Polish Downtown (Chicago) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Polish Downtown was Chicago’s oldest and most prominent Polish settlement. Polish Downtown was the political, cultural and social capital of not only Poles in Chicago

Poles in Chicago

Chicago Polonia, refers to both immigrant Poles and Americans of Polish heritage living in Chicago, Illinois. They are a part of worldwide Polonia, the proper term for the Polish Diaspora outside of Poland. Poles in Chicago have contributed to the economic, social and cultural well-being of Chicago...

but Polish American

Polish American

A Polish American , is a citizen of the United States of Polish descent. There are an estimated 10 million Polish Americans, representing about 3.2% of the population of the United States...

s throughout North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

as well. Centered around Polonia Triangle

Polonia Triangle

Polonia Triangle , also known as the Polish Triangle, is located in West Town, in what had been the historical Polish Downtown area of Chicago. It is bound by Division, Ashland and Milwaukee Avenue. A single-tiered fountain made of black iron with a bowl about nine feet in diameter is installed...

at the intersection of Division

Division Street (Chicago)

Division Street is a major east-west street in Chicago, Illinois, located at 1200 North . Division Street begins in the Gold Coast neighborhood near Lake Shore Drive, passes through Polonia Triangle at Milwaukee Avenue into Wicker Park and continues to Chicago's city limits and into the city's...

, Ashland and Milwaukee Avenue

Milwaukee Avenue (Chicago)

Milwaukee Avenue is a major diagonal street in the city of Chicago and the northern suburbs. True to its name, it once led to the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Starting with a short section at N. Canal and W. Lake Streets, it begins in earnest at the corner of N Desplaines and W. Kinzie Streets...

, the headquarters for almost every major Polish organization in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

was clustered within its vicinity, beginning with the Polish National Alliance

Polish National Alliance

The Polish National Alliance is the largest and one of the oldest Polish fraternal organizations in the United States, founded on 15 February 1880 in Philadelphia under the influence of Polish patriot Agaton Giller. Its first president was Juliusz Andrzejkowicz.The PNA founded a number of...

to the Polish Daily News
Dziennik Zwiazkowy (Polish Daily News)
Dziennik Związkowy or Polish Daily News, is the largest and the oldest Polish language newspaper in the United States. Established in 1908 in Chicago as an organ of the Polish National Alliance from whose headquarters at Polonia Triangle in Chicago's Polish Downtown the paper was originally printed...

.

Description

Located on the city's near northwest side, the area of Polish Downtown shifted and expanded over time as Polish immigration to Chicago exploded along with other Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

ans amid Chicago's population boom in the late nineteenth century.

Historian Edward R. Kantowicz gave the following boundaries for Polish Downtown: Racine Avenue to the east, Fullerton Avenue to the North, Kedzie Avenue to the West and Grand Avenue to the South. The historian Dominic Pacyga notes that this district was not exclusively Polish, and that Italians, Ukrainians

Ukrainians

Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

, and Jews each possessed their own enclaves within the area. The Polish character of the neighborhood visibly predominated over others in the area, as there was an extensive network of Polish churches, businesses, cultural institutions and fraternal organizations.

The following neighborhoods of Chicago were once a part of Polish Downtown:

Pulaski Park, Chicago
River West, Chicago
Bucktown, Chicago
Wicker Park, Chicago
Wicker Park, Chicago
Wicker Park is a Chicago neighborhood northwest of the Loop, south of Bucktown and west of Pulaski Park within West Town. Charles and Joel Wicker purchased of land along Milwaukee Avenue in 1870 and laid out a subdivision with a mix of lot sizes surrounding a park...
East Village, Chicago
Noble Square, Chicago

History

The beginnings of the "Polish Patch" that eventually became Polish Downtown are traced back to Anthony Smarzewski-Schermann, who settled in the area in 1851. John Joseph Parot described the area at the time in his book Polish Catholics in Chicago:
This rustic idyll would change dramatically as Chicago's population would grow exponentially following the American Civil War, with increased immigration from Europe. Fueled by the dramatic expansion of industry as well as the city's central role as a transportation hub, immigrants, predominately from Eastern and Southern Europe flooded into Chicago. By 1890, half of all of Chicago's Poles

Poles in Chicago

lived in Polish Downtown. The centrality of this area as the site of initial settlement for the large numbers of newly arriving Polish immigrants was reinforced after the first Polish parish, St. Stanislaus Kostka, was founded in 1867 and Holy Trinity Polish Mission

Holy Trinity Polish Mission

Holy Trinity Church - historic church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. It is a prime example of the so-called 'Polish Cathedral style' of churches, in both its opulence and grand scale. Along with such monumental religious edifices as St. Mary of the Angels, St. Hedwig's or St...

a few years later in 1872. Together the churches made the largest parish in the world, with a combined membership of over 60,000 in the early 1900s. Polish Downtown was in every way "a classic ghetto"; in 1898, eleven contiguous precincts, which contained the heart of the neighborhood at Polonia Triangle

Polonia Triangle

, were 86.3% Polish, with one of these precincts reported as 99.9% Polish with only one non-Pole among 2,500 inhabitants.

Along with Holy Trinity Polish Mission

Holy Trinity Polish Mission

, St. Stanislaus Kostka

St. Stanislaus Kostka in Chicago

The St. Stanislaus Kostka Church is a historic church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago located in the Pulaski Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois.St...

was the center of Chicago's Polish community. The neighborhood became called "Kostkaville". Much of this was due to Saint Stanislaus Kostka's first pastor, Reverend Vincent Michael Barzynski, who is described as as “one of the greatest organizers of Polish immigrants in Chicago and America”. Barzynski was responsible for founding 23 Polish parishes in Chicago, along with six elementary schools, two high schools, a college, orphanages, newspapers, and St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital, as well as the national headquarters of the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America

Polish Roman Catholic Union of America

The Polish Roman Catholic Union of America is the oldest Polish American organization in the United States. Its history spans notable periods in the development of the Polish American ethnic group, from the time of early settlement by immigrants from Poland through their development of ethnic...

.

Polish immigration into the area accelerated during and after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

; as many as 150,000 Poles are estimated to have arrived between 1939 and 1959 as displaced persons. Poles clustered in established ethnic enclaves such as this one, which offered shops, restaurants, and banks where people spoke their language. Division Street

Division Street (Chicago)

was referred to as Polish Broadway, "teeming with flophouses and gambling dens and polka clubs and workingman’s bars like the Gold Star and Phyllis’ Musical Inn".

Cultural significance

The historian Edward R. Kantowicz wrote in his essay, "Polish Chicago: Survival through Solidarity", that "Polish Downtown was to Chicago Poles

Poles in Chicago

what the Lower East Side

Lower East Side

The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....

was to New York's Jews." Victoria Granacki in Polish Downtown wrote, "Nearly all Polish undertakings of any consequence in the U.S. during that time either started or were directed from this part of Chicago's near northwest side".

Polish Downtown, and particularly Pulaski Park served as Chicago Congressman Dan Rostenkowski

Dan Rostenkowski

Daniel David "Dan" Rostenkowski was a United States Representative from Illinois, serving from 1959 to 1995. Raised in a blue-collar neighborhood on the Northwest Side of Chicago, Rostenkowski rose to become one of the most powerful legislators in Washington. He was a member of the Democratic Party...

's base of operations. The family still owns the building opposite St. Stanislaus Kostka church

St. Stanislaus Kostka in Chicago

The St. Stanislaus Kostka Church is a historic church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago located in the Pulaski Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois.St...

at 1372 Evergreen from which he ran his operations.

Polish Downtown was also significant in the literary output of Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren was an American writer.-Early life:Algren was born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Goldie and Gerson Abraham. At the age of three he moved with his parents to Chicago, Illinois where they lived in a working-class, immigrant neighborhood on the South Side...

who lived in the area. Polish bars that Algren frequented for his notorious gambling, such as the Bit of Poland on Milwaukee Avenue

Milwaukee Avenue (Chicago)

figured in such stories such as Never Come Morning and The Man With the Golden Arm. Algren, who famously compared Ashland Avenue to "a bridge between Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

and Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

" had a complex if not troubled relationship with Chicago Polonia. His second wife Amanda Kontowicz was Polish, and would listen to old Polish love songs sung by an elderly waitress while gambling. His writing about the area's Polish American

Polish American

A Polish American , is a citizen of the United States of Polish descent. There are an estimated 10 million Polish Americans, representing about 3.2% of the population of the United States...

underclass, against the background of prevalent anti-immigrant xenophobia

Xenophobia

Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...

, was taken by Poles as blatant Anti-Polonism. His book Never Come Morning was banned for decades from the Chicago Public Library

Chicago Public Library

The Chicago Public Library is the public library system that serves the City of Chicago in Illinois. It consists of 79 branches, including a central library, two regional libraries, and branches distributed throughout the city....

system because of the massive outcry against it by Chicago Polonia. Later efforts to commemorate Algren brought up old controversies: for example, when the city proposed renaming a portion of Evergreen Street, where Algren lived, as Algren Street, and, more recently, when the Polonia Triangle

Polonia Triangle

was to be renamed in Algren's honor.

Polish Downtown also figures in John Guzlowski

John Guzlowski

-Personal life:John Guzlowski was born the son of parents who met in a slave labor camp in Nazi Germany. His mother Tekla Hanczarek came from a small community west of Lviv in what was then Poland where her father was a forest warden. His father Jan was born in a farming community north of Poznań...

's poetry. His book Lightning and Ashes chronicles the author's experiences growing up among the immigrants and DP living there. He heard and saw Jewish hardware store clerks who had Auschwitz tattoos on their wrists, Polish Cavalry

Polish cavalry

The Polish cavalry can trace its origins back to the days of Medieval mounted knights. Poland had always been a country of flatlands and fields and mounted forces operate well in this environment...

officers who mourned for their dead horses, and Polish women who had walked from Siberia to Iran to escape the Russians.

Religion

Polish Downtown is perhaps most noted for its opulent "Polish Cathedrals

Polish Cathedral style

The Polish Cathedral architectural style is a North American genre of Catholic church architecture found throughout the Great Lakes and Middle Atlantic regions as well as in parts of New England...

", magnificently ornate structures that dazzle many of those driving through the area along the Kennedy Expressway

Kennedy Expressway

The John F. Kennedy Expressway is a long highway that travels northwest from the Chicago Loop to O'Hare International Airport. The expressway is named for the 35th U.S. President, John F. Kennedy. The Interstate 90 portion of the Kennedy is a part of the much longer I-90...

. The buildings express the religious zeal and faith of the large immigrant Polish congregations. The combined membership of the exclusively Polish Roman Catholic parishes of Polish Downtown together had over 100,000 parishioners in 1918, all located within a one-mile radius.

Although most of these are Roman Catholic churches, a schism that escalated into violence by parishioners of St. Hedwig's Church

St. Hedwig's in Chicago

St. Hedwig's Church is an historic parish church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago located in Chicago, Illinois. Constructed in traditional grand Polish architecture and design, it is one of the many monumental Polish churches visible from the Kennedy Expressway...

led to the founding of an independent Polish Catholic parish. This parish eventually joined the Polish National Catholic Church

Polish National Catholic Church

The Polish National Catholic Church is a Christian church founded and based in the United States by Polish-Americans who were Roman Catholic. The PNCC is a breakaway Catholic Church in dialogue with the Catholic Church; it seeks full communion with the Holy See although it differs theologically...

. Raised to the status of a cathedral, the parish erected a new building designed by famed architect J.G Steinbach in 1930. The Cathedral of All Saints

Former All Saints Cathedral, Chicago

The former Cathedral of All Saints of the Polish National Catholic Church in Chicago, referred to in Polish as Katedra Wszystkich Świętych is a historic church building located in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States...

still stands today, now owned and occupied by the Presbyterian Church in America

Presbyterian Church in America

The Presbyterian Church in America is an evangelical Protestant Christian denomination, the second largest Presbyterian church body in the United States after the Presbyterian Church . The PCA professes a strong commitment to evangelism, missionary work, and Christian education...

, which bought the building in 1993.

Decline

In the 1960s Polish Downtown began to change radically. Completion of the Kennedy Expressway

Kennedy Expressway

in 1960, whose construction had displaced many residents, disrupted the sustaining network of Polish-American churches, settlement houses, and neighborhood groups. Additionally Puerto Ricans

Puerto Ricans in Chicago

Puerto Ricans in Chicago are people living in Chicago who have citizenship or ancestral connections to the island of Puerto Rico. They have contributed to the economic, social and cultural well-being of Chicago for more than seventy years.- History :...

and other Latinos displaced by urban renewal in Old Town

Old Town, Chicago

Old Town is a neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, bounded by the Ogden Ave. right-of-way on the northwest, Larrabee Street on the west, Clybourn Avenue on the southwest and Division Street on the south and Clark Street on the east and northeast. It spans across eastern parts of the community areas...

and Lincoln Park

Lincoln Park, Chicago

Lincoln Park, is one of the 77 community areas on Chicago, Illinois North Side, USA. Named after Lincoln Park, a vast park bordering Lake Michigan, the community area is anchored by the Lincoln Park Zoo and DePaul University...

began moving in. In 1960 Latinos comprised less than 1 percent of West Town

West Town, Chicago

West Town, located in Chicago, Illinois, northwest of the Loop, is one of 77 officially designated Chicago community areas. Its name may refer to Western Avenue, which was the city's western boundary at the time of West Town's settlement, but more likely was a convenient abstraction by the creators...

’s population, but by 1970 that proportion had increased to 39 percent. At the same time, more established ethnic Poles moved out to newer housing in the suburbs, following World War II and the housing boom.

Downtown banks redlined

Redlining

Redlining is the practice of denying, or increasing the cost of services such as banking, insurance, access to jobs, access to health care, or even supermarkets to residents in certain, often racially determined, areas. The term "redlining" was coined in the late 1960s by John McKnight, a...

West Town

West Town, Chicago

for much of the mid-20th century. Real estate values plummeted as landlords neglected their buildings and speculators sat on vacant land and abandoned property. Small businesses along Chicago Avenue closed. The arson rate in the vicinity was so high that in 1976 Mayor Richard J. Daley

Richard J. Daley

Richard Joseph Daley served for 21 years as the mayor and undisputed Democratic boss of Chicago and is considered by historians to be the "last of the big city bosses." He played a major role in the history of the Democratic Party, especially with his support of John F...

convened a task force to address the crisis. The Polish exodus out of the neighborhood followed the Kennedy Expressway

Kennedy Expressway

into the suburbs. The Northwest Community Organization was founded in 1962 to stem white flight

White flight

White flight has been a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. It was first seen as...

by promoting home ownership and integration between longtime ethnic Eastern European residents and the newcomers. The institutional infrastructure that held Ukrainian Village together during the 1970s and 1980s was lacking in East Village. Much of the Polish population had moved northwestward to Avondale

Avondale, Chicago

Avondale is one of 77 officially designated Chicago, Illinois community areas. It is located on the Northwest Side of Chicago. Its main borders are the North Branch of the Chicago River, Diversey Avenue, Addison Street, Pulaski Road and the Union Pacific/Northwest rail line; bisecting the community...

and beyond. The Latino community, which had begun to organize around issues of affordable housing and other redevelopment strategies designed to stave off displacement, increasingly came into conflict with the mostly European-American artists and other urban-pioneer types. By the early 1980s, the latter were a minor but significant presence in the area.

Polish Downtown today

For the most part, the neighborhoods that comprise the old Polish Downtown have been gentrified and now present a cosmopolitan mix of people of diverse backgrounds. While Polish Downtown is no longer the center of Chicago's Polish Community, its legacy is present in the businesses, restaurants, and historic buildings. Numerous prominent Polish-American cultural and civic institutions continue, from the Polish Museum of America

Polish Museum of America

The Polish Museum of America is located in West Town, in what had been the historical Polish Downtown neighborhood of Chicago. It is home to a plethora of Polish artifacts, artwork, and embroidered folk costumes among its growing collection...

to the Chopin Theatre

Chopin Theatre

Chopin Theatre is an American for-profit cultural organization located along Polonia Triangle in Wicker Park within the West Town community area of Chicago...

and the Society for Arts

Society for Arts

The Society for Arts is an American 501 not-for-profit arts organization focused on furthering cultural communication between Europe and the United States. It was established in 1981, and is located in the East Village, what is considered to be one of Chicago's more artistic communities along...

External links

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