The neighborhood from 71st Street north to Jackson Park was, in my youth, a Jewish neighborhood.
My grandmother took me shopping and spoke in what could have been Yiddish, Polish or Russian to several of the shopkeepers on 71st Street. She even knew one or two of them from the Old Country, which was the town of Hrubestow, on the Russian-Polish border. We lived on Euclid Avenue in a brick house.
There was a policeman, or guard, hired by some sort of block or neighborhood association, and his name was Tex.
He patrolled the street, with two stag-handled revolvers on his belt; one worn butt forward, and the other worn butt to the rear.
He would stop and chat at length with us kids.
We spent as much time as possible out in the street. The manhole covers did duty for second base and home plate, or the two end zones, as the season demanded.
We would stay out far past dark in the summertime chasing each other around the neighborhood in what we called a ”bike chase,” which, if memory serves, was some version of the war game the New Yorkers called
”ringolevio.”
We loved being outside. We went looking for lost golf balls at the Jackson Park course, four blocks to the north and would trek in the park all the way over to the lake, where we`d look over at the South Shore Country Club.
The country club was, our parents told us, restricted, which meant closed to Jews.
It was more a mysterious than a disturbing landmark. It held down the southeastern corner of my world.
Coming back west down 71st Street was the Shoreland Delicatessen, and the next oasis following was J. Leslie Rosenblum, ”every inch a drugstore.”
Rosenblum`s was, to me, a place from a different world. I found the style of the name foreign and distinctly un-Jewish in spite of the surname.
The store itself was, if I may, the Appolonian counterbalance to the Ashkenazic Dionisia of the Shoreland.
Rosenblum`s was cool and somewhat dark, and quiet.
Its claim to my attention was a soda fountain, which smelled of chocolate and various syrups and that indefinable rich coolness coming off the marble which, I fear, must remain unknown to subsequent generations.
My dad took me there for Chicago`s famous chocolate phosphate, and I would like to conclude the gastronomic tour of South Shore with mention of the francheezie.
That ne plus ultra of comestibles was the product of the Peter Pan Restaurant, then situated on the corner of 71st and Jeffery Boulevard, the crossroads of South Shore.
The francheezie was a hot dog split down the middle, filled with cheese, and wrapped in bacon; and, to be blunt, it was good.
The other spots of note to my young mind were the two movie theaters; the Hamilton and the Jeffery? The latter was a block and a half from my house.
On Saturdays I`d take my quarter and get over to the movie house.
The cartoons started, I believe, at 9 a.m., and there were so many of them. The figure I remember is ”100 cartoons.”
At seven minutes per, I calculate that they would occupy almost twelve hours, and that can`t be right; but I prefer my memory to my reason. In any case, there were sufficient cartoons to keep the kids in the movie theater until past dark on Saturday, and that was where we stayed.
The Jeffery and the Hamilton both boasted large, blue dimly lit domes set into their ceilings, and my young mind would many times try to reason what their use might be.
I found them slightly Arabic; 40 years later, I can almost recall the fantasies I had gazing at them.
I believe one of the domes had stars, and the other did not.
We had lemonade stands in the summer, and we trick-or-treated in the fall to the smell of the leaves burning in everyone`s yard.
I remember fistfights at Parkside School, and the smell of blood in my nose as I got beaten by the friend of a friend, for some remark I`d made for which I think I`d deserved to get beaten.
Years later, long after we`d moved away, I lived up on the North Side.
I drove a Yellow Cab out of Unit 13, on Belmont and Halsted, and I got a fare to a deserted area, where I got a knife put to my throat and my receipts stolen.
The fellow took the money and ran off, I lit a cigarette and sat in the cab for a while, and then drove off to look for a cop. I told the cop what had happened, and suggested that if he wanted to pursue the robber, I would come and help him, as the man couldn`t be too far away.
He nodded and started writing down the information he required.
I told him my name, and he asked if I were related to the people who used to live in South Shore, and it turned out he`d bought our house.
We talked about the house for a while, what it had been like and how it had changed, and we both agreed that the robber would be long gone.
I drove off in the cab, and that was my last conection with the old neighborhood.
