Chicago Stories: Sixty-Third and Cottage Grove
Of course, there was the Loop. The Loop was magic, with Shedd
Aquarium, Field Museum, Adler Planetarium, the Art Institute,
Goodman Theater, Orchestra Hall, Soldier's Field, Grant Park,
Buckingham Fountain, Navy Pier, and more kinds of stores,
bookshops, restaurants, theaters, magazine stands, and of
everything else than you could describe, name, count, or imagine.
There were the great department stores of State Street,
Wiebolt's, Goldblatt's, the Fair, and, the queen of them all,
Marshall Fields with its enchanted windows at Christmas time,
porridge and cocoa in the Walnut Room, arching mosaic ceilings,
and, of course, the clock under which all of Chicago arranged to
meet for dinner, business, proposals and propositions, shopping,
and all those other things that pertain to the humane life. My
grandmother dreamed one night that God had told her to meet Him
under the clock at Marshall Fields. No one to whom she told her
dream considered the arrangement the least bit odd.
There were the dingy shops over on Wabash; the eternal going out
of business sales of Maxwell Street, Capone country down past
12th, little Hillman's heaped with oranges, lemons, grapefruit,
kumquats, tangerines, pomegranates, and pineapples in the dead of
winter, and stacked with fragrant mince pies; the wind driving
sleet like bullets onto Michigan avenue; the great red carpet of
at the Sheridan Hotel; the smoke-filled rooms of the Blackstone,
the continual screeching as the els made their four ninety-degree
turns to clatter back to wherever it was they had come; and,
towering over it all, the white Deco of the Wrigley building and
the gray Gothic of Tribune Tower. The Loop was magic, especially
at Christmas or Easter, or when it was raining or snowing, or at
any other time you might think of, and I don't know of anyone who
didn't love the Loop and everything in it.
The intersection of 63rd street and Cottage Grove avenue wasn't
magic; it was real and it was home, and when I was a child I
believed that 63rd street was the finest place in the world. One
night, my mother listened to my prayers; after I had asked God to
bless just about everyone, including our two vicious Chows, I
added "and be nice to everyone everywhere else." I later heard
mother boasting to a neighbor that her son was so thoughtful that
he prayed that God should bless the entire world, but she hadn't
understood me. I was asking God to take pity on all of the people
who didn't live around 63rd street.
I didn't know then, and wouldn't have been able to comprehend it
if I had been told, that both of my parents were working very
hard so that we could someday move to a "nicer" place. Much of
their labor was for me; they did not want me to grow up in the
company of drunks, prostitutes, grifters, punchdrunk ex-boxers,
and all of the other people who filled the street day and night.
They never understood that this was Life, and that I was drinking
it in with as great gulps as a small boy was capable.
Sixty-third street was a world of delight. It was a narrow street
bordered by four-story buildings on either side, the ground
floors occupied by stores, shops, taverns, restaurants, and
enterprises of all manners and means. On the bay windows of the
second floors, tastefully but clearly lettered in the blackest
blacks, shining golds, emerald greens, or ruby reds, were signs.
Big letters that you could read from the sidewalk were surrounded
by arabesques that lent the words an air of delicacy and elegance
that made sign-painting a highly respected profession and the
sign-painter an artist in his own right.
We learned to read even before we began school; kids who could
would point out signs and read them to the rest of us. Sixty-
third street was our primer, and a much better one than the
color-coded residents of "Friendly Village" provided.
JOHN TIERNY ATTORNEY AT LAW WILLS PROBATED. PAINLESS EXTRACTIONS
WHILE YOU WAIT. Yes, it did say that. PEDICURES AND BUNIONS
REMOVED PAINLESSLY. PERSONAL COUNSELOR LEARN WHAT IS NECESSARY.
ST. KILIAN'S PARISH CHARITIES. TEA ROOM QUIET REFINED. MICHAEL
PEABODY MD MEDICATIONS PREPARED ON PREMISES. JAMES FLYNN PRIVATE
INVESTIGATOR OVERDUE ACCOUNTS DUNNED. TIVOLI SURGERY TONSILS AND
ADENOIDS OUR SPECIALTY. PANTS PRESSED GUARANTEED. ORDER OF
ROSICRUCIANS. MEN'S HOTEL 25 CENTS CLEAN SHEETS DAILY. HOT BATH
AND MASSAGE. ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS. JACOBS OLD GOLD BOUGHT
AND SOLD. VAN DOUT'S COFFEES TEAS COCOAS. LOANS NO COLLATERAL
NEEDED. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE READING ROOM NO LOITERERS. TURKISH BATH
STEAM HOT AND COLD LOCKERS FREE. DEMOCRATIC PARTY HEADQUARTERS.
CHILDREN KEPT LONG AND SHORT TERM. DUCKPINS THREE CENTS A GAME.
ALEXANDER'S. J. S. ROYLAND PORTRAITS FROM FLESH OR FOTO.
HEADQUARTERS GERMAN AMERICAN FREINDSHIP SOCIETY (Yes. The sign-
painter didn't like them). ROBINSON'S GYM RING FREE WITH
SPARRERS, FEDERATED BOY'S CLUBS OF CHICAGO. THEOSOPHICAL CIRCLE.
All ending with the legend, in smaller letters, "one flight up".
And overhead, running straight east from Halstead past the
decayed woodpile that had one been White City Amusement Park Fun
For The Entire Family, was the el. Double tracks running level
with the fourth floors and supported by open-work steel girders
marching two by two down 63rd street to the Blackstone street
station. I lived with the el; my bedroom looked out on the
tracks, and the trains would thunder and screech and clatter by
with their lights all day and night until 2:30AM. I would
sometimes lie in my bed and wait for the els to pass and look at
the people in the windows and pretend that I was moving and they
were stationary, sitting and reading their Final Editions. Each
morning I would wake up for a few blurry momements at 2:30 AM a
bit disoriented by the silence, but I would quickly fall asleep
again.
Beneath the el, tfour-fold trolley tracks ran down the center of
the street, on which bright red and gold street cars clattered up
and down, occasionally showering bright blue sparks when their
power poles momentarily lost contact with the electric wires
overhead. On either side of the streetcar tracks, dark green
enclosed wagons with bright red spokes and rubber wheels hauled
ice, chocolate brown wagons with cream-colored wheels carried
milk, rumbling open wagons carried the junk men, rag men, and all
sorts of others going up and down tending their business. In the
winter, the horses would have thick blankets on their backs,
canvas feedbags covering their noses, and plaid scarves wrapped
around their heads to protect their ears. They would stamp the
snow into slush, snort great clouds of smoke, and were finer than
the finest dragons in my picture books.
In the summertime, the sunlight shone down through the tracks in
long lattices of light and shade that fell on the autos and
horses and wagons and people moving up and down the street. Every
few minutes, a train would rumble overhead and its shadow would
raced down the street and slow with screeching brakes, finally
stopping at the Blackstone Street station, where travellers could
transfer to the Illinois Central Railway, and from there to
anywhere in the world.
At about five in the morning people would start coming to the
corner of Cottage Grove avenue and 63rd. They would a hot fresh
doughnut from the cart where they were fried and hung up on
broomsticks, and drink a mug of hot fresh coffee with sugar and
cream. Some would then climb the stairs to the el station and
others would board the street cars that would pull up in long
lines. All day long, the street cars and els would rumble and
screech up and down. By 6:00 in the evening, a cart with steaming
coffee and thick slices of hot fennel bread and another with
fresh hard rolls and hot kosher kielbassa had taken their places
on the corner, and the neighborhood children had begun to gather
to wait for their parents to come home. Bobby Roth and his whole
family had gone down to the Cottage Grove steps when his father
had gotten on the el and gone to Spain. And Richard Thomas's
mother and father had escorted him when he took the street car to
join the Navy and be assigned to the USS Arizona.
In between morning and evening, people went up and down the
sidewalks in a steady streams of activity, and I never tired of
watching them. Of course, my friends and I were part of it all,
pursuing our own money-making schemes, each with his or her own
enterprise. The McCarthy twins, Georgie and Eddie, were
particularly well-known for their promotions of the course of
true love. They would prey upon young couples without wedding
rings walking down the street. As a couple passed, Georgie would
say to Eddie in a stage whisper, "Hey Eddie! Pipe duh babe! Ain't
she a beaut? Wow!" Although the nose of the lady in question
would usually simply rise a few points into the air, a nickel or
dime from the young man would often enough sail through the air
into the waiting hands of the McCarthy twins.
Where has it all gone? What has happened to them all? Where is
Mr. Carlson, carrying a pail of beer home to drink with his
supper? Where is Andy, pretending not to see that I had grabbed a
ride on the back fender of the Halstead streetcar? Where is
Father, swinging off the trolley after a twelve-hour shift in the
Yards? Where is Sonia, jingling her keys and whispering "two
dollars"? Where are Offissakelly with his billy in one hand and a
doughnut in the other, George the candymaker, Bracchia the
vegetable cart man, Leon and his ferrets, Tony's monkey with his
bright red hat and frightened eyes, Otto the philosophical
streetsweeper, Stanley and his mechanical men, Resto the rag man,
Belle the ice-wagon horse with her black velvet nose, Pietro the
knife sharpener, Pete the blue-eyed drunk, and punch-drunk
Sailor shadowboxing the fire alarm post? I suppose that old Lao
was right and that they've gone wherever it is that straw dogs
go.
Lynn Harry Nelson
Professor Emeritus of History
University of Kansas
042404
