Nate Duncan’s Maxwell Street delicatessen was one of the last links to the neighborhood’s Jewish heritage.
An African-American who stood 6 feet, 5 inches, Mr. Duncan learned to cook corned beef and other kosher specialties while working for the deli’s original Jewish owners, who sold him Lyon’s Deli in 1973. It was known as Nate’s Deli from that point until he unhappily sold it to the University of Illinois in Chicago in 1994. The school then tore down the building as part of its redevelopment of the area.
Mr. Duncan, 76, died in his South Side home Tuesday, July 18. He had been ill for several years and used a wheelchair, according to his sister-in-law, Vanessa Duncan.
The reputation of Nate’s Deli, used as a location in the movie “The Blues Brothers,” belied its size. It was a tiny place a few steps below street level, with a small counter and seating for six at three tables.
“But it was a really congenial space, a lot of that because of [Mr. Duncan’s] personality,” said Carolyn Eastwood, an adjunct professor of anthropology at the College of DuPage and author of a book on Maxwell Street. “Here I am, a white woman from the suburbs, and I felt completely at home there.”
Mr. Duncan grew up in the neighborhood and started working for Ben Lyon and his family as a teenager. Lyon and his wife taught him how to cook and slice corned beef and pastrami, even how to pickle herring and prepare gefilte fish. The onetime Jewish port of entry in those years became a predominantly black neighborhood, and Mr. Duncan was able to straddle both worlds.
“He told me he’d stay late at work to listen to these old Jewish guys talk,” Eastwood said. “He was a great transition figure.”
The deli thrived under Mr. Duncan, despite his own initial worry that people wouldn’t accept a black man running a Jewish deli. But he later spoke about “how much Mr. Lyon helped him, he introduced the vendors to him and put his arm around him,” Vanessa Duncan said.
Mr. Duncan was born in West Virginia but his family moved to the South Side around Maxwell Street when he was 3 or 4, Vanessa Duncan said. He was always a hard worker, shining shoes on the bustling market street and getting to know the vendors and musicians who made it such a lively place. Except for two years in the Army in the mid-1950s, his entire working life was spent there.
He lived with his sister in an apartment above the deli, as did his mother. His mother and granddaughter had cameos in “The Blues Brothers,” looking down from an upstairs window of the deli, which had been redubbed the Soul Food Cafe with Aretha Franklin as the owner.
“It was exciting, he always talked about how nice [the actors] were,” his sister-in-law said.
Mr. Duncan fought to hold on to his deli amid the U. of I.’s expansion plans. When the end came he was sad but knew he had had a good run, she said.
“Nate did not want to close his business,” said Steve Balkin, a Roosevelt University economics professor who maintains a Web site about Maxwell Street. “It was not just a source of income, it was his social life.”
Mr. Duncan bought a two-flat in the Gresham neighborhood and became active in the Greater Bethlehem Baptist Church. He took with him his meat slicer from the deli, and thinly shaved corned beef was for years a staple at church events and holiday gatherings.
Mr. Duncan is also survived by a brother, James; a daughter, Tanna Hill; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Visitation is set for 10 a.m. Saturday in Greater Bethlehem Baptist Church, 7814 S. Lowe Ave., Chicago, followed by an 11 a.m. service.
———-
ttjensen@tribune.com
