I found these girls near the corner of Sheridan and Wilson on 9/7/75. This is one of my favorite shots from the entire Uptown portfolio. These young women seem so happy. Friends and Popsicles! What more could kids want on a hot summer day? The image exudes unspoiled innocence, like so many of the other shots of kids in Uptown, despite the poverty. They had not yet been ground down by life. The woman on the far right emailed me to say that the two on the left are sisters and still friends of hers to this day. She is married to a man in the recording industry. All three women are doing well with families and jobs. They live in the suburbs now. The woman who emailed me said, “We grew up in the 4640 N Sheridan building with working class parents doing the best that they could in our environment. … We did not know we were in poverty because we saw our mothers get up and go to work everyday, even if the wages may not have been fair for Blacks. We really did not want for much growing up. We were very happy kids, teenagers, and so on.”
