Re: Does anyone remember the 'Lions' building on North ave?
Date: February 13, 2013 06:42PM
I remember the Lions Building very well. While I grew up further northwest in the City, or doctor was located over the Tiffin Theater building at North and Karlov, and my grandmother lived on Lowell. We were in that area a lot. The Lions Building seemed to be an SRO to me, and I remember when it was torn down. There was a bowling alley and a banquet hall there. Nearby was Kral's Kiddie Corner, a big store for childrens things. The old Pioneer Bank was on the corner of North and Pulaski, and there was a building across the street, on Pulaski just north of the alley north of North Avenue, that used to be the original bank building. A Chicago Public Library was located there when I was a kid. I recently found a bank book for an account my father opened at Pioneer Bank in 1924. Izen's Shoes, which recently closed down, was another long time business in the area. My father had a distant cousin who ran a live poultry shop on North Avenue, a couple of doors east of Keeler, and he was known throughout the family as "Chicken John." I believe the large store west of Keeler that is now a supermarket "Jimenez" used to be a furniture store, and right on the corner of Grand and Kostner there used to be a dance school. Just up the corner on Kostner, on the east side of the street, there was a building that used to be "Keystone Emergency Hospital." While it was already closed when I was growing up, my uncle told me it was a place where accident victims were brought in pretty bad shape, and usually didn't survive.