Since the turn of the century, the attitude of blue-collar workers in South Chicago always had been that the area, with its mammoth steel industry, would take care of the people who lived and worked there.
Less then two decades ago, more than 20,000 people were employed in steel mills and industry-related businesses in and around this Far Southeast Side neighborhood.
”People always believed the steel mills would be here, and when they closed, the whole area just died, or laid down and entered a coma,” said Neil Bosanko, whose father and grandfather worked in the mills.
”I`ll never forget the day Wisconsin Steel closed,” Bosanko said. ”I could actually feel the depression, it was so deep, and I remember thinking we`d never overcome it.”
Now, nine years after the closing of Wisconsin Steel, where nearly 4,000 jobs were lost, interest in the area from new businesses and the determination of residents and community groups have brought new hope.
”In the next 5 to 10 years I see potential for some positive changes,”
said Lynne Cunningham, executive director of the South East Chicago Development Commission.
Part of that change is a $350 million industrial complex targeted to open in 1993 on the former Wisconsin Steel site.
”The plant will bring in 15 to 20 manufacturing firms that will utilize recycled goods in their process,” Cunningham said. ”It will generate more than 1,000 jobs and have a major impact for the area.
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”We`ve also got groups looking at housing and job possibilities,”
Cunningham added. ”It may take awhile before you see anything, but I think it`s real promising.”
Entering South Chicago is like entering a town unto itself. It`s also like entering through a time barrier to a locale forgotten by the rest of the city.
It is an area of vaulted sidewalks, which years ago were used to store coal, and frame homes and buildings along those walks that haven`t changed much since the 1930s.
Large old churches stand out in a community where there always has been a religious diversity, from Puerto Rican Pentecostal to Polish Roman Catholic.
Bickur Cholim, 8923 S. Houston Ave., built in 1902, is the oldest synagogue in the Chicago area that still operates at its original location, and some fame was brought to South Chicago when the Pilgrim Baptist Church of South Chicago, 3235 E. 91st St., was used in filming ”The Blues Brothers.” Here, in the 7th Ward, between 79th and 95th Streets, and South Chicago Avenue and the Calumet River to the east, looms the ghost of the steel mills. Also present are the ghosts of failed businesses that depended on the mills.
Aside from South Works, of USX Corp. (formerly U.S. Steel), there are now only about 500 to 1,000 jobs in area businesses, Cunningham said.
”On the manufacturing side there is not a lot of movement, but most businesses are holding their own, and some might even have a little growth.” Growth is more evident along the Commercial Avenue shopping strip, where fast-food restaurants have been built and two new shopping complexes are bringing 12 merchants to the area, she said.
”And with the YMCA doing things to assist people and improve the area, and Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church building housing for the elderly, other groups are saying `If they can do that, what else can be done?` ”
Near the shopping area, the Chicago City Colleges have opened a branch of Olive Harvey College, offering classes in computer programming and other high- tech skills.
Bosanko, 36, who worked for the city Department of Human Services before opening his own business, said the mill closing had one good effect.
”Guys would quit school because they could get jobs in the mill,” said Bosanko, executive director of the South Chicago Chamber of Commerce. ”Now they have to make career choices like becoming computer operators.”
For more than 100 years, in what was one of the most industrial areas of the nation, generation after generation worked in the mills, raised families and bought homes.
That was the way it had always been.
”You used to think, `I`ll work in the mill for 30 years and retire, and my son will work there for 30 years and retire,` ” said Al Trevino, 60, a former steelworker who hasn`t been employed since the mill failed.
Joseph Vidales, 36, owner of Banner Linoleum and Rugs, 9023 S. Commercial Ave., has operated the store for 4 1/2 years, having worked there for 15 years before buying it.
”I see South Chicago getting better,” said Vidales, president of the 250-member Chamber of Commerce. ”It`s starting to rise again.”
”My family and friends told me I was crazy for buying the store, but I knew I would have business. I have customers who have been coming here for 25 years. It`s like a family relation.”
”As much as possible, I practice what I preach and do all my shopping here in the neighborhood,” said Bosanko, a Bowen High School classmate of Vidales.
”People have always been loyal to the community, and hardly anyone ever left the area to shop,” added Bosanko, who owns Bosanko`s 1950s Restaurant, 8538 S. Green Bay Ave.
The restaurant, in a large frame building typical of the area, is across from USX Corp. He and nine foster sons, 10 to 18, live in a 13-room apartment above.
”My sons are the fourth and will be the fifth generation of Bowenites,” said Bosanko, who grew up in the house his grandmother built.
Although much about South Chicago does not seem to have changed, among the things that have is the United Steel Workers of America, Local 65, union hall at 9350 S. South Chicago Ave., where activity is far different than it was when it was built in 1964.
At that time, mills employed more than 17,000 union workers, said union President Willie Ross, who works at USX Corp., where there are 700 union workers and 100 nonunion employees. In 1983, the work force had 8,500 union employees and 3,500 nonunion workers.
”Then the (union) offices here had a full-time staff of 15; now there`s just me, a secretary and janitor,” Ross said.
Vidales recalled selling newspapers at U.S. Steel. ”I would make $25 in a half-hour, and papers at the time were 7 cents each,” he said. ”That`s how many people were coming in and out of the mill.”
The population in the area has been about 50,000 since the 1930s.
South Chicago`s Cheltenham area, near 79th Street and Exchange Avenue, was first occupied by European laborers. Just east is the Bush area, which was populated by Swedes and Germans.
The Green Bay or Millgate area, where residents lived just outside U.S. Steel, is the oldest populated section of South Chicago; blacks moved to the area in large numbers after they migrated north at the turn of the century.
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”South Chicago has had no new home construction in years,” said Vincent Lipetzky, president of South Chicago Savings Bank, 9200 S. Commercial Ave.
”East of Commercial hasn`t changed much in the last 25 years, and west of the avenue is stabilizing after changing from predominately white to predominately black,” Lipetzky said.
According to George Eliopulos, 53, owner of Ellis Cleaners, 3026 E. 91st St., which was started by his parents in 1934: ”There has always been racial harmony in South Chicago. The reason for that is that in the late 1800s, when the mills were built, the labor force included everyone.”
Today South Chicago is mostly populated by blacks and Hispanics, though there are still a few Polish, Greek, German, Swedish, Russian and Irish.
”I was born here in 1918,” said Margaret Nielsen, whose father worked at Wisconsin Steel.
”My grandfather came here from Germany with his family in 1890. He started working in the mill right away, and bought a home at 8448 S. Mackinaw Ave.
”I remember unpaved streets and wooden sidewalks,” Mrs. Nielsen recalled.
”I got many a sliver in my bare feet.”
Her husband, Robert, 74, was born in the neighborhood after his parents came here from Denmark and opened a coal yard.
The couple, who will be married 51 years in June, own a home on the same street a block away from where Mrs. Nielsen`s grandfather lived. Their daughter Karen and her husband Merced Munos live across the street.
”South Chicago is so typical of what Chicago is all about,” said Bosanko. ”European immigrants, Hispanics and blacks came here because of the steel mills, and I think the diversity of the area is what has always made it so nice. There has always been a lot of tradition, a lot of family ties.”