Uptown Memories

A Strangely Special Beautiful Neighborhood 

 

Without no lag I'm packin' my bag of discontented frowns
And hopping number eighty-six, the first train that is freedom bound.
Got my bag of many frowns and I'm takin' it on Uptown.
To hop the train that's freedom bound for Uptown.

Takin' It On Uptown

I arrived alone in Chicago in August of 1974….in the middle of one of the worst recessions in memory. With nothing but the shirt on my back and just nine dollars in my pocket, I boarded the CTA Red Line train heading north…and arrived at the Wilson Broadway Uptown station to embark upon a new chapter in my life as well as jettisoning and burying my personal past. Knowing no one there in the neighborhood at that moment, my predicament and circumstance would be best described from a famous World War II poem stanza:

"No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam.

No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces.

And nobody gives a damn!”

The very first thought as I got out onto the bustling avenue was obviously of course, to find some kind of shelter. The needs of my gnawing hunger in the belly would have to come later. Since I only had nine dollars on me, it became plainly evident that I would have to find the cheapest accommodations available, which meant: the three dollar a night Wilson Club Hotel. That left me with only two more days to stay there as I was pondering my future in that tiny cubicle room with the chicken wired ceiling. My salvation would be the daily pay halls that at the time, were the very heart and backbone of Uptown. 

"The faded signs on the side of the Wilson Club Men's Hotel offered rooms for $1.75 (or something) and eight-dollar divorces. In those days I could understand the appeal of both. There seemed to be the potential for a great singles neighborhood here. Indeed what originally brought me to Uptown were the For Rent ads: the rooming houses, studios, kitchenettes--and you could pay by the week."

Men in Cages

After my first night’s sleeping at the hotel, with the room shaking from the nearby overhead rumbling L trains, I set out before the crack of dawn looking for any kind of work. After negotiating past a sleeping sidewalk inebriate who was blocking the hotel’s doorway exit, I started marching east for the ‘Staff Builders’ temp office on Wilson and Kenmore for the long waiting vigil among the many job seekers who packed that office. One by one they all received their assignments until 3 hours later, I was the only one left…and began seriously contemplating sleeping out in the park. Finally I was offered a backbreaking job that no one else wanted but in my present situation I could not refuse.  So on an empty stomach and skinny as a coat hanger, I was sent out on a grueling remodeling job for a Greek restaurant owner knocking down walls with a hammer all day long. I managed somehow to complete the job and earned my very first $12.00 day labor paycheck. I soon cashed It afterwards  at the currency exchange on Broadway and Wilson and devoured a Big Mac at the nearby McDonalds….my first substantial satisfying meal in days. Arriving at my tiny cubicle room back at the Wilson Club Hotel, with some extra cash to spare, my morale picked up when I realized that I could actually survive living in Uptown.

"The 7-by-7 rooms are tiny and crowded, with only enough space for a twin bed, a dresser and maybe a shelving unit. The building is historic but worn, dark and drab, and much of the decor harks back to another era."

At Uptown cubicle hotel, a fight to stay open

Broadway between Wilson and Montrose was the daily pay hall strip with names like Nationwide, Manpower, Readymen, and Handy Andy all lining the western part of the avenue and their buses parked and running. I frequented every one of them and was sent out doing a variety of jobs like crushing trade-in TV sets for Polk Brothers, warehouse work, shoveling snow in Wrigley Field, and even shoveling horse manure at Northwestern Stables in Mount Prospect with a lifetime chance of mingling with the rich and famous and traveling there via the Skokie Swift extension.

A main important part of my existence and that I naturally looked forward to everyday, was the ‘New Yankee Grill’ located just across the street from the Wilson Club Hotel. My personal daily menu was always the same: a half dozen wedges of golden French toast for breakfast, and medium rare steaks for dinner. My famished appearance receded from memory. The ‘New Yankee Grill’ actually became part of a Gene Hackman Cold War era movie scene called: ‘The Package.’ It was the total ease of walking distance accessibility to places like restaurants, shops, temp offices, CTA station, parks and beaches that was one of the more lasting impressions I had while living in Uptown. 

Erik Stonikas of YoChicago explores the walkability of far northside neighborhood Uptown:

 

Magnolia: The Migrant Magnet

 

Somehow I managed to scrape enough savings to move into an apartment building owned by German immigrants on Magnolia Street just south of Sunnyside the following year in 1975. The rent was like only $79 dollars a month at the time. The neighborhood street during that period, was faithfully portrayed in William Brashler’s novel: ‘City Dogs’ where he described the exhausted buildings as being crammed with migrants. From a chapter excerpt:

“And there were kids, thousands of kids, everywhere on any block you went down, twenty-four in his own building alone, kids like from down home just running and screaming but with no woods, no grass, no real dirt to soak up their noise. Donald Ray also couldn't get used to the drinking, more alkies than he had ever seen, and winos, the young ones and old ones, throwing their bottles in the street and on the sidewalks, where the kids broke them into smithereens and stamped them into the dirt along with the bottle tops and cigarette butts. A person couldn't run anywhere barefoot, not up here, or his feet would come up looking like they'd been caught in a sausage grinder.”

Uptown Chicago Novel: City Dogs by William Brashler 

Another memorable depiction of Chicago’s Uptown during this time period, was made by acclaimed film maker Haskel Wexler’s political film Medium Cool where he shot a scene near Sunnyside and Clifton. From the Chicago Reader:

"Entire blocks in Uptown are inhabited by the former residents of a single Alabama or West Virginia county," wrote reporter Clarus Backes. "Apartment buildings are filled with members of a single mountain clan." Wexler walked around Uptown, taking it all in. "Almost any day of the year," wrote Backes, "along Wilson or Montrose or Kenmore or a dozen other streets, there are children of school age standing about, talking together, looking for something to do, and nobody knows who they are.

The lost Chicago of Medium Cool

 

Although Magnolia at the time was a hotbed of gang activity such as the notorious Gaylords, I hardly ever encountered them there on the streets. In fact, I had more run-ins with the Chicago police constantly suspecting me as a gangbanger. From the Gaylords website:

“To look at this Uptown Chicago street corner today, you would never know that it was once home to one of the most insane Gaylord sets: The Sunnyside and Magnolia Gaylords. In the 1970s through the late 1990s, this neighborhood known as one of Chicago's poorest and toughest neighborhoods, was home to one of the most proud and loyal Gaylord Nation sets. These pictures do not tell the real story. They can only give you a point of reference. Back in the day, these buildings were falling apart, and were covered with Gaylord taggings and murals. Today, you see young well-to-do mother's pushing expensive baby carriages down the sidewalks of this once Uptown Chicago slum, and you wonder if these new residence know the blood that was shed defending these corners, these corners of Sunnyside and Magnolia.”

The Sunnyside and Magnolia Gaylords

The relentless army of roaches and continual day and night Mexican music from the nearby tenants finally forced me to move away from there and settle into the more benign and quaint Norman apartment building on Beacon Street. It was a residential tonic compared to where I just came from.

I moved away from Uptown after a few years there, and eventually settled out of Chicago.

Although the very mention of the neighborhood's name at the time provoked an emotional repulsion, it still had even in its stark seamy grittiness, a certain kind of sublime transparent honesty about it making it in a way, strangely beautiful and for me any ways…uniquely memorable. 




While researching material for this Uptown blog, I happen to come across an exceptional noted photographer named Bob Rehak whose passion for his craft is vividly reflected in an Uptown portfolio blog and a published book which received rave reviews. Its an exquisite illustrative example of how both image and word can be captured from a neighborhood’s era giving it a timeless power and meaning. As one Urban History Association describes it:

After forty years in storage, the ‘discovery’ of Rehak’s Uptown portfolio created a viral sensation. Now, the work represents perhaps the most searing, comprehensive, and complex portrait of a struggling urban community in the mid-Seventies, defying any classification as simple as ‘gritty realism.’

On a whirlwind Chicago book promotional tour, he stopped by Chicago Tonight's studios for a television interview that is really worth watching:

"A passion for photography and curiosity about the neighborhood drew Chicagoan Bob Rehak to Uptown. Over the course of four years, he captured what everyday life was like for neighborhood residents during the mid-1970s. Those photographs—now 40 years old—are being shared in a new book, "Uptown: Portrait of a Chicago Neighborhood in the Mid-1970s." Rehak shares his experiences documenting a diverse Chicago neighborhood with us."

Taking a Look at Uptown 40 Years Ago 

 

 Related links: 

Depicting Survival in a Marginalized Multiracial Community: The Mid-Seventies Street Photography of Bob Rehak  

The Battle for Uptown

Uptown Chicago History 

Uptown's moment as a 'Hillbilly Heaven'

Hillbilly Heaven: Chicago’s Other Migration from the South 

Hank Williams Village: Chicago’s Best Urban Plan That Never Happened

 Uptown Update

From Diversity to Unity: Southern and Appalachian Migrants in Uptown Chicago

Uptown Chicago Wikipedia