New Eclipse Community Alliance is located in the historic “Back of the Yards” in the New City neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, New Eclipse Community Alliance was formed by members of the New Eclipse Baptist Church to address issues of poverty, poor academic outcomes, neighborhood deterioration, and disconnected residents. The Back of the Yards neighborhood, originally part of the Town of Lake, was annexed by the City of Chicago in 1889. The Union Stockyards were established because of the concentration of railroads in the area and the community transformed into a series of Slavic enclaves, home to Poles, Czechs, Lithuanians, and Slovaks.

Today the neighborhood is largely Hispanic (54%) and African-American (30%) with a median household income of $25,705, significantly lower than the US average ($56,604). The median age is 29 and most adults are single. While 61.7 % of households are comprised of families, 45.4% of family households are not married and 11.2% are headed by single-parent mothers. The original settlers lived in workingman cottages and these homes remain the primary housing stock in the neighborhood. More than 80% of homes were built before 1950.

Adults in New City have poor educational attainments with 53.4% of residents having less than a high school diploma or its equivalent. The poverty level in the Back of the Yards is almost twice the rate of the City of Chicago overall (42.1% living below poverty as compared to 23.7% in Chicago overall). The unemployment rate in the Back of the Yards is 14.9%, significantly higher than the City of Chicago rate of 10.1%. Of those who are employed, most work in Production or Service jobs earning low wages.

The neighborhood began with settlers organizing in to ethnic enclaves. Each group had their own church and school, usually housed in the same building with a head priest imported from the motherland as a way to stay connected to their heritage. In most cases, these enclaves also had men’s social clubs, women’s leagues, and sports associations. Prior to the Great Depression, these enclaves handled their population’s problems internally.

Unfortunately, when the Great Depression hit, poverty and need were so widespread that the enclaves simply could not cope within their individual ethnic communities. It was this environment that created a need for an organization like the Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council. The BYNC was formed in 1939 to coordinate a collaboration of all the individual ethnic schools, churches, and various social clubs. The Board of Directors was elected by an annual “Community Congress”, where all these groups were represented. The BYNC motto, “We the people will work out our own destiny”, reflects what it was created to accomplish.

The BYNC continues to advocate for the neighborhood and New Eclipse Community Alliance will look to partner with BYNC as well as the neighborhood schools and other community resources to move the neighborhood forward in its development. The neighborhood extends from 39th to 55th Streets between Halsted and the railroad tracks along Leavitt Street, just south and west of the former Union Stock Yard and adjacent packing plants, a giant sprawl that has begun to be reinvented through community and economic development.

Once immortalized for its pollution, squalor, and poverty in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906), New Eclipse intends to build on the benefits that have been established. From revitalizing important commercial corridors to reinvesting in the neighborhoods housing stock, there has been tremendous effort to improve the neighborhood and the lives of the people who live there.

New Eclipse Community Alliance will add value to this important work by providing additional stabilizing factors to this historic neighborhood. Planned efforts will focus on creating safe places for children to learn and play, access to GED, ESL, and employment training for adults, human service supports such as heating assistance programs, and investment in the commercial and residential corridors that surround the Alliance’s home base on 51st Street.

New Eclipse recognizes the importance of partnerships and has built connections with schools and service providers in the neighborhood. There is a clear need for organizations to work together in this neighborhood to “work out our own destiny”. New Eclipse will support efforts such as “Hoops in the Hood” a summer-long basketball tournament that brings together several organizations from The Back of the Yards and Brighton Park neighborhoods to play in a five-week friendly competition.