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HOME > HISTORY > HEART OF ITALY |
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Heart of Chicago community revels in rich history |
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Cyrus McCormick Jr. went to school on the Near West Side. Upon his father’s death, his mother, Nettie Fowler McCormick, took over the management of the reaper plant and taught her son how to manage it as well. She therefore was Chicago’s, and perhaps America’s, first female executive to run a huge corporation.
Mother and son used to ride in their carriage down Blue Island Ave. to supervise the construction of the new plant. The land had been bought from a Near West Side realtor who was part of Ashland Boulevard’s Carter Harrison’s inner circle of boulevardiers.
The McCormick Club
The McCormicks built a club on 24th and Oakley for employees and guests. The club had a picnic and polo grounds, an eight-lane bowling alley, a grotto used for marriages, a bar and restaurant, and showers. Many families in the area can recall fathers and mothers trundling under the overpass, lunchboxes in hand, to work at the McCormick reaper or wire factories.
When returning home, they would use a direct underground entrance to the club, where they would shower. They would then go across the street into the Coachhouse Tavern for a “boilermaker” (a shot of whiskey and a beer). A pony was kept in the backyard for the children to ride. There also was a bocce ball (Italian bowling) area in the back.
Old photos of the bocce ball players look like a map of Italy; many northern Italians settled this area along with natives of Sicily, Salerno, and Naples. Most arrived in the 1890s, coming from Pisa, the Piedmont, Genoa, Venice, and Tuscany. The menus in the restaurants in the area today still reflect that heritage.
Wosniak’s Casino, formerly on 18th Street, took over the McCormick Club and was the forum for fun in the neighborhood, including weddings and dances. It was used for the filming of several movies. President Ronald Reagan once held a fundraiser at Wosniak’s; locals recall seeing Secret Service agents stationed on the roof of Alfo’s Restaurant nearby.
The area grew into a center for restaurants because it was home to immigrants living in crowded flats. Single workingmen often lived ten-to-twelve to a room. With limited or no cooking facilities, they had to eat out. The Oakley Boulevard restaurants opened to fill the need.
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