I wrote this article about Potthast's Saloon on the corner of State and Van Buren. The entrance was under the El stairs and the bar was beneath the sidewalk on State St. The bar closed sometime in the 1960s, but the entrance was still there in the 1970s. Does anyone have any memories about this saloon?



http://www.chicagohistoryjournal.com/2009/03/potthasts-saloon.html

Good Lord, I've never been happier to see a post here than yours. It's cleared up a lifelong mysterious memory. I was afraid I'd go to my grave without ever finding out.

Somewhere around 1960, give or take a few years, I was with my parents downtown. I was somewhere around ten years old. I've had this vivid memory of going down the stairs at this very location under the el tracks: as we were going down, there was a woman singer on a stage, who turned towards us and winked. I also recall quite a few people down there.

We never made it all the way down; my parents turned around and left. But that image has been vivid in my mind for a good half-century, and nobody I've ever talked to remembered that place. I'd even gone back to that location, looking for vestiges of the entrance. Nothing but a patch of cement.

You have no idea how much I enjoyed your article as well as this post.

In looking through the photos in the next posting at www.chicagopast.com, at about page 30 I think, there was a photo showing the entrance to Potthast's under the L. Hope you can locate it. The photos at chciagopawst. com are very cool though.

Photographs from The Chicago Daily News 1902 - 1933

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/ichihtml/

Search: Entrance to a saloon in the sidewalk at South State Street and Van Buren Street

Too bad you didn't get to actually stay there, though I suspect, even in the 1960s, it was still somewhat unsavory for a kid to be in. Van Buren and State was where the "bad" end of State St. started.

Speaking of Potthast's, I recall this photograph from Shorpy's photo archives:

http://www.shorpy.com/node/2304?size=_original#caption



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2014 03:08AM by robspost.

That picture of Fred Potthast's is on page 46 of http://chicagopast.com/page/46.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2014 12:52PM by robspost.