WBEZ | Southwest Side

A tale of two Kellys

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 05:00:00 -0500

Politicians love to get their names on things. So when a politician passes on, it's natural that the living politicians try to find something public they can rename to honor a departed colleague. In Chicago, this process can become quite creative.

Take Kelly High School and Kelly Park. They’re across California Avenue from one another, just south of Archer Avenue. But each is named for a different Kelly.

Thomas Kelly was born in 1843. He got into Democrat politics and was elected alderman in the 28th Ward. He later became a trustee of the Chicago Sanitary District. Kelly was serving on the Board of Education when he died in 1914.

In 1928 a new junior high school opened at 4136 South California Avenue. Thomas Kelly had been on the school board and lived in the neighborhood, so the building was named for him. In 1933 it became a four-year high school, which it remains today.

The school also owned a parcel of vacant land across the street, on the east side of California Avenue. In 1947 the Park District signed a lease for the property with the idea of building a park. A number of adjacent home owners were forced to sell by court order, and their houses leveled. In 1951, Kelly Park was dedicated.

Meanwhile, Edward J. Kelly had just died. This Kelly had been Mayor of Chicago from 1933 to 1947, the longest tenure in the city’s history. Today the signs at the park read “Edward J. Kelly Park, established 1951.” However, it’s not clear when Ed Kelly’s name was actually put on the park.

I had an older friend who grew up nearby. He said the vacant land on the east side of California was informally called “Kelly Park” as early as the 1940s. It was considered to be part of Kelly High School.

Maybe the Ed Kelly dedication did take place in 1951. Maybe it took place in 1991, when the Board of Education transferred its portion of the property to the Park District. Maybe it happened some time in between. The end result is a sort of cut-rate commemoration, two politicians for the price of one.

In any event, Ed Kelly now has his own bit of immortality. And as much as any Chicago politician, he deserves to be remembered. After all, he’s still the longest-serving mayor whose name is not Daley.

Dingbat's funeral

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 05:00:00 -0500

On this March 11 in 1930, the big story in Washington was the funeral of William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States. In Chicago, the big story was also a funeral. The city was saying good-bye to the Dingbat.

The Dingbat was John Oberta, his nickname derived from a comic strip. He was 29 at the time of his death. Like Taft he was a Republican politician, the 13th Ward Committeeman. Unlike Taft, he was a gangster.

Oberta was a protégé of Big Tim Murphy, bootlegger and labor racketeer in the Back-of-the-Yards neighborhood. One morning Big Tim opened his front door and had his head blown off by a shotgun blast. A few months later, Dingbat married Big Tim’s widow.

Now Dingbat was gone, too. He had been found shot dead in his car, along with his chauffeur, on a deserted road near Willow Springs.

By 1930 the gangster funeral had become a familiar Chicago custom. Dingbat’s friends would not scrimp. “I’m giving him the same I gave Tim,” Mrs. Murphy Oberta told reporters.

Dingbat was waked in his home on South Richmond Avenue. He lay in a $15,000 mahogany coffin with silver handles, under a blanket of orchids. Joe Saltis, Bugs Moran, Spike O’Donnell, and all of Dingbat’s pals were present. So were assorted politicians.

Two priests of the Polish National Catholic Church conducted a brief service. Then the pall bearers prepared to carry the coffin to the waiting hearse. Out on the street, a crowd of 20,000 people had gathered. (In Washington, half as many were reported at Taft’s funeral.)

"Carry my Johnny out the back way," Dingbat’s mother wailed. "Don’t let them see him! They didn’t care about him!" The pall bearers ignored her and brought Dingbat out the front door.

The coffin was loaded, then the hearse moved away. Following it were four carloads of flowers and a procession two miles long. When the funeral cortege arrived at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery, hundreds more curiosity seekers were there to greet it.

Dingbat was laid to rest a few feet from Big Tim Murphy. There was just enough space between them for another grave. Presumably that spot was reserved for their mutual wife.

The killing of Dingbat Oberta was never officially solved. And with the Great Depression fast descending on the country, the gaudy gangland funeral went out of fashion.

Brighton Park, past and present

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 05:00:00 -0600

Brighton Park is a Southwest Side neighborhood located about seven miles from the Loop along Archer Avenue. It is officially designated as Chicago Community Area 58.

There are at least three different stories on how Brighton Park got its name. What’s agreed on is that settlement began in the 1830s, during construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal.

The land itself wasn’t very inviting. Much of the area was low-lying and marshy, with the occasional clay hole. Flooding was frequent. Still, a few truck farmers stuck it out.

Local businessman John McCaffery is called the Father of Brighton Park. Seeing possibilities where others saw swamp, he built a plank road along what is now Western Avenue and began subdividing the land to the west. In 1851 the Village of Brighton Park was incorporated.

Railroads entered soon afterward. Various industries were established. Brighton Park had a nail factory, a brickyard, a cotton mill, and even a stockyard. One of the biggest plants made blasting powder—until a lightning strike blew up the place.

Brighton Park became part of Chicago in the great annexation of 1889. Yet as it developed, the community was cut off from the rest of the city on three sides. On the north was the Sanitary and Ship Canal, successor to the Illinois and Michigan. On the west were the massive yards of the Santa Fe Railroad. On the south was an industrial park.

That isolation didn’t halt the wave of settlement. The meatpackers were always hiring at the Union Stock Yards, only a short streetcar ride away. There were also plenty of jobs around locally, particularly after the Crane Plumbing Company opened its new plant in 1915. Cottages and two-flats began going up along the side streets. Archer Avenue became a thriving commercial strip.

The new people were mainly Poles, with a sprinkling of Lithuanians. The population of Brighton Park reached 46,000 in 1930. At that time 37 percent of the residents identified themselves as Polish, the largest concentration of that group in the city.

For much of the 20^th Century, the community was solid and stable. True, the population was dropping every decade, and was recorded as 30,000 in 1980—a decline of one-third over the course of fifty years. That was explained as due to normal aging, and the vogue for smaller families. Brighton Park looked the same as always.

In 1979,r a reigning pope came to Chicago for the first time. John Paul II was Polish, and he made it a point to visit his fellow countrymen at Five Holy Martyrs parish in Brighton Park. After he left, a portion of 43^rd Street was renamed Pope John Paul II Drive.

Brighton Park began changing during the 1980s. The Crane plant had closed in 1977, and now other factories started shutting down. The railroads scaled back as trucking cut into their freight business. With the decline of heavy industry, most of the residents worked in clerical or service jobs.

There were other demographic changes. In 1980 about 15 percent of Brighton Park residents identified as Hispanic. By 2010 that figure had risen to 85%. The population count had rebounded to 45,000, near the historic high.

Today the Orange Line ‘L’ cuts through the edge of Brighton Park, giving the community easier access to the rest of the city. Some factories remain, while others have been replaced with new housing and new strip malls. There are fewer Polish restaurants, and many more serving Mexican food.

The neighborhood also faces the usual urban challenges. Crime and unemployment are too high. The housing stock is growing older. There aren't enough recreational facilities, and the schools could be better.

Would John McCaffery recognize Brighton Park? Probably not. But he'd be proud of the place, just the same.

How I named a Chicago expressway

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 05:00:00 -0600

Adlai Stevenson II died on a heart attack while walking along a London Street on July 14, 1965. He was a one-term Illinois governor and a two-time Democrat presidential nominee. At the time of his death he was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

I was getting ready to start college that summer. I knew a bit about Stevenson and had a favorable opinion of him. Besides, he was a Chicagoan who’d been an actual presidential nominee. We’d probably never get another person that close to the White House for a hundred years.

So the day after Stevenson’s death, I sent a letter to the Sun-Times, suggesting that the new Southwest Expressway be renamed the Stevenson Expressway. I recounted some of the high points of his career. I also said that the Southwest Expressway would be an appropriate memorial, since it ran toward the ancestral home of the Stevensons in Bloomington.

A week went by. I’d just about decided the Sun-Times had thrown away my letter, when—they printed it! The paper had edited away about two-thirds of my copy. But there was my letter, on page 27 of the July 23rd Sun-Times, right under the editorial cartoon about President Johnson’s proposed Medicare law.

On September 1st the Chicago City Council voted unanimously to change the Southwest Expressway to the Stevenson Expressway.

I’m sure that I wasn’t the only one who came up with the Stevenson Expressway idea. Still, it was a heady experience for 17-year-old to think that the movers-and-shakers might actually be partaking of his wisdom.

A few years later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. I again sent a letter to the Sun-Times suggesting a street name be changed. I proposed that 47^th Street be renamed King Avenue. After all, 47^th was a main street in a Black section of the city, and it ran west into a White section, and wasn’t bringing the races together what Dr. King was all about?

This time, the Sun-Times did not print my letter, or even part of it. South Park Avenue was the street chosen by the city council to become King Drive.

I retired from the street-naming business for forty years. Then, when Barack Obama was elected president, I wrote to Chicago magazine with my proposal for the street that would eventually be renamed in his honor. I mentioned Wabash Avenue, though lately I’ve been leaning toward Franklin Street.

But that will have to wait until the President’s term is over. In the meantime, has anyone noticed that the I-57 expressway doesn’t have a name?

There in Chicago (#15)

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 05:00:00 -0500

How well did you find your way around 1955 Chicago?

We are just east of Kedzie, in the Brighton Park community. The ribbon commercial development on a somewhat wide street is one clue to this being Archer Avenue.

The transit clue is the double overhead wires. Notice that the bus in the picture is not using those wires. Although Archer never had its own trolley bus line, about a mile of the street was used for moving trolley buses from other lines to the CTA barn at Archer and Rockwell.

Where in Chicago? (#15)

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 05:00:00 -0500

How well could you find your way around the Chicago of the past?

This 1955 scene is from the Southwest Side — in this case, south of the canal and west of Western Avenue. Though the business names have changed, most of the buildings are still in place 57 years later. There is also a clue that a transit expert should recognize.

If you think you know the location, send in your guess as a comment. I'll post a contemporary photo tomorrow.

The Nineteen Years War: Pulaski vs. Crawford

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:15:00 -0600

It began in September 1933, when a local Polish group asked Mayor Edward J. Kelly to name a street in honor of Casimir Pulaski.

The idea was appealing. General Pulaski had been a hero of the American Revolution. Besides that, the Poles were a major ethnic voting bloc. Kelly agreed to the plan--Crawford Avenue was to be renamed Pulaski Road.

As the mayor soon found out, many Chicagoans were against the change.

The street in question had been named for pioneer settler Peter Crawford. His family liked the existing name. So did the Chicago Historical Society. So did the store owners along Crawford, who'd have to revise their advertising--a few businesses, like Madison-Crawford Restaurant, might even have to change their names.

In December 1933 the City Council approved the change to Pulaski. The next month a group of Crawford businessmen got an injunction to halt the action. The Appellate Court overturned the injuction, and the city began putting up the new street signs on March 9, 1934.

But now the Crawford group took their case to the State Legislature. In 1937 a new state law was enacted--if 60% of the property owners on a street signed a petition to change a street name, the street name had to be changed. The Crawfords immediately started gathering signatures to get the old name restored.

The Pulaskis fought back. They started their own petition drive to change Haussen Court to Crawford Avenue. If they could file their petition first, the Pulaski name would have to stay. After all, Chicago couldn't have two streets named Crawford Avenue.

The war dragged on. "Pulaski Road" signs kept disappearing. A streetcar conductor who announced "Crawford Avenue" was slugged by a Polish passenger. World War II came and went. Then, in 1951, the Crawfords got the number of signatures they needed.

The matter went to the Superior Court--and the judge ordered the street changed back to Crawford! The Pulaskis appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court. Finally, in November 1952, that court tossed out the 1937 petition law. Once and for all, Pulaski Road became official.

Official in Chicago, that is. In some suburbs, the street is still called Crawford Avenue.

January 2, 1900: Reversing the Chicago River

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:15:00 -0600

In case you hadn't noticed, the Chicago River flows backwards. It's been doing this for over a hundred years.

Like any normal river, the Chicago River used to flow into a larger body of water--namely, Lake Michigan. This became a problem in the middle of the 19th Century. As Chicago grew into a major city, the raw sewage of civilization was dumped into the river and flushed through to the lake. And the lake was where Chicagoans got their drinking water.

Besides being gross, this was dangerous. All those germs in the drinking water produced outbreaks of cholera or typhoid or other diseases.

You'll often hear the story of the Great Chicago Plague. It's said that cholera wiped out 70,000 people in a single year, about 20% of the city's population. Don't believe it. Someone cooked up the tale to make a point.

In any case, the solution to the pollution was simple. Just reverse the flow of the river so that it didn't empty into the lake.

Build a barrier at the east end of the Chicago River to block it off from the lake. At the same time, connect the west end to the Des Plaines River. Then our water would flow through the Des Plaines into the Illinois River, which flowed into the Mississippi River, which carried everything off into the Gulf of Mexico, a thousand miles away.

At first the engineers tried to deepen the Illinois & Michigan Canal, and use it as the west-end drain. That didn't work. A new canal was needed, and in 1889 the Illinois legislature approved plans to build the Chicago Drainage Canal.

Digging began in 1893. The Drainage Canal was going to be 28 miles long, 24 feet deep, and 202 feet wide. It was said to be the greatest public works project in history.

As the canal neared completion, some downriver towns weren't happy about Chicago sewage flavoring their drinking water. St. Louis prepared a lawsuit to halt the project.

Politicians love to hold dedication ceremonies, to show voters that tax dollars are being wisely spent. Now they couldn't wait. On the morning of January 2, 1900, an anonymous flunky simply opened the sluice gate, and the Chicago River began flowing into the new canal. Fait accompli!

Today the drainage canal is called the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. Meanwhile, two other waterways have been built to aid its noble work.

And if you look at the census figures, you'll note that the population of St. Louis keeps getting smaller and smaller. Is it something in their water?

Lost Landmark: Archer-35th Recreation

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:15:00 -0600

Not so long ago, Chicago had more than a hundred bowling alleys. Now there are fewer than twenty. The most historic of these lost landmarks was Archer-35th Recreation, the home of the annual Petersen Classic.

In 1919 Louis Petersen opened his alleys on the second floor of a commercial building at 2057 W. 35th Street. Two years later he staged a tournament. The Petersen Classic paid $1,000 to the bowler who rolled the highest total for eight games. That was big money for a sporting event in 1921--the same year, first prize in the U.S. Open golf tournament was only $500.

The early Petersen tournaments were dominated by star bowlers, so the number of entries remained small. Petersen wanted to expand. He finally came up with a novel way to attract more bowlers.

His idea was simple. If the winning scores were low, then more people would take a chance and bowl, figuring they might get lucky and take home a big prize. So Petersen did everything he could to keep the scores down.

The technical details don't concern us here. The important thing was that Petersen's plan worked.

Now bowlers from around the country began making an annual pilgrimage to Archer-35th. Each year the number of entries grew. The Petersen Classic became a bowling tradition.

Part of the appeal was funky old Archer-35th itself. Louis Petersen died in 1958 and the operation was taken over by his son-in-law, Mark Collor. About the only modernizing Collor did was replacing the pinboys with machines. Everything else looked unchanged from 1921.

You trudged up a dark, narrow flight of stairs from the street and entered a Capone-era saloon. Pass through a gold-painted metal fire door, and now you were in the bowling room. It smelled of old cigar smoke and stale beer. The decor featured large portraits of previous champions, hung from the ceiling over the 16 alleys.

This was the Petersen Classic. By 1980 the annual tournament ran a full nine months and drew 36,000 bowlers. The top prize pushed past $55,000. Even if you finished in 100th place, you still got $1,000. All for an entry fee of $65.

Then competitive bowling went into decline. Entries fell off. By 1993 Collor was ready to retire. When the roof developed a major leak, he closed down the tournament.

Archer-35th Recreation was demolished shortly afterward. In the years since, the new Orange Line has gentrified the old neighborhood. And a much-smaller version of the Petersen Classic is bowled each summer in suburban Hoffman Estates.

Dr. King comes to Marquette Park

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:15:00 -0500

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was bringing the civil rights movement to the cities of the North. In January 1966 he'd rented an apartment on the West Side of Chicago. On this date 45 years ago, he met a violent reaction in his adopted city.

King was leading a series of protest marches against housing segregation. Chicago's white realtors often refused to show homes in white neighborhoods to African-Americans. This was a particular problem in the Marquette Park neighborhood, scene of that day's march.

The protesters planned to demonstrate at three realty offices along 63rd Street. Opponents of open housing were determined to demonstrate against the demonstrators. The police were deployed to keep the two groups separate and peaceful.

A few open housing advocates arrived on the scene early, and marched without serious incident. The thousand or so opponents stood on the sidewalk behind the police lines. They jeered and yelled insults, but did nothing more. Then the main body of 700 marchers drove up in a motorcade.

King's car pulled to the curb at 63rd and Sacramento. As he got out, a rock sailed through the air and hit him in the back of the neck. He fell to one knee. After a few seconds he got up, and prepared to lead his people.

"I have to do this--to expose myself--to bring this hate into the open," King told them. "I have seen many demonstrations in the South, but I have never seen anything so hostile and so hateful as I've seen here today."

The march began. Now the crowd behind the police lines hurled rocks, bottles, firecrackers, chunks of concrete, and anything else within reach. Someone threw a knife. From time to time, the people on the sidewak tried to push through to get at the marchers. The cops held firm.

The day ended with 30 people injured, including King and four policemen. Forty-one persons had been arrested, mostly whites who'd tried to block off Kedzie Avenue.

Later in the year an agreement was reached between the open housing advocates and the Chicago Real Estate Board. The first, faltering steps had been taken toward ending segregated housing in the city.