Andersonville Swedish Bakery, 1992

 

My father grew up in Andersonville, and for him, Christmas included a visit to the Swedish Bakery. Customers came from all across the Midwest to purchase cardamon-laced coffee cakes and pastries, and the lines there were always long. You would pick a number and then go shopping for an hour or so, perhaps sample some glogg, before coming back to place your order.

This image of the bakery is from 1992, and is currently available on eBay: http://bit.ly/15BstRC

Fashion Show at Rainbo Gardens

This picture shows two Uptown flapper girls at a fashion show at Rainbo Gardens, located at Clark and Lawrence. Flapper girls were a "new breed" of young women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for the traditional roles society tried to push them into. They were seen as "fast" for wearing too much makeup, drinking, smoking, indulging in casual sex, and (gasp!), driving automobiles. My own great grandmother Marta would go out drinking with her girlfriends, and once drove up to Waukegan on a whim to get married to a boy she just met that night. But that's another story for another time.

Broadway and Ridge, 1939

48th Ward Alderman John Massen measuring sidewalks that will need to be removed and rebuilt in order to widen Ridge from Broadway to Clark. The buildings behind the group still stand, while the side of the intersection they're on now has a Walgreen's. Image currently on eBay: 160744313616

Mann's Million Dollar Rainbo Gardens, Clark and Lawrence, Chicago

An interesting postcard of the gardens.

Clark and Leland, Chicago, 1955

This one is a little further out than we usually find for images of Leland. It is currently for sale on eBay

And the Crowd Goes Wild at the Rainbo, Chicago, 1952

Sun-Times' Fun Club boys enjoying the Jimmy Martinez and Chester Mieszala fight at Rainbo Arena, December 8, 1952 in Chicago.

Get the original image here: Rainbo Fight Night

Andersonville History and Culture

A nice article in the Trib today about Andersonville. Here's an excerpt:

Andersonville...the North Side neighborhood that started as a modest Scandinavian settlement after the Great Fire of 1871 and boomed in the early 20th century to boast the largest concentration of Swedes this side of Stockholm. Like so many developments, the initial draw was location, location, location — in this case, a farming area far enough from downtown's post-fire regulations against building wooden houses. The Swedes knew how to work and live off the land, and the more who settled in that stretch a few miles north of downtown, the more attractive it was for others to immigrate. These days, Andersonville draws in part for its residual Scandinavian heritage (there are little clues everywhere, from the decoratively painted wooden dala horse to a Swedish flag welded from neon), but mostly because of that small-town aura that it has managed to maintain...

Read the whole article here: Small Town in the City

Image above courtesy Flickr by user Mark 2400; posted here using Flickr's "Share This/Blog This" feature.

The French Casino (Rainbo Gardens) -- Lawrence and Clark, Uptown Chicago

From: JazzAgeClub.com

"In the summer of 1934 the Rainbo Gardens in Chicago re-opened as the French Casino. The venue sited at Lawrence Ave and North Clark Street had been closed in 1932 but had been taken over and completely revamped and redecorated by Jules Stein and Corlett Huff. Jules Stein was an interesting character – reputedly one of the richest men in the USA and president of the Music Corporation of America who controlled the careers of scores of celebrated radio and cinema stars and bands. Stein engaged the legendary booking agent and producer Clifford Fischer to mount an ambitious production for the new venue. The show called the Revue Folies Bergere was devised in Paris at a cost of $60,000 and featured many performers from Europe... It was as if the Paris music hall had been transplanted to Chicago and the Chicago Tribune reported ‘it is the most ambitious café entertainment now on view in Chicago.’ Needless to say attendance ran at capacity and it became the ‘wow’ of Chicago nightlife."

Read more of this entertaining and informative article at: JazzAgeClub.com
(Under Creative Commons License)

More about the venue location from Wikipedia:

The Rainbo

The Rainbo, at 4812 N. Clark, was purchased in 2002 and torn down to make way for a new condo and townhouse development. At one point, however, it was a very popular outdoor music garden, fashioned after the Moulin Rouge Gardens in Paris, which is the original namesake for what was then called "Moulin Rouge Gardens."

Investors bought the Moulin Rouge Gardens property and spent one-million dollars to expand the facility. Opened in 1921, Mann's Million Dollar Rainbo Room, named after Fred Mann's wartime service in the U.S. Army's 42nd Infantry or "Rainbow" Division, was said to be the largest nightclub in America, featuring some of the biggest names in Vaudeville and musical entertainment. Larry Fine was performing there the night he was asked to join The Three Stooges. The Rainbo Room had a revolving stage to allow for continuous entertainment. There was table seating for 2,000 patrons and space on the dance floor for an additional 1,500. Until 1927, WMAQ radio shared the 670 kilohertz frequency with station WQJ, which was owned by the Rainbo and Calumet Baking Powder Company; it broadcast music of the Rainbo's performers as a form of promotion.

In 1927, during prohibition, it was converted to a major casino and sports venue, called the Rainbo Fronton.

In 1934, during the Chicago World's Fair (A Century of Progress), it became French Casino. The French Casino is where John Dillinger spent his birthday, June 22, 1934, a month before he was shot.

In 1939, it became Mike Todd's Theater Cafe, which was a popular dinner theater. Tommy Sutton, the Theater Cafe's choreographer, went on to work with Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole, among others. It was also a venue for Championship Wrestling where, in 1955, the first women's tag team wrestling match was held.

In 1957, The Theater Cafe was converted to an ice skating rink, called Rainbo Arena, which was a practice rink for the Chicago Blackhawks including the year they won the 1961 Stanley Cup. The Rainbo Arena was also a training rink for several Olympic figure skaters, housed a pro bowling alley and the original Kinetic Playground music venue.

In the 1960s and thereafter, The Rainbo was a popular late night roller rink until it was torn down for a new housing development called Rainbo Village.

Vintage View of Andersonville, Clark at Foster, Chicago

1950s view of Clark Street looking north from Foster Avenue, Chicago.

Rainbo Gardens Ad, Republican National Convention Program, 1920

After attending the daily sessions of the convention the question will arise: Where shall we spend the evening? We therefore suggest that you spend some of your time with us, where the best meals are served at moderate prices, with music pleasant and popular, together with dancing if you like. The atmosphere and surroundings of our place are the environments of comfort, pleasure, refinement and a personal attention seldom found outside your own home.

While away from your home, wile away a few leisure moments, where one visit will mean your frequent attendance. We are within a half hour of your hotel, and convention hall. Clark street cars take you direct to our door and a taxicab affords you a drive thru Lincoln Park and Sheridan Drive, which leads to us

Ask any Chicago resident about
Mann & Jackson's Rainbo Gardens!

Andersonville Chicago, Circa 1914, Foster and Clark

Original Caption: View of Summerdale Saving Bank, 5203 North Clark Street in the Edgewater community area of Chicago, Illinois. The bank lines the street along with several other businesses.

While the original building is still there, it looks like it's lost a lot of its finery--I would not have guessed it was the same building.


Source: DN-0067082, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Library of Congress American Memories Collection; Google Street Views.

Cubs Tavern, 3800 N. Clark, Just south of Irving Park in Chicago

Bring the family? Really? The Cubs Tavern was located just south of Irving Park, near Wunders Cemetery, at 3800 N. Clark.

Fred Mann's Rainbo Gardens

Here is a series of three postcards showing the interior of Rainbo Gardens. The location was a top Chicago entertainment destination for about a hundred years, and it was here that vaudevillians Ted Healy and Moe Howard asked Larry Fine to join their comedy act that eventually became The Three Stooges.

Host to a variety of amusements and some of the early twentieth century's best-known celebrities, Fred Mann's Rainbo Gardens was one of Chicago's premier entertainment venues. Located at 4812-36 North Clark Street, Rainbo Gardens lured patrons from across the city with its eclectic mix of traditional vaudeville acts, trendy jazz bands, extreme sports events, and easy-going dance and liquor policies...

For more, go to Jazz Age Chicago.

Today, the site is home to Rainbo Village. For a series of images of the demolition of the original building, go to Landmarks Preservation Council.

Postcard images courtesy J.C.