Lost Communities of Chicago - Mopetown

Mopetown was a tiny neighborhood tucked in between the Bridgeport and McKinley Park neighborhoods. Mopetown's borders were from Ashland to Hoyne Avenues and from 31st Street to 33rd Street.

Mopetown grew up as a collection of cottages inside a triangle surrounded by the tracks of the Santa Fe and the Chicago and Alton railroad lines.

The residents were a mix of Irish, German, Italian, Polish, English and Bohemian. The name Mopetown came from a German family name that somehow was translated to "Mope." 

Mopetown was one of the last places in the city to get paved streets and sidewalks. The neighborhood was impossible to find. Pizza delivery? Forget it! Mopetown was isolated. Wolcott was the only street that gained access to the neighborhood.

No one ever worried about their electric bill because they never got one.
Just about everyone had a 'jumper,' an illegal tap to the utility pole.

The death blow to Mopetown came from the Stevenson Expressway (I-55) which wiped out much of it. The City of Chicago condemned the houses, the families moved away, they tore the houses down, leveled the neighborhood and built the expressway. After the expressway was built, there were six houses left. Then there were four. Then there were two.

"I remember Mopetown with good memories, oh, yes, I do," said Edith Vitalo, a South Sider who lived there on 31st Place as a child. "It was a desolate area out there, past Archer by the tracks, with all prairie around it. We were all as poor as church mice and everyone knew everybody else. Nobody had nothing, so there were no jealousies. We all shared what we had."

"During the tough times, during the Depression and Prohibition, a lot of them made ends meet by making booze -- white lightning," said Hopkins' wife, Janet. Her uncle, Dennis Starr, a local Republican organizer, held political meetings in the back of Funk's Pool Hall and was called 'The Mayor of Mopetown.' 

"My family was quite poor then when we'd go down to Mopetown to see Uncle Dennis and Aunt Ellie Starr," Janet Hopkins said. "You could always get something to eat down there. I remember my Aunt Ellie would be standing in the kitchen of her small cottage over a black fire-burning stove. She'd be wearing her apron and Uncle Dennis' shoes, and there'd be two big pots cooking on the stove. One was homemade soup and one was homemade white lightning. The houses that sold the hooch down there were called 'blind pigs.' Uncle Dennis ran one, and you never knew who'd you meet in Uncle Dennis' house down in Mopetown."

"It was an easy place to raise kids and a great little place to live," said Mary Wilkens, whose tidy house belies the expressway traffic that rumbles past her front door. "My windows were always open, my door was always open and the kids could sleep outside on the porch. Everyone had big families, everyone was poor and everyone watched out for each other."

"No one in Mopetown went hungry or went cold during the tough times," Mary Wilkens said. "We all walked the track," she said, referring to Mopetowners' habit of going over to the railroad tracks and getting coal that fell off the railroad cars [to heat their homes]. They also would go over to the railroad yard where the train employees habitually threw out sacks of fruit and vegetables because there would be some spoilage.

Russell Wilkens and his wife, Mary -- the last family -- in the last house, in Mopetown has finally moved out in 1990. The Wilken's family had to. One side of their simple brick-frame home at 1845 West 31st Place simply crumbled and collapsed. The old place couldn't remain standing any longer.

Understandably, Mary Wilkens, 71, the last housewife remaining in Mopetown, left with tears in her eyes. "We've lived here in Mopetown for 60 years," she said. "I loved it down there. We had all sorts of privacy. We were the hidden neighborhood. The kids could run free, you could move and breathe and never lock a door. It was paradise even though nobody was rich. But it's over now. Mopetown has disappeared into a dream and I'm still alive. I'm lost not living down here anymore."

So that's it for Mopetown. It doesn't exist anymore... except in historical stories like this one.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Frankenstein's Bar, 2235 West Howard Street, Chicago, Illinois.

Frankenstein Lunch Lab & Boogie Castle was a few doors west of the Fish Keg.

I went there most Thursday nights in 1979-80. I got in even though the legal drinking age for beer and wine in Illinois had just changed from 21 years old to 19 years old.

I'd often stop at the Fish Keg, pick up a pound of fried shrimp, fried perch or some other delicious fresh fried fish, 1/2 order of French fries and go into Frankenstein's, sit down at a table or the bar and order a beer with dinner. YUMMY!

They had a nice-sized dance floor, a pinball machine, and played good music.

VISIT OUR FRANKENSTEIN BAR SOUVENIR SHOP

INDEX TO MY ILLINOIS AND CHICAGO FOOD & RESTAURANT ARTICLES.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

"The Magic Door" TV Show, a part of Chicagolands Sunday Morning Programming. (1962–1982)

The Magic Door (aka The Magic Door Television Theatre) was a Jewish educational television series that provided kiruv (outreach) to Jewish children in the Chicago, Illinois, metropolitan area.

Tiny Tov and his Acorn House in Torahville.

Temmie Gilbert was an inspirational theater teacher, arts patron, and civil rights activist who won three Emmys for her TV work, one of them for producing one of Chicago's longest-running children's programs, "The Magic Door."

Temmie Gilbert

The goal of the show was teaching without preaching. The show was focused more on Jewish culture. The idea was to give children good moral values by having themes from jealousy to litterbugs. Ninety-five percent of the audience wasn't Jewish. The funny thing is that countless non-Jewish Chicagoans loved the show without knowing what they were watching.

The half-hour show was produced by the Chicago Board of Rabbis, premiered on January 1, 1962, and ran weekly until the 1980s. It aired at 8:30 AM (floating between 7 AM and 9 AM, depending on the year) on Sunday mornings on WBBM-TV Channel 2.

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While it's difficult to pinpoint a single "creator" for "The Magic Door," the combined efforts of Irv Kaplan, Henry Mamet, Mindy Soble, Alan Secher, the Chicago Board of Rabbis, and WBBM-TV all contributed to its success and lasting impact.

There were two main theme songs for the Magic Door. The first was based on an Israeli Children's song, "A Room Zoom Zoom."

"Ah room zoom zoom, ah room zoom zoom, gily gily gily gily gily a sa sa. Come through the Magic Door with me, just say these words and wondrous things you'll see."

The second theme song was written by Charles Gerber and was set to a melody from Beethoven's "Pastorale" Symphony No. 6:

"Open, come open the Magic Door with me, with your imagination there's so much we can see. There is a doorway that leads to a place. I'll find my way by the smile on your face."

Set in "Torahville," the main characters of the series included "Tiny Tov" (a character "reduced" to appear as a kind of miniature elf) and his cousin "Tina Tova." Tiny lived in a nicely decorated house made of an acorn; the entrance was called "The Magic Door." 

Before Tiny would enter his dwelling, he would sing "A Room Zoom Zoom." Go ahead, sing it loud and proud!

In addition to Tiny and Tina, there were other puppet characters, including Boobie Beaver, Icky Witch, Rabbi and Mrs. Moreh, Deedee, Max the Mailbox, Rumplemyer Dragon, Bunny Rabbit, Buddy, Worthington Warlock, Scrunch, and human characters also participated. All of the characters were Jewish except Reverend Raymond from nearby Chapeltown.

Tiny Tov would travel back to biblical times in the series' early days by riding on his Magic Feather. Tiny would say, "Aleph bet, gimel hay, magic feather, move away!" Later on, the program evolved into moral topics. A "Hebrew Word of the Day" would be related to whatever values were taught. Each week, Tiny would educate children on Jewish history, sharing stories from the Torah and discussing Jewish tradition. Every episode would include a brief Hebrew lesson, stepping through the Aleph-Bet (Hebrew alphabet).

The character of Tiny Tov was created by Irv Kaplan, who later moved to Israel and was instrumental in creating Israeli Public and Educational Television. Only one Tina Tova was played by Fran (Uditsky) Moss.

There were three Tiny Tovs in all. From 1970, Tiny Tov was portrayed by Emmy-nominated actor Jerry (Jerome) Loeb until he moved to California in 1973. The second Tiny Tov was played by Charles Gerber, who also created the song lyrics. The third Tiny Tov was played by (Rabbi) Joe Black.

The Magic Door Theme Song

WBBM TV The Magic Door 25th Anniversary Show.

Rabbi Joe Black as Tiny Tov on "The Magic Door." Circa 1979

[runtime 00:08:08]

I received an email on May 11, 2019, from Marty Zitlin, co-producer of The Magic Door show from 1977 to 1981. He included this picture of their 1980-81 Chicago Area Television Emmy Award for The Magic Door Series.

 Copyright © 2017, Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

The History of Isaac Woolf, "Newsboy's Friend," and Owner of Woolf’s Clothing Store, Chicago, Illinois.

Isaac Woolf was born in London, England on January 4, 1852. He came to the U.S. as a child with his parents and they settled in Lafayette, Indiana. His family was poor, and he began his business life as a newsboy.

From that, he went to stripping tobacco, but he found time to attend school and also to enroll at a business college.

He spent several years in Cincinnati learning the clothing business and then came to Chicago where he was employed as a retail salesman by the Barbe Bros. clothing house. In 1880 he embarked on the clothing business on his own account with his brothers at 183 W. Madison Street in Chicago.

In 1896 he opened his establishment at 160 S. State Street. His brothers Benjamin, Edward, and Harry took employment at Woolf's Clothing Store.

Isaac Woolf decided it was time to give something back.  He decided to provide a full Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings for any and all newsboys in Chicago who wanted to attend. 

The tradition began in 1882 when owner Isaac Woolf invited about a hundred newsboys to join him for Thanksgiving dinner. Called “newsies,” the boys were employed as the main distributors of newspapers to the general public. Typically earning about thirty cents a day, they were wretchedly poor, often sleeping on the streets. 

Having been a penniless newsboy himself, Woolf understood their plight and that of others who were impoverished. Paying for the meals out of his own pocket, the kind-hearted retailer expanded his annual dinner to include other poverty-stricken families and destitute elderly couples, as the ranks of the poor swelled during the severe economic depression called the Panic of 1893.

By 1895, Woolf was providing over 10,000 dinners each year to those in need on Thanksgiving evening. Everyone was welcome.

On March 17, 1898, Isaac Woolf opened his grandest store yet at the southwest corner of State and Monroe, Chicago. He billed his store as "The store with a horseshoe over the door and the Palmer House over the way."

In the afternoon of November 28, 1900 it was unseasonably cold; the temperature had already dropped into the teens when the store clerks sprang into action. In what had become a well-orchestrated ritual, they stored away the goods and removed the counters from the main floor. Next, the tables were brought in, covered with marbled oilcloth, and decorated with flowers, fruit, and pyramids of small cakes. After carefully arranging a thousand place settings, reportedly with as much precision as you would find at a fine hotel, the clerks donned white aprons and jackets just before opening the doors at 6 PM, ready to serve old-fashioned turkey dinners to the multitudes who would begin filing in from the frigid weather.

For twenty-four years Woolf, president of Woolf's Clothing Store closed early on the day before Thanksgiving, as it had done for years, in order to get ready to serve a holiday dinner for the poor of Chicago. 

Woolf died after 2 days of sickness on October 21, 1906. Woolf Clothing Company was in trouble without Isaac at the helm. Within two years, Woolf Clothing Company filed for bankruptcy.

Chicago Examiner, December 31, 1908

This impressive monument marking his burial place can be found in Section L of Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Legal Alcohol During the Prohibition Years in Illinois and the Country.

Prohibition began on January 16, 1920, when the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect. Most people think that Prohibition meant there was no legal alcohol. There were lots of exceptions. And those exceptions were quickly abused.

For example:
1. Churches and synagogues could buy and serve sacramental wine at Communion or with a certification from a Rabbi. Suddenly, a lot more wine was being purchased by religious organizations. The number of Rabbis also increased dramatically.

2. Hospitals could order alcohol for cleaning purposes. The hospitals that used to order rubbing alcohol by the quart now ordered it by the boxcar. (Note: there was a way to chemically change rubbing alcohol into drinking alcohol.)

3. Patent medicine had always had a large percentage of alcohol. That percentage grew larger. And physicians were prescribing a lot more medicine. Sometimes doctors got a couple dollars kickback for every prescription they wrote for a certain liquor.

Men working in a storage facility surrounded by Old Grand-Dad Whiskey and Old McBrayer Whiskey boxes, bottled by the American Medicinal Spirits Company, Chicago, 1933. The A.M.S Company were producers of "medicinal whiskey" during the era of Prohibition.

Whiskey could be obtained by prescription from medical doctors. The labels clearly warned that it was strictly for medicinal purposes and any other uses were illegal. Still, doctors freely wrote prescriptions, and drug-stores filled them without question, so the number of "patients" increased dramatically.

4. The industrial use of alcohol was still legal. Many industries needed a lot more alcohol than they used to.

5. People could legally make hard cider, beer, or wine at home for home use only, so Pabst and Anheuser Busch sold malt extract and other products for home brewing. California grape growers sold wine grapes, which had never fetched more than $30 to $105 per ton. The price spiked for a short time in 1924 to $375 ($6,115 today) per ton!

5a. Vine-Glo was a grape concentrate brick product (aka wine brick) sold in the United States during Prohibition by Fruit Industries Ltd, from 1929. It was sold as a grape concentrate to make grape juice but the packaging included a specific warning that told people how 'not' to make wine from from the brick. Watch the video below.

Wine Bricks & Prohibition

6. People could still drink any alcohol they had leftover from pre-prohibition days. Knowing that many individuals and private clubs stocked many years' worth of alcohol in anticipation.

7. Alcohol was legal on ships that were outside the 3-mile limit. Needless to say, this technicality was exploited by everyone, including the State-owned shipping line. 

Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.