At ‘Downtown Day,’ Chicago Teens Learn That The City Center ‘Belongs To Everybody’

DOWNTOWN — Groups of Chicago children and teenagers got the chance to explore some of the city’s top attractions on Saturday amid larger questions of who Downtown really belongs go.

For My Block, My Hood, My City founder Jahmal Cole, the answer to that question is simple.

“Repeat after me when I say Downtown belongs to everybody,” Cole said to a crowd of roughly 1,000 kids packed into Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph St., Saturday morning for My Block, My Hood, My City’s fourth annual Downtown Day, coordinated alongside the Chicago Loop Alliance.

The large-scale field trip brings youth from the West and South sides into the city center to expose young Chicagoans to the many resources and attractions the city has to offer just a short commute away from their neighborhoods. Many kids participating in the event haven’t spent much time Downtown despite living in Chicago all their lives.

“I’ve done Downtown Day for two years now, and now I come Downtown way more because of it,” said 16-year-old James Swanigan, who began volunteering with the program this year as a part of Downtown Day’s youth committee. “I hadn’t been to the Riverwalk before and now its one of my favorite spots.”

This year’s event marks the second year in a row where organizers have combatted negative narratives around so-called “teen takeovers” in Chicago.

Over Memorial Day weekend, five Chicago police officers were struck by a teen driver while dispersing a gathering on the Near West Side and three people were shot and 53 were arrested in connection with a separate “teen takeover” in Hyde Park.

A large July 4th gathering in Austin ended in seven people shot and calls for an “all hands on deck” approach to addressing the events.

The events of this summer have rekindled debate over youth curfews in the city for years, an issue the City Council debated intensely last year, leading to a veto from Mayor Brandon Johnson on a curfew measure.

Fellow youth committee volunteer Del’Reona Cox said that the recent spike in teen takeovers has discouraged her from coming Downtown.

“I don’t come down here much anymore, especially when there’s a party,” she said. “If it’s a party or something, I’m not going … But Downtown Day can bring more people to come out their shell and be open to experiencing new things, instead of having to worry about if wherever you’re at is going to get shot up.”

While city leaders grapple with the issue, local kids say a little structure and positive encouragement could go a long way in giving them something to do.

“When kids do a takeover, it’s not organized,” Swanigan said. “I feel like Downtown Day is organized and structured, and people know what they’re doing. It doesn’t seem like a messy group of teens going Downtown and just doing stuff. This is opening a lot of our eyes to realizing that Downtown isn’t just corporate and for businesspeople.”

Cole called his event a form of “primary prevention work,” by expanding youth horizons and inspiring Chicagoans to approach their city with curiosity.

“What we’re doing at My Block, My Hood, My City is we’re going upstream every day to make sure kids aren’t picking up guns and to make sure they aren’t going to jail,” he said. “Downtown Day is not intervention. It’s prevention. With these curfew ordinances, our leaders aren’t doing any of that.”

Cole began dreaming up the Downtown Day concept back in 2013, when he still worked with youth in juvenile detention.

“I realized that a lot of these kids were going to be in jail for five to 10 years, but they had never been Downtown,” he said. “They had never waited for a taxi. They had never been in an elevator. They would see Lake Michigan and ask, ‘What ocean is that?’

“When you come Downtown … you feel good,” Cole said. “You feel like you can … be an architect. So if you show them better, they can do better.”

Saturday’s festivities included 28 different explorations from Navy Pier to the Shedd Aquarium, with each kid given a $50 gift card to spend.

Yesica, who was exploring the Shedd, said that the day gave her an opportunity to look at her city in a new light.

“I think the fact that we’re allowed this guided tour to experience Downtown and like see different parts of the world that we might not see with family is really important, and it gives people more confidence to come out and actually like want to explore by themselves more,” she said. “A lot of kids at just home, like laying in bed for like 12 hours a day on their phones, so this is really cool.”