in Texas to see cops smacking the hands of people trying to take off sand bags so the flood water could escape and laughed when they said where it was happening.
The city of Calumet city, Illinois is in the south suburbs of Illinois, In the south suburbs of Illinois environment , The south suburbs of Illinois people, Ride regular paddle bicycles, you have "strip clubs", skating rinks , the people in the south suburbs of Illinois drive, Ford focus similar cars and have Driving school bus jobs. Its impossible to go broke in the south suburbs of Illinois. Their are "money street clicks" in the city of Calumet city, Illinois, That are about money, No rules or structure. The violence in the south suburbs of Illinois doesn't go over Fist fights . It's impossible to go broke on the south suburbs of Illinois for anyone doesn't matter who you are or where your from.
Yooo you should really come check out Valparaiso! Im born and raised here and live right downtown. LOT’S of cool history here. Town has nice architecture, lots of civil war era homes, some brick paved streets, several buildings on the national historic registry, downtown is beautiful and best of all its safe and always has stuff going on.
I wonder why you didn't drive by or speak about park harbor mobile community that was demolished and everyone was forced out!!!! Right off of Stony Island.. which was right now next to the bishop ford
it's like the only ideas these geniuses have at revitalization is a casino, a water park, strip malls/'shopping,' and over-priced bougie apartments. if not for federal and state money to float them instead of using it for supplemental income to build something they need but can't afford on their own, not a single one of these places would survive long enough to meet their next year's budget meeting. how are some of these places not broken up and annexed or taken over by the state yet?
grew up here and i remember going to river oaks mall before christmas and it was packed with people, as busy as can be. sad to see what has become of it
sorry friend, wrong again. calumet city was the very last holdout in the area. trouble stayed in hammond, lansing, and dolton but stayed out of cal city. bad elements started to creep in in the 80s and by the early 90s it was a murder and crime haven. talk to the people that lived thru it.
come on now ....lets not lie......we had our fair share of problems my mom was robbed as a cab driver in 1978/9 ......growing up we knew to stay on the path in the forest preserve on our "tree walks to gather leaves for our leaf collection journals" because everyones parents talked about the dead body pond at the corner on River Oaks Drive and Torrence LOL....we just grew up knowing people dumped dead bodies in there lol.......wasn't shocking just ....was aware.....mob, gangs, pimps, etc all of them used it as a dumping ground......the city was a known lure for low level mob affiliation....hell talk about the tunnels just a couple minutes north in Hegewisch ......literally mob tunnels for Al Capones house to get across the street when the cops raided him .....thats our history it got WORSE I think you meant to say in 90s but we always had "bad elements" but the low income bad elements started flocking the more vouchers were issued and people got out and started renting those houses to literally ANYONE that would pay......and code enforcement on those rentals was a joke my first adult apartment was the first street off state line across from St Margarets and we had the basement and it was TERRIBLE bad wiring it literally was terrifying we moved out like 3 months into it and got a nice apartment but man that was 1992 and landlords were chopping the houses up into apartments like depression era style.
One thing, however. You cannot have a "Sin City" without attendant crime and predation. Gangs? Sin City = gangs. I myself was more afraid of people in those "Section 8" buildings in the 1970s than in the 1990's. There were drugs back then as well. Anyone who thinks the problem was all "gangs" or "section 8" is straight up WRONG or didn't live there.
