The old neighborhood

Technically, since the city annexed O’Hare Airport, the geographic center of the city has changed, but not for most Chicagoans.

If you grew up in Chicago or have lived here for any length of time you know that the city is a collection of neighborhoods: Hyde Park, Ravenswood, Lincoln Park, and Pilsen to name a few. And when you ask a Chicagoan where they’re from, it’s often a neighborhood they refer to.

My Chicago neighborhood is McKinley Park on the city’s southwest side, named for the park it embraces (Which was actually named for the 25th US president.). The neighborhood is centered on the triangle bounded by 35th Street and Archer and Ashland Avenues, but extends as far south as the southern boundary of the park on Pershing Road and to the old Canal and Interstate 55 on the north.

I should start by saying I never lived in the McKinley Park neighborhood.

But my maternal grandpa grew up there, he and my grandma were married there and raised a family there. He lived there until he was in his late eighties. My dad’s family also has its roots in the neighborhood, and I’ve always felt rooted here too. It’s from this neighborhood that so many of the family stories come, where I spent holidays and enjoyed Sunday dinners. I was not at all surprised when my daughter, who is more than a bit of an historian, took a walking tour of the McKinley Park area (Although I may be pushing the point; she’s done at least a half-dozen other such neighborhood walks since moving back to Chicago.) I couldn’t go with her on the first tour, so she took me on my own a few weeks ago.

In the past my grandparents house was painted red, like most of its neighbors, and it had tall windows in front, now replaced with this picture window. If you look closely, you can still see the shadow of the old windows and their stone trim.

We began here.

My grandparents lived in this little workman’s cottage, one of a dozen on their short block and countless others in the neighborhood. This was the brick house built for the masses after the Chicago fire. They were small, but must have seemed palatial to people who had come from tenements and boarding houses. (There aren’t many Chicago bungalows here; they came later.)

We took a walk down 35th Street, the commercial heart of the neighborhood. The William McKinley Legion Post (my grandfather was a founding member) is still active.

Another workman’s cottage, in 1910 the house had no bay window or sliding glass doors, and my grandparents were likely boarders in one or two rooms.

Our other destination on this street was a house we think my father’s parents lived in, at least for a short time. Maggie found them listed on a 1910 census at this address. (Like I said, she is an historian.) The next census finds them just a few blocks away on Honore Street. However, when we rounded the corner to look for it, those houses had been replaced by Nathaniel Greene School!

Since this area was first settled in 1836, it has been a working class neighborhood. The first settlers worked on the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Then came railroads, steel plants, and meat packing. There are new brick row houses and townhouses in-filling empty lots. Several buildings have been converted into condos, including St. Philippus Church where my grandparents and parents were married.

My re-cycler’s heart loves that the church, no longer able to support a congregation, was spared the wrecking ball to provide housing.

The new school, houses and condo conversions are understandable; the McKinley Park neighborhood has experienced an increase in population since the 1990’s. And that’s hardly surprising since it’s still supported by a healthy manufacturing area nearby and outstanding transportation, including Metra’s new (to me at least) Orange Line. The old housing stock is well cared for, and some original landmarks continue to serve the community, including a funeral home and St. Maurice Church.

This is an example of the mix of old and new housing stock.

Finally, we got to McKinley Park, 69 acres of green in the midst of the city, with a lagoon where my mom and uncle ice skated, a field house, and so many ball fields where Dad and my uncle spent a significant part of their lives. In fact, they met there and played ball, sometimes together and sometimes against each other, long before Mom and Dad met. It’s still a leafy oasis, popular with runners and walkers. On this September Saturday, there were soccer and baseball games. It’s still the magnet it always was.

We sometimes think of “old neighborhoods” as falling into serious disrepair or, conversely, becoming gentrified and even chic. Not so in McKinley Park. This “old neighborhood” never had the panache of the North Shore or the leafy, residential vibe of the suburbs. It has always been sturdy, a bit hard-scrabble, largely populated in my grandparents’ day by first- and second-generation German and Irish immigrants. Today it retains this sturdy, working class character, and the immigrant mix includes Hispanic and Asian residents.

It has adapted more than it changed. That’s what intrigued me as Maggie and I walked down one street and up another, peering down gangways and admiring pocket gardens. My daughter shared the architectural background gleaned from her walk, while I was filling in the anecdotal from my memories. I’m glad my daughter and I did this, but I must admit that for me it was a bit bittersweet. There are few family members left from that era to share this, to tell them the house on Damen is painted blue (!) and the Legion Hall has hardly changed.

So, I’m especially glad you came along with me on this “second” walk in the old neighborhood. See you again soon!

Lately: Baseball, architecture and how my garden grows

So what do you think there are more of, leaves on the trees or blades of grass?

That was my eight-year-old grandson’s intriguing question as we drove home from one of his ballgames this weekend. Since the answer would take lots of Google-ing and probably some math, I left that to his dad and Grandpa. But I think Jack unwittingly summed up June. It’s just so green, so lush, so full of promise.

Trip #1

Speaking of grandsons and baseball, Steve and I spent the weekend in Ohio carrying our folding chairs from game to game, following the five-year-old and his T-ball team and the eight-year-old and his coach pitch team (who seem like pro’s after watching T-ball).

These games have not changed in 30 years. Players wave to parents from the field, play in the dirt, forget where they’re at to watch a low-flying plane overhead and are happily surprised when they get a solid hit or make the play at first or second base. Forget marching bands and flag-waving patriots, this is America.

Trip #2

Before heading to Ohio, I joined a friend on a “field trip” into the city to take the Chicago Architecture Foundation Center cruise along the Chicago River. If you are a history or architecture fan (and even if you are not), the “Great Chicago Fire” led to a building renaissance in Chicago. And what started after the fire in 1871, continues today.

The Chicago skyline, looking west on the river.

The river cruises are led by volunteer docents from the Foundation. I know they have a common script that follows the boat route and they are well-trained to answer questions, but I believe you could do this cruise again and again and still learn something new, because each docent puts his or her own spin on the material. Maureen and I were part of a much larger group of Chicagoans, so this could have been a challenge to the volunteer. After all, we’ve all seen these buildings before and heard the stories behind them, and we have worked/shopped/visited them. Many of us had taken the tour before. But her passion for and knowledge of Chicago history and architecture was so palpable that she kept all of us totally engaged.

Separating history from architecture from the Chicago River is virtually impossible. Fort Dearborn, Chicago’s first settlement, was along the river. The engineers who worked with the architects solved the design issues, reversed the flow of the Chicago River, built more than a dozen movable bridges over the river so the city and industry could grow north and south. They replaced cast iron with steel and glass. The building and engineering continue to evolve. It’s a great story filled by the likes of Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, and Mies van der Rohe and populated by buildings as diverse as the Tribune Tower and the Willis (Sears) Tower. You don’t need to love architecture or history to respect the vision, engineering and problem solving that goes into each structure.

My garden is a little different every day

If you follow me on Instagram (you can do that here), you know I am a little obsessed with my garden, what I can cut or cook from it, other gardens, and so on. One of the great pleasures of a garden is that it’s a living, breathing entity and as such changes a bit every day. Something new is in bloom, there’s a weed invasion where there was nothing two days ago, I’ve solved the problem of rabbits eating the hostas but they’ve moved on to tulips, the daylilies have totally overgrown their space, or, this week, the shasta daisies seem stunted.

I tour the flower and herb beds most mornings, thinking about what I should do next. I pester other gardeners about how they treat various plant emergencies. My husband’s tomato plants have doubled in the last week. The daylilies in the garden are a sea of buds waiting for one or two more days to open.

In this photo, right, is an all white bed I planted about four years ago. I wanted to try a theme. It’s all about texture; I plan to add some Lamb’s Ears and Artemesia near the bottom of this photo. Beyond this bed, daylilies and Russian Sage are getting close to blooming. My Limelight hydrangeas, behind them, bloom later.

To have a garden is to happily anticipate the next bud, bloom, or fruit.

I hope the sun is shining and the gardens are growing wherever you are! Thanks for stopping by. See you next time.