I was there, they threw a molotave cocktail through my front room window because we were the only white family on the block, our neighbors kicked our door in to save us, such great memories of growing up poor and white in Chicago
@@relaxingnature7797 I live right on the corner Richmond and North Avenue we lived on the third floor those apartments where more like a kitchenette so they would they would open two kitchenettes if there were more than two or three two or three mom dad and two three kids they will put to open up two kitchenettes and rent it to you they were real small backyard was crazy you had big oak tree that we used to climb up when we played hide and go seek what happened to be coming from Mid-City Dairy which was on the corner of Mozart and North Avenue I just bought myself an ice cream cone and went back across the street because at the time I was still a little too young and the older guys from the neighborhood said stay your ass put give me a call and tell me to go get some ice cream and I was standing right on the corner of Sacramento or really really humble when the when the building blew up bloom I am one of the Spina family Puerto Rican but I'm also Sicilian and I finally originated and I finally grew up on Richmond and McLean
@@relaxingnature7797 it must have been through a storefront then because all the apartments were on the second floor the front of it was storefronts and the liquor store took up most of it
@@garypiont6114 my first job was at Sears on Lawrence and Damen or really Hermitage I change tires and batteries because I had got my girl in a family way at 14 and my dad said I'm going to get you a work permit you're going to go to school in the daytime and you're going to work at night at Sears changing tires and batteries best thing I ever did I learned a lot of responsibility and I end up getting an education and it wasn't really that my dad forced me it became really really important to me that I got and worked and supported my family back then you got a girl you shacked up a girl you did the right thing and you took care of your family and there were really know my baby daddy this is the father of my kid and you would marry
I was ten years old when this all went down . Police officers were brutal! They would all be fired if they pulled that crap today ! Those were some sad and really painful memories . That area is in much much better condition today . How time heals all wounds .
Fidelity everybody felt like we got even a little bit because a lot of a lot of you a lot of paddy wagons and a lot of police officers were smacked around 2:00
I was there in 77 and I was with My Family, and I saw the police just swing batons at any Puerto Rican hitting whoever they wanted and laughing about it. My mom and dad sent me home so they could go fight with the police. I walked thru the park bottles flying everywhere.
@@MrFernando58763 yeah my mom used to work for Department of Human Services on North Avenue and Rockwell that was the bicentennial year and we had daily senior and that man never let the city down we never suffered for anything as long as daily senior was was around I cried when he passed away
@@MrFernando58763 the statement is 100% especially the ones that were on the horses the horse Patrol but as they got in further to the park in the middle is it going around over there by the National Guards they got what they deserved cuz regardless that little area was not to be messed with and they knew it they didn't they didn't Patrol over there behind the National Guard where they used to sell the dime bags and the 50-cent joints
Do Puerto Ricans used to call that area get out if you can because the ride was wrong all the way to the division and we could attack from Pierce and Kedzie and come from Mozart and North Avenue it was just an area you didn't want to be around if you were causing trouble
And also mind you that a lot of the National Guards at that time there were Puerto Ricans and they did not move out when called until a long time after
Man I gotta stop watching your videos, they suck me back into the mindset of that forgotten world you show so well. I'd kind of forgotten how dark the city was before the sodium vapor lights came in and they lit up the alleys too. In my day Div and Cal was King Corner. I was super tight with a guy I'll call JP. His little brother was Big Red, leader of the LK's over there for awhile. Big Red ate his own gun on his front poarch a few days after he got out of prison. Family never recovered. Was just another sad ass Chicago story that's never been told. I love JP to this day may he RIP. He was the best street fighter I ever knew (Sleepy was right up there too, and he was murderous because of what happened to his sister a story many have heard.) I've always known I'm not a badass because I grew up with some of the baddest mother f********* in the city. JP was one of them. I could hold my own all right, but man there's levels to that stuff and JP was at the top. Fighting hand to hand was like ballet to him, he was a beautiful fighter, poetry in motion. Big W (Sleepy's older brother) from the Gents and Big Red fought hand to hand in an honor fight. Both were huge men, both over 6 feet/200lbs and both were jacked to the max from lifting wieghts in prison. No one won. Both beat the fuck out of each other for what seemed like hours but had to be only minutes and ended up laughing and hugging each other with bloody faces and busted up bodies, and then the Kings and Gents in West Town were okay for awhile. Man I miss those days. I don't think that event could even happen today. Everyone would get shot!!! We had guns back then but not like today and we usually didn't carry them unless we had a specific reason. That changed in the 80's. By then I was getting into family mode. The mode that saved my tired ass!!! My 4 kids, now all grown, never knew any of this stuff but you know they know how to fight and shoot real damn well! I made damn sure of that!!!
@@A_Chicago_Man yes the video is great and thank you very much it brought back a lot of nostalgia and a lot of good feelings about how I grew up and how great life was at that time no matter what controversy it was still a good error to grow up and to me one of the best
5:37 the Chicago crime fighter street lights came up on Division Street, with the yellow signs still in place. These big crimefighter lights were new in 1977, Chicago started using green street signs in the early '70s but the yellow ones stuck around on some streets into the early '80s.
I just graduated from 8th grade saw it all from the yellow building next to the gas station Aamaco. The police were out there beating anybody or anything moving . Wow now that was crazy s.m.h memories of a uprise of a community that was feed up. They where tired of being ignored From the politicians at that point the puerto rican's had enough Mayor michael Bilandic was in charge of what happened in park. He was the one that gave the orders to attack anybody. He make sure the police department did their job Discriminating the puerto rican community. Never Forget that Riot😢
@@elviracruz-msdramatist7987 For me it was 1967, the blizzard OF67TO1983.That I went to the Marine Corps and spent 23 years there.I'm glad I did it cause a lot of my friends when I came back with the hooked on drugs in jail or dead
@@westlove1226 in NY you can wear whatever you want and nobody cares unlike Chicago where, well you know. Yes the pizza is better. Way bigger. Nyc is like 5 Chicago's and everyone takes train, which are always full of homeless people and rats. But I love Chicago it's alot like Brooklyn. I'm so happy every summer I visit.
4:00 let’s get on the news and blame the lack of news coverage on everyone BUT the residents who commit crime 24/7. Poor Disciples, Rangers, Kings, etc! They just need a little love and finances.
@@RENEGADE-gk9hv the only thing I found bad was that we broke into all the stores yes I didn't do I didn't do it but when stuff was falling on the Wayside yes I picked up several stuff several merchandises when the currency exchange with broken yes and the food stamps were all over the ground yes I picked up some I don't say that I am excluded but we ruined Jupiter's Woolworths burning hands which was my favorite store Wags and also the Ace Hardware Store I was just coming back from Frank's it was on the corner of California and wabansia this man this man was a savior to that neighborhood he gave credit until payday and he also helped out a lot of people I love this man I am sorry that he passed away but I hope that he is sitting by God's side
My mom used to work for the Department of Human Services they used call the urban progress in Spanish and there was a great Puerto Rican restaurant that was like Cafe Central right across the street I remember going to get Spanish streets there all the time and hanging out at birmingham's and the music store on the corner of Tallman and North Avenue used to buy all my 45 records there and go to birmingham's and get the latest Converse and the New York baggies
@@tankertuff278 this statement couldn't be no truer because I moved in there with my family in 1967 and I got chased every day to school and Chase home every day to school and when they caught up to me they would beat the pulp out of me didn't have no choice but to gather up with the rest of the Puerto Ricans make sure that we want each other home everyday I went to Yates
But being half Italian I didn't have it so bad there's a lot of other Puerto Ricans that had just come from the island and we're really ridiculed and call sticks and a lot of other names I wish not to remember or recall
We used to go to Mid-City Dairy right on Northern California and then across the street in the park they used to play music every Sunday after church after we got out of Saint Sylvester's
@@jarvissatterfield3119 I was fortunate enough to years later to live in one of the many mansions on Sacramento Avenue because it needed a lot of repair and I got it cheap and they moved my family in there it was a six bedroom three bath I loved it it was right next to Saint Sylvester
Do you remember Tasty Freeze on Armitage and Mozart it was the best people will come from all over just to eat there and just to get a scoop of ice cream because they made it homemade I went to the to the school with the great-grandson of the owner his name his name is Tony zarconi and he still keeps it going the way it was back then God bless them
@@jarvissatterfield3119 one of my friends opened up a liquor store buying a restaurant there it's called Humble House and it's really popular Lodi yuppies
Something I don't like giving or saying too much but I have to give credit Latin organization call the Latin Kings because when they came here from Puerto Rico and from New York they came and defended that in particular area and that's how we ended up that's how the Puerto Ricans ended up being the majority in Humboldt Park at that time we were being beaten up Chase our houses were being burnt I lived on the corner of Francisco and Richmond and they burned the houses both on both sides of me it was only a little red house across the street from the Upper Grade Center at Yates the next day they came to my mom because they knew her she was a social worker and at that time they had to go from house to house to do their social working and do their home visits and they came and told my mom listen we're going to pay for a room at the North Avenue hotel which was very nice at that time and don't come home for at least a day the next day the people that have burned houses right next to us and have warned my family the day better to move out where hillbillies that lived all on Francisco and Francisco all the way up to Armitage a day later they were moving don't know what they did don't know what they said but I know that my life had become a lot easier and I wasn't getting chased or beat up as much as I did but we still have to contend with The Gaylords there were a lot of Sons of the police officers at Shakespeare
We played at a club called La Concha on just above the Ace Hardware store on North Avenue and California and we played at another one called Northwest call on Western in North Avenue I was the singer one of my best friends from my neighborhood on Richmond and McLean call Edwin Sanchez went on to become one of the best pianists in the United States
Sad time in Chicago history. These people just absolutely destroyed the city... I wish people could see what these neighborhoods looked like by about 1986. Thank goodness for gentrification.
@@suspiciouswatermelon7639 to me the 80s in Humboldt Park was with ruined that area crack and Other Drugs just infested the neighborhood and it just fell down but that was on purposely does now the area is full of Condominiums and is high rise and you can't find the studio for less than $1,000 1400
@@suspiciouswatermelon7639 It's got to remember this was still a time when there was still a lot of racism in that neighborhood. Believe me, from 1974 to 1977 I got chased every day by the Gaylord's cause I lived on the other side of army takes my grandfather had a bakery right there and army to San Francisco. And as soon as I cross this cross over the Gaylord's will come out of the gangway and chase me all the way around the building. Or through the grocery store where now I can get tornado parts. There should be a Stanley grocery store there. So they did pass through the park that day, cause I was playing congas at the back of the armory back of the national guards, and they threw out a Shafer, a Shafer beer bottle at us and that was really the beginning of the fight. Because. Then the police came in and they only wanted to control and commus down.That was wrong and we had had enough that time
And actually And make his way able to enjoy growing up there without being chased home without being called a grease ball, a spike or a whspeak.Rogue i'm glad that we all stood up together as puerto ricans weekends for our rights and for a little piece of mine and some respect
@@felixhidalgojr6917 That's great, everybody deserves a baseline amount of human dignity... but I just wish you guys didn't spray paint your names all over buildings like a bunch of cave men.
@@suspiciouswatermelon7639 Well, I'm 60 years old now and I spent 23 years in a Marine Corps and I have to say I was 1112 years old and I have to say that was the mentality of an ignorant and non educated kid just went along with what his elders were telling. Listening to their narratives and feeling the racism, there's them. And if that was the only way we could Express ourselves at the time so be you didn't like it. But for the time and the era it was a way of expressing ourselves. Mind you, we were kids, not grown adults.
@@garypiont6114 I don't know, but I can tell you well.The Tribune was owned by wriggly.The Wrigley family, but I used to deliver the sometimes and the Tribune over there by wicker park.They used to be a lot of mansion houses pretty good tips.But man, some days was a killer.My bike and 2 shopping cart full of newspapers that felt like blucky.I was a kid
My sister Martha years later after she graduated from Columbia college.I'm not working for WGN, which was.A Michigan Avenue, but she started off at.Edison at the original studio.She got me tickets to go to Boston one time.And if I wouldn't know many, many years later.How much and how much it would cost to have it taken?And how long you had to wait?I would assault mine then and I would have been a millionaire now
And now that I hear Mr tannenbaum's name it was also associated with a hardware store in and I think just the regular grocery store Mr Tannenbaum was a nice person as I recall
The questions that the reporter is asking is ridiculous because this wasn't about us attacking whites or the other or the neighborhood. It was about us having respect on our day in the park that was celebrated every year in peace I got to the point where if the white gangs were allowed to come to our neighborhood come to the park on our day and throw bricks and bottles and the police didn't do anything about it well we had had enough we decided that we were going to do something about it
I have to say as being a young man in this area and grow up in this area all my life before it became totally Hispanic I grew up there when it was polish Greeks Italians and a lot of hillbillies this incident started because the game called The Gaylords had come through the park by behind the National Guards and were throwing bricks and Bottles out of their cars then when the police officers of the 14th District did not do very much that riled the blood of the of the people in the neighborhood which was predominantly Puerto Ricans and then the police officers and law enforcement decided that we people that were celebrating our day was it was the initial were the initial aggressors and decided that they were going to attack us instead of the people that didn't say it inside of this riot and begin the whole Insurrection behind Humboldt Park I wish when you guys did these stories you would go directly to the source of the people and the people that lived actually right in the area that it happened did we take it a little too far most definitely we did not need to have the stores ravished and robbed the way they were we did not need to set fires but it was a it was the time and place where we were being discriminated against and being harassed by white gangs the neighborhood still was predominantly white owned by businesses so a lot of us were paying more for our produce are produce and some of us were even discriminated from even shopping in some of those stores police officers at the time would pull us over just for being Puerto Ricans or blacks they weren't too many blacks in the neighborhood at the time but we got pulled over searched harassed and pushed around and sometimes taken in for trespassing or curfews when it wasn't it wasn't even and if there was more than one or two together speaking somewhere automatically we will get pulled over and that was it if we didn't have a knife a knife was put in our pockets if we didn't have drugs drugs were put in our pockets what's inside Shakespeare it was very very cold no matter what time of the year so at night if you got locked up for trespassing at night they would open up the windows especially in the winter time and pour cold water on the floor these are things that we protested about that day the truth in all the reasons why what why the Puerto Ricans went up in arms needs to come out you need to go and find out the backstories before you give this story and say that we were insurrectionist and that we demolished our neighborhood know it was a reason behind it and I just giving you a little bit Fred the time my mom was a social worker back in the back there and those days and those neighborhoods where they had to visit home by home home by home to do their work and I still laugh about it because my mom used to say I couldn't go there and do my visit because they let the dog in the yard all day long and they were sick among us and mind you The Gaylords where on Palmer Street in California the Shakespeare police station was that Shakespeare in California and a lot of their kids that lived in that neighborhood were Sons and Daughters of police officers that did not like anything that wasn't right if you were black or brown you have to get down if you were white you were right
I just want to say thank you so so much for putting up this video you have brought back good and very little bad memories I really enjoy my life growing up in Humboldt Park I lived there until 83 when I went to when I went to serve in the Marine Corps graduated from Clemente and then serve for 23 years
I mean that that liquor store building that was hit like that that was somebody totally else that wasn't the Puerto Ricans that was done in order to get rid of what was down in there which was a gambling establishment buy some Polish Greeks did we're down there and they had a big gambling establishment there and that was a no no because of that time they were Puerto Ricans between North Avenue and division but there was still a lot of Italians and day and the Puerto Ricans had the Bonita the little illegal Lottery and they had all the horse betting because you can bet at the horses at your local grocery store a little grocery store on the corner Dolly headquarter there and when you open up and start running a kind of more like a little Casino in the basement on the bottom of that liquor store without paying or without permission that's what happens they just took advantage of the situation that there was a ride in the park because a bunch of Puerto Ricans with sticks and bottles and glass and maybe maybe a gun or two nobody had the kind of the kind of stuff that would take to do that damage to a building just take a look at the destruction of the building and you see no homemade pipe not even a homemade pipe bomb back then would have done that kind of Destruction now you get what I mean
Yeah this is where I grew up when we started to go to the high school first we went to Tully because Clemente was still not built yet I want the Yates down the block transfer from moose because you only went to 6th grade and you only went to 5th grade and moves and then you got transferred over the Yeats and I also went to Von Humboldt lived on Maplewood live San Francisco and Armitage above a bakery that I love so much and the owners too it was called Schmidt's Bakery they made the best fudge chocolate cakes and I will get one every everyday when I got home from school the German lady would call me in her name was Magda can you give me a little square with a little carton of chocolate milk cuz I had a lot of curly hair now I have none thank you for the heart on your comment
Well, we lived in a building that had the real big tree in the backyard before it was fenced. And then we moved the Francisco and Armitage. Cause my grandfather had bought a bakery right there. You bought Schmidt's bakery and there were Stanley's grocery store next door to us and across the street. Was the gas station? Then it become a church's chicken and many things. After that, but the one place that I remember our friends an army teacher Francisco was the Pepe's tacos boy. That were good.
Thank you, it just flashed back on me. How hide-and-go-seek was so so much fun with that tree. It's still there or no. It's not. I'm sorry, no, it's not forget that the lot was sold. The 5 lots were sold to put up that kind. Of menu now I used to love sitting on a fire escape and just looking over and lived on the 3rd floor looking over, I could see almost the whole skyline of downtown and it could definitely see a lot louder the park. And in the winter you can see all the way to division.Stryeah, there's a good place to grow up growing up.Puerto rican in humble park should be the name of book
Let me tell you I'm going to go there and get a haircut because before that right on the corner of Maplewood and I don't know if Maplewood Hirsch there used to be the only barber shop there was four chairs and they were polish guys and they just would put a little put a little shaving cream little warm shaving cream on you clean your kitchen and that was a quarter but then you had a lopsided here for the rest of the month for 50 cents you got Style or at least you had to say so and how they cut your hair
I meant to say the shaving cream was always nice and warm the only thing I didn't like is when they used to pull your face in order to make your head is the way they wanted it to be able to cut your hair which was always the same
@@westlove1226 Hi, I am a independent video producer and I am working on the 1977 Humboldt Park riots and I was wondering if I can use some of your videos. I would give you credit in the movie. thanks
