Dan Rostenkowski's name was mentioned at a party Thursday night — bidding a belated farewell to my colleague Mark Brown, who officially retired two years ago, but whose fete was nixed by COVID, and so circled back for some well-deserved cake in the newsroom. It was delicious cake. Mark was one of the Sun-Times reporters who helped put Rostenkowski in prison — for what I considered a "Lone Trombonist Crime" (the marching band on the field makes a hard right turn; one poor schmuck trombonist keeps going straight). That, plus the anniversary of Rosty's death falling Friday, nudged me to realize I've never shared his obituary here. Let's correct that.
Loyola University Chicago Digital Special Collections, |
Mr. Rostenkowski died Wednesday at his summer home in Wisconsin, surrounded by family. He was 82.
He was never an eloquent speaker, but Mr. Rostenkowski's inside knowledge and useful connections — especially with Mayor Richard J. Daley — eased his rise, first in Springfield, then in Washington, where he was friendly with presidents from John F. Kennedy to Bill Clinton. He and Lyndon Johnson were particularly close.
Among his most significant accomplishments were the 1986 rewriting of the tax code, the passing of the 1993 deficit-reduction package and the ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Some said that, had Mr. Rostenkowski's conviction come six months later, Clinton might have succeeded in reforming health care. Instead, Mr. Rostenkowski pleaded guilty to two counts of mail fraud in 1996 and was sentenced to 17 months at the Oxford Correctional Facility in Wisconsin.
Mr. Rostenkowski never apologized for the actions — he called them "technical violations" —that sent him to jail, though doing so might have eased his return. The central debate is whether Mr. Rostenkowski was a victim of changing times, an advocate for Illinois who was too focused on the big picture to worry about trivial expense account rules, or whether his life as a consummate political insider — born to an alderman, weaned on the Cook County Democratic Machine, given the inside track, first in Chicago and then in Washington — finally caught up with him, that times had changed, and he, lulled by power, had arrogantly refused to change with them.
Daniel Rostenkowski was born Jan. 2, 1928, son of Joseph P. Rostenkowski, the 32nd Ward alderman, in the house built by his grandfather, Piotra Rostenkowskiego, born in Poland in 1868, who came to Chicago as a teenager. Like his dad, the boy was called "Rusty" — "Rosty" came later — and accompanied his father to Washington in 1941 to witness FDR's third inauguration.
His surname lopped to "Rosten," he attended St. John's Military Academy in Wisconsin. The young man considered West Point but instead enlisted in the Army, serving in Korea from 1946 to 1948.
Big and nimble, he went to the University of Kansas on a basketball scholarship, where he lasted a few weeks. He aspired to baseball and got a tryout with the Philadelphia Athletics farm team in Florida until his father pressed him to return to Chicago, where he worked as an investigator with the corporation counsel's office, got his real estate license, did some public relations for the Teamsters. In May 1951, he married LaVerne Pirkins, whom he met on a blind date.
But in these jobs, Mr. Rostenkowski was just killing time until the right opportunity came along — his father pointed out a vacant Illinois House seat and urged his son to run. In 1952, after restoring the "-kowski" to the end of his name, he won the House seat. In 1954, he moved up to the Illinois Senate.
Toward the end of the decade, he eyed Congress. Richard J. Daley would have preferred Mr. Rostenkowski to stay close to home. "Daley wanted to keep him around as another Cook County hack," Jim Merriner wrote in his book, Mr. Chairman. But Mr. Rostenkowski convinced the mayor that he needed a young hand to grow in power in Congress, and Mr. Rostenkowski was elected to the U.S. House in 1958.
He was easily re-elected 17 times over the next 36 years.
Throughout the 1960s, Mr. Rostenkowski built his power in the House. In 1967, he became chairman of the Democratic caucus.
Mr. Rostenkowski played a brief role at the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention that was to have implications on the rest of his career. With police and protesters clashing in the streets of Chicago, the convention floor dissolved into chaos. An enraged Lyndon Johnson called the Amphitheater to find out what was going on. Mr. Rostenkowski took the call. LBJ told him to restore order.
Taking the gavel from House Speaker Carl Albert, Mr. Rostenkowski banged it and called for security to clear the aisles.
"But for those brief moments at the podium," Merriner wrote, "Rostenkowski may well have become Speaker of the House." Instead, Mr. Rostenkowski made an implacable foe of Albert, who felt bullied and spent years trying to thwart his ambitions toward House leadership.
In the early 1980s, Mr. Rostenkowski had a major role in funding the construction of Chicago's four-building Presidential Towers, a classic political boondoggle that seemed to benefit everybody but the low-income residents it was supposed to house.
A Sun-Times investigation revealed that Mr. Rostenkowski had provided governmental favors for the complex at a time when his personal finances were being managed by one of the developers.
But it was an investigation into petty expenses, also led by the Sun-Times, that blew into scandal in the mid-1990s and led to Mr. Rostenkowski's losing his House seat.
"I was there 36 years," he said in 1996. "They changed the rules 30 times. I can honestly say I was not fully cognizant of the rules and where there were changes. Maybe I was brazen, I ignored it."
He was accused of chiseling $695,000 from his congressional and campaign funds over two decades. A 17-count indictment included charges of embezzlement, fraud and witness tampering.
The actual acts that he pleaded guilty to were using government funds to pay for china he gave as gifts to friends and having congressional employees perform personal errands for himself and his family.
After his indictment, he lost his bid for re-election in 1994.
Inmate No. 25338-016 spent his nearly 13 months at his prison job, recording the numbers on boiler gauges, and slept on the bottom bunk in a four-man room.
The last two months of his sentence were served in a Salvation Army halfway house on South Ashland Avenue.
After his confinement during which he shed 50 pounds — he formed Danross Associates, a consulting firm, and advised corporate clients, including the hotel workers union. He gave speeches and appeared on TV as a commentator.
Many supporters saw the conviction as a farce. Sun-Times political columnist Steve Neal called it "wrong and vengeful."
"Dan Rostenkowski unfortunately ended his career with legal problems," Sen. Paul Simon noted in his memoirs, "but his contributions as chairman of Ways and Means helped the nation immensely. He had a quality not in abundance, backbone."
Mr. Rostenkowski was issued a full pardon by President Clinton in 2000.
Survivors include his wife, LaVerne, and daughters Dawn, Kristie and Gayle — who all shortened their names to Rosten. One daughter, Stacy Rosten-McDarrah, died of a kidney ailment in 2007.
Visitation will be from 1 to 9 p.m. Monday at St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, 1255 N. Noble. Services will be at the church at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Burial will follow in St. Adalbert Cemetery in Niles.
—Originally published Aug. 10, 2010
Don't forget, St. Stanislaus Kostka Church was supposed to be demolished for the Northwest Expressway [now the Kennedy], but he got it rerouted around it to save it. That's the place known as the Rostenkowski Curve.
ReplyDeleteI remember numerous bus trips through neighborhoods that were being leveled for what eventually became known as the JFK. Half-demolished courtyard apartment buildings that were not much more than thirty years old. Bungalows from the same era, reduced to piles of rubble, which were then set on fire. Whole blocks that looked like the aftermath of a monster tornado, or Berlin after WWII.
DeleteI spent almost half my life on the North Side and in the northern suburbs. I heard about gaper's blocks and Hubbard's Cave, from the flying officers who broadcast the traffic reports on WGN radio. But not once did I ever hear of anything called the Rostenkowski Curve
The idea of Rostenkowski saving the church is an urban legend. I looked into it when I wrote "You Were Never in Chicago," and the path of the Kennedy was set years before he was in power. Also, I'm with Grizz regarding "Rostenkowski Curve." You're 0 for 2 today, Clark St.
DeleteWell, this exchange made me wonder if it was only Clark St. that I've seen referring to "Rostenkowski's Curve," because I'm certainly familiar with that term.
DeleteNeil is correct about it being a misnomer, of course, as is detailed in this piece from some WBEZ colleagues:
https://www.wbez.org/stories/why-the-kennedy-curves-at-division-street/19a8c842-7fbe-48c5-9613-df882869b90e
But google turns up lots of references, which I didn't bother to check after this one -- the Christian Science Monitor blatantly printing the Rosty legend as fact. "Rostenkowski proposed realigning its route to skirt the church. He got his wish, and the highway was diverted. 'This could be called Rostenkowski's curve," Velo said of the bend in the roadway.'"
https://www.csmonitor.com/From-the-news-wires/2010/0818/Dan-Rostenkowski-remembered-as-generous-powerful
'"This could be called Rostenkowski's curve," Velo said of the bend in the roadway. Yes, it could be. But it isn't. And it probably never was.
DeleteMr. S arrived in Chicago in the late 70s, and began his career at the Sun-Times in the 80s. On the other hoof, I was born and raised in Chicago (1947-65), witnessed the building of the expressway, and then lived in Evanston and Chicago for another 17 years (1975-92).
I'm well aware that the roadway was diverted around the church, just as the Red Line curved around a church at Oak Street when the "L" was built in the 1890s. But I'm positive that EGD is the first place I've ever seen the term "Rostenkowski Curve"...and those bus rides I took through the demolition zone were in the middle Fifties, well before Rosty took office. The route had already been mapped out, and I saw the bulldozers at work.
He did have a lot of clout with Hizzoner Da Mare, so he may have had a bit of input about the route while still a state senator in Springfield. But ultimately, even though he erroneously got the credit, it was other movers and shakers who were responsible for that curve.,
My only observation on the Rostenkowski Curve topic is that I would think a simple glance at a map would make the most junior highway designer or civil engineer see a looming Public Relations disaster, if the nice straight line proposed for getting downtown was going to run over a big old church. Better to push around individual residents, homeowners and apartment buildings than to take on the Catholic Church.
Delete...and per a very good summary, with photos, that WTTW has posted (https://interactive.wttw.com/timemachine/rostenkowski-curve), that "most junior highway designer" (my term, not his) is apparently a fellow named Bernard Prusinski. More details can be found in my link above.
Well, Andy has kinda beaten me to the punch, but I'm gonna post this, anyway.
DeleteYeah, Grizz, the link I posted explains that it was 32nd ward alderman Bernard Prusinski who did the heavy lifting with regard to having the church spared, having campaigned on the issue. Elsewhere it says that, being a civil engineer, he devised that part of the route himself.
You state: "And it probably never was." Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as they say. The WBEZ article is from 2012, and concludes: "Somewhere along the line, the legend developed that the congressman had been the person who’d saved St. Stan’s. And now that stretch of expressway near the church — which helped drive Dan Rostenkowski’s father from office — is nicknamed Rosty’s Curve."
The quote from Monsignor Ken Velo was in his homily at Rosty's funeral in 2010.
So, those are both well after you left, Grizz. And, while I can be foolish, I'm not enough of a fool to disagree with our esteemed host about Chicago history without substantial backup. Even he has not heard *everything* that "people say." WTTW's go-to Chicago authority Geoffrey Baer: "'People have tended to call that bend in the expressway the "Rostenkowski curve" because they think that the powerful congressman, Dan Rostenkowski, who was such a hero in the Polish community, pulled the strings for it,' Baer said."
I don't know how many people, I don't know when it started, I don't know who started it. Perhaps it was even Msgr. Velo who popularized the idea, since I didn't find any references from before 2010. But some people have clearly mistakenly called it that, whether you knew about them, or not.
https://www.chicagocatholic.com/chicagoland/-/article/2018/11/08/st-stanislaus-kostka-once-one-of-the-largest-parishes-in-nation
Grizz, actually, the North Side Main Line was built in 1906 to Wilson, then was extended soon after at grade to Evanston on the right of way of the Chicago, Evanston & Milwaukee RR, later bought by the Milwaukee Rd. & raised up on the embankment in 1922. The Northwestern Elevated Ry Company, later consolidated into Chicago Rapid Transit Co. & finally the CTA in 1947, paid the Milwaukee Rd rent for use of the ROW until about 1952, when the CTA finally got eh money to by it from the railroad. That's why the CTA was still delivering lumber to the Hines Lumber Mears Yard just north of Howard on Chicago Ave until it closed in the 1960s 7 coal to the Lill Coal Company at Berwyn, where the big jewel is until the 1970s. Those heavy rail cars were store during the day on the Seminary Ave. branch of the Milwaukee Rd on the east side of Graceland Cemetery until after midnight when the CTA's three little electric locomotives which use a trolley pole, went down the no longer extant ramp to grade to pick them up & then an offset gantlet track on Track 1, because the Class 1 coal cars were too wide for any L trains to pass by on Track 2.
DeleteThe church turn is flat out insane, as is the triple turn at North Ave. & the curve around the Vautravers Building between Roscoe & Newport, which the CTA has finally spent millions to move that useless ugly apartment building because some fools claim it's a landmark, so they can straighten out the tracks.
Plus Mr Bee Vest himself, Frank Kruesi prevented spending $25 million when they rebuilt all the Ravenswood stations to take 8 car trains & didn't get rid of the truly bizarre Diversey Kink.
They will also have to spend millions more on land acquisition at the Sheridan Rd. S-Curve so that the station can be rebuilt with either one platform with an elevator as a single center island for just the Howard trains or keep it as a two platform island platforms station. All of that because of the 1903 Adams law passed by the state preventing building any l lines over streets with out the permission of some sort of majority of property owners on that street. It was passed after the construction of the L lines on Lake St. 63rd St. & all the Loop L stations over the streets. So the North Side L lines were snaked through alleys, which were,'t covered by the law!
You're preaching to the choir, because I'm a lifelong juicehead (electric transit junkie)...and I have a whole lot of books about the history of the Chicago rapid transit system. But thanks for sharing.
DeleteVery interesting to hear what the CTA is up to these days on the Red Line and the Brown Line, both of which I rode for much of my lifetime (Purple Line, too). I lived at Pratt and Ashland in the early 70s, and I used to hear that coal train rumbling by at 3 or 4 in the morning...sometimes while listening to Coltrane.
Very nice.
ReplyDeleteNow do George Dunne.