Join Jane Addams Hull-House Museum for a book talk and panel discussion with Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, author of Contested City: Art and Public History as Mediation at new York's Seward Park Urban renewal Area; Teresa Córdova, director of UIC's Great Cities Institute; Nicole Marroquin featured Hull-House artist and Professor at SAIC; and Jose E. Lopez, executive director of The Puerto Rican Cultural Center.

Revealing the untold stories of fifty years of community activism at the controversial Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA) on New York’s Lower East Side, the book, "Contested City" sheds light on the importance of collaborative creative public projects in a complex place. A unique and humane book that bridges art, design, activism, and urban history - author Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani will offer a presentation of her work on the SPURA site. Also, hear from local Chicago artists, activists and urban planners about similar displacement and activism that are occurring in Chicago's West Side neighborhoods - Pilsen, Humboldt Park and the Near West Side. "Contested City" will be available for purchase through Seminary Co-op Bookstore. 

This program is part of the Making the West Side: Community Conversations on Neighborhood Change project. Making the West Side is an ongoing Jane Addams Hull-House Museum project launched with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, that brings together scholars, activists, neighborhood residents, and other stakeholders to investigate the history of neighborhood change on Chicago’s West Side and connect those histories to contemporary issues.