This neighborhood was filled with working-class central European families, first-, second-, and the odd third-generation Americans. The houses were all the same, low and small, fenced yard, maybe a car in the drive or parked out front. By and large they were trade workers, pipefitters, factory drones; union men supporting families on sweat and boredom.

My father's warehouse job was his source of spending money; his middle brother already worked after-school for Sears, and his youngest brother and a friend would spend the summer going from tennis club to tennis club, hustling old, fat men out of enough cash to support them over the winter. My grandmother kept house, read up on archaeology, and levied stern warnings to her sons about anti-Evolutionists and Catholics like their father, who in later years she dubbed "the Prussian General."

These carefully handmade lamps were nothing like the mass-produced lamps you can buy now. Every piece, from the base to the guts to the shade, was carefully lathed or carved or sewn out of unique materials -- at least one of Chicago's lamp factories had been converted from a sculptor's studio, so many of the lamps had ornately sculpted bases made from leftover molds and objets d'art. They were mostly gilt and ceramic and filigreed and very expensive, destined for high-end department stores, hotel lobbies, and the front windows of the working-class families of North Side Chicago.

It was a case of keeping up with the Schultzes across the street; it was an arms race; it was a war of attrition. Every year, every family would order a brand new lamp beyond their means, each one gaudier than the last year's (and hopefully gaudier than the one the Schultzes ordered this year), bright ceramic urns with gold trim and hunting scenes; bears, clocks in their paws and swans on their heads; lithe dancers, Roman columns, decorative puttees, you name it. One in each fron window, each turned on as soon as twilight fell, shining out a welcome and a challenge to the street: this is a sample of our great taste. This is a sample of what we can afford.

So my grandfather, along with probably most everybody who lived in Oak Park, would drive around the bohunk neighborhood each December to marvel at the ostentatious Christmas lamp display, different every year. And my father would go to work after school, and carefully load precious lamps into boxes addressed to Schultz, and Koepse, and Trittschke, knowing he'd see them later on, and he'd double- and triple-check their packaging, and roll them to the loading dock.

"Front window," obviously.

If this doesn't end in an orgy of mindless violence, I'm calling the FCC.

≡ Click to see image ≡

my grandfather would take his sons for a drive around the nearby bohunk neighborhood

That would be where my paternal grandparents lived. And yes indeedy their house was filled with gawd awful crap. I don't remember any fancy lamps though.

The house from A Christmas Story is being converted into a museum and is about a 3 minute walk from where I live. Much of the movie was shot in my neighborhood. I even met the dude that sells those leg lamps a few weeks ago.

Before those lamps became ubiquitous, my uncle made one for my cousin for Christmas one year. It was awesome.

Good tale, Hugh.

An article I just read in Granta brought this to mind. I don't know if my father worked for Cooper or for one of the other lamp-making luminaries. Cooper closed this past summer.

Nice detailed memories of Chicago.
Obviously fictional, since you said El instead of "L".

The "lamp wars" aren't something I experienced but there obviously has always been this weird tradition. I felt that the late 50s/early 60s anonymous 4+1 buildings had the worst interior decorating, and the greatest need to display it without a curtain in sight.

I worked in the Sears Tower for a year, myself. On the 17th floor. And I worked at Discover Card, too, with a bunch of Sears people, including one with my dad's name.

Man, can I tell you, I like Chicago when I visited, but this "L" nonsense drives me crazy. It's an elevated train, hence El. *I* live by an L train, ie, a train called the L. Thank you for your time.

I've only been to Chicago a few times; my father told me all this, and I really thought it was spelled "El."

My dad moved East in '63 for the gummint and later sired my brother and me in Maryland. We visited Oak Park as teenagers to watch my grandmother disappear into Alzheimers, and then my brother lived on Paulina while he put his wife through grad school. So I've been there, but not enough to realize that the train is spelled with one letter.

You though it was spelled El, because THAT MAkES SENSE. Do not give up on sense. Please.

What the stinking ratfuck? It's not spelled "el"? Chicago I always liked you quite a bit, but that is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard, bar none, no exceptions. Jesus H Christ I am fucking pissed off about that, seeing red, really the room just got all tilty and red. FUCK! SOOOO ANGRY NOW!

It must be el, otherwise the following Christmas card, popular when I was, coincidentally, growing up in Oak Park, won't work:

[Front]
Noel! Noel!

[Inside]
Take a cab!

Easy, Divine_Wino, have a Jack & Ginger on me. Cold out, huh?

On preview, occhiblu, I once bought a card that had pictures of an elephant and an elevator, captioned "ephant" and "evator." Inside said "No el." Same joke; good one.

My dad live down the road from where Sam "Momo" Giancana was shot dead while cooking pasta for his family.

What's it with you today, Hugh? "My dad live?"

Cretin.

Not easy. Let's go out and SMASH CHICAGO, D_W. We can get the squirrels to help.

That is the kind of thing that makes me crazy. However my rage is in limited supply, I've reached peak rage and it's all downhill from here until cold rage fusion is perfected. So I cannot flip out unless I really, really need to.


My grandparents both worked in a watch factory (my dad said the name and I forgot it, he also said "in the city" which usually means in New York City, but they lived in Jersey City so I don't know) he started to tell me the story of it when we were looking at a picture of my grandfather (died before I was born), he was a dapper motherfucker for a watch factory dude. A nice hat, those wide leg white pants and a blazer kind of deal, wing tips (the picture was black and white but they looked to be probably tan and white from the shading) and the most perfect thin manicured Errol Flynn mustache and a cigarette. I have to get my dad to tell me more about him. His name was Leo and the picture was taken "down the shore".


Sadly damela, squirrels are assholes.

Oh.

Q: Is it spelled "L" or "el"? A: This seems to be a matter of opinion, though it seems the most commonly accepted version is, "L"™. The key thing to realize is that it is a shortened version of "elevated railroad". Other cities have (or have had) elevated rapid transit systems and they too have used this shortened nickname. However, in other cities (New York City, for instance), it is used as a generic name, so "el" is usually utilized there. In Chicago, however, it specifically refers to a particular system and the more unique and specific "L"™ is used. But, still, they can be used somewhat interchangeably. But, two more facts also back-up the use of "L"™ for the Chicago system: CTA® publicity and literature uses it and the previous companies (mostly the CRT) have also used "L"™ for their maps, ads and publications.

That said, I generally use "El".

They so cannot trademark "L." My train is the L train, because that's actually the name of the line. The name of the CTA is the CTA, and it is generically an elevated system. Because I am younger than Wino, I clearly have more rage. I will not be going to back to Chicago though, that's for sure.

And I'm pissed at the squirrels.

Back to copyediting books about the End Times . . . Maybe Jeebus will give Chicago extra blood.

well, where i grew up, "El" meant:

≡ Click to see image ≡ ≡ Click to see image ≡

[but nice research eamondaly]

Yeah it meant that too. If I wasn't all old, I would totally smoke about two of those and eat thickskinned naval oranges all night.

Ummm, I thought "L" was for "Loop." As in, The Loop. Or, taking the Loop.

Maybe this is better:
Everyone has heard of "The Loop" - the heart of Chicago's downtown business district. But did you know "The Loop" actually got its name from the circumnavigations of the elevated train system ("El")? The El track pattern creates a large loop shape within the downtown area and hence, our namesake, "The Loop" evolved.

See also.

Nah, I think the loops the loop, and I can see how they'd call it the L. Sorry to be so equitable, guys, but I should tell you what song just flew into my head and landed with a splat:

Now that we found love what are we gonna do
With i-it?

Shake me, shake me, baby, baby, bake me!

Missing apostrophes spell your doom, Hugh!

The overweight lover. Bless his laboring heart.

Loop de loop?

As one who lived and traveled on the "El" daily. It is known as "the el" as dame correctly assessed because it is elevated.

Many of the trains in the Loop are actually underground in the Loop except for the Orange and Brown lines which travel through the loop.

Some may call it the "L" but those people are losers.

Also, I was always told that the Sears tower has no connection to the Sears Roebuck company despite the company being based in Chicago (actually a suburbs whose name escapes me right now). Did he actually work there for Sears as well????

I don't have the facts to back that up but I can't say how many times the building has been referenced and then followed with "which has no relation to Sears Roebuck..."

(Would look it up if I had time but I don't right now!)

When I lived in Chicago, and I might not have lived there long enough to be converted, I pronounced it "el" and not "L".

HA! When my grandfather worked there, Sears HQ was definitely not in the Sears Tower, which wasn't built until 1974, several years after his death.

So it was my uncle who worked in the tower managing contract sales for Craftsman tools, if I remember correctly (and yes, I do! Now, at least). Here's a little wiki on it.

We at Gapers Block call it the El. Just because the CTA calls it the "L" doesn't mean everyone else has to.

Dear people of Chicago,
I knew you'd come through for me, such nice people, really.

I've always said, take the people from Chicago, put them in the city of San Francisco and you have America's best city right there.

No, no Wino. You need a city with real mass transit. You know, where it doesn't close down.

There are a bunch of New Yorkers I wouldn't mind trading for some Chicagoans (?) though.

I always called it the El, although the CTA system maps in the stations call it the L.

The elevated trains that run on the actual Loop are the Orange, Brown, Green, and Purple Lines. (Purple only runs to the Loop during weekday rush hours, the rest of the time it just runs from several stations in Evanston to Howard, the northernmost station in Chicago.) The Red and Blue Lines run underground. Here's the map.

I usually catch the Metra train into the city, then take a bus to work. When I'm going to be sticking around the city or if I'm going downtown on a weekend, I'll drive to the Midway or Pulaski stations on the Orange Line, park there, and take the Orange Line on into downtown.

That is a great story, by the way. My parents lived in Oak Park when they first got married. They grew up in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago, right on the Chicago/Oak Park border. That neighborhood is very different now than it was when they were growing up.