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| Ashland |
Chicago's gritty history can lead one astray.
My friend Bill Savage certainly winces at the "gritty" epithet as "a thoughtless reflex" and urges his students not to use it, as a cliche left over from Chicago's coal-stoked days, similar to the Al Capone, rat-tat-tat gloss that obscures much more than it reveals.
So it was ironic that the reputation, like a piece of grit, temporarily blinded me to our city's sylvan deep past after reading my WBEZ colleague Erin Allen's fine Sunday piece on why Ashland is sometimes an avenue, sometimes a boulevard, of course quoting Bill, a Northwestern professor and Chicago history expert who is assembling a book on Chicago's grid (and man, am I looking forward to that).
Finishing the article, I had one question Erin didn't address (in print; it was raised on the radio): why "Ashland"? An evocative name, and I immediately imagined some 19th century slag heap on the west side of the city.
Sad.
I lunged for my copy of "Streetwise Chicago" by Don Hayner and Tom McNamee and was reminded that the past is more than our little shoebox diorama perceptions.
After observing the street was formerly named Reuben Street, it says "Ashland" was chosen "in honor of the Kentucky estate of Henry Clay, which was surrounded by ash trees."
Oh right. Ash trees. Never thought of that. Which is doubly shameful, since I planted a beautiful cimmaron ash next to my house and enjoyed its shade for 20 years, until the goddamned emerald ash borer to it, despite my best efforts.
My friend Bill Savage certainly winces at the "gritty" epithet as "a thoughtless reflex" and urges his students not to use it, as a cliche left over from Chicago's coal-stoked days, similar to the Al Capone, rat-tat-tat gloss that obscures much more than it reveals.
So it was ironic that the reputation, like a piece of grit, temporarily blinded me to our city's sylvan deep past after reading my WBEZ colleague Erin Allen's fine Sunday piece on why Ashland is sometimes an avenue, sometimes a boulevard, of course quoting Bill, a Northwestern professor and Chicago history expert who is assembling a book on Chicago's grid (and man, am I looking forward to that).
Finishing the article, I had one question Erin didn't address (in print; it was raised on the radio): why "Ashland"? An evocative name, and I immediately imagined some 19th century slag heap on the west side of the city.
Sad.
I lunged for my copy of "Streetwise Chicago" by Don Hayner and Tom McNamee and was reminded that the past is more than our little shoebox diorama perceptions.
After observing the street was formerly named Reuben Street, it says "Ashland" was chosen "in honor of the Kentucky estate of Henry Clay, which was surrounded by ash trees."
Oh right. Ash trees. Never thought of that. Which is doubly shameful, since I planted a beautiful cimmaron ash next to my house and enjoyed its shade for 20 years, until the goddamned emerald ash borer to it, despite my best efforts.
In my defense, there actually is a Chicago neighborhood named for sooty refuse. Any idea?
Ashburn. Ashland is a reminder of the numerous Kentuckians who gave up trying to make it in the hardscrabble Bluegrass State and moved to the greener fields of Illinois (including, remember, a certain carpenter named Thomas Lincoln, whose son Abe would thrive here).
Ashland, the estate, is in Lexington, Kentucky and the 672-acre homestead (well, 17 acres of it, anyway) is on the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and boasts a blue ash over 400 years old. Seems well worth a visit.
Ashland, the estate, is in Lexington, Kentucky and the 672-acre homestead (well, 17 acres of it, anyway) is on the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and boasts a blue ash over 400 years old. Seems well worth a visit.
Funny, I was reading about Henry Clay — important congressman who, leaving for Washington, ordered that no tree was to be cut in his absence, defeated for the presidency by Andrew Jackson, twice, in 1828 and 1832 — just yesterday, in Matthew Pinsker's excellent "Boss Lincoln" which I plan to write about for President's Day. Lincoln called Clay his "beau ideal of a statesmen" though declined to visit him at Ashland when he was in Lexington, for reasons mysterious. That's the thing about this job — you can head off in one direction, and end up back where you started.
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Thank for enriching our knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThose are good reading recommendations. I like "Streetwise Chicago". Wonder if I still have it? We lived on Agatite Avenue.
ReplyDeleteThe authors could not determine the origin of that street name. I was kind of proudly pleased with that mystery.
Now if we could only straighten out Milwaukee Avenue!
ReplyDeleteWhere I live, there is a similar problem with an arterial road. It meanders for no apparent reason. As I've been told, these types of throughfares started as animal trails, then followed by Native Americans, settlers, and finally road builders.
DeleteIt makes little sense, but then again, what does these days?
There's so much to know. So much hidden behind the facade of fame and power.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Neil.
Thanks, Neil, for this posting, as I always appreciate reading of your interest in all things Chicago, both current and historical, and your ability to both skillfully and artfully weave them together so we can see easily how the past informs the present and future.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciate the literary references, in this case the book, ‘Streetwise Chicago" by Don Hayner and Tom McNamee, of which I was unaware but will now obtain a copy.
As a lifelong area resident, I enjoy reading about the demographic and cultural compositions of the neighborhoods that make each unique and special, along with the churches around which many are centered, the residential and commercial architecture, both the unique and common to a given area, the retail/restaurants that reflect local culture, and other points of interest.
It took quite a bit of searching, but I recently obtained a copy of now-retired, former newsprint journalist Ron Grossman’s book, Guide to Chicago’s Neighborhoods, from 1981. Although many neighborhoods have experienced demographic changes and/or gentrification since that time, they still retain a sense of their past, perhaps due to the architecture as well as socioeconomic and religious aspects.
Thanks, again, for all you do to keep this site a fresh, informative, engaging, and lively place for us fans (as opposed to the stagnant, fetid, dying ponds that some blogsites become).
Two wonderful things (of many) for which to be thankful: the wonderful city of Chicago and EGD!
I suspect that the majority of your readers got in on the tail end of King
ReplyDeleteCoal's reign.
It was a part of everyday life as electronic communication is now.
Coal trucks, coal chutes, scuttles, shovels, stoakers, and, of course, cinders. Cinders were everywhere. On the streets in Winter, used as fill,
all running tracks were cinder (do any still exist?). Falling on cinders was a special delight. My favorite, of course, was getting a cinder in my eye. Nothing today can compare to the agony that they caused. Steam locomotives are beautiful, but I don't miss what powered them.
Only a moron would describe coal as "clean and beautiful."
My high-school's running track was built in 1938, and in the early 60s, when I ran on it, that track was still paved with cinders. Still remember the crunching sound my shoes made.
DeleteAbout a decade later, I came over a bridge in Lincoln Park on my bike and wiped out on the cinder bridle path at the bottom. Will never forget how my doctor had to pluck the cinders out of my leg with forceps. it was neither pretty nor fun.
Love it when Neil explodes my everyday assumptions. For the last 4 years, I've been living about a half a block west of Ashland Avenue in River Forest. And for the last 4 years, I would begin my daily exercise routine by running (now walking) down Ashland to Madison Street. And most days, I would reflect a bit on the obvious origin of the street name and how that would have worked out: people encouraged to dump their coal ash in piles along the curb of Ashland itself or to dump the ash elsewhere to be picked up by the Village or whatnot. It was a puzzle, but one I never tried to solve. Ash trees, I had no idea. In fact, I couldn't tell an ash tree from a potted plant. Now I know. But why would Lincoln cold shoulder Henry Clay? Hoping someone can enlighten us.
ReplyDeletetate
Though I have no firsthand knowledge, I do know from exploring other such matters that the answer is usually disappointingly simple.
DeleteOne of them wasn't feeling well, or Lincoln had to get somewhere and ran out of time, or thought he'd be back this way soon and would have time to visit then, etc. Once men become marbleized in our eyes, we tend to forget that they are victims of the small, annoying things of everyday life like the rest of us.
Yeah, I've got that, since I'm reading the book now. It seems over the candidacy of Zachary Taylor, whom Lincoln supported, but Clay didn't.
DeleteLove the photo featuring the two streetcars! Eons ago, when I was a kid, their tracks ran down almost every main street in Chicago. My pals and I could board one of those "red rocket" cars on the far Northwest Side and, with transfers in hand, we could go almost any place in "the big city." Downtown movie theaters, Riverview Amusement Park (where you'd "laugh your troubles away"), Cubs games; and parents' only concern was that you get back home in time for supper.
ReplyDeleteOh, and hey! In the background is a Goldblatts department store.
One place cinders can still be found: I had most of my front sidewalk replaced, sometime in the early 2000s; when the cement contractor showed up with a fork lift to remove the damaged squares, beneath the original (1930s?) cement instead of gravel was a thick layer of genuine cinders. The contractor added some gravel to the cinders, slapped down new cement, and moved on. So some cinders remain, out of sight, out of mind.
ReplyDeleteRobert