On the surface, the neighboring communities of Lincolnwood and Sauganash would appear to have little more in common than Devon Avenue. One is a near north suburb, the other a neighborhood on Chicago’s Far Northwest Side. One was largely a product of the post-World War II suburban housing boom, the other a place settled well before the war. In one, ranches and split-levels are the dominant housing style, while the other offers Tudors, Colonials and Georgians.
Despite their differences, Lincolnwood and Sauganash share one important quality: Their people work to make their neighborhoods better places to live, residents and officials said.
For example, Lincolnwood resident Mahnaz Qadri, who moved to the suburb about six years ago, has volunteered for three years as a docent in a PTA program called Art on Parade. The program brings the work of various artists to elementary schools in Lincolnwood School District 74. Qadri and other volunteers present one or two artists’ works to two or three classes for three or four months each year.
In the classrooms, they talk to the children about the artists and lead them in an arts project related to the style of the artist.
Qadri also helps supervise field trips at Todd Hall and Rutledge Hall Elementary Schools, and sells donated books for 25 cents each to pupils at the Todd Hall School library once or twice a month.
The opportunity to be among children is one of the rewards of her volunteering, said Qadri, who has three children, ages 7, 9 and 10.
“I like being involved with the school system,” she said. “To get a good generation, you have to have involvement from the previous generation.”
In her six years in Lincolnwood, Qadri has noticed that many people in the community volunteer. “I find it’s very interesting here,” she said. “I got involved because I saw so many other people involved. It’s a selfless thing. You get a lot of encouragement here. And you get rewards because it is appreciated.”
Volunteerism also is alive in Sauganash, where Geralyn Sargis oversees the Sauganash Community Association’s hot line. Sargis, a resident of Sauganash for 14 years and a member of association’s board of directors, calls in daily for phone messages left by residents.
The hot line covers a wide range of concerns, including reports of abandoned cars, vandalism, missing pets and requests for information about the association.
“I call the number every evening and pick up the messages,” Sargis said. “I call them back usually (within) a day or two.”
Sargis refers some calls, such as those reporting burned-out street lights, to the alderman’s office. If callers want information on the community association or wish to report a missing dog or cat, she usually calls them back to provide details or get more information. Some calls, such as reports of unwelcome solicitors, prompt Sargis to write a report for the neighborhood’s local newspaper, The Sounds.
For Sargis, the work brings a rewarding sense that she’s helping provide a valuable service to her community. “I feel it’s important, when something happens in the neighborhood, to let people in our area know.”
Sauganash is populated by many people who feel a strong attachment to their neighbors and their community, she said. For instance, residents often help neighbors with snow shoveling, or they cook dinner for families with newborns.
“It’s a very active neighborhood,” Sargis said. “The people are very helpful to each other. It’s like a tight-knit community . . . a lot of us are there for each other.”
According to local merchants, Sauganash and Lincolnwood also are good places for business. One of the long-established stores in the area is David’s Furniture & Gifts, 4370 W. Touhy Ave., in Lincolnwood. The store, founded in Chicago in 1935, moved to Lincolnwood in 1970. It sells a variety of imported figurines and offers a large selection of custom-made lamps and lampshades.
It also provides assorted customer services, among them china, porcelain and crystal repairing, owner Jack Goldberg said.
One of the benefits of doing business on Touhy Avenue in Lincolnwood is its central location, he said. The store is a few blocks east of the Edens Expressway and a quarter block east of Lincoln Avenue.
“That puts us right in the middle of everything. (There is) plenty of parking, plenty of exposure,” Goldberg said.
During his 28 years in town, Goldberg has watched his business grow right along with Lincolnwood, which, he says, has maintained a close-knit, small-town charm despite its growth.
“It still has a closeness,” he said. “There is a closeness the people moving in can feel. We’re taking care of the second generation now. It’s like family. We have a lot of trust in our customers, and they have trust in us. They’re very devoted customers.”
While David’s Furniture & Gifts has spanned the decades, The Buzz Cup, 5750 N. Rogers Ave., in Sauganash, is two months away from its second anniversary. The coffeehouse and eatery, which offers lunch specials in addition to soup, sandwiches, chile and pizza, has developed a loyal clientele during its brief time in the community, Maria Marsden said. She and Tom Briska are co-owners of the coffeehouse.
“The reason we like doing business here is that a lot of local people support us,” Marsden said. “It’s a friendly community where everybody knows each other. A lot of moms meet here with their children for coffee, and older people meet here, too. There (also) are a lot of factories and offices around here on Peterson Avenue and Rogers. And they support us at lunchtime.”
The business climate is good in both communities, officials said. In Lincolnwood, the major commercial area at Touhy and Crawford Avenue is complemented by the 8-year-old Lincolnwood Town Center, a shopping mecca with more than 100 stores, said Gloria Perovic-Fair, executive director of the Lincolnwood Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The industrial section of town, bordered by McCormick Boulevard and Crawford, Touhy and Pratt Avenues, has many of the more than 600 businesses in Lincolnwood.
“There are more people who work in Lincolnwood than live here,” Perovic-Fair said.
Among major employers are Empire Carpeting, Bell & Howell, Galaxie Construction & Home Supply Inc. and Midwest Tropical Inc./Technasonic Electronics Inc.
Although not a major commercial area, Sauganash has a highly stable retail climate, said Gail Beitz, executive director of the Edgebrook Sauganash Chamber of Commerce. “We do have our (businesses) that have been here for years: a drugstore, hairdresser, doctors’ offices and real estate offices,” she said. “We have no vacant storefronts in the Sauganash area. And the stores that do move out are filled pretty fast. The small businesses work very well together.”
The industrial area of Sauganash is centered in the Peterson Pulaski Industrial Park, bordered by Foster, Devon, Cicero and Central Park Avenues, said Gina Woods, executive director of the Peterson Pulaski Business Industrial Council.
Among the businesses are Beltone Electronics Corp., a hearing aid company; Richco Inc. and RTW Inc., both small industrial parts makers; Precision Plating Company, Inc., a precious metal plater of industrial parts; New World Van Lines; and Cozzini Inc., a manufacturer of food processing equipment, Woods said.
Lincolnwood is the larger of the two communities in population, with 11,365 residents, as of the 1990 U.S. census, and 2.7 square miles.
The suburb is not expected to gain many residents in coming years, because little available land remains for new housing. The only new residential construction is scattered houses built on sites of previous houses that were torn down, Lincolnwood Mayor Madeleine Grant said.
The trend represents a mixed bag for the town, she said. “It’s changing the look of the community. Lincolnwood was built between the 1940s and 1960s, when the predominant styles were ranches and split-levels. In many respects, (the new houses) overshadow the traditional ranch homes that may be next door. But in some cases, they blend in, and have made the neighborhoods more interesting.”
The main focus of the village today, Grant said, is “improving Lincolnwood today for tomorrow.” In working toward that goal, the village has launched a 5- to 7-year, $11 million infrastructure improvement plan.
Among other improvements are relining sewers and resurfacing streets. “We’ve just completed the project’s first full year,” Grant said. “By the end of 1999, half of it will be complete.”
In addition, major improvements have been ongoing in Lincolnwood’s parks. In a $1.3 million project completed in 1997, all 11 of the village’s smaller neighborhood parks were refurbished and updated. And work is ongoing at Proesel Park, Lincolnwood’s largest park, which is bordered by Lunt, Kostner and Lincoln Avenues and stands adjacent to the Village Hall and municipal complex.
In the first phase of work, completed in October 1998, two baseball fields and three tennis courts were renovated, and two new full-court basketball courts and an in-line skating area were added. Landscaping and improvements to the park’s drainage system were also part of this first phase.
Subsequent phases call for an expanded playground, renovations to two more baseball fields, the creation of an outdoor senior gathering area and additional landscaping and drainage improvements. The $1.7 million project is expected to take as many as four years to complete, based on the availability of matching funds from the state, Grant said.
The Lincolnwood Community Center at 6900 N. Lincoln Ave. also is being renovated. “We’re refurbishing the center to make space more useable for after-school programs, summer camp, senior programs and other community-based programs,” Grant said.
Other improvements will include the addition of an outdoor patio and expansion and remodeling of restrooms, the kitchen and the reception area. The $650,000 project, launched in 1997, is expected to be finished by February, Grant added. A grand opening is tentatively planned for the spring, with expanded programs starting in April or May.
Efforts are under way to make Lincolnwood a more attractive community aesthetically. A new sign code adopted in August by the Village Board identifies categories of signs that will be prohibited, such as roof, projecting and abandoned signs, said Timothy Clarke, Lincolnwood economic development director.
“The code grandfathers in existing signs” that don’t meet the code’s new standards on height and size, he added.”Once they’re changed or damaged, the new sign would have to adapt to the new code.”
Clarke also reported that the village has three redevelopment sites under consideration. A proposal for a movie theater complex on Lincolnwood Town Center property is expected to be considered by the planning commission this month. A proposal to build a new Dominick’s supermarket at McCormick and Pratt Avenues will be considered by the planning commission in February. In late winter, the commission is expected to hear a proposal to build a department store on a vacant site on Touhy.
Plans also are under way for improvements to the Touhy-Crawford business district, Clarke said. “The village has completed a streetscaping plan calling for a Touhy Avenue median, new bus shelters and street-light fixtures, improved parking circulation and increased parking,” he said. “That awaits a Village Board decision on how to finance it.”
Sauganash has a population of 5,933, according to 1990 census figures, said Alderman Margaret Laurino of the 39th Ward, which includes the community. The community is bordered generally by Bryn Mawr Avenue, the Chicago and North Western tracks, Devon Avenue and Cicero Avenue.
One of the community’s major infrastructure projects is an improvement to the Peterson Avenue median between Cicero and Kostner Avenues, Laurino said.
“(The median) did exist, but we put in an irrigation system, and have developed really phenomenal landscaping, with ground covering and flowers that will be in bloom from early spring to late fall. We have an additional (median) going in from Pulaski all the way to Central Park, and that one will be entirely new,” Laurino said.
Sauganash is part of a Northwest Side region that has been selected as one of three trial areas for a city rain-management project called Rain Blocker.
The project’s purpose is to prevent basement flooding during exceptionally heavy rains. Newly designed catch basins limit the amount of water entering the main sewer system.
“We want the water to drain more slowly from the streets into the catch basins,” Laurino said. “New catch basins were installed in the last four months, and we’re just waiting for the first big rainfall to see how well they work.”
Residential street paving is ongoing, “especially south of Peterson on streets put in by the WPA during the 1930s,” Laurino said.
Improvements completed in November at Sauganash Park include new fencing around the park’s perimeter, resurfacing of tennis courts, repaving of walking paths and tree planting, she said.
Meanwhile, the 75-year-old Sauganash Community Association continues working to enhance the community’s safety, conveniences and attractiveness.
The association handles supplemental snowplowing and mosquito abatement, and this spring and summer it will maintain the newly installed plantings on the Peterson Avenue median, said association President Moira Pollard. The association also stages the annual 4th of July picnic and parade, works with the alderman’s office on zoning issues and reports any suspicious activities in the neighborhood to the police.
“The association gives many people a chance to participate” as volunteers, Pollard said. “Our mission is to promote neighborliness and friendliness, and the best interests of Sauganash.”
Such active resident participation is precisely what makes Sauganash and Lincolnwood nice communities in which to live, say residents and officials.
Laurino noted that many Sauganash residents volunteer not only in their community, but in nearby community projects, such as the Albany Park Food Pantry.
“The people of Sauganash have a true sense of community pride,” she said. “But it doesn’t just end at the boundaries of Sauganash. It goes well beyond that.”
“The neighborhood is very family-oriented,” Pollard said. “People do know one another. There are a lot of block parties in the summer, and people reach out to one another.”
The same enthusiasm about civic participation is evident in Lincolnwood, Grant said.
“There’s a small-town feel. There’s a feeling that individual residents can be a part of what the future of the village will be.”
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For more information on volunteering in Lincolnwood School District 74, call 847-675-8234. For more information on the Sauganash Community Association, call 773-777-3393.
