A view of the Chicago skyline from Maggie Daley Park in the Loop in 2020. A reader from Indiana recalls visiting Chicago as a child.
Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
In a recent letter to the editor “Stop lamenting the ‘good ole days’” (Gus Haffner, Feb. 11) the author makes a good point about how great Chicago is presently. There’s plenty to love about the city as it exists today. I agree. It did though, conjure up a childhood memory that I’d like to share:
When I was growing up in the 1950s, every child in America dreamed of going to Disneyland. From my hometown of Muncie, Indiana, Disneyland appeared to be a magical and mysterious place. When the park opened in the summer of 1955, it was an unobtainable destination for most of my generation of midwestern rug rats.
My brother and I would watch “Walt Disney’s Disneyland” on Wednesday evenings, lying on the floor in front of our little black-and-white television. At the beginning of every show, Mr. Disney would introduce the week’s featured program from what looked to be his office. He would invite everyone watching to come to Disneyland and see what all the fuss was about. My brother and I (and every other kid in America) would relentlessly beg our parents to take us to this Shangri-La. Of course, there was zero chance that our request would be granted.
However, my dad said we could do something fun and exciting that was a little closer to home. We could spend a weekend in Chicago! I must have been thinking, what is Chicago, and why would we go there? We want to see Davy Crockett.
After just a four-hour car ride, we entered Chicago. At ages 5 and 6, my brother and I found it to be a magical and mysterious place. We went to the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum of Natural History. We walked through a human heart and entered a coal mine at the Museum of Science and Industry. We took a ride on the “L” train and looked up at enormous skyscrapers that seemed out of this world. It’s an experience that I’ve never forgotten. We would return to the city every few years. It was our “Disneyland.”
Chicago is the birthplace of Walt Disney. Perhaps, that is where he realized: “When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are. Anything your heart desires will come to you.”
Scott T. Thompson, Bloomington, Indiana
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There’s more to the Dan Ryan story
In the Feb. 6 edition it was explained how the city’s expressways fostered segregation. It was explained how the now-Kennedy broke up neighborhoods and sent families to new homes, many to the suburbs. The Eisenhower did the same, particularly for Jewish and Black residents. But the Dan Ryan’s story could have been more expanded. Yes, the then-Richard J. Daley organization used it to “save” Bridgeport (my home neighborhood) from Black encroachment, but it did more bad than good.
While the Black neighborhoods in the Dan Ryan’s footprint removed decaying buildings, the resolution while at first heralded, eventually left many more problems. New high-rises offered initial hope, but that hope soon withered as no funds were allocated to keep them up. Today the “high rises of hope” are all gone. The residents were dispersed throughout the city, even into Bridgeport, and the suburbs.
Bernard Biernacki, Aurora
Eisenhower construction hurt Greeks, Italians
It wasn’t just black neighborhoods that suffered because of interstate construction in the city. The recent article “How Chicago’s expressways were born and furthered segregation” ignores the damage done to the Greek and Italian communities in Chicago when the Eisenhower Expressway was built. Their neighborhoods were torn apart. Adding insult to injury, construction of the UIC campus further demolished Greek Town and Little Italy. Neither of those neighborhoods has fully recovered from the construction.
Mike Kirchberg, Little Italy