Richard Lanyon, James Peters, and Jacqueline Klein

00:04 States

00:08 My name is Richard Lanyon. I'm 76 years of age. Today's date is Tuesday, June 24th, and I'm at the in the breakfast nook of 4454, North Manor Avenue.

00:28 And

00:32 Relationship to partner now. Who's the partner?

00:37 Oh, okay.

00:40 I'm being interviewed.

00:46 Okay, my name is Jim Peters. I'm 62 years old and I'm also on the breakfast room of 4454 North Manor. I am the day is Tuesday.

01:01 June 24th 2014 and I am the interviewer.

01:09 And our project we're doing this on behalf of the Ravenswood Manor Improvement associations Centennial research committee.

01:27 Well, dick, and I'm going to start off with some general questions of let's start off with your occupation.

01:37 Well right now I'm retired.

01:40 But I'm kind of busy in retirement.

01:43 Retired three and a half years ago I was

01:48 With the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. I retired as the executive director after being employed there for 48 years.

01:56 I'm an engineer by Education and Training.

02:01 Alright, thank you. And when were you a resident of rape?

02:09 Well, I was a resident of three different periods. First of all when I was in kindergarten to second or third grade, I live at 4531 North Mozart that was during World War II in the early forties and then we moved away for a couple years. We move back to the Manor in 1947 and I lived at 2847 Giddings Street for a number of years until I went to college.

02:44 Which was in 1956 something like that?

02:52 My first two two or three years of college where in Chicago so I was a commuter student living at home on getting street, but then I went down state to Champaign-Urbana and I was gone.

03:04 But then I came back and I lived at 2847 getting Street after being married and

03:12 We were there for about six months over the summer of 1961 and

03:20 Fall and spring of 62 1942 245 roughly 1947 to 1957 approximately 61 1961-62

03:42 This may be a tough one. But what is your earliest memory of the manor as a neighbor?

03:54 Earliest memory is when I was a kid living on Mozart Street.

04:01 And probably before I started kindergarten I

04:07 Remember my bedroom on the second floor looking out the back window.

04:15 Over the yard and

04:20 I played a lot in the yard and I also

04:24 Had a buddy named John who lived in the radio and I remember standing by the console radio in the living room talking to John when the radio wasn't on a cruise.

04:38 Okay, so John lived in the radio in the manor.

04:42 Well, that's a good early memory of.

04:46 You grew up here. So what are what were some of your favorite places to play both on Mozart when you were younger, but then later on I'm getting a certain parts of the manor. Yeah. Well on Mozart I was young. I didn't Venture very far from home. So I played mostly in the yard or in the house. Getting Street.

05:15 Favorite place to play with one of the river. It was such an adventure.

05:21 And of course they were vacant Lots in the neighborhood that time there was a vacant lot across the street from us and then there was a big vacant lot on the south side of Leland Avenue right at the river.

05:35 And of course the the at that time the Ravenswood CTA line ran along there now, it's the Brown Line and across the river. So have a lot of excitement there is and the numbers

05:51 I guess there was four or five houses built there now, so it's a pretty big open area and we played ball there and

05:58 By the time we play Down by the River.

06:01 What what did you do down by the river?

06:04 Well things I would never tell my mom week sometime go waiting. We never tried to swim cuz it was.

06:13 Even at our age we could tell it wasn't safe or desirable swing on rope and wood tree swing out over the water and hopefully swing by and swing back and I also know why we tried to build a ramp one year out of old railroad ties, but that didn't work very well.

06:42 Cuz it's railroad ties. Don't float. One of my friends in the neighborhood was Kenny penhale. He lived across the street from the vacant lot and they had a doc on the river little concrete forming and I used to sit down there until tall tales and

07:00 Fantasize about our life remember any tall tales about the like people who have lived in the manor before.

07:12 Well, the only one I remember was the the story that his father used to talk about.

07:18 Their house being built by liquor Barons in prohibition days, and they would bring liquor into the house by boat on the river. You known. I thought that was totally plausible at the time, but no flocking Wilmette anymore and they never did that so forth.

07:53 Weather was a candy store on Manor Avenue next to the L and it wasn't right next to the Elliot was the first door in from the L and we often stop there for a treat when walking back to school after lunch.

08:11 Or and the other favorite store was Izzy's drugstore.

08:17 Which was on the northwest corner of Francisco and Leland.

08:26 I'm sorry Eastwood Eastwood. You're right. It's now it was a dance studio made maybe it still is okay, but that was a favorite spot cuz I go in there at a soda fountain it going there for ice cream at my favorite drink in those days was a fast face.

08:48 I'm not sure. I know what that is anymore. But anyway, it was sure good when I was a kid and why was it called Izzy's is that just you know, I don't know. I guess the owner was his adores her something.

09:02 And it what else was in that business district at the time this would have been

09:08 Yeah, there were a couple of small grocery stores.

09:16 And cleaners

09:20 We do have a hardware store in the neighborhood.

09:26 That's all I can remember. Do you remember there was it was a stucco building had some pillars out in front.

09:39 And it was about the size of maybe a two-car garage or so.

09:44 And it was never open on a regular basis once in a while when the neighborhood was doing something in the I guess the park district would open it up for The Neighbors.

09:56 I don't remember the inside of the building room.

10:00 It was the old real estate office for the harman company. Yeah, that's what I understand.

10:13 Yeah, I was just gone. I don't remember it when it was torn down.

10:24 I would have been.

10:26 Wofford College or away from the house a lot attending the Navy Pier.

10:34 Let's go back to school. So which schools did you go to? Let's start with grade school and then tell me how you got to that Grace.

10:45 Okay. Well, I started in abatement school when we lived on Mozart street. So I was there kindergarten through second grade and how we got there. We walked it was a long walk and we had to cross Montrose Avenue. So Mom would usually walk with me and maybe get me a cross Montrose and let me walk the last block or two to school.

11:15 That I remember and then we had a neighbor a boy that lived down the block from us name Johnny. He would sometimes walk me home from school.

11:28 That was Bateman then when we move back I went to water school, which is on the east side of the river over at Campbell and Wilson.

11:38 Another long walk

11:43 Perhaps more adventuresome cuz you crossed the Wilson Avenue Bridge to get there.

11:49 And

11:53 Mrs. Penhale moms would trade off driving if it was raining. We had to come home for lunch in those days.

12:03 They didn't serve lunches at school. It was a long walk. So someone would give us a ride in the moms would trade off doing that Duty school. Yeah.

12:19 Either that or maybe we walk one way if it was nice weather or whatever.

12:26 But miss spending a lot of Cadillac and she don't put the top Cadillac convertible and she put the top down. When was a nice day. That was fun to write in her convertible.

12:38 I see and then I graduated from water school. I went to Lane Tech High School.

12:44 Town on Addison Street

12:47 And to get there, I would either ride the bus I'd walk up the alley to Lawrence Avenue catch the bus to Western Inn in transferring go down Western.

12:58 Or I in really nice weather I would.

13:02 Walk

13:03 Down, California Avenue to Madison

13:07 I don't remember riding my bike to Elaine, but I may have done that once or twice and then I got to be Savvy when I was a junior or senior and I realize that a lot of teachers who lived up in Edgebrook wood.

13:22 Find their way to Lane by coming down Manor Avenue and California. So I was able to get you a ride if I could see a teacher a new car or the L.

13:38 Well, we we head electric buses on Lawrence Avenue. We had street cars. We still have the Green Hornet street cars on Western Avenue.

13:49 Patio

13:51 Did get us there. I mean you could take the L the Western Digital to transfer to get on the trolley. So.

13:59 And then you went to school you said at the University of Illinois. Yes. I started college at the University of Illinois. Navy Pier was a two-year undergraduate campus.

14:11 And so I went there. I was actually there two and a half years cuz I started in January.

14:19 And

14:24 I switched Majors after my first year, so I was able to stay there more than two years and then in

14:33 I See You in September of 58, I guess it was I went down state or maybe was 57.

14:41 I started in 55, okay?

14:47 And how did you get there to school? Same thing take the streetcar line and take that down to Grand Avenue and transfer to the Grand Avenue bus appear in the north half of repair the South half was still up.

15:15 Add to active immiscible Wharf for shipping.

15:19 And the Ravenswood wine

15:22 Have these old wooden cars in those days.

15:28 With a little cupola on transom windows on the top

15:33 So during the winter time it was

15:36 Record of a challenge because

15:39 But he was limited and if it was snowing out the snow would come through those transom door and windows. It didn't close very tightly and in the summer. Yeah, right off and write out on the platform cuz he was a platform at the end of each car with a few no railing around it not be encouraged today. Absolutely. Absolutely. No conductors were very liberal in those days.

16:12 We talked about the Chicago River. How about Horner Park?

16:17 Water park hasn't always been a park that have been a brick yard. And then it was a landfill. Do you have any memory of a pointer Park? Oh, yes. I do. I remember as a kid when I lived on Mozart Street.

16:32 Big wooden fence along Montrose and along California so you couldn't see that was big Gates. I think on Mount Rose Avenue just east of California where trucks would go in and out. But other than that, you couldn't see what was going on inside. So by the time I knew about it, it was a landfill but I know in history had recently was a Clay Pit for they mine the clave to make bricks know about the landfill. No, I don't remember a smell. I don't even know ya and I don't remember anybody complaining about Notre

17:20 And then later

17:24 The

17:25 Landfill was

17:28 Donated to the city or the park district and they tore down the fence and me to park landscape and all that planted trees and put in sidewalk made a big Park in a few years later. They built the field house and you actually had a project that dealt with at the right The Field House was built in the

17:50 The late middle 850s, cuz when I was a student at Navy Pier we had to do a

17:58 Turn paper on a foundation project. So I went over to the construction site of the Warner Park field house and introduced myself and told Mariah.

18:12 Needed to do when they were more than willing to show me around.

18:16 And explain to me about the building how this was built on a landfill so they had to have caissons for this story building but the landfill was compressible material and they couldn't put a building on that so they had to drill down to hard-pan and

18:35 Make a sound foundation. So that was an interesting term project and the contractor remember telling me about how the Landscaping was sinking in spots because landfill is subsiding and some of the sidewalks were already breaking up after a few years and some of the water lines for the water fountains at broken and so do not the best place to make a park in the old landfill. Well, yeah, it was if you took account of the conditions, you could probably do it, right, but obviously they didn't do that.

19:15 They should have given more time for it to settle before they started putting in sidewalks and water pipes.

19:23 You mentioned before in some memories of different people in the neighborhood who spoke foreign languages. There was a German guy that got mad at you. And I know that was a Greek guy and then there was a french guy walking the dog.

19:48 I know there were there were families of different ethnic origin. But for the most part, I remember everybody spoke English and even the the German and the Greek fellow they spoke English but with an accent

20:06 But this one elderly gentleman. He walked his dog up and down the alley and he had a white beard and he always wore a nice Fedora and he's like to talk in French and he told me he was a dinner was a trench teacher and he taught me a few words so I can converse with him in French.

20:30 Because I saw the census research that are are committed is done reveals a wide range of origin countries of origin. I mean much different.

20:44 Some people

20:49 Really was a mix.

20:52 Yeah, but you don't remember.

20:56 Yeah, and that was all kinds of people, you know.

21:00 And I mean they were

21:03 They were all Caucasian that I recall and I don't remember any orientals or blacks or Hispanics.

21:14 Well, there might have been some Hispanic people living in some of the apartment buildings.

21:21 But I I didn't have any Hispanic friends.

21:27 Like I did out in Inglewood.

21:30 You mentioned the vacant Lots. So there were a lot of vacant Lots on.

21:38 They're yes on Corners, you know because of Manor Avenue you had a lot of odd Lots along Manor Avenue triangular-shaped piece of the ground. I suppose they were at least desirable to build on.

21:52 When the neighborhood was developing, but then there was like the Big Lot on Leland by and down by the river which was regular rectangular Lots.

22:02 And I guess when the Depression hit, you know what building stopped and so whatever wasn't built upon it just lay title for many many years until after World War II. How did people use these lot to you played in some of them but do people use them as Gardens or other uses. Ya Head.

22:23 Gardens

22:26 A lot of vegetable gardens

22:29 I remember too many flower gardens just for flower purposes, but

22:35 Healthy vegetable garden

22:45 Yeah, yeah when I was

22:49 Whenever I remember when I was in high school.

22:52 Was when you first time I would see houses going up on vacant Lots.

23:01 And then of course, I was not around the neighborhood as much and not playing in the neighbor's much. So my kind of lost track of the

23:10 Vacant lot inventory in the manner but and then you moved in the early 60s.

23:18 Move out to the suburbs with your family. Was that something that was happening in the neighborhood? Was there a perception that it was time for families to start moving out of the city.

23:29 No, I don't remember that at all.

23:34 I was doing that. Well, actually we

23:39 My wife and I and our two children were living in the house while my mom and dad were traveling and when they came home in the spring they had this motorhome and they were driving around all winter long. They were down in the south.

23:56 And then

24:00 I found it not pleasant to be living with my parents. So I we moved into an apartment over in Ravenswood cuz I worked in Chicago and want to stay in the city.

24:12 And it was until years later after living.

24:18 Ravenswood for a while and in Rogers Park and then it Evanston and we bought some property out in the country and go to the house.

24:29 What was the perception the end of the city where there are issues? I know there was once a proposal for an interstate Expressway over the river and changing a service where you aware of any of those issues as you were growing up or you can remember talk about the expressway.

24:49 Cuz everybody in the neighborhood was worried about their house painting.

24:54 Bought up and

25:00 That's never went anywhere. There was some there was an issue about

25:06 The river to about if a federal project

25:12 I just remember some talk about that mow for my parents. I don't remember any of the details about it.

25:20 The owl service. I don't remember.

25:27 Anything about the Ravenswood Albion change, but could have been

25:33 Big Corner houses

25:35 As a kid, what was your image of those houses who lived in those houses for the big houses off and on the corner?

25:44 Well, that was you know, when I lived on Mozart Street, I noticed that the houses on the corners like that.

25:52 Corner of Wilson and Mozart and then down at the other end of Wilson and Sunnyside. These is bigger Corner Lots with houses. It looked a little bit bigger and it was my perception that

26:06 More affluent or wealthy people lived in the corner houses.

26:11 And

26:14 Lori's about them or stories about the people who lived with no, I don't remember any stories about the stories.

26:24 No.

26:26 You mentioned in in the oral history where their history did she has written mortgage dinners?

26:35 Yes, could you explain what a mortgage dinner is and did your family have one? Oh, yes. We did my

26:46 My love it when my mom and dad bought the house on getting Street.

26:51 I remember it was $14,000 and they took out a mortgage for $8,000 at First Federal Savings down on Dearborn and Madison.

27:02 And that was a big deal and my mother always paid the bills and kept the family accounts and

27:12 She would always talk about pain in a little bit more each month on the mortgage want to pay it off, you know, it was.

27:19 Back in those days. That wasn't a good thing to be under so

27:23 And then when the mortgage was paid off, they had a big party and inviting a lot of friends over and put the mortgage papers in the fireplace and let him know the match. It was a big deal and wasn't just your family.

27:39 Well, it happened regularly. Yeah, I mean that in the back in those days that was it was a big deal though on your own house debt-free and only it was a moment.

27:53 What's the first thing that you tell people your friends about Ravenswood Manor if you run into somebody and they say where'd you grow up in a neighborhood? How do you describe?

28:05 Well, I described it as a very Progressive neighborhood.

28:13 Most of the people seem to be well educated it was a dry community and you could each Precinct could vote itself dry and that's what the precincts that compose the manner did. They weren't any liquor establishments along the north side of Montrose or the South side of Lawrence and you know, you had to travel a little bit to buy liquor and

28:51 Are we also tell people it was a community of it was well-planned the

28:59 The houses were

29:02 The developer had covenants. I believe in the in the Deeds of the houses where people couldn't you know you had in your house had to be of a certain size and so forth until I knew you couldn't just

29:15 Tear down your house and build an apartment building. So

29:19 And I believe that was you know, what about the same time when zoning was just coming into Vogue in the city's so it was pretty Progressive.

29:30 Any sense how the neighborhood has changed over time? I mean from the neighborhood. Do you remember as a kid to what you see today?

29:40 I know I over the years. I've gone through the neighborhood several times and it looks pretty much the same.

29:51 So he's a little older and well trees are along a lot. Some trees are gone in O and Elm trees.

29:58 I got taken down by the other trees were planted in her place coarsely the vacant Lots or not here anymore. They've all been built upon and

30:12 I don't know anybody if a couple people live in this neighborhood so I can say anything about the makeup of the neighborhood of the people live here, but

30:23 Kilz still feel like home and away.

30:29 Yes.

30:33 Might know of

30:35 Could you stay a little bit about her and her time in the manner and

30:43 Her life is an artist by two sisters and Ellen was the oldest of the two. He was 10 years older than me. And when we lived on Mozart street, she was in high school.

31:00 She had started at Hyde Park High School before we moved into the manor and so she finished two years there and then when she move she became a junior at Roosevelt High School.

31:12 And finished high school at Roosevelt.

31:16 And she was she had an artistic talent.

31:21 And she had been taking classes at the school of the Art Institute while she was in high school on Saturdays. And then when she graduated from Roosevelt, she got a full scholarship at the school of the Art Institute. She was recommended by her art teacher

31:40 And she was also a very

31:45 Prereq, how does the number of her craft and she had a summer job when year were my dad worked in a Foundry Equipment company in the mechanical Department in she was a draft person and learn mechanical drawing so that helped her.

32:06 Be more precise artist I guess and

32:10 So she finished at the school of the arts institute. She was as a young woman. She was very Progressive in in women in the Arts and helping some of the independent Young artist to form.

32:29 Galleries so that they could display their work because some of the

32:35 How old time Galleria didn't cater to the young artists and and then?

32:43 She was so when we lived on getting Street.

32:47 She had finished her schooling the Art Institute and was going out to the University of Iowa to get a masters degree in printmaking.

33:00 And

33:02 But at times she was married.

33:05 And after Iowa, she had a Fulbright scholarship and studied at the University of London for a year.

33:14 And over the years she had become a renowned and

33:22 Has a head

33:24 Hey, man, you find out if you Google her name and you find all kinds of stuff about my sister.

33:36 She she did she use the Manor Inn in summer for work. Whoever she lives she did the same remember, she had a charcoal drawing of the Year Francisco. Which I happen to have for a long time and I gave it to the people that bought our house on getting street. So it stayed in the manor.

34:03 And she

34:05 She did.

34:07 Remember she would make a Christmas card for the family every year using the house. I'm getting Street as a as a

34:16 Graphic image for the Christmas card or something about the house.

34:23 And the house I'm getting Street was it was a three-story house and when we moved in she had the third floor. It was a finished 3rd floor and my mom always said we bought the house for Ellen because it was her studio and my mother wasn't very happy when she got married and moved away. But so be at when she was there. Yeah.

34:46 And she was sometimes have parties in the house whether I'm getting straighter on Manor on Mozart Street, you know where her friends in the Art Institute always impressed me as kind of a scruffy lot and I'm not so sure my mom and dad were happy to have him.

35:07 In the house banging around put the Cowboys had a good time leave any artwork behind. Well, yeah, I remember one time. We had a party in the basement at Mozart Street and her she and her friends came in and they clean up the basement and they whitewashed all the walls and then they painted on the walls painted circus figures.

35:33 I don't know if they're still there or not, but I do remember vividly that.

35:39 One painting was on the chimney of a strong man with a leopard leotard, you know and bulging muscles and dumbbells and personal by base of the chimney. There was a little access door for taking out the ashes and if you took the door off on the backside of the door, there was a little red heart painted.

36:05 No idea that still there. I don't know if it's still there then, any characters that we forgot to talk about or

36:18 No, not that I can think of I mean characters there were a few in the neighborhood across the alley with the elderly man with two young strong sons and one side the alarm.

36:34 Convertible the other son had an old Roadster and they were just like night and day and

36:40 And then the people across the alley moved here from Denver. They just couldn't stand the weather in Chicago complaint about it all the time.

36:50 And then the people that lived next door to us to the West Was A.

36:55 Elderly man and woman who had been a city electrician and then I hit a bridge tender and he had a basement full of junk. His wife is always complaining about the junk in the basement and

37:10 I found it very colorful.

37:13 Great story. Thank you very much. My pleasure.