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TAYLOR STREET ARCHIVES
Growing up in Taylor Street’s Little Italy
Vince Romano
June 2006
The primary purpose of the Archives is to memorialize the names of
those who had emigrated to Taylor Street from the shores of southern
Italy and their offspring (the first and second generation Italian
Americans) who grew up in Taylor Street’s Little Italy. An equally
important objective is to record those memories that capture both the
essence and spirit of growing up on Taylor Street. The archives will be
that sacred ground which will preserve the story of a time, a place and
a people. A story that was and will never be again. A story preserved
for generations to visit and recall how it was for us in the beginning.
I was asked to write an overview of growing up in Little Italy under the
assumption that my experiences could better prepare the reader for
other stories to appear in the Archives. I choose those episodes in my
life that I felt captured the flavor of growing up in Taylor Street’s Little
Italy. Needless to say, it is biased in favor of my perceptions of the
neighborhood and its people. At times, it may seem to an outsider that
I’m rambling. To those of us who were Taylor Street bred, however,
the cohesiveness of these once upon a time stories is readily apparent.
Shooting from the hip, here is a collage of those memories and
perceptions:
*For openers, nicknames in our neighborhood were so prevalent you
rarely knew the real name of anyone unless they were in the same
classroom with you. Here are a few: Bugsy, Steady Eddie, Crazy Migee,
Vincenzo Paso (that’s me), Rabbit, Frog Eyes, Bunny, Moe, Bug House,
Hammer Nose, Mouse, Wacker, Tank, Slick, Zanzo, Butter Ball, Johnnie
Boy, Cocoa, Mother’s Doll, Dead-eye, Little Man, Hindu, Shoes, Scarps
(means shoes also), Five Joke Books, and a host of other names that fit
their characters.
*I don’t mean to be offensive to anyone, but, as others before me had
noted, violence was inherent in and part of the Taylor Street culture.
Those stories must therefore, by definition, also be included in our
Archives. I suspect there were a number of reasons why this culture of
violence existed. The Black Hand, although eventually extinguished as
a result of the courageous actions of our parents and others, was
carried over from the old country and was ingrained in our psyche. In
addition, many first generation Italian-Americans grew up during a
time when organized crime was rampant in America. The Italian-
American contingent of that phenomenon, although late in arriving,
eventually dominated and consolidated bootlegging and other illegal
ventures such as gambling. As an aside: all of those nefarious
activities are now legal and, allegedly, are necessary to support our
schools. The members of the notorious 42 gang were Taylor Street
residents-all 42 of them. Venturing out of your homes each day
resurrected primal memories of survival instincts. There were books
written about blackboard jungles, asphalt jungles, mean streets, etc.
There are those who might conclude that one would be hard pressed to
find a “street” more reflective of the combined theme of those novels.
*Many of us who grew up on Taylor Street had their harrowing
experiences. I’ll share one of mine with you and move on. One
Saturday afternoon we were having a sandwich at Fig’s (given that
nickname, I suspect, because of acne wrinkles) beef stand on Taylor
and Newberry. One of the Halsted and Arthington guys suddenly
came tearing around the corner with 3 unfamiliar Latinos just a few
steps behind him. As they bounced off of the beef stand, the Latinos
picked off the 4 foot long iron spits that were used to cook the
sausage. Fast forward a minute or two and 40 feet above the concrete
sidewalk below, _________ ___________, hanging off the side of the
Orrico’s porch with one hand, was doing all he could to avoid being
stabbed. My arrival, instead of resulting in two teenagers being
stabbed to death or thrown to their deaths, resulted in all 3 Latinos
cautiously backing down the 3 flights of stairs. Like many other Taylor
made guys, I look back at harrowing experiences such as this, and ask,
“Was it courage, sense of honor, primeval instinct that motivated us ...
or was it just simply something that evolved as a result of growing up
in Taylor Street’s Little Italy?
*Willard Motley was one of the many resident artists at Hull house. He
utilized the neighborhood, its people and its geography, to write his
best selling novel, Knock on Any Door. His book, recognized as a
treatise on human behavior, impacted upon every major theory on
human development. His name and his novel are mentioned elsewhere
in these Archives as he provides us with an insight as the complexities
of human behavior, especially as it pertained to those of us growing up
on Taylor Street.
*I was born in an apartment above Granata’s restaurant located at the
corner of Taylor and Peoria. (I later learned that No Boy, whose
athletic skills made him a neighborhood icon of sorts, lived, a decade
earlier, in the same apartment in which I was born.) The celebrities
who dined at Granata’s included Frank Sinatra. Cinder Stadium’s
home plate was only a few feet from their kitchen door, where we
placed our orders for veal scaloppini sandwiches after a long day of
playing ball. Shortly afterward my parents moved across the street to
1013 South Peoria Street until I was in my second year at Crane Tech
High School. Most of the kids went to either Harrison H.S. or Cregier H.
S. when they graduated grammar school.
*We all had chores. Our games were often interrupted by a yell from
an open window by one of our parents. One or 2 of the participants
would dash off in response to what may have been a forgotten chore,
or a chore that was not properly done. My parents had 4 sons
(Raymond, Dominick and I (Vincent) were but a year apart). The
fourth son, Mario, was born 6 years after me. Our chores, as in most
families, were pretty well defined: Taking care of the coal stove,
throwing out the garbage, scrubbing the 3 flights of wooden stairs
every week-end, picking up our homemade bread from the local
bakery, and a host of other chores that linked us to depression era
children of ethnic parents.
*My brother Mario died at age 15 when the nurses refused to enter his
room to stop the bleeding from a cut from a broken glass on his
hospital tray. They had misdiagnosed him as having spinal
meningitis. My father died at age 52 while being treated at Mother
Cabrini Hospital. (Mother Cabrini Hospital, now a condo
development, no longer services the health needs of the community.)
Two neatly dressed (suit and tie) Metropolitan Life agents, sitting at
our kitchen table, offered my mother a $6,000 settlement on my father’
s $10,000 policy: “If you go to court, you might not even get the
$6,000.”
*Our street, like the rest of Taylor Street, was really crowded…wall-to-
wall people. In the evening, kids played on the streets while their
parents sat on the front steps of their homes. The women had their
own agenda while the men debated the issues of the day. They were
evenly divided as to whether or not Mussolini was good for Italy.
“After all, Mussolini did get the trains to run on time.” Most buildings
were 3 stories high with 6 apartments. Many apartments contained
more than one generation. One vivid memory I carry with me to this
day is that of my grandfather, well into his 70s, with this huge shovel
over his shoulder, coming home, after a long day’s work, to his
spaghetti dinner and a glass (or two) of home made wine. We ran to
him each night to welcome him home. A kiss on his hand brought the
welcome reward of a penny which bought us a bag full of Mary Janes
or a hand full of paper candy. Last I saw of his wine stained glass was
in a box stored in my basement. I would give the world to be able to
pass that purple stained glass on to my children and their children’s
children.
*Between Halsted Street (800 west) and Morgan Street (1000 west) were
4 pool rooms. They were legally set up as Social Athletic Clubs (SACs).
Each club represented a distinct neighborhood. Little Italy was
saturated with these clubs. A story of these clubs as fiefdoms
commanding the allegiance of those who lived within their boundaries
is in the Archives and will appear in this column at a future date. One
club, the Morgan Fads SAC, produced two, nearly consecutive, world
champion gin rummy players. Believe it or not, they were a hair short
of making it 3 consecutive world champions.
*For the record, I met my wife, Tomasine Garippo, for the first time, at
Hull House’s Bowen Country Club when she was 16 years old. She
only lived 3 blocks from me, on Taylor and Arthington, across from the
Guardian Angel and Dante Schools. When my cousin confided in me
that he was moving “way out west” he was moving to Garibaldi
Street—only 5 blocks away.
*Most readers would be familiar with the games we played. Most of
our games were played in the Goodrich School play yard. (Goodrich
School’s Cinder Stadium is an article all by itself and will be published
at a future date.) The full description of those games will be found in a
later article and will be memorialized in the Taylor Street Archives as
well. There is one, Babies, which is worth mentioning here because it
makes a statement about the character of those of us who grew up in
Taylor Street’s Little Italy. Babies was a game where the lone loser
stood against the wall and the winners took turns throwing a “league
ball” at him from 50 feet away—it was 30 feet if we used a softball.
(We called baseballs “league balls” to distinguish them from the 16
inch softball that was prevalent in our neighborhood.) If you missed
you had to shield the lone loser with your body. That was the only
protection the victim had. The memory of playing tag on Goodrich
School’s 3 story fire escapes or the 6 inch ledge that goes around the
Field Museum with its 30 foot drop to the concrete pavement below
still brings on anxiety attacks. I can hear Cocoa, while playing peck
and stick, saying, “Mother’s doll, this one is going right through your
window.” And it did--4 stories high.
*We played tackle football with the iron fence out-of-bounds. (Dante
School Yard also had their iron fence as their side line marker.) There
was no need for any replay cameras to determine whether or not
someone had gone out-of-bounds. The sound of bouncing off the iron
fence was all the proof that was needed.
*We had some really tough guys in our piece of Little Italy. We had
Golden Glove champions Richie Guererro and Jackie Corvino. Other
Golden Glovers included Chickie LaPlaca. Richie knocked Floyd
Patterson (who later became heavyweight champion of the world) out
of the ring in the Olympics. Bobbie Salerno lived across the street
from me. Harry Alleman, I was told, was also born on Peoria Street.
Some who had not achieved some measure of prominence were, in my
mind, the toughest of the lot—depending upon how you defined
tough. Goodrich schoolyard was the site of most of our regulated fist
fights. There were 2 memorable fights still vivid in my mind. Jimmy
Parilli, thanks to Hull house, discovered that he had the skills of an
AAU wrestling champ. He and Dante “Bunny” DiMenna went at it in
Goodrich School on a hot, dry, dusty summer day. The fight lasted
hours with Bunny hopelessly locked into a figure eight (8) for all but a
few minutes of the battle. Blood was streaming from his mouth, arm
pits and nose. Overmatched, he didn’t back down. The memory of his
courageous stand has remained with me until this day. That’s when I
first realized what being tough was all about. The other memorable
battle that took place in the Goodrich School playground was between
me and Anthony Laterza. The fight lasted the entire lunch period with
neither of us landing (or even throwing) a punch.
*Anthony Laterza was in my Goodrich School graduating class along
with Nanette Partipillo and John “Deadeye” Lopez. Nanette sang
“Long Ago and Far Away” for our graduation. I gave the graduation
speech. Deadeye received the medal given by the American Legion to
the outstanding boy and girl graduate. Nanette received a measure of
notoriety when her husband was killed in a gangland style slaying on
their front steps. Deadeye wound up in jail shortly after graduation
and later died of unnatural causes. (It seemed that the Goodrich school
graduates who won the American legion medal were either in jail or
dead by age 18.) Anthony Laterza, a blue eyed, black haired Adonis,
found his way to Hollywood. His good looks could only take him to
the edge of the Hollywood scene. Decades later he revisited Taylor
Street and we shared old memories. The years had been more than
kind to him. One would be hard pressed to find anyone on the planet
better looking than him. Shortly after that visit we heard that he had
taken his own life.
*Another phenomenon that had its roots in Goodrich School was the
“Fresh Air Room.” If you were lucky enough to be assigned to the
Fresh Air room for that week, you got all the milk you could drink and
all of Miss Sangamon’s peanut butter sandwiches you could eat. (I still
water at the mouth thinking about those sandwiches.) I suspect the
theory at the time suggested that good nutrition and fresh air made
you a better learner. I managed to get my share of failing grades and
thus my share of assignments to the fresh air room.
*Federal studies pointed out that Italian-Americans were the lowest of
all European ethnic groups in education. Few in our neighborhood
graduated high school. Most guys stayed in school just until they
reached the legal age of 16. Quit before 16 and you did a stretch at
Montefiore. The economics were such that many of us worked while
going to school. Only a handful from my grammar school class
graduated high school—virtually all were girls. It seemed to me that
our grade schools were staffed with teachers who were programmed
not to expect much because they were dealing with an inferior
product. Needless to say, only a small fraction of our first generation
Italian Americans went on to college and even fewer managed to
graduate.
*Many guys eventually got themselves jobs through their first ward
precinct captains. An impressive number became police officers. The
second most popular career seemed to be that of a truck driver. My
brother Dominick quit high school at 16 and went to work for Coca
Cola as a driver’s helper. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, when he met
his wife, he returned to Coca Cola. He eventually attained the lofty
position of District sales manager for Coca Cola. His odyssey as a high
school drop-out is representative of a number of our Taylor Street bred
young men who achieved prominence despite their limited educational
opportunities. His story, a eulogy of sorts, will appear later in these
archives and is really the story of many other Taylor Street young men
who rose to heights that our sociological soothsayers had never
predicted for them. My eldest brother, Raymond, did graduate high
school and, like many other Taylor Street alumni before and after him,
became a successful entrepreneur and business owner.
*We were the Peoria Flashes. When we played teams from other parts
of Little Italy, we bolstered our roster with the guys from Newberry
Street (one-half block east) and Sangamon Street (one-half block
west). Whenever we played football at Sheridan Park, fights broke out
long before the game ended. When we played in the CYO basketball
tournaments, the games, more often than not, ended in a fight…either
on the basketball court or on the street as we were walking back to our
section of Little Italy.
*One day we went to play the black kids at the boy’s club south of
Roosevelt Road. (We grew up during ethnic times and we were an
ethnically defined neighborhood.) They schedule a basketball game
with us as a prelude to their Saturday night dance. Our Hull House
team was leading by 3 points with one minute to play. That one
minute lasted like an hour. Despite the fact that we scored every time
we got the ball during those drawn out closing minutes, when the final
score was officially announced, they had won. In a gymnasium where
we were outnumbered fifty to one, prudence dictated not to challenge
their final score.
*Which brings to mind another episode in which we had a similar
confrontation with the project residents. Five of us were in a dispute
over money which led to their calling, “One-eye.” In came one eye,
meaner looking than a junk yard dog. He not only had one-eye, his
face was so scarred he looked like he fought pit bulls every morning
before breakfast. But then, that’s another story to be found later in the
pages of these Taylor Street Archives.
*We had our share of fights outside the neighborhood as well. One
winter evening our club all piled into a truck to do battle with the gang
on 18th and Halsted. When we piled out of the truck I was
immediately confronted by 3 guys. The remainder of our guys fought
their way into the tavern. By the time they fought their way back to the
truck and raced back to Taylor Street, I, unbeknownst to them, was
battling one of my adversaries in a strange kitchen. Growing up on
Taylor Street, we were obliged to defend our honor…to defend our
turf, regardless of the risks.
*Goodrich School yard also served as a haven for the week-end dice
games. Police car #22 pulled up every hour to collect their due. There
were 3 games going at one time: the penny game; the nickel and dime
game; and the game where dollar bills were bet. I remember shining
shoes one Saturday morning and coming back in the afternoon to try
my luck at the dice games. If I lost, I went back out with my shoe shine
box. The Greeks never tipped, even though you had to use a ton of
polish on their boots. The young servicemen and the skid row
residents were better tippers. To recoup my losses before I went
home, I went directly to Madison Street (skid row) and worked my way
to the Loop.
*The Italian feast celebrations--“cinque petso Santa Nicolo”-- were held
on the Sangamon Street side of Goodrich School. On one occasion I
lost all of my shoeshine money to one of the “give me a dime and I’ll
give you a dollar” carnival con artists. Once again “back out with my
shoe shine box.”
*Chicken Charlie (“No dime, no show.”) was a frequent visitor to our
neighborhood. An elderly black man, he walked the neighborhood
with a chicken and a piece of rope. As kids, we ran to him to see what
new tricks he had taught his chicken. It was always the same trick, the
chicken trying to balance itself on a rope.
*Theresa’s tavern, on Taylor (between Newberry and Peoria streets),
served an exclusive Mexican clientele. My bedroom was across the
alley from the tavern. Mexican music, dipped in tequila, was drummed
into my subconscious every Friday and Saturday night for the first 14
years of my life.
The Mexicans were the only other ethnic group that existed in any
discernible numbers within the inner core of the Hull House
neighborhood. Tacho, the leader and spokesman for the Zacatecas,
organized a team boxing tournament pitting the Zacatecas against the
Cecilia Boosters. The matches took place on Newberry Street by the
Cecilia’s SAC. . Needless to say, CYO and Golden Gloves boxers the
likes of Richie Guerrero, etc., won their matches handily. By the time
they got to the final match, the victories by each side were fairly even.
That final match was short lived as the deadlier punching had its toll.
The Zacatecas heavyweight was forced to quit when a punch shattered
his elbow.
Although Mexicans and Italians were both teammates and opponents
in their athletic activities, social integration was rare and virtually non-
existent on a group scale. There were individual Mexicans who had
become members of an Italian gang or club. I suspect a caste
mentality rejected a reverse situation of individual Italians became
members of a Mexican gang or club. There may have been a racist
undertone that existed as well. If an Italian girl favored a Mexican boy,
she was labeled: “A Mexican lover!”
*Hull House and Sheridan Park were the after-school institutions that
helped to fill our non-school hours. Our end of Taylor Street went to
Hull House. During the summer, we went to Sheridan Park’s
swimming pool. Getting past the life guard was an ordeal. They
repeatedly sent us back to the showers to scrub what appeared to be
dirt on our heels. I guess those blue eyed, blond hair life guards never
developed callous heels from wearing hand-me-down shoes that were
too small for them. Both Hull House and Sheridan Park were packed
for the Saturday shower ritual, in preparation for a night on the town.
The Hull House game room was a daily regimen of playing pool, pick
up sticks and board games like Sorry and Monopoly while waiting for
the gym to open. As teenagers, a monthly dance and co-ed club
meetings were added to our schedule. The gymnasium held the most
attraction for us. While it offered boxing, wrestling, tumbling and
gymnastics, basketball commanded most of our attention. The rafters
overhanging the basketball court prevented arched shots. Hence, we
became line drive shooters. Whatever records we set are destined to
stand forever as the gymnasium was torn down in the 1960s. Being
over 6 feet tall I was often assigned to play with the smaller Mexican
team. One championship game was especially bitterly fought. During
the ensuing brawl, also bitterly fought, my allegiance was with my
teammates.
*My biggest thrill was being asked to play with the men’s team (the
Wolverines) to represent Hull House in a citywide tournament. I was
only 15 at the time. Yahte (he was Greek) and I were the only two “6
footers” on the Hull House team…probably the only six footers in all
of Taylor Street. He and I were dominant players in our respective
leagues. However, playing against outside teams with superior size,
the action under the boards was exceptionally ferocious, especially for
Yahte who was slight of built. (All of our Taylor Street teams had
similar experiences regardless of the sport, as six footers were rare in
our ethnic neighborhood.) Since Yahte was taller, he played center and
I played forward. Shooting and driving from the outside, without five
guys hanging on my arms each time I got the ball, was a blast. I had a
great tournament, playing well over my head. Surprisingly, I was
rewarded with being named to the citywide all star team. What a
charge. It was a glorious time.
*Hull House’s Bowen Country Club (BCC) was a unique experience--a
new environment with new rules. There was grass, a blue pool, folk
dancing every evening, and overnight hikes to the lake. For most, if
not all, of us, it was the first time we slept in a bed all by ourselves.
There were a lot of firsts at BCC. The Hull House summer camp was a
complete change in environment and provided us an opportunity to
find and be ourselves. Because of its uniqueness and the impact it had
upon those who were fortunate enough to attend, the BCC story has its
own special place in the Taylor Street Archives.