Dante-Guardian Angel School Yard-Part 1

Vince Romano 

Collaborator: Johnnie Parise 

www.TaylorStreetArchives.com

 

PART ONE 

The historic significance of the Dante schoolyard dates back to the turn of the century and then some. It shares center stage with the Jane Addams Hull House (circa 1889), Halsted Street, Greek Town, Maxwell Street, and Cinder Stadium. While one could make a sociological, philosophical, or political connection that extends as far back as Dante Alighieri’s literary works, we will confine our story to the Italian American experience of growing up in the legendary Chicago’s Taylor Street neighborhood. 

Dante School was located on Forquer Street (later to become known as Arthington Street). It stood between Halsted Street on the west and Desplaines Street on the east. The Jane Addams Hull House was just down the street. Across the street from Dante School was the Holy Guardian Angel Church, one of Chicago’s first Italian American Churches. A fence on the west end of the playground separated Dante’s schoolyard from the Guardian Angel School. 

On a summer day in 1924, Wallace K. Kirkland Sr., Hull House Director who later became a top photographer with Life magazine, took a picture which he titled, “The Hull House Kids.” The backdrop for the picture was the fence that separated Dante schoolyard from the Holy Guardian Angel School. That picture, along with an article titled, “Meet the Hull House Kids,” appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday, April 5, 1987. The article lists the names of each of the young boys and refutes an earlier attempt to label them as being of Irish ethnicity. As it turned out, all twenty boys were first-generation Italian Americans…all with vowels at the end of their names. The article goes on to say, “They grew up to be lawyers and mechanics, sewer workers and dump truck drivers, a candy shop owner, a boxer and a mob boss.” 

Before its demise to make way for the expressways and the UIC Campus, Dante schoolyard was renowned as the athletic field for the Tay-Halls. These were the guys who hung around Taylor and Halsted streets. Besides the “pool room” to which they graduated when they outgrew Hull House, they had their other hangouts. Notable among them were the Broadway Restaurant, Harry’s Tavern, and Al’s Pizzeria. All three establishments attracted customers from the far reaches of Taylor Street’s Little Italy. Their destruction altered forever the character of the Hull House neighborhood’s major component, Little Italy.

The dimensions of Dante’s softball field were similar to those of Goodrich School’s Cinder Stadium. (Cinder Stadium is another of the stories in these Taylor Street Archives.) Both were one dimensional, straight center field playing fields with a multitude of complex rules. An example of the positions will give you an idea of the complexities of the field. Besides the traditional positions, the second baseman was called the wall man. He had to play the line drives that came off the school building.