‘It was a glorious time.’

By Vince Romano

‘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. Read more…

By Sam “Blackie” Pesoli & Vince Romano

The near-west side became the dumping ground for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants who found their way to Chicago at the turn of the 20^th century. That mass migration of southern Europeans, necessary to provide the labor force that fueled America’s industrial revolution, ended in 1924. By an act of Congress the further immigration of southern Europeans was restricted.

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Summer 2007

We, the residents and former residents of Taylor Street’s “Little Italy,” ask why a portion of “our” Sheridan Park was used to memorialize someone other than a resident of our community.  What criteria was used to select an individual who was not born in our Little Italy, was not raised in this neighborhood, and neither had he made any contributions to the thousands of Italian-American immigrants and their offspring that had been served by Sheridan park.

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A Taylor Street Odyssey

To begin before the beginning, Nick Caruso’s mother, Mary, was born on DeKoven Street, in Mrs. O’Leary’s cottage. It is here, in the southeast corner of the legendary Taylor Street’s Little Italy, that the Great Chicago Fire is alleged to have started.

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Luke Capuano

Supporting contributor: Vince Romano

The following are some of the early boyhood memories of one of our Taylor Street bred figures.   Luke Capuano became a professional fighter and climaxed his career with two memorable fights with Mike Rossman, former light heavyweight champion of the world.   A hotly disputed split decision over Luke kept alive Rossman’s hopes of regaining his light heavyweight title.  Luke’s career as a professional fist fighter included an exhibition with Cassius Clay, also know as Muhammad Ali.

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By Sara Amato Loconte

Contributors: Dinah and Anthony “Hooker” Troianello

Our Morgan Street (1000 west) was one of the many neighborhoods within the boundaries of the legendary Taylor Street’s “Little ltaly.” Two blocks east of us was the well known Taylor and Halsted area with its bustling shopping district. Halsted Street (800 west) was the equivalent of a giant outdoor shopping mall where the residents throughout Taylor Street’s Little Italy did their major shopping. One block west of us was Sheridan Park. The boundaries of Taylor Street’s Little Italy extended as far west as Western Avenue (2400 west).

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by Freddie Mancini

 ”It was a Glorious Time.”

I grew up on Carpenter Street, just 2 blocks east of Sheridan Park. As a pre-teenager during the 1960s (age 8-9), I belonged to the notorious “Lupino Gang.” For the uninformed, a lupino is a bean that has been marinated in water and salt. During the early history of Taylor Street, the lupino man would blow his horn to announce his coming as he pushed his cart down the streets of Little Italy.

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There was more than one dimension to Bobby Garippo. Let me quickly recall some of them and get on with that dimension many among us knew best. Like so many of his friends here today, Bobby Garippo’s identity was forged by the neighborhood in which he grew up…its people, bonded by a common heritage,…the streets that became our litmus test… and the institutions that served the Legendary Taylor Street. Those institutions included Dante School, Holy Guardian Angel Church and School, the CYO, Sheridan Park and the Jane Addams’ Hull House.

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