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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Washington Heights, Chicago/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 19 January 2020 [1].

Washington Heights, Chicago

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Nominator(s): – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 04:06, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Chicago Community Area #73, located on the Far South Side and unrelated to the one in New York. Established where two railroads crossed, it became one of the original community areas in the 1920s. Originally mostly settled by Irish, Germans, and Swedes, it experienced white flight in the 1960s and has been predominately African-American since then. It has mostly retained its middle-class character after the transition but has declined a bit in recent years. It contains the Brainerd Bungalow Historic District and the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library, home to the largest collection of African-American history in the Midwestern United States. I owe it to Mpen320 for looking this over and suggesting additions to the article, which entailed a major expansion of it using the induction info on the Brainerd District and miscellaneous other information; I am unaware of any good major sources outside of what I have included here. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 04:06, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Captions that aren't complete sentences shouldn't end in periods
    • Done

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • What is your source for the inflation calculation in note a?
  • Don't mix templated and untemplated citations
    • All inline citations have been templated.
  • Be consistent in when you include locations for publications
    • I have removed all locations from inline citations, but have kept them for bibliography entries when they are available.
  • Be consistent in when you wikilink parts of citations
    • I have removed all inline citation wikilinks.
  • Don't duplicate |work= and |publisher= when they are the same, use only the more appropriate one
  • What makes Rob Paral a high-quality reliable source? ZipMap? Chicago-L.org? Fuder?
    • Paral and Associates is an organization dedicated to providing data for community development; they have had several clients (admittedly their words, but I see no reason to doubt them). The data used is objective enough such that NPOV and CoI issues should be low, and the fact that the data for 1930, 1960, 1990, and 2000 line up with those provided by the Encyclopedia of Chicago indicates that it is an adequate and reliable source. Chicago-L.org is managed by Graham Garfield; it maintains a bibliography of the sources it uses; while it solicits and encourages user entries, they are submitted through e-mail, providing an opportunity for Garfield to vet them. Given that, I believe it is a sufficient source to verify the claim that 95th/Dan Ryan was the 6th-busiest "L" station in 2012, although if you beg to differ I can try to find another source or remove the claim altogether. Fuder is a prayer booklet, and thus probably not the best source for most of the article, but according to its Introduction it was compiled over several years by several people, largely grad students at the Moody Bible Institute. Its sole use in the article was to verify that Longwood Manor is a neighborhood in Washington Heights, which looking through Google Maps and real estate sites seems WP:TRUE enough but which Zangs does not mention and which upon further reflection isn't found in any other sources and should thus not be mentioned in the article; I have thus removed it and Fuder for the time being. ZipMap was not a reliable source, and I have replaced it with a much better one.
  • Chicago Tribune should be italicized
    • Done
  • Be consistent in how DNAinfo citations are formatted
    • I have decided to use {{cite news}} with all of them.

Thank you for your feedback, and apologies for the delay in getting to all of them. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:13, 23 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support by Epicgenius

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@John M Wolfson: In the course of my real-life job (which is not related to editing Wikipedia at all), I had the great pleasure of reading many subjects on Chicago topics, including drawing maps and writing real-estate blurbs for Chicago neighborhoods. I have to say that this is one of the better neighborhood-related pages in the WP:CHICAGO project, as there are only three neighborhood GA's and the Washington Heights article looks like it is at least GA quality.

Anyway, that said, here are some preliminary comments I have.

  • There doesn't seem to be any content at all about fire or health. There is only minimal info about police and crime.
    • I have added some material on crime stats, I'll see whether I can find something about fire and health. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:21, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • This is a good start. Would it be appropriate to make a "Police and crime" section/subsection with both the police district and the crime stats?
      • I think "Governance" should similarly be looked-at. This section is currently a single paragraph with, as far as I can tell, three distinct topics: [Governance/courts], [Police], and [Post offices and ZIP codes]. These topics may be better off if they are split up, at least into separate paragraphs, but that's just a suggestion. epicgenius (talk) 21:46, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "Transportation" section can stand to be split up into separate subsections, I think.
    • The first paragraph is more heavily loaded on Metra, but the Chicago "L" and local buses are only mentioned in one sentence each. I like Metra, but still, I think commuter rail is in a different class of public transit than the "L" and buses. And considering that there is more content about Metra than the "L" or buses, Metra should be its own paragraph.
    • Washington Heights's history has been described as "all about transit" - This history of transit should probably be summarized here as well, in a sentence or two about the different railroad lines that historically took up the area.
    • The second paragraph is about transportation, only insofar as private car usage/ownership is considered. I wouldn't really consider this transportation, but that's just me.
  • The "Parks and recreation" section:
    • I know the Major Taylor Trail was a rail line before it was a park. Can we expand on this, somewhere in the history or transit section? There's only a passing mention here.
    • Are there really only three parks in Washington Heights? I feel like there are more. Are Oakdale and Euclid Parks not part of the Washington Heights community district?
  • The "Geography" section includes housing stock as well - maybe rename this to "Land use and terrain"?
  • In general, don't start sentences with numbers, e.g. "28.0 percent of units have two vehicles available, compared to a citywide figure of 25.5 percent." MOS:NUMNOTES is the relevant guideline, but this is a general thing to avoid outside Wikipedia as well.

More comments later. Right now I'm seeing a few places where there are a few things to be wondered, content-wise. epicgenius (talk) 17:15, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there are some places in this article where grammar may need to be touched up. I have made a few edits to the lead, but feel free to remove any parts you don't like. Some of the more common issues I noticed are the lack of commas after prepositional phrases (e.g. "Throughout the 20th century"), repetition of some words (e.g. "it" was repeated four times in the last sentence of the second paragraph), and sentences with unwieldy construction (e.g. The area was the site of the formation of the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company). I think this may need a grammatical once-over since there seem to be a lot of these in the article. epicgenius (talk) 17:40, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Epicgenius: Major apologies for not getting on to this earlier. I have split the Transportation and Government sections as you've suggested. I've also added new information for the Fernwood neighborhood and a new subsection for the Washington Heights neighborhood; I still feel as if the latter is redundant to the "History" section, since I haven't been able to find much about it in particular in the sources. (I have also considered using newspaper clippings, but I am declining to use them for the time being because I don't want to reveal my real name, which is used for my Newspapers.com account.) – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:17, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@John M Wolfson: No problem. I am also using my real name for my newspapers.com account, but I don't really care about my anonymity anymore (my real name is in a few news articles), so I can clip the articles for you if you want. Anyway, I can take a look at your improvements later on, when I have some time. epicgenius (talk) 00:28, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That would be great if not an imposition, but no worries if it is. I look forward to your feedback. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:37, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, I've gone & done that. epicgenius (talk) 01:12, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Epicgenius: Apologies if this is overbearing, but I was just wondering if you've had the chance to look at this article some more. Thanks! – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 02:14, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @John M Wolfson: Sorry, I forgot about this review. Here are a few minor issues I found:
      • A growing number of African-Americans began moving into the area, starting east of Halsted Street during the 1950s - does this mean that they began moving into the region east of Halsted, starting in the 1950s? If so you do not need the word "starting" and can say "the region east of Halsted...".
        • It means that the African-Americans initially settled east of Halsted, something which I hope I've made clearer.
      • Interstate 57 was built through the area, opening in 1967 and displacing many residents - How so?
        • I've rephrased it to say that it forced the residents to move.
      • 91.4 percent of people and jobs are located in highly walkable areas - what does this mean for non-city planners? I know it, but would the average reader know what this means?
        • I've used the CMAP definition while avoiding close paraphrasing.
      • With respect to Chicago Public Schools the area contains, in addition to Fort Dearborn School, Kipling Elementary School, Evers Elementary School, Fernwood Elementary School, Green Elementary School, Wacker Elementary School, Garvey Elementary School, Mount Vernon Elementary School, and Julian High School - this sentence is clunk. Do you need "in addition to"? Also, I'd rephrase "With respect to".
        • I've attempted to tweak the sentence.
      • 1.8 accessible park acres, 2.4 acres - might be better with metric conversions. Check for others as well, such as square miles.
        • Done
    • Overall, this is in better shape than when I last looked. However, I think there are still a few details left to be clarified, as I mention above. epicgenius (talk) 02:22, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thank you for your comments. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 02:52, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • No problem. I found a few more things on my final look-through, and saw these:
          • A minuscule part north of 97th street - "Street" should be capitalized.
            • Done
          • In the United States Postal Service Washington Heights is part of the 60620, 60628, and 60643 ZIP Codes. - I don't think you need to mention USPS when mentioning ZIP Codes, unless you mean to say that the USPS administers these ZIP codes.
            • It was meant to indicate that those were for mail for those who don't know what ZIP codes are, but I think the "Postal service" header already implies that. In any case done.
          • the sixth busiest station on the Chicago "L" as of 2012 - are there more up to date data?
            • I found a more primary source from the City with data from June 2019; it appears 95th/Dan Ryan has slipped to 14th.
        • Otherwise I am inclined to give my support. However, I may still point out a few issues later. There are a few grammar things too, but these vary between different English variations, so I won't point them out. epicgenius (talk) 03:18, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • Support. All the issues I've pointed out above have been resolved. I may check for some minor errors later, but on the whole, this looks fairly comprehensive, without going into excessive or insufficient detail. epicgenius (talk) 04:15, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support by Cas Liber

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Taking a look now...will make straightforward copyedits as I go (please revert if I inadvertently change the meaning) and jot queries below...

  • The area was primarily agrarian between the 1830s and the 1860s - err, why not just say "farmland"?
    • I have changed it to more closely match the source.
  • Calumet Township was incorporated in 1862... - I can't figure out why this is relevant.
  • which began a dominance of the railroad in the region - I know what you mean (I think) but this phrasing sounds odd. Does it need to be in at all?
    • I attempted to reword it, I feel like something to that effect should be in there.
  • ...and was annexed to Chicago in 1890 - you mention this twice in the para. I'd remove the first mention as it keeps the flow more chronological and the second one is harder to remove from surrounding material.
    • Done.
  • Brainerd is a neighborhood in Washington Heights - I'd remove this sentence in the Brainerd subsection as we've already established this and it makes the prose here sound repetitive.
    • Done.
  • I don't get much of a feeling as to what these parks are - forests? lawns? fields?
    • Forgive me if I've misunderstood your comment, but I have added the facilities for each park. Chicago parks tend to be "lawns" except for the forest preserves, of which there aren't any in Washington Heights. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 09:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • That's fine. I have no familiarity with the area - if there are no sources that expand on it that's okay. Rading it again, I think there is enough info. Cas Liber (talk · contribs)
  • Also - what about commercial areas - local shopping districts - where do people go shopping?

SG

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Not ready, there is still quite a bit of work needed here. There are no WP:NBSPs. All of the dates need {{as of}} templates, as geographic place articles become dated. The word "eponymous" is not helpful in the lead, as not all readers will understand it. Prose needs work, sample:

Another sample:

  • (In the time, in that time, in that time.) In the time between November 2018 and November 2019, 3,165 crimes were committed in Washington Heights, making it the community area with the 32nd most crimes in that time;[62] in that same time 291 violent crimes were committed, making it the community area with the 29th most violent crimes in that time.[63]

I suggest an independent copyedit and thorough MOS review will help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:40, 18 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • I respectfully disagree that this is not ready for FAC given the support that it has received above. I think the work that you suggest can be done in the course of a normal FAC, especially the NBSPs and As ofs. I have removed the word "eponymous" in the lead, but kept it in the "Etymology" section as I think it's the best word for the context. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:47, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • @SandyGeorgia:, I have performed a copyedit on the article which included moderately reformatting the lead, adding nbsps and as ofs, removing about 40% of the instances of "the area", and rewording all but one of the sentences that had started with numbers. While it might not be perfect, I hope it will at least be enough for your consideration (and if you see anything more, feel free to reword it as you see fit.) Thanks! – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 03:49, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, I mentioned that it needed an independent copyedit, because it can be hard to see our own typos and prose errors. For example, "13.6 percent of the population 25 years and old held ... " There are still sentences starting with numbers. Two parks consecutively described with "it contains". WP:MOSNUM issues (9 years old). Still lacking many WP:NBSPs; anywhere a number and word are together, they need to be stuck together (25 houses, Ward 31, Interstate 57, etc.) Many statements that NEED a date don't have them (With regards to languages, 97.9 percent of the population five years and older were able to speak only English and an identical figure of residents spoke it at home, compared to respective citywide figures both at 64 percent.[38]) There is prose redundancy throughout ("With regards to lanugages", "In 1940 foreign-born whites were 12.5% of the population; the top five such nationalities were German, Irish, Swedish, Canadian, and English or Welsh.") Most of the article uses percent, but there is some %. Percent ranges should not use the word twice. In short, these are samples only, and only what my eyes fell on as I scanned, and the article needs an independent set of eyes to go line by line and address everything. Withdrawal and working off FAC would be the fastest way to accomplish this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:46, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Sarastro

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Oppose: I've looked at this a couple of times, and I don't think we're there. The prose especially needs quite a bit of work I think. These are examples only from a fairly quick glance through the article. I'm pretty sure that a closer look would reveal many more issues. So this is not an exhaustive list, and addressing these alone would not be enough for my oppose to be struck. I think someone needs to have a look at this with fresh eyes, which might be better done away from FAC and I'm inclined to suggest withdrawal. There are issues with prose and flow, comprehensiveness (there is information on the decline in the area in the cited source which is not included in the article; there are also a few things that I think need to be explained further), and a potential small issue with close paraphrasing (which may need further sources to be checked). Sorry. Sarastro (talk) 11:27, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some random samples from throughout the article:

  • How are we using commas for adverbials at the start of sentences? We have "In 2017 27,453 people and 9,570 households lived in Washington Heights" (no comma); " In the Chicago City Council, Washington Heights is split between..." (comma); "Within the Circuit Court of Cook County Washington Heights is located..." (no comma); "In Chicago Public Schools the area contains..." (no comma); "Within the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, the Dan Ryan Woods are located" (comma)
  • We use "located" 17 times in the article; the word is particularly present in the "Government" and "Transportation" sections, and a little variety would be beneficial.
  • "The first public school in the area opened in 1874.[11] Mr. J. A. Wadhams had already been teaching at a small wood-frame building for the previous two years; Wadhams became the first principal of the new school.": We are not told who Wadhams was, so the reader is left wondering if he is significant in some way. Why did he open the school? Why did he become principal? Is he commemorated in some way? Also, this is rather awkwardly written and could perhaps be rewritten as something like "The area's first public school opened in 1874. Mr J. A. Wadhams, a [whatever we know about him] who had been teaching in a small school [where?] for two years, became its first principal."
  • "In Chicago Public Schools the area contains Fort Dearborn School, Kipling Elementary School, Evers Elementary School, Fernwood Elementary School, Green Elementary School, Wacker Elementary School, Garvey Elementary School, Mount Vernon Elementary School, and Julian High School.": This as written doesn't quite make sense. Perhaps "The Chicago Public Schools district contains..."
  • We use "bounded" three times in close succession in the "Brainerd" section; the word "households" is somewhat overused in the "Demographics" section.
  • "Gardner established a tavern in 1836, which would be acquired by William Wilcox in 1844": Why not just "was acquired"?
  • "The median household income declined somewhat in the 2000s; it was $2,000 less than the citywide median in 2013, while it had been $6,000 above the citywide median in 1989": This is a failing of the source as much as anything, but the date we use here to support the decline in the 2000s does not mention anything except 1989 and 2013. However, if we are making a point about decline, the source also discusses other factors, such as the poverty line, that we are not using here but that we probably should be.
  • "The area had an income distribution in which 32 percent of households earned less than $25,000 annually; 21.9 percent of households earned between $25,000 and $49,999; 16.4 percent of households earned between $50,000 and $74,999; 12.5 percent of households earned between $75,000 and $99,999; 12.1 percent of households earned between $100,000 and $149,999; and 5.2 percent of households earned more than $150,000": This is an incredibly repetitive and long sentence. This information would be better recorded as a table if it is essential, or summarised better. Recording this information as prose is not a good idea.
  • We need to be a little careful with close paraphrasing. I'm not sure this would count as such, but it pays to be careful and to completely rewrite the source (incidentally, our article omits any explanation of what the Brainerd Improvement Club is):
  • Source"In 1902, E. L. Brainerd and other early settlers decided to form a community organization called the Men’s Club of Brainerd, then changed its name to Brainerd Improvement Club a year later in order to permit women."
  • Article:"The Men's Club of Brainerd was formed in 1902, and was renamed the Brainerd Improvement Club in 1903 in order to admit women."
  • We should probably say more about who EL Brainerd was.
  • Prose: This needs quite a lot of work. We have some very repetitive sentence structures. We have an enormous number of sentences which follow the form "[Noun] was/is [piece of information]", many more that are simple "[noun] [verb] [information]", and a few that have an adverbial to start the sentence, followed by the same structures. We also do not seem to be using "while" in the most effective way at times, as it quite often implies a chronological element; perhaps words such as "although" or "whereas" may help a little.
  • Flow: Related to the above points, much of this article reads like a list of unconnected facts placed next to each other. We need to look at improving the cohesion and flow rather than a list of information. For example, the "20th Century" section has successive sentences with completely different subjects: Brainerd Improvement Club, gas lines, street cars, paving of roads, streetlights, definition of area, bungalows, growth, population. There is nothing to connect them or to show why they are placed where they are. Only the last paragraph, on the African American population, has a little more flow, but then loses focus again when the information about Interstate 57 is tacked onto the end. Sarastro (talk) 11:27, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I thank you for your and SG's comments. I would withdraw this were it not for the fact that this is pretty close to being closed anyway. I shall address your concerns throughout. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 12:54, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks John, I'm sure you'll make every effort to address the concerns raised and, yes, let's please do that outside the FAC process and then bring it back for another nom at some stage after the usual two-week waiting period. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:17, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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