North side politicians, LGBTQ+ advocates and neighbors gathered Thursday to break ground on a new pedestrian plaza in Andersonville named for late trans activist Elise Malary.
The one-block stretch of Catalpa Avenue, from Clark Street to Ashland Avenue, is the neighborhood’s first pedestrian plaza, officials said, and will feature seating areas, trees, native plants, decorative lighting and bike racks. The area was already renamed Elise Malary Way in 2024, in honor of her work with Chicago’s LGBTQ+ community.
At the ceremony, elected officials, along with Malary’s friends and family, shared memories and took turns shoveling soil.
Malary, 31, was reported missing in March 2022 and found dead in Lake Michigan weeks later. She was remembered as someone who had a “profound influence” on advocacy for Chicago’s LGBTQ community, people of color and transgender people of color.
Born and raised in Andersonville, Malary worked at the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Equality Illinois, the Chicago Reader and the civil rights bureau of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office. She was also a founding member of the Chicago Therapy Collective, a mental health nonprofit. She was living in Evanston at the time of her death.
Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, said the ceremony was years in the making. In 2020, he proposed a pedestrian plaza at the location as part of the city’s “shared streets” initiative. The area was temporarily closed off with barricades and traffic barrels.
“It became a place where independent businesses could set up small markets and events, and rallies and community gatherings could take place,” Vasquez said.
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After the pilot period, Vasquez began to push for a permanent change. Conversations about dedicating the space to Malary began in 2022, according to State Sen. Mike Simmons.
The city awarded a construction firm over $2.7 million to develop the plaza in April.
“We’re going to see people out here celebrating Elise Malary every day,” Simmons said.
Vasquez, who met Malary while running for office and developing his platform, said her advice was “invaluable.”
“Elise always took up space with a warmth and a joy that everyone around her could feel,” Vasquez said. “She reminds me that for so many people, and especially for our Black trans women, existing is its own form of resistance.”
Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, 48th, recalled meeting Malary at the Chicago Reader. Her own small business, a dance supply store, was an early participant in the Hire Trans Now initiative, which Malary helped launch with the Chicago Therapy Collective. The program provides workplace training for local businesses and advocates for trans-inclusive hiring practices.
“She took that to City Hall, in fact, and demanded that all of the departments follow in line with those practices because we know that if trans folks are doing OK, then everyone does OK,” Hoppenworth said.
The plaza was the location of the Andersonville Farmers Market until spring 2025, when it was temporarily relocated in anticipation of the plaza’s construction, which is expected to be completed at the end of the year, according to the 40th Ward website. Then, next spring, the farmers market is expected to return, according to the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce.
“Her legacy, her presence, and her smile is so felt by so many in Andersonville,” Andersonville Chamber of Commerce secretary Dena Jo Pavlovic said at Thursday’s groundbreaking. “And this plaza, this new community space, is going to make sure that that never fades and people will be there to say who she was.”