![]() ![]() “I think history either speaks to you or it doesn’t,” Meyer said. What remains is his curiosity and passion for Bucktown and Wicker Park, something he hopes rubs off on the people who take - and now watch - his tours. They’re available at Quimby’s Bookstore, 1854 W. During the pandemic, he also launched a series of “Fact File” booklets with additional neighborhood stories. Meyer said he’s not sure if he’ll return to in-person tours, although he might entertain the idea of a hybrid model at some point. And you don’t have to worry about the weather.” “A lot of the stuff on the tour isn’t easily found, right? So if you’re curious about the history and just the neighborhood, it’s a good place to learn it. So I think there are some advantages,” he said. And you can spread them out over time, you can watch them as many times as you want. But there are also numerous perks, he said. Meyer concedes the virtual tours are a bit of a trade-off, where viewers sacrifice the chance to ask questions and have a back-and-forth with him about a particular story they’re interested in. Credit: Provided Gordon Meyer in action on his Bizarre Wicker Park tour And it’s all centered right here,” Meyer said. “That was such an impactful thing for not only the city but the whole country. He’s also partial to the history of the 1915 Chicago tailor strike, which saw garment workers at factories in Bucktown and across the city demand better contracts. Mary of the Angels saved the church from demolition, and the sordid saga of illicit gambling and corruption at Lottie’s Pub. That includes some of Meyer’s favorites, like how the congregation of St. ![]() The plot later became a public park named after John Walsh, a firefighter who died from injuries received while putting out the fire.Īlmost all of those stories are available in digital form on the Bizarre Bucktown website. That fire, it turns out, also was intentional: The factory blaze was one of a series of arsons in the area linked to an insurance fraud scheme. In July 1970, an abandoned factory on the site also burned to the ground weeks before it was slated to be demolished. A malt company operating there burned down that year, and authorities discovered the fire was started on purpose. The stories about Walsh Park date back to 1912. Mary of the Angels Catholic Church, neighborhood taverns and even a hidden distillery once housed under the garage of a workers’ cottage on Bloomingdale Avenue. He tells the secret history of places like the iconic St. A few years later he launched a Wicker Park version and a “Dark Tales of Bucktown” spinoff. Meyer launched his first tours in 2014, at first to a mostly local audience which steadily grew to include a stream of out-of-towners. That started a two-year research process that included combing through old newspaper archives and talking to “old-timers” who tipped him off to pieces of neighborhood lore. ‘I’ve got like five stories, five potential stories, and they’re all within a relatively short distance of each other. “It was probably always a little bit in the back of my mind, like, ‘Hey, I would like to do that if I had the material.’ And I think eventually I just kind of reached the tipping point. Meyer had friends who gave walking tours in other cities, and always thought he might do something similar. When Meyer moved to Bucktown almost 20 years ago, he started hearing stories about some of neighborhood’s landmarks he just couldn’t get out of his head, often from people hanging around the local bars. “From a social perspective and from a personal perspective, it lets you be a little more grounded in why you’re living where you’re living.” They’ve changed so much over the years, but the echoes are still there if you know where to look,” Meyer said. “Wicker Park and Bucktown have a rich history, but it’s not super apparent. Spread across 37 videos, most of them under five minutes long, they provide snapshots of neighborhood history Meyer argues are essential to understanding Bucktown and Wicker Park. The tours are available online for purchase here. This summer, he’s begun offering his entire tour package virtually as he takes time off due to family commitments. Now, after eight years in business, Meyer is making a dramatic change to his operation. That historical coincidence is not likely to be found in local guidebooks, but it is prominently featured among dozens of stories about the surrounding neighborhood told by Bucktown resident Gordon Meyer in his long-running Bizarre Bucktown walking tour. In its previous lives dating back more than 100 years, it was home to two factories that each burned down in arsons nearly 60 years apart. BUCKTOWN - Walsh Park in Bucktown is home to two acres of open green space, a playground, basketball hoops and the eastern end of The 606’s Bloomingdale Trail. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |