West Lawn

West Lawn continued...

Down the street is Lawn Lanes, a 16-lane bowling center with attached lounge (or, depending on the crowd, a lounge with a 16 bowling lanes attached), once common throughout the city but increasingly rare.

"We just recently had our 50-year anniversary," says Mona Brall, who was working the bar while, on lanes 15 and 16, balloons and laughter signaled a birthday party was under way. "We have so many parties, and everybody's welcome."

Tony Caprio has been selling shoes for more than 60 years. "I sold shoes to [nuclear physicist] Enrico Fermi," he says. " $5.99. That was a lot of money in those days." For the last 40 years he has sold them out his corner store, Caprio's Shoes, at Pulaski and 63rd -- once the heart of West Lawn's then-lively retail district.

The Indian was already in place when he got there.

The store across the street was the Capitol Cigar Store. If West Lawn has a landmark, this giant fiberglass representation of a Native American on a store roof is it.

"It was a good advertising thing, the Indian," Caprio says. "For years and years, it was a gold mine."

Now, it's an eye clinic. The figure, which had a bit part in the movie "Wayne's World," wears glasses. There are lots of stories relating to it, but you won't read them here.

And for decades, 63rd and Pulaski was something besides a place to do business.

"A lot of people who came from Europe over here, they used the corner for a meeting place," says Caprio.

The neighborhood remains home for Europeans, primarily Eastern Europeans -- and they have been joined by Hispanics, mostly from Mexico. Much of the retail sector has shifted west to Ford City Shopping Center and Cicero Avenue, home to a mass of national chains -- which, in a special way, adds to the appeal of West Lawn's steadfast independents.

That includes the restaurants.

Pulaski Road is a haven for Mexican food of all kinds. Zacatacos, with two locations on the street, draws crowds hungry for its steak tacos. The roasted goat is a lure at Birrieria de la Torre, but if the waitress steers you toward carne en su jugo (sliced beef, bacon, white beans and other good things in a hearty broth, with hot tortillas on the side), listen to her. Indio 2, just east of Pulaski on 63rd Street, adds a few vegetarian goodies (torta de soya estilo pollo anyone?) to the standard taqueria mix, while other places are particularly proud of their seafood.

It's not just Mexican food. Windy City Hot Dogs, west on 63rd Street, does the Chicago classics (hot dogs, Italian beef, gyros) just right. Huck Finn Donuts -- it's a family restaurant at 67th Street and Pulaski, one of a pair in the city, open 24 hours -- is an institution. So is Palermo's, born in 1961, at 63rd and Hamlin since 1975 and, for many, the quintessential neighborhood pizza/Italian place.

Two research facilities deserve mention. The Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture mainly celebrates Lithuania in its "welcome" travelogue and collections of coins, costumes and displays of native amber. But for the genealogists among the children of immigrants who once made the Southwest Side (especially the Marquette Park neighborhood just to the east) Chicago's Lithuanian center, its reference materials and assistance are invaluable.

Serious scholars of American history will be drawn to the Chicago center of the National Archives, at 74th Street and Pulaski. The building contains all sorts of records and original documents on topics ranging from Lincoln to Prohibition to Indian Affairs available for review (reservations required; www.archives.gov).

It may even have more information than anyone needs to know about the gentleman atop the former cigar store up the street. 
 

For more information about West Lawn, please contact the West Lawn Chamber of Commerce at 773.455.4631.
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