Polish Downtown (Chicago) - Cultural Significance

Cultural Significance

The historian Edward R. Kantowicz wrote in his essay, "Polish Chicago: Survival through Solidarity", that "Polish Downtown was to Chicago Poles what the Lower East Side 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's base of operations. The family still owns the building opposite St. Stanislaus Kostka church at 1372 Evergreen from which he ran his operations.

Polish Downtown was also significant in the literary output of Nelson Algren who lived in the area. Polish bars that Algren frequented for his notorious gambling, such as the Bit of Poland on Milwaukee Avenue 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 and Chicago" 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 underclass, against the background of prevalent anti-immigrant xenophobia, was taken by Poles as blatant Anti-Polonism. His book Never Come Morning was banned for decades from the Chicago Public Library 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 was to be renamed in Algren's honor.

Polish Downtown also figures in John Guzlowski'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 officers who mourned for their dead horses, and Polish women who had walked from Siberia to Iran to escape the Russians.