But another thing I learned today was that there is an Edgewater Historical Society that has a museum and just opened a big exhibit yesterday. This is my neighborhood. The museum is in an old fire station about a mile away from my apartment but it's not on a street that I really travel, so I probably would never have known about it if I hadn't wanted that Cubs shirt.
This afternoon on my way home from church I got off the Red Line a station early, at Berwyn, to walk over to the museum. I am so glad I did!
Edgewater is on the far north side of Chicago, bordering Lake Michigan as you might suspect from the name. It's south of the Rogers Park neighborhood and Loyola University, but north of just about everything else. It technically includes Andersonville, which is to the southwest of where I live, but a lot of people think of Andersonville as separate from Edgewater. There was a time when this sort of jurisdictional inconsistency would have bothered me a great deal, and I take it as a sign of enormous progress that it no longer does. At least, not too much.
The Tribune article (which I won't link to, since you need a "digital plus" subscription to access it and I assume you, dedicated reader, don't have one) was about a special exhibit that the museum has to celebrate its 25th anniversary called Living Treasures of Edgewater. They selected 25 people who have made a significant impact on the neighborhood, and gave each of them a plaque. The exhibit at the museum describes each of the individuals, and you learn a lot about the recent history of Edgewater by reading their stories.
But let's start further back. Edgewater was developed by John Lewis Cochran in the late 1880's in the area just north of the City of Chicago - unincorporated areas that were (and still are) called Lakeview and Andersonville. This was after the Great Fire of 1871, but I am told by my friend Brook who lives in the neighborhood that because it wasn't in the City of Chicago yet, the post-fire prohibition on wooden buildings did not apply here so there are still a few wooden houses. (In fact, the fire station that is now home to the historical society's museum was originally a wooden structure.)
Cochran built a lot of homes and also the famous Edgewater Beach Hotel. There is a building at Bryn Mawr and Sheridan that people call "The Pink Hotel" which I thought was the original hotel, but it's not. The original hotel (at the same location) was demolished in 1971. The current building is a condo/co-op.
Anyway, the most interesting thing about the Edgewater Beach Hotel is that when it was built in 1916 (with an expansion in the 1920's), it was, appropriately enough, right at the water's edge. Look at this picture from the museum's collection.
 |
| Source: Edgewater Historical Society http://www.edgewaterhistory.org/ehs/local/edgewater-beach-hotel |
Lake Shore Drive now is a major vehicle thoroughfare, which I can assure you is well traveled because I can see traffic 24/7 from my window. It is also, apparently, a test lab for car horns.
The second best thing about Lake Shore Drive is the Lake Shore Trail, which is an 18-mile pedestrian/bike path that starts from Hollywood, where I live, and goes south for, well, 18 miles. You can take it to Navy Pier (about seven miles south), the museum campus, and further south although I've never ridden past Navy Pier so I don't know exactly where it ends. That will be another adventure sometime.
The best thing about Lake Shore Drive are all the beautiful beaches - free and open to the public - along the lakefront.
But I digress.
Edgewater is a wonderful neighborhood. Part of that wonderfulness is the fact that it is very diverse and yet everyone seems to get along. This store, which is on Clark Street, sort of symbolizes Edgewater to me.
You've got the GLBT rainbow colors, the name "Gordono's" and a sign saying it's a Jewish deli. Of course, this one store doesn't take into account all of the people who make up Edgewater - immigrants from Central Europe and Africa, old people, young people and families, people of all races and religious backgrounds - but it sort of illustrates my point. My friend Beth says that Edgewater is the first neighborhood everyone lives in when they move to Chicago. On the street in Edgewater you hear so many languages, see gay and lesbian couples holding hands, and pass by little old men as well as young parents pushing strollers. And dogs. Good Lord, there are a lot of dogs in Edgewater. But, like the people, the dogs are all well behaved and generally friendly.
Back to the Edgewater Historical Society and the Living Treasures exhibit. I'm new to the city, of course, so I've never heard of any of the 25 people. But while I was there, a couple who have lived in the neighborhood for many years came in based on the Tribune article (they said to the nice lady at the front desk) and mentioned that they knew a couple of the people who were listed in the article.
The individuals honored included a few who had positions of formal leadership - an alderman, a rabbi, a school principal - but most of them were just regular residents. All of them went above and beyond their job descriptions in doing something to make Edgewater special.
For instance, take Sheli Lulkin. She was concerned about Lake Michigan's rising lake levels and worked to make sure that appropriate steps were taken to protect Sheridan Road properties - something near and dear to me, because that's where I live. On my morning walks I had seen a large pile of rocks at the very north end of the beach, and had remembered it largely because I thought my sisters' and brother's kids would have a great time climbing on it. But they had a picture of this same pile of rocks in the Sheli Lulkin exhibit, because the rocks are part of a lake stabilization project. It was sort of cool to learn why those rocks were there, since I had felt an oddly personal connection to them.
The honorees reflect the diversity of Edgewater. People who immigrated from Israel, Ethiopia, France, Germany, and the south side of Chicago were among the group. They worked on just about every issue you can imagine: crime prevention, environmental concerns, human service needs, equal protection and human rights, gardening and neighborhood beautification...the list goes on and on. And I'm going to say here, because as I like to remind you this is my blog and I can say whatever I want, that it is so nice to live in a city where elected officials are honored for their work to make gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered people full citizens of the community, rather than being voted out of office for it. Have I mentioned how much I love Chicago?
I think it's great that they are honoring people who are still around to accept the honor rather than waiting until they die, which is often what happens. And this kind of exhibit is also a great way of showing that every person can make a difference if he or she chooses to do so. History is made up of people like Sheli Lulkin and my buddy Viggy. It is us, not them.
The rest of the museum consists of some smaller exhibits about the area's history and development, political history (more on that in a minute), and a wall of fame (my words, not theirs) of people who are from Edgewater.
One learns from this exhibit that if it weren't for Edgewater there would have been effectively no popular fiction written in the 1970's other than Harlequin Romances, since both John Jakes and Sidney Sheldon are from the neighborhood. Other notable Edgewaterians (I'm not sure what the actual noun would be, but don't you think there's sort of a ring to Edgewaterian?) include Clayton Moore (a.k.a. The Lone Ranger), cartoonist Herbert Block, athlete Fritz Pollard (who, along with Jesse Owens, was one of the medal-winning African-American athletes at the 1936 Berlin Olympics who embarrassed Hitler and his Nazi myth of Aryan Supremacy), and actress Lois Nettleton (whom I had never heard of by name, but recognized her immediately from her appearances on Seinfeld, among other things).
 |
| Photo credit: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Nettleton |
Don't worry, I haven't forgotten the part about politics.
I recently read City of Scoundrels by Gary Krist, which is a very interesting history of "The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago" as it is subtitled. The book is about events during the summer of 1919 - starting with a blimp exploding over downtown, and including a protracted race riot, a crippling transit strike, and the murder of a little girl - that gave people the sense that the city was completely out of control. The mayor during this time was "Big Bill" Thompson who was the last Republican mayor of Chicago and whom Wikipedia refers to as "among the most unethical mayors in American history." That is actually quite a strong statement - the ethical part, not the Republican part. Although maybe that, too.
Anyway, while not defending his ethics, Krist maintains that Thompson was an effective mayor during his first two terms - modern Chicago began with projects that started to be realized during his tenure. Krist comments briefly about how the mayor who followed Thompson (and whom Thompson then followed four years later in what was not a successful administration) was a good-government type whose ethics were above reproach but who couldn't get anything done and whose aggressive enforcement of prohibition drove crime in the city to unprecedented heights as bootleggers and gangsters violently defended their territories. (While I obviously would prefer my politicians honest, what I really want is for them to be able to accomplish great things for their communities and if I had to choose.....well, I'm living in Chicago so you get an idea of my priorities.)
Of course, Krist didn't have a "native son" relationship with William Dever, the interregnum mayor. The Edgewater Historical Society does, as Dever was one of two mayors, both Democrats, from my neighborhood, so the museum's exhibit doesn't talk much about the results of Dever's service. Enough that he was our guy. Still, it was funny that I only know the names of two mayors before 1955 (when Mayor Daley the First took office), and both of them are in the Edgewater exhibit. (I learned a third name today, Martin Kennelly, who was the second Edgewater mayor and who preceded Mayor Daley from 1947-1955.)
The museum talks about the fact that the neighborhood is strongly Democrat, which is a nice change of pace for me, and includes in the politics exhibit a large picture of Edgewater's most famous daughter, none other than Hillary Clinton, who was born in Edgewater Hospital. Take that, Barack Obama. If she's elected President, they will probably have to put a new wing on the back of the building.
From the beach to the shops to the homes to the history, I love my neighborhood. And the Edgewater Historical Society museum? It's not quite the Museum of Science and Industry, but it's home.
Hey, did I just say "home?"
How do we know Hillary was actually born there?
ReplyDeleteDick S.