Chowmap circa 1931

In the Chicken Vesuvio thread, both Rene G and I had mentioned John Drury's 1931 guidebook Dining in Chicago, easily the richest trove of information on Chicago dining from its era. Luckily, old guidebooks are one of the few things you can often get fairly cheaply from used book dealers and antiquarian shops, and practically the minute I got home from examining the Harold Washington Library's I ordered a copy of my own. (Go to http://www.abebooks.com and you'll find several more, in the $10 and under range.) Although the writeup suggested that the copy I ordered had some significant damage, there was one thing I couldn't resist-- a badly chipped and waterstained, but nevertheless present, dust jacket.

Happily, the damage almost completely escaped the best part of the cover-- an illustration which shows the nature of Chicago dining in different parts of town, circa 1931, conveyed in, of course, the crudest stereotypes:



Interesting to see what has changed and what hasn't-- there's no longer a Russian quarter on the near northwest side (though doesn't one bathhouse remain?), but evidently Pilsen and that area was already losing its Slavic character even during the reign of Cook County chairman Cermak, since a Mexican rather than a Czech occupies that area.

One thing about WRITING about Chicago dining has never changed, however. The beginning of Drury's foreword (or "Hors d'Ouevre"):

If you think that Chicago, from a gourmet's point of view, is nothing more than a maze of red-hot stands, chili parlors, cafeterias, barbecue stalls, one-arm joints, chop suey restaurants, counter lunch rooms and all other such human filling stations, artistically embellished with bullet holes, you're as mistaken as Columbus was when he started out on his trip to India the wrong way.

Replace chili parlors and "one-arm joints" (whatever those were) with deep dish pizza parlors and Italian beef stands, and you have the opening of any article on Chicago dining today....

MikeG:

Fabulous map! Indeed, the Mexican just to the southwest of the Italian table scene fits modern geography; heading up the Western Ave. area it seems, there is a presumably Ukrainian dancer and to the north of him the German 'prosit' scene up around Irving Park/Lawrence. My question is about the identity of the woman more or less directly below the Ukrainian (Russian?) dancer. What does she represent?

Nice to see the criminality of my old South Loop neighbourhood so clearly portrayed.

Antonius

Antonius,

Given that the map is not to scale, perhaps the "woman" you are referring to is a Greek man in national dress (although the red polka dots are suspect) in the general vicinity of Greektown? "She" could also be a Polish woman located around Milwaukee and Division.

That bright red "Rialto" just west of Navy Pier is kind of interesting. There used to be an old silent movie theater cum burlesque house on State St.(closed in the late sixties, I think) that was called the Rialto, but I doubt that's the reference. Was this district (around North Pier, etc.) once referred to as the "Rialto"?

Hammond

john m wrote:Antonius,

Given that the map is not to scale, perhaps the "woman" you are referring to is a Greek man in national dress (although the red polka dots are suspect) in the general vicinity of Greektown? "She" could also be a Polish woman located around Milwaukee and Division.

John:

Both are good suggestions but looking at the person with the polka dotted garb, I really think it looks more like a woman than a man. Consequently, I lean toward your other suggestian for the moment; polka dots!.



A

The cover highlights the fact that a handful of very large, dense cities enjoyed great ethnic diversity among people and restaurants before WWII. This contrasts pretty sharply with the common food-writing wisdom that "America" knew nothing of exotic cuisines such as Italian and Mexican until the GI's returned from Europe, Asia and from far-flung bases within the US, especially SoCal.

I think she's meant to be Polish. Not that it's any too precise, but given that she's between the Russian and Water Tower, that puts her in the Chicago-to-Division area, and she's west of Water Tower, hence Division and Milwaukee or thereabouts.

Another possibility is German, and she's just a little south of the German enclave in the vicinity of Old Town (go far enough back and almost any part of the north side was originally German), but since the beer drinkers further up are representing the Lincoln Ave. Germans, and the costume isn't quite the classic German outfit of dirndl etc., I assume Polish is the correct answer.

By the way, initially I assumed the "Swedish district" meant Andersonville but actually I'd bet that's meant to be the old Swedish neighborhood on Belmont of which Ann Sather is the only remainder.

JeffB-- Yes, but.

It's interesting to look at the presumably unconscious prejudices in a book like Drury's. It's divided along the same fine dining/cheap eats lines that so much food writing is today, and just like it is today, the thing that decides which one you go in is, first of all, ethnicity. (Though of course which ethnicities is it has changed-- Italian/Mediterranean has made it from one to the other, and Japanese, which is represented by exactly one restaurant, barely registers at all in Drury's time.)

The front section of the book has 33 restaurants called out for special attention, most for being the best and fanciest culinarily though a few ranking for local color (thus Schlogl's, a newspaperman's hangout). The list is very much a list of Nordic European restaurants from an era of hearty, filling meals-- French, yes, but also East Coast American, German, Bohemian, Swedish and English; it's the Tip Top Inn (fish and shellfish from a Prussian proprietor), St. Hubert's ("Merrie England in the Loop"), Kau's ("The Wineless Weinstube," this still being Prohibition), Little Bohemia, Old Heidelberg, Bon Vivant, Maisonnette Russe. No chop suey joints, no tamale palaces.

That said, the 33 does include one spot that crosses that invisible line-- an apparently quite venerable Italian place, Madame Galli's, 18 E. Illinois, where Caruso not only ate but sketched a picture of the good Madame which was framed on the wall. And as proof that spaghetti not only does not kill lighter-skinned Caucasians, but can actually be learned to be happily eaten by them, we get as proof not only Drury's usual list of celebrities who've eaten there (Toscanini, W.C. Fields, Elsie Janis) or artistic giants ("another literary light of that time who learned to eat spaghetti here was George Ade") but the truly earth-shattering news that "it was in this restaurant, on Feb. 23, 1905, that Paul P. Harris, a Chicago attorney, paused over a dish of spaghetti and mentioned his idea of Rotary to an interested listener." So I guess the WASP establishment did take the occasional break from oysters and Königsberger Klöpse to dip its toes, gingerly, into the maelstrom of ethnic dining.

Okay, yes I am loving this stuff, why do you ask when I make three posts in a row?

David-- Rialto seems to have meant the theater district in the north Loop, as the addresses are mostly on Randolph, or Clark just short of the river.

I am amused to note the following passage in regards to one Rialto spot:

In this age of the equality of the sexes, Bollard & Frazier's historic chop house and sea food restaurant stands out like a Gibraltar of masculinity. Stubbornly and consistently, it has refused its fine cuisine to Milady, remaining one of the last of the stag restaurants in the Loop.

. . . "one-arm joints" (whatever those were) . . .

“One arm joints” were the Loop cafeterias whose seating consisted of single chairs with a built-in table. In Drury’s time these were especially common on Clark Street, often referred to as Toothpick Row.

That bright red "Rialto" just west of Navy Pier is kind of interesting. There used to be an old silent movie theater cum burlesque house on State St.(closed in the late sixties, I think) that was called the Rialto, but I doubt that's the reference. Was this district (around North Pier, etc.) once referred to as the "Rialto"?

I don’t think that map is geographically accurate. Drury uses the term Rialto to refer to the Randolph Street theater district (newly reincarnated as a shadow of its former self). In his Chicago in Seven Days (1928, 1930), Drury uses the phrase Randolph Street Rialto several times. A well-known Chinese restaurant, Rialto Gardens, was in this area (57 W Randolph). This was the old King Joy Lo, one of the first Chinese restaurants in Chicago catering to a western clientele (I think it opened in 1905). The Rialto Theater was several blocks south of there, at State and Van Buren until it was demolished in the late 1970s.

By the way, initially I assumed the "Swedish district" meant Andersonville but actually I'd bet that's meant to be the old Swedish neighborhood on Belmont of which Ann Sather is the only remainder.

Yes, the Scandinavian district was Belmont Avenue, sometimes called Herring Lane.

Indeed, the Mexican just to the southwest of the Italian table scene fits modern geography

I’m still confused by this. Tamales are west of spaghetti but what neighborhood would that be? Pilsen? In the 1930 book, Chicago in Seven Days, Drury writes about a newer Mexican neighborhood on Halsted around Hull-House. It included El Puerto de Vera Cruz (811 S Halsted; also mentioned in Dining in Chicago), a pottery shop at 1024 S Halsted and a book and music store at 837. Clearly the geography doesn’t fit (but look at the course of the River!). He also devotes several pages to “Little Pilsen, the Bohemian area” but never mentions anything Mexican. Maybe somewhere west of Pilsen like Little Village? I thought that was all Eastern European back then too.

Nice to see the criminality of my old South Loop neighbourhood so clearly portrayed.

Judging from much more detailed maps in Chicago in Seven Days the gangster probably represents the “Underworld District” centered around 22nd and Wabash. This area contained Colosimo’s, Metropole Hotel, Midnight Frolics and, of course, Everleigh Club (then closed).

Yes, I think the criminal district is that area straight south of the Loop. If you read a book like Herbert Asbury's* Gem of the Prairie (now reissued as Gangs of Chicago to tie in with the movie of Asbury's Gangs of New York) you see clearly the turn of the century vice districts in that area (in which it was said some 20,000 prostitutes worked-- at a time when the city's population was a few hundred thousand, probably making that the single most common profession in the city). Unlike the other things on the map, it was not so much tied to any one ethnic group as such, although it included [actually was near to, see notes below] an Italian neighborhood, and would by the early 20th century include the proto-gangster spots like Colosimo's from which the Capone organization grew [incorrect reference to UIC removed]. That said, its reputation for crime is more Wild West than anything, really dating to Chicago's early days as a boom town. (Even before that, when the city was really small, parts of the Loop were dens of vice where barebreasted prostitutes would wave from upper windows to rubes who would as likely be robbed as relieved in their parlors; it's amusing to walk through fabulously expensive and respectable real estate and know that barely a century ago, it was a place that would have made the Robert Taylor Homes blush.)

I was thinking about the Mexican guy on the map and whether Pilsen would really have started to turn Mexican by then, and what I've seen of the retail in that area (e.g. Zemsky's) which was still quite Slavic in the 30s and 40s makes it unlikely. I have a feeling the Mexican guy is stuck in there because it was an empty space on the map more than anything else.

* Asbury was, incidentally, the black sheep of the family which produced the highly respected Methodist bishop whose name was given to Asbury Ave. in Evanston. Gem of the Prairie is a lot of fun, and at least half true.

john m wrote:Antonius,

Given that the map is not to scale, perhaps the "woman" you are referring to is a Greek man in national dress (although the red polka dots are suspect) in the general vicinity of Greektown? "She" could also be a Polish woman located around Milwaukee and Division.

The area that is now UIC was, at one time, a thriving Greek community. All that remains is the few block stretch of reastaurants known as Greek Town.

Stevez:

Yes, indeed, that was a sizeable and concentrated Greek community in part of that area, but I really don't think the figure in question looks to be a Greek man in the traditional garb worn by the elite Greek colour guard (can't remember the name for them at the moment). I do now think it is a Polish woman that is intended.

As an amusing footnote to this topic, the excellent Taylor Street butcher shop, Nea Agora, with its oh-so-Greek name, is in fact an Italian owned business and always has been. When the store was opened, however, the Italian owner wanted to be able to attract business from the adjacent Greek neighbourhood, as well as from his own Italian neighbourhood (Taylor Street-East End).

***

MikeG:

UIC did not displace things in the South Loop/Near South area but rather in the Near West area (cf. Stevez' comment above), especially the Halsted and Taylor Street neighbourhoods, which included, of course, many Italians, Greeks and also Mexicans. I discuss this in the long introduction on the Taylor Street neighbourhood in my piece on Masi's Italian Superior Bakery (see link).

With regard to the remnants of a formerly stronger Italian presence around Chinatown, I know from Frank Masi that there were a few small Italian (esp. Sicilian) enclaves in that general area in the Chinatown/Bridgeport border zone.

The South Loop itself and in particular the area that is now called Printers' Row was the centre of criminal activity in the late 19th century (Mickey Finn's 'bar' was over there at State and Harrison, near what was considered the worst street of all, I believe, namely, Federal Street). But that area was cleared out before World War I and the focus of the vice industry moved south to the Cermak and Wabash area, to which you refer.

The Italian presence around Halsted between Taylor and Harrison had an outlying satellite by Printers' Row and the bar "Blackie's" (corner of Polk and Clark) is a remnant of the easternmost little bit of Italian neighbourhood.

***

ReneG:

The presence of the Mexican figure where he is makes good sense to me, though the exact placement of the figure in amongst the other figures and geographical markers may cause a little distortion. Mexican settlement was by the 1930's already significant in parts of the otherwise strongly Italian Taylor Street neighbourhood, which extended from the area around Halsted straight west over to the area (nowadays "Tri-Taylor") around Western Ave. I surmise too that there was also a measure of Mexican settlement in the neighbouring Heart of Chicago and probably more so in Little Village.* Note too that the Mexican figure is beside the Stockyards and already in the 1920's there was a noteworthy presence of Mexicans in the workforce of the meat packing industry. On the other hand, I doubt that the presence of Mexicans in Pilsen was at the time of the making of this map sufficient to warrant special notice; as I understand it, Pilsen only started to become a predominantly Mexican neighbourhood in the 1950's and 60's, as the result of continued Mexican immigration from abroad but also quite importantly a concentration of the local Mexican population with the displacement of Mexicans from the Taylor Street neighbourhood by Old Man Daley's big projects: highway building, UIC, eventually Illinois medical center, and some public housing projects. Whereas the Italians of Taylor Street generally moved west, a very significant number of displaced Mexicans from there just moved south, strengthening considerably the older and smaller Mexican presence in the old Czech/Polish Pilsen neighbourhood.

As I read the map, there are four figures which seem to show roughly where Western Avenue is: the Mexican figure, in the area just north of the river and somewhat to the west but nonetheless bordering or next to the Italian figure ("Taylor Street", which in those days was no less Italian around Western than it was around Racine or Halsted), just to the north the dancing Ukranian or Russian of Ukranian Village, and finally, further north, the Germans saying 'prosit' up around Irving Park and Lawrence.

Antonius

*With regard to Little Village, I'm guessing. I don't have any specific knowledge of the ethnic history of that neighbourhood.

Well, heck, that's what I get for posting from memory instead of hunting for a book that I knew was here somewhere. Asbury had a map of the Levee district, early 1900s, complete with locations of such dreadful places as the Bucket of Blood, The Why Not and the House of All Nations, and I was sure it extended to Halsted but in fact its west edge is Clark, basically bounded by 18th and 22nd on the north and south, and Wabash or even State on the east; one of the things you forget is how small, pre-car, an entire (and in this case world-infamous) district could be....

The Mexican is a mystery; the only outright Mexican restaurant mentioned in the book is indeed in the area Rene mentions around Hull House, 811 S. Halsted. (There's one other mention of a Loop chili parlor that has heard of spice.) I think he's there because of a vague recognition that there are Mexicans in that area, but there's no text to back it up, so I still think he's mainly there to fill an empty spot in the picture.

Keep in mind: That's an illustration, not a map. Clearly the artwork is meant to refer to a very rough geographical representation of the city, but equally clearly, it isn't intended as a reference work. Just as artwork is routinely Photoshopped today, or airbrushed in the recent past, it's entirely possible for an editorial decision to have put something out of place on the cover because they just wanted to squeeze it in somehow or because they needed to space things a certain way for aesthetic appeal.

Bob the antipedantic editor

Bob S. wrote:Keep in mind: That's an illustration, not a map. Clearly the artwork is meant to refer to a very rough geographical representation of the city, but equally clearly, it isn't intended as a reference work. Just as artwork is routinely Photoshopped today, or airbrushed in the recent past, it's entirely possible for an editorial decision to have put something out of place on the cover because they just wanted to squeeze it in somehow or because they needed to space things a certain way for aesthetic appeal.

Bob the antipedantic editor

I think that's been obvious to all. One tries to interpret the map considering the basic layout in relation to real world geography but then also in terms of the relative positions of the features represented. For example, I note above that the fact that the Mexican figure, wherever precisely he seems to be, stands beside the Stockyards and the Italian table scene makes good sense to a certain degree (I think to a considerable degree); that fits in with some of the facts I cite regarding the Mexican presence in Chicago for that period. So too go my comments with regard to Western Avenue: the relative positions of the figures are relevant and their absolute positions clearly are not to be taken as indications of real world distances.

Antonius

But it looks like he's bringing a bowl (surely not tamales... pozole?) TO the man eating spaghetti. A sign of Mexicans encroaching on traditional Italian enclaves on the south side?

But it looks like he's bringing a bowl (surely not tamales... pozole?) TO the man eating spaghetti. A sign of Mexicans encroaching on traditional Italian enclaves on the south side?

Surely, Mike, you haven't forgotten the intense gang battles that occurred in the Taylor St. area as the Mexicans moved in and tried to persuade the Italians who lived there already that they should use masa instead of polenta? Most of the disturbances were centered around the parish of St. Dyspepsia.

Giovanna

Mike G wrote:But it looks like he's bringing a bowl (surely not tamales... pozole?) TO the man eating spaghetti. A sign of Mexicans encroaching on traditional Italian enclaves on the south side?

And is there not some significance in the fact that the Mexican man is crossing a river...in fact, he has one foot IN the river! A prescient reflection, perhaps, of border crossings so common in the latter half of the twentieth century.

David "Living in the Land of Roadhouses" Hammond

Considering the foreword,

Mike G wrote:One thing about WRITING about Chicago dining has never changed, however. The beginning of Drury's foreword (or "Hors d'Ouevre"):

If you think that Chicago, from a gourmet's point of view, is nothing more than a maze of red-hot stands, chili parlors, cafeterias, barbecue stalls, one-arm joints, chop suey restaurants, counter lunch rooms and all other such human filling stations, artistically embellished with bullet holes, you're as mistaken as Columbus was when he started out on his trip to India the wrong way.

(bold to highlight mine)

what is the gent with the gun doing on the illustration? Any specific dining establishment mentioned in this regard in the book?
Hopefully you can tell me and not have to kill me.

Sazerac, see the above stuff. That's the crime-ridden district we're talking about. Although it included some eating establishments like Colosimo's, I think he's there just because, well, no picture of Chicago would be complete without him.

Mike G wrote:But it looks like he's bringing a bowl (surely not tamales... pozole?) TO the man eating spaghetti. A sign of Mexicans encroaching on traditional Italian enclaves on the south side?

Hmmm... Now whether that was the conscious intent of the artist, we will never know but... Yeah, in retrospect, it fits in the way you say... Giovanna puts a humourous light on the issue but there were real ethnic tensions between those two groups in the Taylor Street area. I've heard a few stories –– one involving the owner of a now well-known restaurant in Pilsen who grew up in the eastern end of Taylor Street. I've also heard stories from both perspectives from older current residences of Tri-Taylor. But while such tensions are negative things that should be remembered, it would also be wrong to exaggerate the hostilities. For several decades –– indeed, still today in my neighbourhood and further down Western in and around the Heart of Chicago's Little Tuscany –– the Mexican and Italian communities are side-by-side and partly overlap. That's why I do think it significant that the Meixcan figure on the map is placed beside the Italian table scene.

Pozole perhaps, or perhaps menudo, which strikes me as a Mexican dish quite naturally appealing to a (Southern) Italian audience of the old school (what is better than tripe?).

Antonius

Althought there may have been tensions between Mexicans and Italians in the area, I can testify to firsthand knowledge that hormones and, perhaps, Catholic Youth Organization dances eased some of the tension. Fraternization resulted, yielding my buddy Jose [I mean Joseph] Telemantez about 50 years ago.

Giovanna

In my own family experience, and in the received Latin experience of my formative home in Tampa, I have observed that the Italian and Latin American communities early in the last century were often very simpatico, sharing more commonalities than differences vis a vis the Anglos and/or other less swarthy recent immigrants.

As is almost universally true within the broadly Latin/Catholic American (as opposed to US) diaspora, (which I would like to call "creole" for lack of a good English term and even though that term (1) does not generally apply to Italians living in the New World and (2) has varying connotations between different places, whether Havana, Rio or New Orleans, to give prime colonial examples), there are not-so-subtle pecking orders within the "Latin" community at large, based on race, national origin, and intra-national regional origin.

I would hypothesize that at a high level, similarities (but by no means identity) in language, custom, food and, especially, religion account for why Mexican immigrants have thrived in the once-and-often-still Italian neighborhoods and collar suburbs around Chicago. The tension comes when the formerly smaller, newer community becomes the larger one, and its specific cultural and political power begins to dominate.

Anyway, all this reminds me of how my old uncle Mike Masone used to hit the menudo shops in East LA in the 40's after nights on the town -- all to the consternation of his 'mericani friends in Pasadena....

Mike G wrote:

(Go to www.abebooks.com and you'll find several more, in the $10 and under range.)

Congratulations on single-handedly influencing the out-of-print book market in one day. As of a few minutes ago, the cheapest copy available was $10 without the dustjacket (not on ABE). After that they cost $15 and up!

Way back when there was this discussion of the ethnic map of Chicago as depicted in terms on the cover of John Drury's book.

Gaper's Block points to a fascinating map of Chicago from very close to the same time (1926) which also shows the ethnicities of different parts of town-- but this time in terms of crime. It's very interesting to pore over and see who lived where and what forms of crime were popular-- one area is marked "coal stealing," the stretch of the river by my house is noted for "houseboat squatters," and I have to say, I'd love to know why Wells Park a mile or two up Lincoln is known as "Pussyfoot Park."

Not surprisingly, it's very non-PC-- probably why it didn't wind up in the recent Maps exhibit at the Field Museum....

Now you've got me curious. I found one etymology of "pussyfoot" but it doesn't suggest crime in any way; in fact, it may be more suggestive of law enforcement.

I'm trying really hard to find a way to bring this back around to cuisine...but that just opens up another can of worms...

Pussyfooter seems to have a real range of meanings. Most seem to mean someone who's both a bit of a snoop and a bit of a busybody and maybe a political animal who has no real opinions, just goes with the wind; that's the meaning, I guess, of the use in a title in D.W. Griffith's 1921 Orphans of the Storm, when it's applied to Robespierre (who's called "the original pussyfooter!") Never fails to get a laugh...

http://www.historycooperative.org/journ ... rison.html (see note 18)

None of which brings us any closer to explaining its meaning re: Wells Park, so far as I can see.

P.S. Also, I just noticed the delightful fact that a far South Side black neighborhood seems to have been named for one of Anthony Trollope's most intriguing heroines.

George R wrote:Mike G wrote:

(Go to http://www.abebooks.com and you'll find several more, in the $10 and under range.)

Congratulations on single-handedly influencing the out-of-print book market in one day. As of a few minutes ago, the cheapest copy available was $10 without the dustjacket (not on ABE). After that they cost $15 and up!

Looks like market rate now is ~$125!

Dang speculators...