Robert Jewell (Growing up and Working in Edgewater)
Growing Up and Working in Edgewater On The Wrong Side Of The Tracks 1957-1977
by Robert Jewell
My brother, 4 yrs younger than me, and my sister, 10 yrs older than me, lived with our Mom and Dad who were Ralph and Jeanette Jewell, in a 1 bedroom apartment at 5344 N. Kenmore. That was 5 people in a 1 bedroom unit with one bathroom. My sister was born in 1947 so she had some space for herself in what would have been the dining room adjacent to the kitchen until I came along in 1957 and my brother followed in 1961. My Dad used a divider made of poles and hardboard to separate the dining room so my sister had a space and my brother and I had a space. My sister’s "room" or "space" looked directly down the hallway. Our space had side windows that looked out into the alley. Directly below our "room" was the basement where the coal used to heat the building was stored.
My parents functioned as the "managers" of the apartment building for the owner, a guy named Mr Neiman. My dad did a fair amount of maintenance in the units, functioning as a janitor from time to time and my mom collected rent checks from the tenants. This relationship with Neiman continued on until the apartment building was sold sometime in 1978, but I am not sure if Neiman actually owned it at that point anymore.
As a 5 yr old, my Edgewater still had green grass out in front of the building as it sat along Kenmore Ave. The apartment building adjacent to ours at 5356 Kenmore that wrapped around onto Balmoral Ave was owned by the Merz family, but I am not sure when they bought the building. They also had nicely manicured grass areas, bricklike in general shape, surrounded by green cement posts with chains hanging from post to post. There were also irrigation sprayers in the ground that watered the grass.
The Mertz building next door did not have an entry courtyard, but our building did, and it faced out onto Kenmore. There was never any gate in place at our apartment building at 5344 N Kenmore from the 1957 to 1978 time frame although it is currently well gated and you cannot just walk in anymore. The interior entry area which was the front of the apartment building had brick shaped grass areas with sidewalks leading to the entry of each of the apartment areas. There were 6 apartments through each entry doorway so when you entered an area of apartments there were two apartments per floor with one apartment on the left side and one on the right side. It was a 3 story apartment building.
Most of the immediate area seemed to me to be decent and maintained in the 1962 timeframe to the best of my recall. It was always nice in the 1950 timeframe per recollections of my parents and sister. This idyllic Edgewater however was destined for change in the 1970 timeframe.
My brother, my sister and myself attended Goudy Elementary school from kindergarten to 8th grade. Goudy was located on Winthrop and Foster Ave. I had one of the same teachers that my sister had, and my brother had a few of the teachers I had. In my sister’s timeframe of attending Goudy, the school was known to have been a melting pot with many poor people from Appalachia. I don’t recall paying much attention to that. Everyone seemed about the same to me.
My friends and I frequented Uptown pre 1970, walking down Broadway to the Uptown Theater to get in to the matinee which was a reasonable price, and in the summertime we walked to the Chicago Boys Club on 4835 N Sheridan, but these were not located in Edgewater of course and while you were now in a different neighborhood, we never experienced any issues with anyone or anything. Post 1970 we avoided Uptown at all costs except to go to rock concerts at the Aragon Ballroom.
During my attendance at Goudy (about 1962 to 1970 which encompassed Kindergarten to 8th grade graduation), school life was normal in the early years. We did air raid drill practice, where someone would have the job of pulling down the window shades and then everyone would duck underneath their desks. After a couple of years, this turned into everyone going out of the room and into the hallway, kneeling down and facing the lockers. We also did fire drills where we exited the building.
My brother, 4 yrs younger than me, and my sister, 10 yrs older than me, lived with our Mom and Dad who were Ralph and Jeanette Jewell, in a 1 bedroom apartment at 5344 N. Kenmore. That was 5 people in a 1 bedroom unit with one bathroom. My sister was born in 1947 so she had some space for herself in what would have been the dining room adjacent to the kitchen until I came along in 1957 and my brother followed in 1961. My Dad used a divider made of poles and hardboard to separate the dining room so my sister had a space and my brother and I had a space. My sister’s "room" or "space" looked directly down the hallway. Our space had side windows that looked out into the alley. Directly below our "room" was the basement where the coal used to heat the building was stored.
My parents functioned as the "managers" of the apartment building for the owner, a guy named Mr Neiman. My dad did a fair amount of maintenance in the units, functioning as a janitor from time to time and my mom collected rent checks from the tenants. This relationship with Neiman continued on until the apartment building was sold sometime in 1978, but I am not sure if Neiman actually owned it at that point anymore.
As a 5 yr old, my Edgewater still had green grass out in front of the building as it sat along Kenmore Ave. The apartment building adjacent to ours at 5356 Kenmore that wrapped around onto Balmoral Ave was owned by the Merz family, but I am not sure when they bought the building. They also had nicely manicured grass areas, bricklike in general shape, surrounded by green cement posts with chains hanging from post to post. There were also irrigation sprayers in the ground that watered the grass.
The Mertz building next door did not have an entry courtyard, but our building did, and it faced out onto Kenmore. There was never any gate in place at our apartment building at 5344 N Kenmore from the 1957 to 1978 time frame although it is currently well gated and you cannot just walk in anymore. The interior entry area which was the front of the apartment building had brick shaped grass areas with sidewalks leading to the entry of each of the apartment areas. There were 6 apartments through each entry doorway so when you entered an area of apartments there were two apartments per floor with one apartment on the left side and one on the right side. It was a 3 story apartment building.
Most of the immediate area seemed to me to be decent and maintained in the 1962 timeframe to the best of my recall. It was always nice in the 1950 timeframe per recollections of my parents and sister. This idyllic Edgewater however was destined for change in the 1970 timeframe.
My brother, my sister and myself attended Goudy Elementary school from kindergarten to 8th grade. Goudy was located on Winthrop and Foster Ave. I had one of the same teachers that my sister had, and my brother had a few of the teachers I had. In my sister’s timeframe of attending Goudy, the school was known to have been a melting pot with many poor people from Appalachia. I don’t recall paying much attention to that. Everyone seemed about the same to me.
My friends and I frequented Uptown pre 1970, walking down Broadway to the Uptown Theater to get in to the matinee which was a reasonable price, and in the summertime we walked to the Chicago Boys Club on 4835 N Sheridan, but these were not located in Edgewater of course and while you were now in a different neighborhood, we never experienced any issues with anyone or anything. Post 1970 we avoided Uptown at all costs except to go to rock concerts at the Aragon Ballroom.
During my attendance at Goudy (about 1962 to 1970 which encompassed Kindergarten to 8th grade graduation), school life was normal in the early years. We did air raid drill practice, where someone would have the job of pulling down the window shades and then everyone would duck underneath their desks. After a couple of years, this turned into everyone going out of the room and into the hallway, kneeling down and facing the lockers. We also did fire drills where we exited the building.
Classes were easy going, but it seemed like we could have progressed more perhaps.
By the time I was in the 5th grade, thefts of desirable items from your school locker, especially specific winter jackets known as "tanker" jackets, became commonplace. By 6th grade a game was played outside at recess called "burn", whereupon a rubber baseball was hurled as hard and fast as possible at the nearest person. There were many announcements by the principal Dr McDonald to cease this activity, but no one seemed to care what he said. However McDonald would walk to students’ apartments looking for those who did not come to school. Goudy School had a truant officer, however McDonald often went out on his own to try and get the kid(s) to come to school. In 6th grade they tried hard to boost student reading scores using a program of speed reading called the SRA program.
I had endeavored to learn how to play a coronet as a friend in my apartment building had a trumpet and showed me how it made sound, so I wanted to learn. But Goudy Elementary had no music program, so I was told I would have to go to Stewart School, just past Wilson Ave in Uptown to learn. This meant I had to cross the border, which was Foster Ave, and walk south on Kenmore. This was not a good thing at that time as it was much worse than my own neighborhood was and I did not want someone to steal my instrument from me, so I stopped going.
By 7th grade, a friend got a bad score or was reported on for bad behavior and the action he took was to slash the tires of the offending teacher’s car. On another occasion in 8th grade, My classmate noticed a school bus parked in front of Goudy was running and unattended. So he hopped in, took the wheel, and a number of us got in the bus with him as he took it for a ride down Winthrop. I believe in the 8th grade some of my classmates decided to push Principal McDonald down the stairs, which broke his arm. While many may have liked McDonald, many did not.
Up until I reached 7th grade, my parents would leave the back door to the apartment open, screen door unlocked. There was no need to be concerned. We had a simple deadbolt on the backdoor that was only locked for the evening. However once 7th and 8th grade arrived for me, our back door had 2 sets of deadbolts and my mom stopped leaving the door unlocked or opened. Our front door was more of a fortress and had 3 deadbolts although the only time it was used was to go and check the mail slot. Yet my mom and dad got dressed up one day a week, every week, to go to the Bryn Mawr theater. My dad wore a suit and tie. They continued this until about 1973.
Upon my eventual entry into Lane Tech High School in 1971 as a freshman, I quickly realized how far behind we all must have been in our education at Goudy Elementary because the curriculum at Lane seemed to be light years beyond what I had been taught at Goudy. Most of my classmates had to attend Senn High School, which was widely believed to be a place where you were doomed should you had been sent there for high school. In 8th grade, I didn’t think that I was going to get into Lane Tech as I did not think my grades were good enough. But there may have been a reason I made it in.
My sister graduated Goudy Elementary and attended Senn High School for 4 years.
In 1970-1971, my sister had decided to meet her former home room teacher, Louise Loesser, from Senn High School and have lunch together. (In those days at Senn, you tended to keep the same home room and home room teacher for all 4 years of High School). She had a great deal of respect for Louise. Louise taught typing at Senn High School but was retired when she and my sister met for lunch. My sister mentioned that her brother (myself) was getting ready to go into high school and given our geographic location, it was likely I would be going to Senn. Louise told my sister that Senn high school was not a good school anymore. It had many gangs and gang problems. It was not the high school that my sister experienced. Louise told my sister to speak with our mom, and to be sure to tell my mom that she needed to talk to the PTA or to any teachers she could and be sure that I was sent to Lane Technical High School, and not to Senn. I did not know about this lunch meeting and recommendation from Louise until I was 64 years old.
During the 70’s in general, Edgewater was in what was known to the police as the Kenmore Winthrop Corridor. This was an area of exceptionally active criminal activity. It extended north to at least Bryn Mawr and south to the furthest edge of Uptown.
For me to get by in Edgewater as a pre-teen and a teenager, not only did I have to work, I also needed to belong to the local group of teens who lived in my immediate neighborhood. We would call this a gang today. If you wanted to be able to move around the immediate area (Sheridan to Broadway, Foster to Balmoral) you were wise to belong. You knew everyone as you all went to the same grade school, even if you did not go to the same high school.
The gangs tended to be the Berwyn Boys, Margate, and the Thorndale Jarvis Organization, or Thorndale JagOffs (TJO). That was the typical gang progression for many people. I stopped at Berwyn Boys. Margate was more closely associated with Senn High School, but as the name implies they were close to the Margate Park Fieldhouse near Marine Drive and Ainslie. TJO was widely feared and although we all knew a few of their members, you still feared them. Associating with these friends is why I believe my parent’s apartment was never burglarized.
We all frequented the lakefront, played basketball at Epworth church as part of some program to keep us off the streets, and otherwise we caused general mayhem I guess depending on residents view of our antics and behaviors.
In 1972 or 1973, a good friend of mine taught me how to sneak into every CTA elevated station pretty much from Howard south to Wilson, as well as the CTA elevated train that had a stop at Loyola. This involved a lot of climbing, but given we saw it as a challenge and a way to save hard earned money, we took many risks.
Edgewater was full of halfway houses in the 70’s, especially on the 5400 block of Kenmore. Many disturbed individuals walked the streets, but as teens it didn’t matter. I mention this because the Edgewater of today perhaps does not see these people at all, much less with the frequency in which they were seen in the 70’s.
In 1970-1971, my sister had decided to meet her former home room teacher, Louise Loesser, from Senn High School and have lunch together. (In those days at Senn, you tended to keep the same home room and home room teacher for all 4 years of High School). She had a great deal of respect for Louise. Louise taught typing at Senn High School but was retired when she and my sister met for lunch. My sister mentioned that her brother (myself) was getting ready to go into high school and given our geographic location, it was likely I would be going to Senn. Louise told my sister that Senn high school was not a good school anymore. It had many gangs and gang problems. It was not the high school that my sister experienced. Louise told my sister to speak with our mom, and to be sure to tell my mom that she needed to talk to the PTA or to any teachers she could and be sure that I was sent to Lane Technical High School, and not to Senn. I did not know about this lunch meeting and recommendation from Louise until I was 64 years old.
During the 70’s in general, Edgewater was in what was known to the police as the Kenmore Winthrop Corridor. This was an area of exceptionally active criminal activity. It extended north to at least Bryn Mawr and south to the furthest edge of Uptown.
For me to get by in Edgewater as a pre-teen and a teenager, not only did I have to work, I also needed to belong to the local group of teens who lived in my immediate neighborhood. We would call this a gang today. If you wanted to be able to move around the immediate area (Sheridan to Broadway, Foster to Balmoral) you were wise to belong. You knew everyone as you all went to the same grade school, even if you did not go to the same high school.
The gangs tended to be the Berwyn Boys, Margate, and the Thorndale Jarvis Organization, or Thorndale JagOffs (TJO). That was the typical gang progression for many people. I stopped at Berwyn Boys. Margate was more closely associated with Senn High School, but as the name implies they were close to the Margate Park Fieldhouse near Marine Drive and Ainslie. TJO was widely feared and although we all knew a few of their members, you still feared them. Associating with these friends is why I believe my parent’s apartment was never burglarized.
We all frequented the lakefront, played basketball at Epworth church as part of some program to keep us off the streets, and otherwise we caused general mayhem I guess depending on residents view of our antics and behaviors.
In 1972 or 1973, a good friend of mine taught me how to sneak into every CTA elevated station pretty much from Howard south to Wilson, as well as the CTA elevated train that had a stop at Loyola. This involved a lot of climbing, but given we saw it as a challenge and a way to save hard earned money, we took many risks.
Edgewater was full of halfway houses in the 70’s, especially on the 5400 block of Kenmore. Many disturbed individuals walked the streets, but as teens it didn’t matter. I mention this because the Edgewater of today perhaps does not see these people at all, much less with the frequency in which they were seen in the 70’s.
There were also many American Indians living in our apartment building. My mom did many things to help them remain housed and stay current on their rents and try to help certain ones stay out of trouble. Many of them received checks from the government each month, which I was told was like a reparation payment for use of Indian land elsewhere in the country. The days after the checks arrived our apartment building area saw frequent drunken behavior as the checks were spent oftentimes on booze. My mom would go to their apartments and get everyone in order as best she could when other tenants complained. If someone had spent it all, my mom would work it out with the family and the landlord so they could recover and catch back up with the rent.
When I was about 13 or 14 yrs old, I got a job at a small food store called Dick’s Food Mart, which was located on Kenmore and Berwyn Ave. Epworth Methodist church was across the street. Kiddiecorner was a large apartment building, and also across from Dick’s was a residential structure. A little farther down Kenmore going north was the Christian Science Church. There were a couple of bars on Berwyn ave, as well as Elmar Drugs which was at Berwyn and Winthrop, and Fong’s restaurant which was next to T&G’s foods (Dick’s competitor) which itself was next to the Berwyn Elevated station.
The Foster Ave bus terminated at Berwyn and Winthrop for all intents and purposes, and many CTA drivers would also approach our neighborhood by way of Sheridan Road, so there was always a decent amount of CTA people who would pass by Dick’s and shop for snacks and such. His store was small. It was on the ground floor and being on the corner you could walk in from the Kenmore side or the Berwyn side.
My first job ever, in maybe 1970, was working for the butcher, who was called Bob.
I got that job with Bob the butcher by shoplifting some Hostess fruit pies from Dick’s store. He saw me do it via a mirror up on the wall. He asked me why I was stealing. I told him I didn’t have any money, and I was hungry. So he said "if you had a job, you could make money, and then you wouldn’t have to steal", and asked me if I agreed. I said Yes, he said, "do you want a job"? I said Yes, and I became the butcher’s helper literally that day. I helped Bob the butcher for what I think was a few months, but I had eyes on being the next delivery boy. That job was held by my friend Walter. He would drive a Schwinn Cycle Truck bicycle, which had a large rear wheel and a small front wheel, and a large basket in front to hold the bags of groceries. Once Walter moved on, I became the delivery boy. The general service area tended to be north to Bryn Mawr, east to Sheridan, south to Foster and west to Broadway, usually not much further west than Wayne Ave.
Understand that in the 70’s, the "other side of the tracks" meant the other side of Broadway, depending on which side of Broadway you were on. People living in the residential homes on the west side of Broadway did not come across Broadway and venture into our neighborhood for any reason, and we from the east side of Broadway were not expected to be wandering around in their neighborhood, but eventually most of us did visit the residential area west of Broadway. But I seldom had deliveries west of Broadway and I never delivered to the south side of Foster. Those monied people lived on the west side of Broadway (but not south of Foster !). Their kids, many of whom we knew, mostly went to Catholic schools and the criminals (us) all lived on the "other side of the tracks". We liked the Catholic girls from St Ita’s church on Broadway and Catalpa, but they were told to Stay Away from us!
I recall that Dick’s Food Mart was robbed. Not sure of the year, but it may have been 1970 or 1971. Dick ran out after the robber and was shooting his pistol at him as the robber ran down Berwyn towards Winthrop.
About 1971, our apartment building became the Headquarters for the local prostitutes. They didn’t live in our building as I recall but they did all their pickups and flagged down cars of customers from our front entrances. If they saw the undercover cops coming down the street, they would duck into the entries of our building. Many if not most of them lived on Winthrop in between Bryn Mawr and Balmoral. Some lived kiddie corner from Dick’s Food Mart. I delivered many groceries to many of the prostitutes and knew many by name. They always gave me good "tips.”
I got that job with Bob the butcher by shoplifting some Hostess fruit pies from Dick’s store. He saw me do it via a mirror up on the wall. He asked me why I was stealing. I told him I didn’t have any money, and I was hungry. So he said "if you had a job, you could make money, and then you wouldn’t have to steal", and asked me if I agreed. I said Yes, he said, "do you want a job"? I said Yes, and I became the butcher’s helper literally that day. I helped Bob the butcher for what I think was a few months, but I had eyes on being the next delivery boy. That job was held by my friend Walter. He would drive a Schwinn Cycle Truck bicycle, which had a large rear wheel and a small front wheel, and a large basket in front to hold the bags of groceries. Once Walter moved on, I became the delivery boy. The general service area tended to be north to Bryn Mawr, east to Sheridan, south to Foster and west to Broadway, usually not much further west than Wayne Ave.
Understand that in the 70’s, the "other side of the tracks" meant the other side of Broadway, depending on which side of Broadway you were on. People living in the residential homes on the west side of Broadway did not come across Broadway and venture into our neighborhood for any reason, and we from the east side of Broadway were not expected to be wandering around in their neighborhood, but eventually most of us did visit the residential area west of Broadway. But I seldom had deliveries west of Broadway and I never delivered to the south side of Foster. Those monied people lived on the west side of Broadway (but not south of Foster !). Their kids, many of whom we knew, mostly went to Catholic schools and the criminals (us) all lived on the "other side of the tracks". We liked the Catholic girls from St Ita’s church on Broadway and Catalpa, but they were told to Stay Away from us!
I recall that Dick’s Food Mart was robbed. Not sure of the year, but it may have been 1970 or 1971. Dick ran out after the robber and was shooting his pistol at him as the robber ran down Berwyn towards Winthrop.
About 1971, our apartment building became the Headquarters for the local prostitutes. They didn’t live in our building as I recall but they did all their pickups and flagged down cars of customers from our front entrances. If they saw the undercover cops coming down the street, they would duck into the entries of our building. Many if not most of them lived on Winthrop in between Bryn Mawr and Balmoral. Some lived kiddie corner from Dick’s Food Mart. I delivered many groceries to many of the prostitutes and knew many by name. They always gave me good "tips.”
Edgewater was a true "hooker’s heaven" at that time, and I sometimes find it interesting to read about Edgewater as it exists today as it seems to be largely free of criminal activity in general as well as prostitution.
My younger brother also knew the prostitutes as he would talk to them from time to time while out playing in front of our apartment. One prostitute liked to open the car doors of vehicles at the stop sign of Balmoral and Kenmore, and hop in offering services. One day they did this to my dad who was coming home from work and was going to park in his rented space at the lower level of the building just across Balmoral. He was not happy needless to say, although my brother and I knew who it was that opened his car door and knew her by first name.
In 1972, maybe 1973 and 1975 (my memory is not certain), my mom in doing her job as the manager of our apartment building would take our dog Satan (A fierce appearing Doberman Pinscher) and would walk the perimeter of our building, looking down into the basement entrances underneath the stairwells, looking for any trouble, trash, etc. During that time frame, she found 2 or 3 bodies, I believe 2 in the lower entrances to the basement areas of the building, and one that she found in an apartment. I believe all the bodies in the lower entrances were black females.
On one of the days she found a body in the lower basement entrance, the police were across the gangway separating our building from the building just south of ours on Kenmore, responding to some event. My mom yelled out in her Scottish accent, "Yoo Hoo, Mr. Policemen…there is a dead girl down here". The cops did not believe my mom at first, but I believe she had already found another body the year before, so she knew what she was looking at. The police came down the stairs and checked out the scene, confirming the death.
According to what the police told my mom, the girl had been strangled with a piano wire or similar and her hair was burnt off.
In what I recall as "customary" in that timeframe, the cops then made contact with Big Red, who was a local pimp in our neighborhood. He drove a pinkish colored Cadillac with a padded leopard print top. Big Red was also handicapped and could not walk, so he had to use a wheelchair. He was wheeled over to the side where he made an identification of the dead girl, or confirmed he did or did not know her (I can’t recall which). Big Red later became more well known when he stated in a Reader newspaper article that the cops give him a break and look the other way because in general he is a good pimp and nice to his girls. I think they arrested Big Red a few days after that story ran. But he knew the hookers in Edgewater and probably all of Uptown so he was a good person to call upon for "worker recognition" of a different flavor if you will.
Sometime in the 1973-1975 timeframe, I found a job at Treasure Island Foods which was built in/or over what used to be the local bowling alley on Broadway in between Foster and Berwyn. Treasure Island was a popular store and I was lucky to have a job there. During the bowling alley days, there was also a Cadillac dealership at the corner of Foster and Broadway, which itself was across the street from Laurie’s Pizza, a popular place to eat in those days.
(My mom had worked at the bowling alley when I was probably 3 to 5 years old, and also worked at El Mar Drug on Berwyn and Winthrop when I was about 2-3 yrs old). I don’t have any memories of her working there.
I also recall that in 1973 or 1974, when Epworth Church opened their gym at night to keep us off the street, that there was a program of sorts behind that effort. This program was run to some degree by students preparing to graduate from New Trier High School in Winnetka. They wanted to help underprivileged poor kids. So on these events and sometimes on the weekends during the day, these New Trier kids would come to Epworth Church and try to mingle with us and be good examples. At the time, I don’t think any of us considered ourselves as underprivileged…Criminal? Maybe…Gang members? Maybe…but underprivileged? No way…
I eventually joined the Army in 1977. My parents had to move out to Foster and Western in 1978 as the apartment building was going to be sold and they decided it was time to go.
All of my early childhood friends, with the exception of one family, had seen the writing on the wall before 1970’s hit Edgewater and moved away to the western suburbs or out of state or elsewhere. My parents liked living at 5344 Kenmore, and I think they, like myself and my brother, became so used to how things were we just did not really see all the reasons we should have moved.
I am 67 now. I’ve retired twice, and have all the trappings of a successful lifestyle. I often think about where I came from and how fortunate I have been to have succeeded.