Can Little Italy be revived?

Sunday, January 4, 2004 (Chicago Sun Times)
By Annie Sweeney, Staff Reporter


From atop the new National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame --sweeping city skyline to the right, imposing hospital district to the left-- George Randazzo sees big things. It's a windy day on the newly built terrace, where Randazzo hopes to one
day host weddings and other events. The basement theater named in honor of
Frank Sinatra could draw the likes of Italian Americans like Ray Romano and Jay Leno.
But what Randazzo is imagining today is four stories below on Taylor, the neatly manicured spine of Chicago's Little Italy.

He sees Italian groceries and bakeries reopening here. And families coming back to restore some of the old character to a neighborhood that some fear has already lost its identity -- like many Italian enclaves across the country.

"This was the reason we came to Taylor Street,'' said Randazzo, whosegrandfather opened a bakery there in 1925. "This is Little Italy. You can't change the history, and anyone who thinks they can change the history of a neighborhood is fooling themselves.''

All they need is the right marketing plan. If it works, they just might find a way not only to save their heritage but profit from it.

***

Italians arrived in Chicago in the 1880s and 1890s and were a dominant immigrant group here by the turn of the century. They did not immediately center around Taylor Street. In fact, "Little Italy" originally was on Division Street, where the Sicilian community made its home.

They also settled just west of the city, near the Chicago River. The community eventually moved west, stretching at one time as far as Kedzie.

The community suffered several disruptions, the largest when the University of Illinois at Chicago was built in the mid-1960s and displaced
8,000 people.

Today, the community is roughly defined by Morgan on the east, Ashland on the west, Roosevelt on the south and Harrison on the north. Taylor Street runs through the center, providing a quaint strip of Italian restaurants, sandwich shops and a grocery.

But there's also a Starbucks, a Thai restaurant and a French bistro, all signatures of the neighborhood's urban-chic sense and high rents. Many of the neighborhood folks are young students looking for a sandwich or a place to plug in a laptop and work over a cup of coffee.

Which raises the question: Is this really Little Italy? Or is it just Taylor Street? Or University Village, even?

This identity crisis is a longtime topic that has resurfaced with projects such as Randazzo's hall of fame and the Plaza DiMaggio across the street,
which has a statue of the baseball great. Some say plans to transform a nearby public housing complex into a mixed-use community -- the biggest project since the university -- has sparked the latest talk.

Regardless, the community is now debating how to preserve itself and whether it needs a special tax to pay for a marketing plan.

The concept is just in the early talking stages, but the two leading community groups -- the University Village Association and the Taylor Street Business and Community Organization -- are seriously considering it. Oscar D'Angelo, a onetime political confidant of the mayor, is on the executive board of the UVA. D'Angelo -- or at least his influence --
resurfaced at City Hall two weeks ago when an alderman accused him of scuttling the public housing redevelopment plans.

So far, a few community meetings have been held, including a presentation by Marco LiMandri, who runs a California-based business that helps
communities work on development.

LiMandri cautioned against waiting too long.
"If you wait five years, it will be highly problematic to save it,'' LiMandri said in an interview.

LiMandri, who has a particular interest in Little Italy communities, estimates there were once 50 to 60 such neighborhoods across the United
States. Today, he puts it at 11 or 13.

Rita Bartolone -- who began the littleitalychicago.com Web site two years
ago -- says 12 cities have viable Italian communities. While Taylor Street
is the biggest in Chicago, Bartolone agrees it could use a shot of Italian flavor.

"There is still obviously a ton of great restaurants. They've got that nailed. But the Italian shops and boutiques are missing,"' she said. "The
foundation is there. They need to build it up."

One complaint Bartolone hears often from visitors is the lack of Italians in Little Italy.

"More ethnic Italians, that's what they are expecting," she said. "I don't know if that's reasonable. But boy, the potential is there."

National Italian-American groups dispute whether there are so few Italian neighborhoods across the country. But Dona De Sanctis, deputy executive
director of the Order Sons of Italy in America, doesn't doubt that Little Italies -- as stand-alone communities -- are not as prominent as they once
were. That's because Italian Americans, like other early immigrant communities, are moving on. They're living in the suburbs.

Census figures show the population of people who identify themselves as Italian is up slightly over the last 10 years in the Near West Side
community area, but the figures are down for Chicago.

Between 1990 and 2000, city residents who claim Italian heritage fell from 119,697 to 101,903, according to census figures. The nearly 15 percent decline is similar to what has happened in other major cities, including New York.

But in the outlying counties, the numbers are surging. The number of Italians living in McHenry County jumped 72 percent over 10 years, and in
Will County, it rose 53 percent.

What Little Italy is missing is the middle generation of Italians, said Fred Beuttler, associate university historian at UIC.

But unlike other ethnic enclaves, including Greektown to the north, there are still old families who built the neighborhood and tell stories about
it.

***

Like the stories that crackle inside Fontano's sub shop on Polk Street. The walls are red and green and lined with bottles of homemade muffaletta
and pepperoncini. In the back, subs drenched in giardiniara are freshly made by the family, which has been running the shop since the early 1930s,
when Vincenzo "James'' Fontano opened the grocery there at 1058 W. Polk.

Aniello "Nello'' Fontano took over in 1960.

They are loud and funny and finish each other's stories about what it was like to grow up -- five kids, their parents and grandma -- in the back of
the store and then above it. They sit on the counters, lean on pushcarts and poke fun at their mother, Gilda, a sprite at about 4 feet who bursts
into the shop with gusto.

To many, the Fontanos -- whose cousins still run the sandwich shop across Polk -- are what made Little Italy what it is.

But even they are not impressed with the idea of a marketing plan to preserve their neighborhood. They wonder whether this is about more
gentrification and even higher property values.

"They lost what Little Italy is. Little Italy is family,'' said Mary Fontano, 42, who now runs the original Fontanos store with her dad. "It's not made up of stores. It's 'my grandma knows your grandma. If you need $5, here, I'll give it to you.' But it's not about the money.... It was what's in your heart.''

It was the Fontano boys walking groceries home for customers and the shop staying open all day on Sundays. But the changes came. Nello Fontano converted the grocery to a sandwich
shop to draw the students. Fontano's Foods has now expanded to 13 franchises, including two in Denver.

And a lot of people left -- many of the men who gather afternoons at the local neighborhood club drive in from the suburbs now.

"Lit'l It'ly is gone,'' Nello Fontano says, matter-of-factly. There is little emotion or regret in his voice.
"I was born in 1928, and I'm still on the corner.... But they all disappeared. So that's it.''

Marie Davino is still here, working in the restaurant that has been in her husband's family since 1909. Most mornings, she can be found at Pompei Restaurant at Taylor and Ashland, greeting customers and helping out. Her son Ralph owns Pompei now. Her husband ran it before him, and his father before him.

Davino, 80, was born on Aberdeen and has lived most of her life on or near Taylor. Like many families, Davino's was displaced from Aberdeen after the university came -- her "heartache,'' she calls it. Her father died shortly after the family was forced to move. Her grandfather's wine press was too big to move, so it stayed, and she believes it's under a parking lot at Morgan and Racine.

That's just one of the stories Davino can tell. But she admits she sometimes tires of hearing about the old days.

What about the Sweet Maple Cafe down the street, where they make grits and corn muffins she loves, she wonders with a smile. "You welcome all the changes, right?''

Contributing: Art Golab