Memories of Rush Street bar scene: Chicago’s ‘street of dreams’

Nothing stays the same and if you want proof just look in the mirror. Maybe your hair has turned white and, yes, those are bags under your eyes, a trace of jowls.

No, nothing stays the same, and if you want further proof just walk on one of the streets where you spent your youth. Wasn’t that empty lot just yesterday a bowling alley? That high-rise condo building, wasn’t that where your aunt and uncle lived in a two-flat? That chic clothing store, wasn’t that the basement club where you once danced your head off until 4 a.m.?

A city is an organic thing, and there is nothing wrong with change, especially since those of us who still have most of our marbles can tap into memories, and those memories enable us to see the past in vivid and lively color.

So you walk the Rush Street area, meaning the street itself and also neighboring byways, and the vanished oases come back to life: Billy’s, Arnie’s, Faces, Jay’s, Sweetwater, Franksville, Singapore … and that is just to name a very few of the ghosts.

Memories will be flowing as freely as beer at a frat party when a few hundred people gather from 2 to 7 p.m. Sunday at Connie’s Pizza, 1030 N. State St., for “Rush Street Reunion 2015.”

Organizer David Floodstrand says the gathering “promises to be the ultimate industry reunion party” and indeed it will feature many performers who, like and including Floodstrand, have plied their talents in the clubs that once dotted the area and made it, for a few decades, the beating (fluttering) heart of the city’s entertainment and carousing scene.

But the party will also give him material for the book he has been working on for three years.

“The book will cover the 1920s on,” he said. “The history of Rush Street needs to be documented before it vanishes. That’s why I am writing this book.”

Floodstrand was born in Alaska but spent many of his formative years here. He played many of the clubs in the area and has made a fine career as a jazz and blues vocalist and DJ, who also operates the DJ School of Skokie. Sixty years old, he is the widowed father of two young children, 12-year-old son Ian and 10-year-old daughter Soleil.

He writes: “Rush Street. The name conjured up visions of neon lights, shiny cars, night clubs, and bars big and small, glittering crowds of people all looking like they were on their way to somewhere exciting, and they probably were. Even the women on the street looked like they were going fast, even when they were standing still. Rush Street, the name implies you are on the fast track to somewhere, and if you took the dare your wildest fantasies would be realized. … As seen in the blink of an eye, in the back of a yellow cab, from a trundle seat, me, a seven-year-old boy. … Now, I drift back and remember the picture in my mind of Rush Street and the mysteries it held.”

That may wind up as part of the book’s introduction. “The rest will be mostly about other people,” he says. “I have chapters blocked out, and I just keep adding to them. For example, I have a chapter titled, ‘The Children of Rush Street,’ that is all about the sons and daughters of people who worked on the street and what it was like growing up in the area. This is such an amazing story, so diverse and impacted by a combination of social and economic criteria. It is such a sublime pleasure to spend my time on this.”

He has struck a nerve, too. He started a couple of Facebook sites devoted to the area. They have more than 3,000 members who supply a steady stream of commentary, photos, questions and, naturally, memories.

None is a more active and intelligent contributor than Philip Wizenick, who spent much of his career working as a bartender at the Drake Hotel, Corona Cafe and other area spots.

“I am excited to meet a couple of people I have come to know through the site,” the 70-year-old Wizenick says. “We were all young once and learning about life. I came to the area in 1967 just after I got out of the service, and the old-style nightlife was in full swing.”

He has great stories to tell, about the night he shared an early morning dinner table with a girlfriend and stars Joey Bishop, Red Buttons and Shecky Greene — or meeting Jimmy Durante and a gin-drinking cat. You can ask him about those and others. He plans to attend the Sunday reunion, and so does David Marienthal.

Marienthal is the son and nephew, respectively, of George and Oscar Marienthal, two brothers who gave birth to Mister Kelly’s, which sat on the southwest corner of Rush and Bellevue streets, where Gibson’s now stands. From 1957 to 1975 Mister Kelly’s was one of the city’s and country’s most famous nightclubs, home to such performers as Ella Fitzgerald, Mort Sahl, the Smothers Brothers, Barbra Streisand, Sarah Vaughan, Muddy Waters, Bette Midler, Lenny Bruce … you name one. (There’s a Facebook page for this too.)

The brothers also owned and operated the London House at Wacker Drive and Michigan Avenue and the Happy Medium, at Rush and Delaware streets. Marienthal is awash in the history of the area and its clubs, and he’ll seek out at the reunion people who will share specific memories with him for what he hopes might develop into a book or a documentary or both.

There is no telling what to expect at the party beyond performances by Danny Long and his trio, Ronnie Laas in a quartet, food and drink, “celebrity vocalists and musicians,” disco and dance music DJ’ed by Floodstrand and others, and a screening of some scenes from “The Search For Count Dante” by filmmaker Floyd Webb, about a compelling local eccentric. A portion of all party proceeds will benefit the Lupus Foundation of America.

Perhaps someone will rise to reprise one of the inspired and raunchy comedy sets of Frank Penning at the Domino Lounge. Maybe a person will recall the night Frank Sinatra and Barbara Marx celebrated their engagement at Faces; watching the blistering bliss of female comic Pudgy’s act at the subterranean Punchinello’s; or sitting at Buddy Charles’ piano at Acorn on Oak. There might be a man there who danced with his wife at Zorine’s, and there should be a few who will remember late nights at the Scotch Mist, Tony’s Cellar, the Playboy Club.

It’s likely that most of the memories will be pleasant. That’s just human nature. But not everything will be sweet. There was a dark side to Rush Street that remains part of its nostalgic appeal. The area collected its share of oddballs, hustlers, hookers and Outfit characters. Some old-timers might remember the Candy Store or Cabaret, where the lure of naked women dancing attracted swarms of conventioneers willing to pay big bucks for beverages of suspect pedigree.

People came to the area for many things, and it was, for a glorious time gone but not forgotten, what the working title of Floodstrand’s book says it was: “Chicago’s Street of Dreams.”

“After Hours With Rick Kogan” airs 9 to 11 p.m. Sundays on WGN-AM 720.

rkogan@tribpub.com

Twitter @rickkogan