Belmont Cragin, Hermosa

Belmont-Cragin, Hermosa continued...

So here it sits, the wooden front steps built by Elias Disney now concrete, the wooden siding now aluminum, and a satellite dish -- unimaginable even by this child whose name and "imagination" would become synonymous -- on its roof.

The Disneys left for a Kansas farm in 1906. Walt would return briefly as a teen, study art and attended McKinley High School, but that's another neighborhood.

Elsewhere in this compact community, Marathon Sports, on Fullerton Avenue, offers a large assortment of international soccer jerseys for sale; and Kelvyn Park (across from the high school of the same name) features a two-story Georgian field house, unusual in this city. (Riis Park, in Belmont Cragin, also has one, both the work of architect Walter Alschlager.)

Belmont Cragin is best known for its concentration of Polish restaurants, stores, delis and taverns, most near the intersection of Belmont (its border with the Portage Park neighborhood) and Central Avenues.

Notable among the restaurants is the Barbakan, on Central, named for fortresses still standing in Warsaw and Krakow. (A large painting of the Krakow version decorates a restaurant wall; the opposite wall is dominated by a painting of that city's charming Florianska Street.) Notable within this city's Barbakan are its cheese and potato pierogi and its brizol, a pork cutlet topped with sauteed fresh mushrooms.

But within a block of Barbakan on Central are reminders that this is a city of diversity: a Greek restaurant, a Mexican restaurant, a pizza place, a Chinese restaurant and a nightspot -- the Martini Club -- that features a sushi bar.

And on Laramie Avenue just south of Belmont, in this largely Polish and Hispanic community is, naturally, Shamrock Imports -- an Irish specialty shop operated for more than 40 years by a neighborhood legend, Maureen O'Looney of County Mayo.

Why here?

"I didn't think of it as an 'Irish' neighborhood," says O'Looney. "I just thought it was a nice place to be."

The shop features Irish woolens, dolls, books, jewelry and all the essentials of an Irish breakfast (including white and black puddings) along with silly buttons and shamrock earrings -- and something special: its own Wall of Fame covered with photos of herself with mayors, governors, clergy, Ted Kennedy and one more you won't find anywhere else.

It is a 1969 photo of Chicago's John Cardinal Cody, the first Mayor Richard Daley and a youthful priest from Krakow who would someday become Pope John Paul II. O'Looney is not in that picture.

"I took it," she says.

The neighborhood also is home to Riis Park, a beauty unusual not only for the aforementioned Georgian-style field house but because it's on two levels, thanks to a glacial ridge that runs through it and that once made it a natural for a long-vanished ski jump

And fans of college basketball may want to seek out the corner of Palmer and Latrobe Avenues. What is now Norwood Middle School was once Weber Catholic High School, home of the Red Horde. In the 1960s, the basketball team had a wiry kid playing guard.

Palmer Avenue, at that intersection, is "Honorary Coach K Way," honoring the kid who has made coaching history at Duke -- Mike Krzyzewski.

For more information about Belmont-Cragin, Hermosa, please contact the Belmont-Central Chamber of Commerce at 773.647.1644..