What builds community spirit? Nothing works better than a neighborly team effort, as a recent gathering to benefit the Oz Park playground proved.
Billed as ”An Evening of Play and Fashion,” the opening of the new Lincoln Park branch of the Gentry Shops at Webster and Clybourn reunited many area residents who had scooped and shoveled to help build the children`s playground at nearby Oz Park.
While those sipping champagne, nibbling hors d`oeuvres and browsing through the store`s menswear and women`s wear chatted about developments in the fast-changing neighborhood, they also represented a cozy familiarity more often associated with friendly small towns than the De Paul area`s BMW reputation.
Members of the playground committee who modeled in the evening`s fashion show were identified to the crowd by their volunteer work: head of baby-sitting, or of food for construction crews, for example. Among them were producer Michael Cullen; restaurateur Joe Carlucci and his wife, Arlene; and Johnathan Rodgers, general manager of WBBM-TV, and his wife, Royal Kennedy; as well as present and former Chicago Aldermen Edwin Eisendrath and Martin Oberman with his wife, Bonnie.
Mike Scharringhausen, 25 and single, caused a gasp when he stepped on the runway. As Pat Terry, a publicist and playground committee worker, explained: ”He`s a doll. He was there every day handing out tools, but he was always in jeans. We`d never seen him so dressed up before.”
Interior designer Kitty Weese, who attended the party to watch daughter Kate and son-in-law Will Rogers model in the fashion show, attested to the need by some for community connections even in the heart of the city.
”Kate always wanted to live in a small town,” observed Weese, wife of Harry Weese, one of Chicago`s leading architects. ”The nicest part of this committee was the friends she made while working on the project.”