How the Southside Used to Be.. (Chicago, Cicero: credit, houses, neighborhood)

[urza216]

Originally Posted by Drover

Yeah, and half our posts would be deleted for no discernible reason and about a fourth of us would be in time-out for violating some made-up rule. Sometimes nothing is better than something.

It looks like I can't rep you again. Right on though..

[HarmanFox]

Originally Posted by DuPage Co

[domain blocked due to spam] forums are a lot worse than this. All one has to do is google "Chicago city data forum" to see. Trust me, you'll be busy for a while. BTW anyone remember that shrimp house on 95th by the bridge?

I did just that and found this: scary
Avoid Chicago city data forum, it's full of bs - [domain blocked due to spam]

[HarmanFox]

Originally Posted by Mr Carson

Now THAT place had sum good ****ing shrimp. Shrimp express in calumet city past the mall is a little better tho. That's one of the ONLY thing chi has over NYC.

Oh I love that place. It's nice they make everything fresh but the line can get backed up at times. The area it's in is a little out of the way for me though.

[jonnynonos]

This forum is basically a place where maybe 20-30 regulars who know something about the city talk things that are interesting about it to them while ocassionally answering questions from people moving here who want advice on different neighborhoods.

The point being, no one is here to see your propaganda, you are reaching no one who you would hope to, every single word you type is wasted because only the same 15 people who have posted here for years are reading it, and you are completely wasting your time while highjacking what was a pretty interesting thread.

Everyone who posts on here regularly, I would guess, is at least in their mid to late 20s, and you are not going to change anyone's minds on anything.

But, by all means, continue talking to yourself.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

This forum is basically a place where maybe 20-30 regulars who know something about the city talk things that are interesting about it to them while ocassionally answering questions from people moving here who want advice on different neighborhoods.

The point being, no one is here to see your propaganda, you are reaching no one who you would hope to, every single word you type is wasted because only the same 15 people who have posted here for years are reading it, and you are completely wasting your time while highjacking what was a pretty interesting thread.

Everyone who posts on here regularly, I would guess, is at least in their mid to late 20s, and you are not going to change anyone's minds on anything.

But, by all means, continue talking to yourself.

Yep, exactly. I don't understand the point in trying to get out your message when so little people actually read this forum. Nobody's mind is going to change here by saying anything, sorry.

[JustPassinThru]

Originally Posted by marothisu

...For anyone old enough to have experienced a different South and West sides..how different was it back then?

I grew up on the South side, near 76th & Racine. A recent Google tour revealed the area to be in better shape than I remember it, with more manicured residential areas, a new park, etc. As for the rest, I don't know.

In Bridegeport, where my uncles and grandfather lived, blacks could be thown off the streetcar. If they purchased a home, it could be set on fire. In my neighborhood we had none of these racial tensions. The entire neighborhood was comprised of white Catholics; doctors, lawyers, policemen, firemen, and factory workers. The situation may have changed dramatically, had a black person entered the area, but that never happened.

The women gathered on Tuesday nights to pray for peace. Many of the men belonged to a sportsman club or the Knights of Columbus. The families that didn't have a TV set would gather at one home to watch Uncle Milty's "Texaco Star Theater," although I preferred "Crusade in the Pacific."

The "ragman" mined the alleyways in his horse-drawn cart. He bought used clothing and sold used pots and pans. Every so often the men would park their cars in these alleys and connect fire hoses to the exhaust pipes. The exhaust fumes would be directed into the rat tunnels, and men and boys would be waiting to beat them to death when they tried to escape.

The "corner kids" would hang around the local market, and warm themselves over a fire in a barrel in the winter. Harmless as they were, occasionally an intimidated housewife would report them - not to the police, but to her precinct captain, and eventually the paddy wagon would arrive to haul them away.

Children were allowed in the local pub. Whenever I was ill my father would haul me down there to choke down a shot of rye whiskey. Women travelled in the evening without fear. My mother and I often returned home on a bus after 9:00 P.M. It was a different era for politics, too. Although there wasn't a Republican supporter for blocks around, we all turned out to cheer our war hero, Ike, as he rode down 76th in an open convertible during the '52 campaign.

Those halcyon days are but a memory for me, but I would like to believe that young men, whatever the color of their skin, still attend sporting events at Shewbridge Field; search for turtles in the Auburn Park Lagoon; fly model airplanes in the new MLK Park where the Continental Can Co. once stood. Some things should never change.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by JustPassinThru

I grew up on the South side, near 76th & Racine. A recent Google tour revealed the area to be in better shape than I remember it, with more manicured residential areas, a new park, etc. As for the rest, I don't know.

In Bridegeport, where my uncles and grandfather lived, blacks could be thown off the streetcar. If they purchased a home, it could be set on fire. In my neighborhood we had none of these racial tensions. The entire neighborhood was comprised of white Catholics; doctors, lawyers, policemen, firemen, and factory workers. The situation may have changed dramatically, had a black person entered the area, but that never happened.

The women gathered on Tuesday nights to pray for peace. Many of the men belonged to a sportsman club or the Knights of Columbus. The families that didn't have a TV set would gather at one home to watch Uncle Milty's "Texaco Star Theater," although I preferred "Crusade in the Pacific."

The "ragman" mined the alleyways in his horse-drawn cart. He bought used clothing and sold used pots and pans. Every so often the men would park their cars in these alleys and connect fire hoses to the exhaust pipes. The exhaust fumes would be directed into the rat tunnels, and men and boys would be waiting to beat them to death when they tried to escape.

The "corner kids" would hang around the local market, and warm themselves over a fire in a barrel in the winter. Harmless as they were, occasionally an intimidated housewife would report them - not to the police, but to her precinct captain, and eventually the paddy wagon would arrive to haul them away.

Children were allowed in the local pub. Whenever I was ill my father would haul me down there to choke down a shot of rye whiskey. Women travelled in the evening without fear. My mother and I often returned home on a bus after 9:00 P.M. It was a different era for politics, too. Although there wasn't a Republican supporter for blocks around, we all turned out to cheer our war hero, Ike, as he rode down 76th in an open convertible during the '52 campaign.

Those halcyon days are but a memory for me, but I would like to believe that young men, whatever the color of their skin, still attend sporting events at Shewbridge Field; search for turtles in the Auburn Park Lagoon; fly model airplanes in the new MLK Park where the Continental Can Co. once stood. Some things should never change.

Interesting...It's depressing to hear about the stuff in Bridgeport, but I had heard a little of that somewhat before. It's interesting to hear that some of the immediate area you grew up around seem to have improved a little bit since. Have you been back lately?

[Drover]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Interesting...It's depressing to hear about the stuff in Bridgeport, but I had heard a little of that somewhat before. It's interesting to hear that some of the immediate area you grew up around seem to have improved a little bit since. Have you been back lately?

The physical appearance may have improved on Google Maps, but the idyllic upbringing he describes... well, let's just say it's a real reach to regard the neighborhood as even remotely idyllic these days.

[TBideon]

Baldwin Hills, California
Cascade Hts, Georgia
Olympia Fields, Illinois
google, DOTCOM

[chet everett]

I don't doubt that that there were plenty of families around Marquette Park /Wrightwood living an idyllic "Father Knows Best /Howdy Dowdy Show" kind of existence in the early 50's when the post war boom saw pretty nearly full employment and rapid expansion of so many sectors of the economy that were recovering from the lean WWII years. I remember some of relatives that served in Korea coming back to a Chicago that was already changing and have relatives of Asian extraction that married their GI husbands and were somewaht surprisingly welcomed by some relatives that were known to have bad memories of serving in the Pacific...

Ike was the right kind of leader to help America be the kind of country that made fighting a war and moving on possible.

In some ways the good fortune of Chicago revering a Republic President (who went on to defeat 'native son' Adlai Stevenson in a historic landslide with onl the humilating "hard core" southern Democrat not inline...) was plus for the country.

Ike's second term and his problems with the Soviets and the "civil rights" set the stage for a decade of America having challenges both domestically and abroad and I remember the unpleasantness that came with the Marquette Park Mark of MLK in August of 1966 being a turning point that made "fears of violence" something that everyone was aware. Following MLK's assination in 68 everyone saw the riots / fires of the west side as a turning point...