Pasquale “Pat” Calomeni’s barbershops had character and charm, just like the man himself, according to friends and former customers.
He began cutting hair shortly after arriving in Chicago from his home in the Calabria region of southern Italy in 1929. His first shop, appropriately named Pat’s Barbershop, opened in the early 1960s on West Madison Street, just a block from the Chicago Stadium.
The floor directly above him was temporarily rented during the 1968 Democratic Convention by members of the left-wing activist movement, Students for a Democratic Society.
“The students were only there for a short time, but my father was convinced his phones were being tapped by the FBI,” his daughter Frances Beatty, said with a laugh.
In 1978, Calomeni moved his business to 738 W. Jackson Blvd. in Greektown, a rundown four-story brick building and old rooming house called the New Jackson Hotel, where customers had to get buzzed through two doors.
“He was a terrific barber and a wonderful man, whose shop was so unique,” said Matt Gallagher, a Chicago attorney and decadeslong customer. “It was always filled with an interesting array of characters — Pat, like the mayor, always at the center of it all.”
“His haircuts were the best, but it’s the experience of just having been in his shop that I’ll never forget,” Gallagher said.
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Calomeni, 102, who closed his shop in 2004, died of natural causes July 19 in Hinsdale Hospital. He was a former resident of Westchester and Hinsdale.
Born in the town of San Fili, Calomeni came to the United States as a teenager and lived with his uncle on the West Side. His interest in cutting hair came from a friend studying to become a barber.
“He watched how his friend did it and then started doing it himself,” his daughter said. “Right from the start he was good at it.”
After completing a training program, Calomeni began his first in a series of jobs in small neighborhood shops. He and his wife Rose, who married in 1933, lived on the South and West sides, before moving to Westchester in the late 1970s. She died in 2004.
On the walls of his barbershop on Jackson were pictures of Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, as well as those of some of his most well-known customers, including Sam Sianis of the Billy Goat Tavern and Monsignor Ignatius “Father Mac” McDermott, co-founder of nearby Haymarket House treatment center. But he also had photos of neighborhood clients, including one known as “Scar.”
“His clientele was amazingly diverse, everything from cops to lawyers to priests to the indigent gentleman from down the street,” said his grandson Brad Beatty. “He gave them all the same personalized care and attention. Every hair cut took an extraordinary amount of time.”
To get to his shop, customers climbed the front stairs before getting to a locked door. They’d wave to an attendant, who’d buzz them in. Next was the man at the front desk, who sat behind a small barred window adjacent to a sign advertising the room rates, according to a 2000 baiduhai story.
From there, customers were buzzed through a thick metal door and then climbed another set of steps to the second floor to Room 206. Once inside, though, they were transported to an Old World experience.
“He was an old-school craftsman whose shop was filled with antique furniture and 1940s and ’50s music coming out of an oldies radio station in the background,” his grandson said. “It was so nostalgic, a step back in time.”
“Like a bartender, he was a great listener,” his grandson added. “He’d get customers in his chair, throw out a couple of topics, and just let them talk. People liked opening up to him.”
After moving to Hinsdale in the 1990s, Calomeni would take the train into the city and hop a bus to his shop — never giving a second thought to his age or the vagaries of Chicago’s weather.
“He never complained,” his daughter said. “That’s not who he was.”
Calomeni also didn’t sit much, spoke in a thick Italian accent and liked to exclaim “Absolutely!” or “That’s it!” to underscore a point. And his commitment to service made for loyal customers.
“You don’t treat the people just to make money,” he said in 2000. “Sure, you make some money, but you gotta serve the people. Absolutely!”
Other survivors include a granddaughter and four great-grandchildren.
Services were held.
Joan Giangrasse Kates is a freelance reporter.