Gallery 37
Encyclopedia
Gallery 37 is a job training program and was created in 1991 by Chicago's
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 Department of Cultural Affairs' Lois Weisberg
Lois Weisberg
Lois Weisberg was the Commissioner of Cultural Affairs in Chicago, Illinois from 1989 until January 2011. She founded the Chicago Cultural Center and Friends of the Park, and was responsible for the establishment of the renowned Gallery 37 program, which gathered Chicago youths to a vacant block...

 and Maggie Daley, wife of the city's former mayor, Richard M. Daley
Richard M. Daley
Richard Michael Daley is a United States politician, member of the national and local Democratic Party, and former Mayor of Chicago, Illinois. He was elected mayor in 1989 and reelected in 1991, 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007. He was the longest serving Chicago mayor, surpassing the tenure of his...

. Its purpose is to attract artistically inclined city youth to work as apprentice artists at a vacant downtown lot known as Block 37, bound by State, Dearborn, Washington, and Randolph streets. Nevertheless, Gallery 37 maintained satellite sites at Grant Park, and many of Chicago's public high schools
Chicago Public Schools
Chicago Public Schools, commonly abbreviated as CPS by local residents and politicians and officially classified as City of Chicago School District #299 for funding and districting reasons, is a large school district that manages over 600 public elementary and high schools in Chicago, Illinois...

. Gallery 37 is currently run by After School Matters, a not-for-profit organization that partners with the City of Chicago, the Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Park District, the Chicago Public Library, the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and Community-Based Organizations to expand out-of-school opportunities for Chicago teens.

The program was open to young people between the ages of 14 to 21 living within the city limits. Gallery 37 initially was a summer program, but later expanded its operations during the fall and spring at hours that allowed apprentices to continue attending school during the day. More importantly, Gallery 37 offered young people the opportunity to work with professional artists, such as Gladys Nilsson
Gladys Nilsson
Gladys M. Nilsson is an American artist, one of the original Chicago Imagists, a group in the 1960s and 1970s who turned to representational art...

http://www.natsoulas.com/html/artists/gladysNilsson/gladysNilsson.html.

Programs run in Block 37, or Gallery 37 Downtown run through Spring, Summer, and Fall. There are programs currently available in Culinary Arts, Dance, Literary Arts, Opera Workshop & Theater, and Visual & Media Arts. Students earn stipends by the end of the program.
There are several other programs all over Chicago run privately by high schools and parks.

External links

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