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Stories: Growing up Taylor Street
Taylor Street Archives
NEWS FLASH!
August 28, 2007
www. Taylor Street Archives. com
Florence Scala: Betrayal:--Hull House… First Ward mob…Daley
mob…University of Illinois, Chicago Campus…Hull House
Museum….
On August 28, 2007, Florence Scala, Chicago’s legendary Taylor Street
activist, died. Upon the passing of Florence Scala, Derrick Blakely of
TVs CBS 2 News, reported:
“She was fearless! She spoke for a neighborhood that she believed
didn’t have to die. She spoke for the people! Who she was most hurt
by were what she called the good people, the board of directors of
Hull House, which encouraged Daley to go ahead and destroy the
neighborhood. She thought they were the ones that really betrayed
the people of the neighborhood.”
There is an inherited and primal repugnancy for those who “devour
their young.” Florence Scala most assuredly harbored that
repugnancy throughout her remaining years.
That betrayal by Hull House of the “thriving, vibrant, tight knit
neighborhood” that Florence Scala believed “didn’t have to die,”
took place nearly one-half century ago. Why the Hull House
neighborhood and not the vacated and easily accessible Dearborn
Station? Answer: 75% of the $400,000 allocated for each residential
block found its way into the pockets of recent purchasers of vacant
lots on the designated blocks. An incredible amount of money, as
witnessed by the estates of those who had passed on, found its way
into the pockets of the mob. The unexplored and unanswered
question is: which mob? Was it the First Ward mob, the Daley mob
or the Hull House mob? Florence Scala points her finger at the Hull
House mob.
Which mob…The Fist Ward mob, the Daley mob or the Hull House
mob?
The legendary Taylor Street’s Little Italy, the place Jane Addams
referred to as “The Hull House Neighborhood,” served as the
laboratory for those theorists who had pledged to fight for the rights
of those who were too weak, too unsophisticated and too
unconnected to fight for themselves. I suspect that the Hull House
board members Florence Scala points to, as betrayers of the
community trust, had either political pledges to repay or political
positioning opportunities that were too rewarding to pass up.
Seething within the psyche of the collective conscience of Taylor
Street’s Little Italy are other, equally devastating, betrayals on the
part of the Hull House dynasty and the current guardians of the Hull
House Museum, the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC).
As early as 1924, Wallace K. Kirkland of Hull House betrayed the
Italian constituency of The Hull House Neighborhood by describing
the subjects in his classic photograph, Meet the “Hull House Kids,”
as being of Irish ancestry. It wasn’t until 1987 (almost 6 decades
removed) that a vigilant Sun-Times reported that betrayal. All twenty
boys were identified as first generation Italian Americans…all with
vowels at the ends of their names. “They grew up to be lawyers and
mechanics, sewer workers and dump truck drivers, a candy shop
owner, a boxer, and a mob boss.”
Jane Addams personal hand written description (circa 1895) of the
Italian American component of what came to be know in sociological
and political circles as “The Hull House Neighborhood,” states,
“Italians comprised the inner core of the neighborhood:-- from the
river on the east to Halsted Street on the west. Germans and Jews
resided south of that inner core (south of twelfth street)…The Greek
delta formed by Harrison, Halsted and Blue Island Streets served as a
buffer to the Irish residing to the north and the Canadian-French to
the northwest.” Hence, what had come to be known as the legendary
Taylor Street, the inner core of The Hull House Neighborhood, was,
as far back as the turn of that century, wall-to-wall Italians.
Somewhere between World War I and the roaring twenties, when
Congress decided that this country had more than its fill of southern
European/Mediterranean people, only the remnants of the non-
Italian element remained as part of the Hull House Neighborhood.
The residents of Greek Town and Jew Town (Maxwell Street)
evaporated during that time span. Only their businesses, on the
outer fringes of The Hull House Neighborhood, remained as a token
reminder of their former presence.
You talk the talk…but do you walk the walk?
Another, more serious, betrayal occurred when the UIC became
custodians of the Hull House Museum and its two web sites. The
original directors of the Hull House Museum and its two web sites
(UIC faculty assigned by the Chancellor with the approval of the
Trustees) refused even the courtesy of a response to inquiries made
on behalf of the community to make students and historians,
referencing the Hull House and Bowen Country Club web sites,
aware of companion links referencing The Hull House
Neighborhood…Taylor Street’s Little Italy.
The opening of the Hull House Bowen Country Club web site
suggests (by a non-Taylor Street bred employee of Hull House) that
Hull House and Bowen Country Club were melting pots. As a child
growing up in the community, I participated in both the Hull House
and the Bowen Country Club programs. Later, as a post graduate
student, I was employed as a social worker at Hull House and as a
camp counselor at the Bowen Country Club. One would be hard
pressed to describe the 95% Italian-American population of the Hull
House complex as being a melting pot. Unless, however, you
consider the integration of Neapolitans, Sicilians, Calabrese, etc as a
melting pot of sorts.
Fast forward and a new director of the Hull House Museum and its
web sites, Lisa Yun Lee, proclaims, “Taylor Street Archives is an
amazing resource that should be a part of any story we need to tell
about the history of this place…”
Shortly afterwards, in a published interview in the Spring 2007 issue
of the UIC College of Architecture, Lisa Lee is quoted, “It’s
important that we don’t have a narrow vision of ownership over
history or who gets to tell the story, but realize it is a collective story
to be told”…Suggesting, once again, that history should include the
story of those who lived it. What is it that makes the UIC, guardians
of the Hull House Museum so fearful of including the contributions
of local residents; e.g., Taylor Street Archives, as companion sites on
the internet they control? Why are they so intent on shielding
students and scholars from that version of history as reported by
those who lived it? Go figure!
The roots of the Italian American community are steeped in the Hull
House Neighborhood, Taylor Street’s Little Italy. This neighborhood
served as the port-of-call for the overwhelming majority of our Italian
immigrant parents. The ultimate insult to our people was heaped
upon us when civic and political leaders began dedicating portions of
our historic institutions to recent residents. Should not the likes of a
Florence Scala supersede the names of those politically connected,
non-Italian newcomers? Go figure again!
“…and it came to pass that, for those who follow us, it was as if we
never were here.”
Vince Romano