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TAYLOR STREET ARCHIVES
“It was a glorious time.”
The Club
“Where are you going?”
“No place, ma…I’m just going to the club.”
During the 30s and 40s and on through the decades of the 50s and
60s, Taylor Street had clusters of Social Athletic Clubs (S.A.C.s).
Growing up in Little Italy you were identified as a member of one
of these clubs as much as you were identified with the school you
attended or the street you lived on. Like fiefdoms, they were
spread throughout Taylor Street’s “Little Italy”…from Halsted
Street on the eastern boundary of Little Italy to Western Avenue
bordering its outer fringes. Clubs that proliferated our
neighborhood bore names such as the Cecilia Boosters’ S.A.C., the
Morgan Fads’ S.A.C., the Vernon Park S.A.C., the Survivors’ S.A.C.,
and a host of others too numerous to mention here. The clubs
(licensed as a type of neighborhood social center) were actually
pool rooms. The social gathering of men, ages 15 (and oftentimes
younger) through retirement age, had more to do with gambling
than any social events. The athletic events were limited to shooting
pool, tossing a pair of dice or shuffling a deck of cards. Most of our
organized sports activities took place elsewhere--at the CYO, the
Duncan Y, Sheridan Park, or Hull House. Of course there was also
Cinder Stadium and Dante school yard with their one dimensional,
straight center field, softball fields.
Today there exists, within the eastern vestiges of what remains of
Taylor Street’s Little Italy, three “clubs.” Barely 25% of their
members still reside in “the neighborhood.” The remaining 75%
reside outside the neighborhood. Most, if not all of these men who
return to the old neighborhood to be with their boyhood friends,
are retired. Some make daily pilgrimages to the “old
neighborhood” to spend a few hours with their friends each day.
As predictable as the migratory habits of the Alaskan caribou,
virtually all of those former residents are part of the weekend
migration that returns to Taylor Street’s Little Italy. The “locals”
(those still residing in the neighborhood), typically are daily visitors
to the clubs.
Visit one of these clubs, specifically the Blue Boy’s Club at Polk and
Aberdeen, on a Friday evening and the aroma of the traditional
southern Italian dishes will fill your nostrils. The men use this
opportunity to practice (and sometimes show off) the culinary skills
they acquired from their mothers. At the Blue Boys’ Club, you can
always find a pot of pasta fasule on the stove. The aroma of freshly
cooked home made pizza (and all of the childhood memories it
conjures up) may also be present on any particular day. Among the
several culinary artists who are members of the Blue Boys’ club is
Johnnie Parise, the youngest of the Parise boys raised by Nick and
Mildred Parise who emigrated from St Cartran, Sicily along with a
multitude of other emigrants from the shores of Southern Italy at
the turn of the century. They chose to settle on DesPlaines and
Arthington Streets to raise their family. I mention Johnnie Boy’s
name because he is recognized as the unofficial President and
caretaker of the club. The club, priding itself on the culinary skills
of its members, has a roster of chefs ranging from auxillary chefs on
through to the executive chef. They include Marnell, Freddie,
Horse, the Bad Vince, Duffy (he mostly collects the money), and
whoever decides they want to give a demonstration on “real”
Italian cooking. Stop by! Whether you were Taylor Street bred or
not, you will, as part of the southern Italian tradition, be treated as
an honored guest.
Card playing also serves as a staple catalyst that brings together the
competitive juices that once defined Taylor Street’s young men. If
you listen carefully, you may hear words that applied only to card
games that are rooted in our Italian ancestry--card games such as
briscola and scopa. If you’re observant enough, you may see some
games, steeped in Italian tradition, being played where they not
only deal from the bottom of the deck but also deal the cards out
counter-clockwise. The number game (mora) is also a staple when a
major function is sponsored by a club. However, it’s played mostly
by youngsters (2nd and 3rd generation Italian Americans) at those
reunions. The old timers seem content to simply watch and
recount stories of the “old days.”
We never knew how good we were as card players until we were old
enough to venture out of our neighborhood. One club, the Morgan
Fads S.A.C., produced 2 international champion gin rummy players
plus a third contestant that came within a whisker from making it 3
out of 3 for the Morgan Fads. Imagine, in the whole world, one little
known inconspicuous club harbored, arguably, the best gin rummy
players on the planet. Jerry “Bugsy” Piscatello won the first Las
Vegas International championship. Eddie “Steady Eddy” Giampa
won the international championship just two years later. And Joe
“Hammer” Delessandro barely missed winning the championship
(7th place). All three were from Taylor Street. All three were from
just one of the numerous clubs that saturated our neighborhood.
All three were first generation Italian Americans. It seems that we,
as the prologue to the Taylor Street Archives attests, did “excel in
virtually everything the larger society had ordained for us…from
digging sewers to enterprises in which only the most talented and
courageous could excel.”
One afterthought that I must record in these archives for
posterity: During a Friday night poker session at the Morgan Fads
Club, we experienced what statistically was a billion to one shot.
All eight players, in a poker game of seven card stud, face down,
were dealt three of a kind. Needless the say, the betting was
ferocious and all the players stayed in until the last card. . There
were not enough cards to give all eight players a seventh card so a
spit card (community card) the queen of spades, was turned over as
the seventh and final card. All eight players wound up with a pat
hand (full house or better). The winning hand, four queens, was
held by Nick Balice…beating out aces full, kings full, four jacks,
four deuces, etc. A billion to one shot!
It was a glorious time and we, indeed, were a special breed!
Upon my return to Taylor Street, after decades of being away to
raise my family, I am reintroduced to everyone as follows, “You
remember Josie from Sheridan Park…well this is Josie’s son.”
When I won the raffle (a brand new BMW car) at the Shrine of Our
Lady of Pompeii’s Annual Summer Fest, the word that passed
through the crowd and the neighborhood was, “Josie’s son won the
BMW.”
This site, the Taylor Street Archives, is dedicated to the memory of
all of those Taylor Street mothers who nurtured their Taylor Street
children through a time and place unmatched by any other. The
Profiles of those strong willed mothers who nurtured us through
the great depression (and other, not so visible obstacles of similar
magnitude) will be found in these archives.
Anyone who once resided in Taylor Street’s "Little Italy" is eligible
to be listed in the Taylor Street Archives. A $1,000 scholarship is
given out each year to the student who writes the best story on
“Growing Up in Taylor Street’s Little Italy.” Both the Archives
application and the scholarship application are available by calling
Vince Romano 888-724-7392 (toll free).