I feel I’m really very well qualified for this most important and honored position. If it were a cake I’d describe it this way: It’s a layered cake with some frosting and perhaps just the smallest bit of icing way on top.
The hard layers:
That I still live in the house I was born in some 50 plus years ago gives me a most unique insight into how the area has changed over the many decades. I remember the drug fests of the 60’s, and the white flight of the 70’s. I recall all to well the school integration of the 70’s, and of course who could forget the recessions of the 80’s. I remember well the blacks being thrown against the cars in the 90’s, and the economic oppression of the minorities in the 20’s which continues to this very day.
My roots in the community are deep, very deep. I went to both Kilmer and Sullivan; where I took A.P. and Loyola classes, and I received a varsity letter for tennis. I learned woodworking and boxing at the Loyola field house, and tennis over on Farwell. I remember well when the park district iced over the beach on Albion where I became a goalie. I played 14 years.
I also played in the pier before it was poured. Then later, I played in the footings of Loyola’s science building; and then still later I took classes in the same building. My first sunrise was off Loyola’s church, and I’ve walked the beach Devon to Howard literally hundreds of times. Like my father before me, I to this day clean the beach. As for the cake, this is the hard can’t be much changed layer.
The Soft Layers:
When I started I first worked out of my house. Then later the real estate board required me to have an office and so I opened the smallest of offices over on Clark by the A and T Grill. A few years later I moved my office to 1409 W. Morse where I stayed some 10 plus years. I met Gene Hackman on Morse Avenue. He was making a moving. I negotiated the dinner lease with the Angelo’s Restaurant and not only earned dinner but one at Gene’s table. He’s just as he appears.
After I saw the kid die in his mothers arms at Morse and the El I decided it was time for a bit of a change, but I didn’t leave the neighborhood. Instead I bought the current place on Clark and Arthur where I’ve been the last 20 years or so.
In my 20’s I was a street front lawyer on Morse and the El. I helped my neighbors with their issues and kept literally hundreds of black kids out of jail. It was an invaluable experience and gave me I think a special insight into the problems and issues of my neighbors, 40 percent of which are in poverty to this day.
I did not have to; but that I chose to keep my law, real estate, and construction business in Rogers Park 30 plus years I think says something about me and my character and if I’m in it for the long haul so to speak. Am I a “keeper”? As for the cake, these are the softer between layers because I allowed myself to be exposed to all this, and more.
