The Entrepreneurship Hub emerges from residents’ stories about informal economic activities and cooperative business enterprises in public housing communities and seeks to sustain this remarkable heritage. The Entrepreneurship Hub leverages one of our community’s greatest resources: the history of innovative entrepreneurship that has been used as a strategy of surviving and thriving for public housing residents, low-income people, and communities of color. The Hub addresses the systemic and structural barriers to entrepreneurship and aims to a create a robust infrastructure to support a new generation of small businesses and cooperatives by public housing residents:

NPHM partners with a national working group of current and former public housing residents to run a Museum store cooperative, Corner Store Co-op. The working group includes Nakia Sims, Takisha Smith, Dante Hamilton, Anton Hilton, Natalie Crue, and Chalonda McIntosh.

Corner Store Co-op amplifies the entrepreneurial history of public housing and supports small businesses and cooperatives owned by public housing residents to promote economic equity.

After the Museum’s opening, public housing residents entrepreneurs will collectively own and operate a physical space at the Museum’s site in place of traditional museum retail. Corner Store Co-op is supported by an advisory team of lawyers and technical experts and pro bono legal support from Alicia Alvarez and student lawyers at University of Illinois School of Law. 

Current and past advisors include Elizabeth L. Carter, Deborah Bennett, Brad Hunt, Teresa Prim, Nakia Sims, Veronica Reed, Clancey D’Isa, Jeff Deutsch, Willie Lewis, and Nathalie Al-Zyoud.

Promotional video for Corner Store Co-op created by Alex Myung featuring Chicago Housing Authority teens in the Smart Museum of Art Teen Program.

As a part of the initiative’s pilot runs, the Museum has collaborated with Mikva Challenge and the Smart Museum of Art Teen Program to recruit youth from Chicago Housing Authority to design and screen print t-shirts and tote bags! The young creatives worked with community activist and 2019 NPHM Artist in Residence, William Estrada. 

Some of the Mikva Challenge Teens from Chicago Housing Authority who worked with NPHM to design and print product for the store.

The EHub working group also partners with Taylor St. Farms, near the Museum’s permanent site (on Taylor and Ada) to grow vegetables and develop public programming, and educational exhibitions and activities for local residents.

Taylor Street Farms (TSF) is a small community garden built on the site of a former subsidized housing complex on Chicago’s Near West Side. The garden is maintained and operated exclusively by volunteers, and individual garden plots are rented out on a first-come-first-served basis to families, groups, and individuals who want to grow and harvest fruits and vegetables of their own. 

As a part of our collaboration, we have planted garlic in our bed at the TSF, which have sprouted and we are beginning preparation for harvest them. Garlic scapes are the stalks that grow from the bulbs of hardneck garlic plants. We harvested these stalks and left the garlic bulbs in the ground to grow for a little longer. 

Taylor Street Farms & the National Public Housing Museum Entrepreneurship Hub 

Garlic Scape Pesto Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup pine nuts or walnuts

  • 3/4 cup coarsely chopped garlic scapes 

  • Juice and zest of 1/2 lemon

  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

  • A few generous grinds of black pepper

  • 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

  • 1/4 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

Directions

In a small pan set over very low heat, lightly toast the pine nuts, stirring occasionally until just beginning to brown, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool.

Combine the scapes, pine nuts, lemon juice, zest, salt, pepper in the food processor bowl with the blade attachment. Pulse 20 times, until fairly well combined. Pour in olive oil slowly through the feed tube while motor is running. 

When the oil is incorporated, transfer pesto to a bowl and stir in grated cheese. If you want to freeze the pesto, wait to add the cheese until after you've defrosted it.

From left to right: Anton Hilton, Takisha Smith, NPHM’s Mark Jaeschke, and Brie Riddle.

Please message NPHM Program Director of Arts, Culture and Public Policy, Tiffanie Beatty, at tbeatty@nphm.org for any questions, concerns, or if you’re interested in the Hub’s initiatives.

The EHub is generously supported by Builders Initiative, Polk Bros Foundation, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events CityArts Program, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and Kresge Foundation.