State Street looking north from Randolph Street, Chicago. (1911)

State Street looking north from Randolph  Street, Chicago. (1911)

Leavitt's Delicatessen and Restaurant, 1320 South Halsted at the corner of Maxwell Street, Chicago. (1920s-1960s.)

Leavitt's had been selling liquor from the very moment Prohibition ended. A large cigar counter divided the deli and the restaurant. Sam Leavitt and his five brothers opened up after getting a loan from the owner of "Sinai Kosher Sausage Company." Terms of the loan included using only Sinai products.

"In 1933, Prohibition Law was repealed," Sol Leavitt (Sam Leavitt's son) wrote. "The long counter that was a soda fountain and all the grocery sections were remodeled into a long mahogany bar opposite the deli counter. Sol was 18 years old when Prohibition ended. "I remember the first night that beer was sold. The bar sold many barrels that night. Four hundred glasses of draught, ten ounces each, per barrel, retailing at 10¢ a glass. The deli counter was kept busy selling sandwiches for the drinkers. 10¢ for salami sandwiches and 15¢ for corn beef sandwiches. 

The bartender would take the order for the sandwiches and send them across to the deli counter by homemade wire trolley cars. Sandwiches were put on plates and onto the car, made to hold three at a time, and pushed across with one push. These trolley baskets were made by our expert deli man Max Karm, who had been trained in Russia in sheet metal work. New customers were amazed by the contraptions. Karm had several going across overhead."

Sol's father, Sam, died in 1945. He was 59 years old. Sol and his brothers would eventually take over the business and carry on. Sol married Shirley in 1947, and the deli and restaurant remained a Maxwell Street landmark. The business remained on Maxwell street when a new owner, Jim Stefanovic, leased the property in 1973 and operated under the name, "Jim's Original" until the wrecking ball swung. 

INDEX TO MY ILLINOIS AND CHICAGO FOOD & RESTAURANT ARTICLES.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

#JewishThemed #JewishLife

The History of Chicago's Air Quality.

Like most large cities, Chicago has a history of poor air quality. As it industrialized, Chicago relied on the dirty soft coal of southern Illinois for power and heat. Burned in boiler rooms, locomotives, steel mills, and domestic furnaces, the ubiquitous coal created an equally ubiquitous smoke. Soot soiled everything in the city, ruining furniture, merchandise, and building facades. Chicago legislated against dense smoke in 1881, but residents and visitors continued to complain about choking clouds and filthy soot. In addition to smoke, the numerous industries surrounding the slaughterhouses produced foul odors and dangerous chemical emissions, further diminishing air quality.

Coal burning steamer on the Chicago River.

Undoubtedly the poor air increased the severity of several pulmonary diseases, including asthma and pneumonia. Perhaps second only to Pittsburgh in smoke pollution at the opening of the twentieth century, Chicago gained a national reputation for its terrible air, but it also became a leader in regulation. In the early 1900s, a movement to force railroad electrification focused on the Illinois Central's waterfront line and kept the smoke issue in the news. Still, air quality did not significantly improve until coal use began to decline after World War II.

In the early 20th century, private, single-family, two and three flat residence were instructed to burn their waste in the small concrete garbage incinerators that the city constructed in the alleys behind each property as a solution to growing landfill issues. Garbage trucks would open the cooled incinerators and shovel out the ashes. Larger incinerators used by schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings.

In 1959 the city created the Department of Air Pollution Control. The new department investigated all types of emissions and suggested regulations for several previously ignored sources of pollution, including burning refuse and leaves. 

Public concern for air quality heightened after a 1962 disaster killed hundreds of London residents, and by 1964 Chicago received more than six thousand citizen air pollution complaints per year. As with the early movement to control smoke, the new activism focused on the potential negative health effects of impure air. Not surprisingly, the Loop, the Calumet Region, and northern Lake County, Indiana, were the most polluted districts in the metropolitan area.

In 1967 the U.S. Public Health Service determined that only New York City's air was more polluted than Chicago's. Impelled by citizen activism and new federal regulations in the 1970s, the city attempted to control the largest polluters, including the massive South Works steel plant. Even as these efforts began to reap benefits, however, the continuing suburbanization and auto dependence of the metropolitan area meant that auto emissions would plague the city for decades to come.

By the 1990s, a decline in heavy industry and effective regulation of auto emissions combined to significantly improve Chicago's air. Chicago no longer ranked among the nation's most heavily polluted cities.

By David Stradling
Edited by Neil Gale, Ph.D.