I recall that when I was a kid, we lived in a 2 flat in the 3500 block of north Leavitt street. It was just south of Addison, the 2nd house south of the alley, but the first house south of the alley was a old frame house that had a barn on the back of the lot. It was weathered a dark brown color and I thought it was nifty to have a barn behind your house, as the 2 flat didn't even have a garage. B
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

Mages also had a store on Ashland just south of Belmont, but IIRC, it closed somewhere around 1970. But, there was a great little sports store on Belmont just west of Ashland, The Vim Sports. We lived in what is now Roscoe Village between Western and Oakley on Roscoe and my Dad and I would go there look at baseball bats and I'd get to pick out a new one most times. I also bought my 1st pair of Ad
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

"I seem to remember a building on Western Ave. north of Lane Tech and Addison." This building is at the southwest corner of Western and Grace, the cornerstone is dated 1957. This is my old neighborhood and I still remember being a little kid, standing with my Dad on the east side of Western watching the heavy equipment start the digging when it was built. Dad told me that the clubhous
Forum: General Discussion

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Forum: General Discussion

Once upon a time, the area between Western Avenue and the river and, roughly, between Revere Park and Addison was a golf course, Mid City. According to what I heard of the neighborhood history, that area was a clay pit and brick making area after the fire of 1871, then later, the city decided to fill the area with garbage and it became what is known as the Grace Street Dump. There are a few pictur
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

I grew up on the North Side, Wrigley Field was in walking distance so I went to far more Cubs games than Sox games. In the '50s and '60s, the Sox were were really considered to be the "classier" team in town, and playing the great Yankee teams of the '50s and '60s probably helped that image. Plus, winning the pennant in 1959 and being a contender made good seats hard to come by, so the g
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

I have many good memories playing 16 inch softball, played at Revere Park, California Park (the fields are gone, covered by the McFetridge center), Horner Park, Portage Park, Mather, Kells and others that I can't recall these many years later. I also worked at the Victor-Comptometer plant a few summers and played in the intraplant league they had; good memories, good friends, good times. But, as
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

I don't have any pictures but wish I did, too. My family lived in a 3 flat at Roscoe and Oakley from 1955 to 1963 and I recall it was a neighborhood that had about everything. There was an old, weathered, and battered looking clapboard lounge that had been closed for years on the SE corner of Roscoe and Western when we first moved there, it was named Hellzapoppin as I recall and was replaced by
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

I think it was the late Mike Royko who said that in Chicago, the demonstrative pronouns were "dis, dat, dese, dem, and dose" as in "dis t'ing over here" or "dat t'ing over dere." This Chicago accent seems to be peculiar to certain areas, mostly South side as this was how the son of Bridgeport, the late Richard J. Daley, spoke. But, it was also how one of my college fr
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

I remember going down there with my Dad when I was a kid back in the mid to late '50s before the U of I gentrified the whole area. I remember the mens' clothing stores where the man in the doorway would try to pull you into then store, the man selling watches who pulled up his sleeve to display about 10 selections around his arm, the sights, the sounds, the smells of the food...it's a time and pla
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

Dunning1, here's a link to a website that has pictures and postcards of old Catholic churches: http://chicagopc.info/catholic_churches.htm The churches are alphabetical and St. Jarlath's has a picture there. And, there are many others, too, that have been mentioned already that are only memories. Chicago was a different place once upon a time.
Forum: General Discussion

I was raised in St. Benedict parish, the church located on the corner of Irving Park Rd. and Leavitt in the North Center neighborhood, but I was baptized at St. Sebastian which, as I determine, was located at 3021 N. Dayton St. in Lake View. It was a small church and appears to have been closed in 1990 with many other churches. The land appears to have been incorporated into the Illinois Masonic
Forum: General Discussion

Nordsider, thanks for the information on that book, I've ordered a copy just to see what houses are listed. I moved to Florida 31 years ago but I miss Chicago and the architectural variety that was in front of me every day I lived there but just didn't see. And, it's only since the internet that I've been able to see what magnificent homes used to be on South Michigan Avenue or South Ashland Ave
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

Thanks for posting this, I've read through it almost twice now and it's fascinating to see a snapshot of Chicago as it was once upon a time long ago. There were so many downtown restaurants mentioned here and the ethnic restaturants seemed to mirror the ethnic neigborhoods in which they were located. And, I really enjoyed the fact that the author seems to name-drop obsessively about which celebri
Forum: Forgotten Chicago Sightings

Christmas time reminds me that, though Riverview was closed after Labor Day, the parking lot at Belmont and Western became a giant Christmas tree lot after Thanksgiving. I still remember going there with my sister, my Dad, and my Grandfather to find our tree each year. We moved near Roscoe and Oakley in what is now Roscoe Village about 1954 and lived there until 1963 and we always went to Rivervie
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)

One of my recollections of living on the North Side is that there were once several old, ramshackle, wooden houseboats in the Chicago river at Irving Park Road, just south of the bridge. As I recall, there were about 3 or 4 and they were on the west side of the river on the riverbank. My Dad told me that they had been there as long as he could remember (that would have been the early 1930s) and th
Forum: Questions and Answers (Q&A)