Once upon a time, in a place known as Humboldt Park, a little Princess lived with her father, mother and brother in a tiny flat above their grocery store.
An Urban Tale
Forbidden Places–Epilogue
As mentioned earlier, I uncovered the history of Chicago’s Municipal TB Sanitarium but learned little about the purpose it served. Guest blogger Dr. Gilberto Gonzalez, a retired general surgeon, offered to fill in the blanks for me. Dr. Gonzalez trained at Mercy Hospital in Chicago for three years, the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium for one year (1961-62) and […]
Convergence
Two blogs I follow have posts up on old Chicago movie theaters. They’re worth checking out. Inside Stories from a Hollywood Outlier Blueprint In addition to the theaters mentioned in these blogs, I also remember, not for their architectural significance, but for the movies they screened, the Davis, Edens, Old Orchard, Lincoln Village, 400 (was that the name–on Sheridan?), […]
Where You Never Had to Pay Full Price
When it can’t remember yesterday, a country forgets what it once wanted to be. –Studs Terkel For several years after my parents arrived in Chicago from Cuba, they shopped at discount stores out of necessity. On Sunday afternoons we drove all over the city in search of low prices. This was back in the early 1960s. I […]
Forbidden Places–Part Three
More than the sight of my old house, this takes me back. The corner of Peterson and Central Park avenues, the unused service entrance to the sanitarium. That white square sign hanging on the left-hand side of the gate? Directions to the main entrance, I’m sure of it. A corner of the guard house, pictured in my first post […]
Forbidden Places–Part Two
The Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium on Chicago’s far north side once was a place that frightened neighborhood children and once was a place of misery, as a physician wrote in a comment to my earlier post. Today, it’s a very accessible, much-treasured public resource serving many people and many purposes. Most of the original buildings were demolished, but […]
Forbidden Places–Part One
A seemingly endless stretch of wilderness faced the house I grew up in on Chicago’s far north side. Dense stands of old-growth trees stood guard around its perimeter. Looking west from our front door, all I could see beyond the green chain-link fence was grass, trees and a tall dark tower. As we know from […]
Proustian Moments in Chicago Hot Dog Stands
Over winter break one day we stopped at Little Louie’s in Northbrook. I told my husband we should eat lunch there because our nine-year-old daughter could have something she likes and we could have something healthier. We ordered a hot dog and fries for our daughter and chicken and avocado wraps for ourselves. After we finished the wraps, […]
Focus
My blog niche is drifting. It’s headed towards Chicago and, more often than not, Chicago as it’s remembered. Not only in my memories, but in the memories of others as well. My blog posts may, however, still fit the niche I carved — life, work and the Internet. The Internet is increasingly where we find memories. It’s where we find […]
Meet the Candidate
Today is the official opening of campaign season in Illinois and my friend, Bonnie Carol McGrath, is running for Cook County circuit court judge. Since I didn’t know judges were elected–I thought they were always appointed–I decided to interview Bonnie to learn about the process. It turns out judges do campaign, even on “L” platforms. There’s a reason […]