About the only thing celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck has in common with the people who make steel is that both frequently use ladles — of a somewhat different size, of course.
And while John Henry was a steel-driving man, Jon Stewart is a cable-channel man, the cranky host of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central.
So what was Stewart doing the other night performing stand-up in a Near North Side steel factory in front of 600 black-tie guests dining on baby lamb chops and other Puck creations?
The answer is they were raising money — at what is quite possibly the most incongruous venue for charity balls in all of Chicago, if not the world: the concrete warehouse floor of the A. Finkl & Sons Co. steel foundry.
“It’s amazing what you can do with lights and staging,” says Peter Nechipor, superintendent of the huge facility, whose staff regularly clears more than 100 tons of steel blocks, cylinders and rings from the service center floor to accommodate the black-tie galas of select charitable groups.
The privately held company, which since 1879 has been located on Cortland Avenue on Chicago’s Goose Island, has been host for seven or eight such events each year — absolutely free of charge to the charities involved — since the program’s inception in 1996.
The list of beneficiaries includes Children’s Place Association; Sacred Heart School; New City
YMCA; Friends of the River; Friends of the Park; and Pediatric AIDS Chicago. Performers who have played Finkl include Barry Manilow and the Doobie Brothers.
Turning a steel plant into a concert hall isn’t easy. But “if the charity is worthwhile, we’ll do it,” says Nechipor.
The occasion last Saturday night was the 10th annual Green Tie Ball benefiting Chicago Gateway Green, an evening that was capped near midnight on the Finkl parking lot next door, where, beneath a huge tent, dinner guests were joined by another 2,600 people to be entertained by the B-52s. The money raised was to finance, among other things, a reading garden in a library planned for the Englewood neighborhood.
In the midst of his routine, comedian Stewart looked around a facility normally loaded to the rafters with stacked steel and, obviously mystified by the context, said, “What better place could you guys think of than a steel mill? Next year are we going to a tire fire?
Had Stewart been here two days ago, he would have seen the Finkl staff jockeying hundreds of pieces of hardened steel weighing as much as 60,000 pounds each out the door to temporary quarters elsewhere. The trick? Get it done in two days without interrupting regular plant operations. Work the crane! Empty the room! Then bring the steel back in and stack it correctly.
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So while Wolfgang Puck had the joint to himself for a few hours, the next morning it was back to business as usual at Finkl, a point that Nechipor never forgets.
But then, Nechipor is used to surprises and unusual situations. Like two days earlier when he found himself making an executive decision regarding a dance floor for the B-52’s concert. The Georgia group was to play in a 21,000-square-foot tent set up on the parking lot, overlooking the north branch of the Chicago River. But thunderstorms were expected to roll through exactly when the concert was scheduled. Nechipor was understandably anxious; he represents his employer on the board of Chicago Gateway Green, an influential environmental group dedicated to beautifying Chicago, and he takes Finkl’s role as party host seriously.
Technicians setting up needed to know right away if he wanted a dance floor included in the rental package. Without the raised dance floor, rainwater would likely run in from outside the tent and make the tent interior a shambles, quite apart from the issue of whether the floor would be in danceable condition.
Bottom line on the floor
But add the dance floor and it’s another $30,000 on Finkl & Sons’ tab.
Nechipor checked a darkening sky above the river running behind Finkl property. He shook his head: “No floor. We take the risk.”
No committee needed, either.
No hand ringing, no second-guessing the plant boss.
Finkl management trusts Nechipor, who candidly admits he lied about his age 35 years ago when he joined the company as a 17-year-old apprentice. He displays his hands — a mass of cracked calluses across his knuckles, torn to shreds from decades on the shop floor. He says he has a “good life” because of the Finkls, who rely on him as their liaison to community organizations like Chicago Gateway Green and Friends of the River.
“Management wants me to listen to community requests to use our facility. We host events for different civic organizations,” Nechipor says. “But Finkl won’t rent the steel plant out for weddings. Don’t give people that idea in your story.”
Nechipor emphasized that Finkl accepts no money from the charitable organization for use of the facilities. “This is strictly community service,” he said. “Last year I had a guy try to sell me an Octoberfest. He said he represented a charity. I checked and found he would have pocketed $300,000. That’s the kind of stuff we have to be careful of.”
Prior to the start of the Green Tie Ball, Nechipor stopped in the Finkl service center, where VIP guests would shortly be dining at $350 a throw and listening to Stewart, before slipping down a private side alley to check out the B-52’s. The Finkl staff had cleared out the huge tonnage of steel from the service center floor in the requisite two days — a feat last accomplished in August, when U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich (D., Ill) chose Finkl as the site for his governor’s race announcement. (The congressman’s father had been a Finkl machinist for 40 years.)
For that occasion, Finkl staffer Howard Podeszwa jockeyed steel ingots about with a remote control crane equipped with a magnetic head. Shipping clerk Bob Bishop handled forklift duty, while John Flynn laid a temporary floor. “We move all of this out and by the time he (Blagojevich) leaves we got to be ready for steel again on Monday,” Flynn said.
Finkl means steel
For the Green Tie Ball, Nechipor had his guys leave several tons of steel in different configurations along the side wall — just to remind everyone that Finkl means steel.
But would guests have an opportunity to visit the actual mill floor?
“No, it’s too dangerous,” Nechipor said. “We make steel 24 hours a day. We don’t shut down for events. You couldn’t have women in gowns and slippers walking through the plant.
“We close off work areas and handle our own security. You saw the river running behind the tent? That’s a real concern for us. We’ll have extra security on the river, because we don’t want some guy deciding he’s going to taking a midnight swim.”
A. Finkl and Sons Co. is located on 36 prime acres of Goose Island real estate. The Finkls employ about 350 workers, who turn molten alloy into hardened steel casts — by the megaton. Nechipor pointed to a 6,000-ton open die press in passing and said, `That’s the largest press in North America. When the Deep Tunnel came through here they had to divert around us because of that press. Too much weight.”
The Finkl foundry is a labyrinth, pre-dating Lincoln Park/Old Town gentrification by 90 years. As recently as 25 years ago, Finkl operated as any other heavy industrial manufacturer might. But today, community-friendly family patriarch Charles Finkl appreciates the value of getting along with newer upscale neighbors. Even though the City of Chicago declared his immediate area a non-residential industrial corridor in the mid-1980s, he’d still like to be seen as environmentally sensitive. (Indeed, the Finkls have planted 3.9 million trees throughout Illinois and Wisconsin over the past several years.)
Mandate to plant trees
Finkl credits his wife, Lee, with getting on him about cleaning up Cortland between the river and Clybourn Avenue. “This was about 1980,” he recalls. “She said, `We need to plant trees and bushes along the street.’ I said to her, `You want trees? Go ahead, you do it! You plant the trees!’
“And now it’s such a pleasure to come to work every day. Beautification has been a win/win situation for us. I get letters from people who used to complain about my trucks and they’re thanking us for beautifying the neighborhood.”
On the night of the Green Tie Ball, Finkl was sitting in the back seat of his golf cart, quietly taking in the scene, watching as early guests arrive. Couples passed by without noticing him. It was 6:30 p.m. and the company’s private security force had sealed off access to Finkl property side streets with friendly yet firm guards who directed people to the front gate.
No wandering about, no tripping in spike heels over railroad tracks.
Chicago Gateway Green President Adrian Garibay looked around the made-over service center and said, “Very few venues would accommodate this size event, and our organization certainly couldn’t afford to put it on if it weren’t for the generosity of the Finkls.
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“The space is unique. It’s kind of a hip place to be.
“After the last Green Tie Ball, I said, `May we come back next year?’
“They said, `Why would you leave?'”