Tag Archives: Places

The end of summer is approaching but there’s still time to make up for the frigid winter we went through. That is, of course, if you weren’t able to make it to some of the summer festivals that took place in Chicago and suburbs. One of the summer events that was well attended is the St. Anthony Festa which took place on Sunday, June 8th. Fr. Mark Krilowicz, the pastor of St. Anthony’s for the past eight years, has kept the celebration alive with a strong parish St. Anthony’s Feast committee that meets year-round to come up with food, activities, …

Recently, I came across an article that began with “The Best Year for …” I don’t remember what the focus of the article was but the article did spark an idea: What was the best year of your life in Roseland? Throughout my tenure with Fra Noi, countless people have shared their fondest memories of growing up in Roseland. I’ve met couples at Spaghetti-Os dining at Carlos Lorenzetti’s, at St. Anthony’s on Sundays, and at special events like the St. Anthony Feast that took place on June 8th; at Roseland Roundtable’s Traverso Pizza Parties; and as they came to visit …

When people say they are “going to the opera,” the chances are pretty good that they will be taking in one or another piece from the standard repertoire. That’s what I call the sixty-or-so operas that are most often staged by any decent company. In my lifetime, this standard repertoire has expanded and shrunk — some few works have entered in for a short while others are dropped. But the list of the most popular works — all masterpieces that have stood the test of time — remains pretty much the same. The oldest opera in this repertoire is — …

During baseball season, three things bring me to an out-of-body, Field-of-Dreams experience: having a couple of smokie-link sandwiches in the left field box seats at Wrigley facing the base that Santo built; throwing down a cold one while watching the post-home-run fireworks at Comiskey (sorry, it will always be Comiskey); and recalling my day with a man who is spoken of in the same conversation as is Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig: Joe DiMaggio. For many years, I volunteered my time to The National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame on Taylor Street in Chicago. I produced all its fundraising …

One of the most popular television commercials out today features rock icon Eddie Money as a travel agency owner singing “Two Tickets To Paradise” to a family looking for tickets to a vacation. The humor of the commercial stems from Money holding two plane tickets in his hand and doing the song a cappella in a somewhat inebriated state. A fair representation of a stereotypical rocker of the ’70s and ’80s, this spot proves that comedy was never really meant to be pretty. I have worked with Eddie on several occasions, most recently two sold-out shows at the Arcada Theatre …

As Lent drew near this year, the Veneti nel Mondo held their annual Carnivale con Cudighi Dinner, which spotlighted that beloved spicy Northern Italian sausage, and that got me to thinking about carnivals in general. That brought me right to the St. Anthony carnivals that the St. Anthony’s Holy Name, with the help of the parishioners, used to put on every year. When I mentioned St. Anthony’s carnival in a conversation, someone brought up the fact that there were numerous carnivals held throughout Roseland and the surrounding communities. A number of the larger Roseland parishes put on carnivals as one …

My friend Eddie Wolak didn’t even grow up in Roseland but we eat at the Cal Harbor Restaurant at 115th and Forestville often. We were talking when the subject of “The Ave” came up, and Eddie wanted to know more. Eddie worked for the railroad in and around Roseland for more than 20 years so he is acquainted with the area and he wanted to know all about “The Ave” that all the guys from Roseland talked about. “The Ave” was our slang name for Michigan Avenue from 110th to 115th Street. It not only was the main shopping strip …

A number of months ago, I wrote about ways we can keep our Italian heritage alive. Of course, the first thing that comes to mind was Italian food. To that end, over the years I’ve written about the South Side food markets and delis available to all the former Roseland/Pullman/Kensington residents that are still living south of the city’s downtown. There’s Calabria Imports, which came out of Blue Island — the Italian pride of Beverly that serves the far southwest side including Oak Lawn and Evergreen Park. Directly south of the city out in Stege /Crete is Dal Santo’s Italian …

Now that the holidays are behind us, we can take a moment to relax and look back at the life we grew up with in Roseland. In preparation for my holiday display, haphazardly carrying 4-foot-by-8-foot sheets of plywood on the top of my Jeep, I decided I would avoid the expressway driving back to Pullman from Menard’s on Sibley Boulevard. That thinking proved to be wise as the wind howled. Of course, that meant the road home took me through Dolton and Riverdale and over to 130th Street right past the former Acme/Interlake Steel and The Shrimp Boat. It was …

Celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate! Here we are in a new year, so let’s see what’s on the the horizon for 2014. Insofar as Pullman is concerned, National Park Status is almost a given. That means a redefining of the area many of you have grown up in. To check out an example of what an industrial type of National Park looks like, go online to http://www.nps.gov/lowe/index.htm Lowell, Mass., was a former textile production town that had been down on its luck until there was a movement to make it a National Park. On a personal level, my daughter Jamie, husband Eric, …