Neighborhood roots do not go much deeper than those of 45th Ward Ald. Pat Levar. “Five generations now,” he says. “Not just the neighborhood but the church, Our Lady of Victory. That’s one of the reasons my election slogan has always been ‘From the neighborhood, for the neighborhood’.”
His Northwest Side ward (to see a map and a photo of Levar go to www.cityofchicago.org and click on the “Your Ward and Alderman” link) is often referred to as the “white ethnic Bungalow Belt.”
One of six boys of a father who was an executive with the Coca-Cola Co. and a mother who was a homemaker, the future alderman started in politics early. At 11 he was working as an assistant to a precinct captain. In a few years he became a precinct captain and was under the wing of longtime 45th Ward committeeman and current Cook County Democratic Party Chairman Thomas Lyons. “He was my mentor and like a father to me,” says Levar. (In an example of the close-knit nature of Chicago politics, Levar shares office space on North Milwaukee Avenue with State Rep. Joseph Lyons, Tom Lyons’ son and a former high-school classmate of Levar’s).
After St. Patrick’s High School, Levar graduated from Northeastern Illinois University, working as a student teacher and fill-in bartender at McCormick Place events. He then went to work for the Cook County Circuit Court in various positions until becoming alderman in 1987.
“I got this job when I was 36 years of age. I’m 55 now,” he says. “I’ve had knee surgery, gallbladder surgery and neck surgery. But I feel good. I am running next year. I’ve still got the burn in my stomach.”
Levar is one of the most well-liked members of the City Council. “Maybe that’s because I don’t make a lot of speeches,” he says, smiling.
His tenure has not been without its bumps. Questions have been raised in the press about some of his campaign contributions, and he got some heat when he unsuccessfully ran as the Democratic Party-endorsed candidate for Circuit Court Clerk in 2000. “You have to take criticism with a grain of salt,” he says. “I have responded to things that have been written and not been true, but in this business you learn to develop a thick skin.”
Rose Placek, a longtime ward resident and the mother of a guy I went to high school with, lives a block from where Levar grew up and, she recalls, “He was a very respectful boy. It was only about two years ago that he started calling me ‘Rose’ instead of ‘Mrs. Placek.’ “
Last year, Levar and 38th Ward Ald. Tom Allen, who is also a member of Our Lady of Victory, performed as the Blues Brothers for a church party. “Yes, I saw them,” says Placek. “So many people came just to see the two aldermen do their act. They were a riot.”
Levar has been married for 33 years. “MaryAnn is a wonderful wife, a wonderful mother,” he says. She is also an aide to U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), focusing on immigration matters.
They have four children: Pat Jr., a facilities manager for the Chicago Park District; Michelle, a law student at DePaul University; Ryan, a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Julie, who will be a freshman this fall at Carthage College. “Actually five children, when you count my daughter-in-law, Jeanene [Pat Jr.’s wife].”
“It was always me and my wife and the kids [going there],” he says, explaining his desire to have Osgood shoot the Portage Theater, a beautifully restored 1920s movie palace at 4050 N. Milwaukee Ave., recently reopened as a single-screen, 1,300-seat gem.
“I worked hard to get the Portage open again. It’s a family-oriented place now, and you watch, it will revitalize its neighborhood. And when Pat Jr. and Jeanene have a baby and I’m a grandfather, I’ll be taking that boy or girl there too, and that’ll make six generations.”
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rkogan@tribune.com
