It’s Monday night, league night, and Giovanni Francese’s ball screams down Lane 13 at Irving Park Bowling Lanes. It zips just wide of the seven pin, and hits the back of the lane with a smack.
Francese knows it’s a gutter bowl. He can hear it.
“Pulled it left,” Mike Jorgensen, a sighted teammate, calmly says.
But the competitor in Francese isn’t happy. That he sees light in his left eye and not much else is immaterial. He averages 103 a game and it’s league night. Gutter balls won’t do.
Francese sets up again, running the tip of his left middle finger along a freestanding metal rail, looking for his spot. Once he finds it, Francese drops his left hand and hurls another ball down the lane.
It hits the one-three pocket square.
“You know where that one went?” Jorgensen says jokingly.
“Yeah!” says Francese, 30.
There’s more in that howl than picking up the spare. There’s the sense of competition Francese rediscovered when a friend first introduced him to bowling and other athletic leagues for the blind a few years ago. And there’s fun, too, as Francese hung out with other members of the Chicago Alba Blind Bowlers League after bowling for “Monday Night Football.”
But for many who are disabled, that kind of interaction–getting out for a night of entertainment, a restaurant meal or catching a movie–is a luxury. While a physical confinement or loss of a sense may be challenging, many say it is outside forces that prevent those with disabilities from going out and enjoying themselves.
“It’s not just that you’re ADA-compliant. That’s not saying much,” says Eric Lipp, executive director of the Chicago-based Open Doors Organization, which works with businesses on accessibility issues.
The bigger challenge? “You can’t get an accessible taxi to save your life,” says Lipp.
Communication is another major culprit. “I went on Metromix and I had a hard time finding something that’s accessible,” says Access Living spokesman Gary Arnold. “There is a lot out there, but it requires research.”
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, businesses are required to accommodate disabled patrons; that includes providing accessible entrances, restrooms, tables and aisles, according to Arnold. Newer businesses must meet more requirements than older ones, which are required under the ADA to make “readily achievable” changes, a sort of gray area of the law.
Despite those guidelines, some venues and activities lack the proper accessibility and adaptive equipment necessary; there may be high stools in bars or narrow pathways in restaurants, for example. Others businesses may not cover the range of disabilities, opting for a one-size-fits-all approach to accessibility–movie theaters that offer captioning for the deaf, but do not have audio description for the visually impaired (a reader describes scenes and action), for example.
So, how do those with disabilities find the best entertainment options? One way is to contact organizations like Access Living. Many of these groups organize their own clubs, finding members while delivering services.
That’s how Erica Remington, 44, learned about Le COBDA (Club of Blind-Deaf Adults) at Chicago Lighthouse for People who are Blind or Visually Impaired. Born with Usher’s Syndrome, a disease that causes a loss of both hearing and sight, Remington depends on signing into someone’s hands to communicate.
A year and a half ago, she decided to learn how to use a Braille phone, a tele-typewriter device that converts audio language into Braille. The Chicago Lighthouse connected her with an instructor.
Joann Rushing, a Lighthouse program manager, traveled to Remington’s home near Carbondale and taught her to use the phone. It was during the training that Remington talked about wanting to meet other deaf-blind people and live in a more accessible city. With Rushing’s help, Remington moved to Chicago, started volunteering at the Chicago Lighthouse, and joined the group’s club for deaf and blind.
As a member of the club, which organizes outings to restaurants and other venues in Chicago, Remington has dined around the city, taken cruises around Navy Pier and learned to crochet. But it’s the bonding with others who communicate in the same language that’s been the most rewarding.
“I needed to meet other deaf-blinds, rather than just living an isolated life,” Remington says, signing into Rushing’s hands.
On a recent Monday, Remington put her crochet skills to work, creating a doily. Since joining the club, Remington has become more independent in her travels. She regularly heads to Schaumburg to attend church, with friends picking her up in Chicago and bringing her back, covering a distance she wouldn’t have in Southern Illinois, she says.
“It’s so important that we socialize with one another,” says club president Mindy Joy Maher, who also has Usher’s syndrome. “Because of the socialization, I learned what was out there in the world.”
Programs like the Access Project at Victory Gardens Theater make a concerted effort to make their programming accessible to as many as possible. That includes accessible seating for wheelchair users, audio description shows for the blind, and “touch tours,” where the blind and visually impaired can walk the stage before showtime and talk with the actors. Large-print and Braille programs are also available. The project, in its 14th year, also provides captioned and signed shows for the deaf, in which script pages are projected above the stage.
The theater offers reduced prices for the captioning, signed and description shows, says co-coordinator Mike Ervin, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a motorized wheelchair.
But the shows hardly sell out, says Ervin, and “that’s sad, but that’s what it is.”
“A lot of folks with disabilities have decided that theater is not for them,” he adds. “They’ve just learned to seek other places and we’re trying to change that.”
The program has managed to convert some to the stage, however, including Sally Cooper, 53. Visually impaired, Cooper has regularly attended the audio description shows for the last seven years. Recently, she joined a writer’s workshop at the theater for the disabled and wrote her first one-act play, a comedy; the theater’s organized a reading for February.
Cooper is already working on her next play. It’s about a gruff, 1950s Chicago cop who rediscovers Jack Kerouac’s writings. His guides back into the Beat Generation? A pair of blind writers.
“The blind are opening the eyes of the sighted,” Cooper says.
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THE BEST PLACES TO GO
At Play asked the experts at Access Living, the Chicago Lighthouse for People who are Blind or Visually Impaired and the Open Doors Organization for their recommendations on a few of the best places to eat, drink and hang out. Here’s what they had to say:
Chicago Lighthouse for People who are Blind or Visually Impaired
With its Buehler Enabling Garden, the Chicago Botanic Garden (1000 Lake Cook Rd., Glencoe, 847-835-5440, www.chicago-botanic.org) gives almost everyone a chance to work that green thumb, says Bill Jurek, 56, of Chicago, a part-time worker at Lighthouse. The garden offers raised beds and vertical wall gardens for those with limited mobility, tactile-touch and aromatic gardens for the visually impaired and a tool shed with information on specialized tools. “I have a guide dog and it was even accommodating for the guide dog,” Jurek adds.
Near the Illinois Medical District in Little Italy, Rosebud on Taylor (1500 W. Taylor St., 312-942-1117) offers large-print and Braille menus along with its classic Italian cuisine. “They’re used to people coming in with white canes,” organization president and executive director Jim Kesteloot says.
Kesteloot mentioned several museums that offer audio tours, including the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (212 N. 6th St., Springfield; 800-610-2094), the Museum of Science and Industry (5700 S. Lake Shore Drive, 773-684-1414), and the Kohl Children’s Museum (2100 Patriot Blvd., Glenview; 847-832-6600).
OPEN DOORS
With ample space and an offbeat bistro menu, Jerry Kleiner’s Marche (833 W. Randolph St., 312-226-8399) is great for wheelchair users. “He sees it as the smart thing to do,”says Eric Lipp of Open Doors.
Lipp also recommends burger eatery Fuddruckers (www.fuddruckers.com; locations include Addison, Downers Grove and Highland Park), which has Braille and large-print menus available.
Close to Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Bistro Pacific (680 N. Lake Shore Drive, 312-397-1800) makes for an accessible lunchtime stop, with its space-efficient furnishings and pan-Asian cuisine. “It’s a short wheel away,” Lipp says.
ACCESS LIVING
For the hearing impaired, Loews Streets of Woodfield Theatres (601 N. Martingale Rd., 847-330-1017) shows first-run movies with open captioning available during the week (note: call ahead). Also, check out Insight Cinema (www.insightcinema.org), an online directory of captioning theaters around the country.
McFetridge Sports Center (3843 N. California Ave., 773-478-2609) offers an outdoor, asphalt-covered baseball field for those in wheelchairs. “The field is great; it is paved and painted and the perfect set- up for wheelchair softball,” says Linda Mastandrea, a lawyer and a member on Access Living’s board of directors.
The Art Institute of Chicago (111 S. Michigan Ave., 312-443-3600) now offers TacTiles, a small kit that includes handheld tiles with raised depictions of well-known masterpieces, as well as descriptions of each piece in large-type print and Braille. Escorts for the blind are also available Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call 312-443-3929 to register.
–Glenn Jeffers
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Resources
To learn more about other activities for the disabled, contact these organizations:
Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago, 614 W. Roosevelt Rd., 312-253-7000, www.accessliving.org.
Chicago Lighthouse for People who are Blind or Visually Impaired, 1850 W. Roosevelt Rd., 312-666-1331, www.thechicagolighthouse.org.
Open Doors Organization, 2551 N. Clark St., 773-388-8839, opendoorsnfp.org.
–G.J.
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gjeffers@tribune.com
