As a child, I can remember visiting my Aunt and Grandmother who lived in a garden apartment at 2332 W. Superior St., in Chicago. This was almost exactly one block South of the Oakley. My 87 year old mother still speaks glowingly of the place, as it was the only entertainment and escape from the grinding poverty of the Great Depression. In 1953, it was still a neighborhood of horse carts, and electric buses. I would, on occasion, walk up to Chicago Avenue and look at the Oakley, literally blown to bits by the gas explosion. The facade and marquee were laying sadly on the sidewalk and for some reason, cleaning up the site took a long time.
The neighborhood is immaculately kept today by it’s Ukrainian residents, and is known in Chicago slang as Uketown.
As a child, I can remember visiting my Aunt and Grandmother who lived in a garden apartment at 2332 W. Superior St., in Chicago. This was almost exactly one block South of the Oakley. My 87 year old mother still speaks glowingly of the place, as it was the only entertainment and escape from the grinding poverty of the Great Depression. In 1953, it was still a neighborhood of horse carts, and electric buses. I would, on occasion, walk up to Chicago Avenue and look at the Oakley, literally blown to bits by the gas explosion. The facade and marquee were laying sadly on the sidewalk and for some reason, cleaning up the site took a long time.
The neighborhood is immaculately kept today by it’s Ukrainian residents, and is known in Chicago slang as Uketown.
R.C. Lehmann Born 2/27/49 in Chicago, IL