Here are links to some other sites you may enjoy – just click on a link:
CHUCKMAN’S PLACES ON WORDPRESS: FEATURING THE BELOVED URBAN VILLAGE OF SOUTH SHORE CHICAGO
CHUCKMAN’S BITS AND PIECES OF THE PAST ON WORDPRESS
CHUCKMAN’S PHOTOS ON WORDPRESS: CHICAGO NOSTALGIA AND MEMORABILIA
CHUCKMAN’S PHOTOS ON WORDPRESS: TORONTO NOSTALGIA
CHUCKMAN’S PHOTOS ON WORD PRESS
CHUCKMAN’S KODACHROMES ON WORDPRESS: JOHN AND BOBBY LONG AGO
CHUCKMAN’S ILES DE LA MADELEINE (MAGDALEN ISLANDS)
CHUCKMAN’S GALLERY OF GROTESQUES
CHUCKMAN’S PHOTOS ON WORDPRESS: 1920s ARCADE CARD BEAUTIES – THEIR CHARM AND GRACE AND WHIMSY
CHUCKMAN’S WORDS ON WORDPRESS: POLITICAL ESSAYS
CHUCKMAN’S WORDS ON WORDPRESS: COMMENTS FROM THE WORLD’S PRESS
CHUCKMAN’S MISCELLANEA OF WORDS
CHUCKMAN’S NON-SPORTS TRADING CARDS OF THE 1950S VOLUME 01 (OF 4 VOLUMES)
CHUCKMAN'S PLACES ON WORDPRESS: FEATURING THE BELOVED URBAN VILLAGE OF SOUTH SHORE CHICAGO 
Thanks Chuck. I went to Bradwell and South Shore HS. Graduated in 1954. What a delightful nostalgic trip down memory lane. Was so glad to see the pictures of the library on 73rd & Kingston. Spent a lot of time there. And The Fire Station right behind there. My grandfather was fire chief there back in the early 40s, then went to Great lakes naval base as fire chief until retirement. In the 40th and 50s The warming house for the ice skating and the building we called the Bath house, where you could shower after being at the beach were two different buildings. Seems to me the bath house backed up to the handball courts. The warming house for ice skating was closer to 75th street. By a huge (seemed huge then) fenced in field. It had a pot belly stove in the middle and benches all around it two rows deep, where you would put on skates and thaw after skating. Oh the wonderful memories. I’d lived first at 7624 Coles. Then 7614 (I think) Saginaw and then 7514 Phillips. So always in the same neighborhood. Worked at Sears on 79th through college. So enjoyed 25th and 50th SS class reunions. 50th we got to tour the school and were heart sick to see the swimming pool we’d all looked foreward to seeing, waterless and a mess. Thanks so much for all your work. Now, back to the news letter. I have put this site in my favorites though.
Thank you, Verna, for such a nice letter.
We did have a wonderful neighborhood library, and I also spent a fair amount of time there.
I don’t recall some details the same way you do, but those are the tricks memory plays.
The field for ice skating – of course, I’m talking a few years later than you (SSHS, Summer 1962) – was quite large – it was, I believe, the field used for football between 76th and 75th. It wasn’t fenced (except on the side towards the Thunderbird Motel), as I recall, but the snow plows always made banks around the rink which were very charming at night under the lights and helped cushion crashes.
I do think the “warming house” was a double-duty building. I don’t recall the pot-belly stove, but we certainly still had them in the 1950-60s in places like I. C. stations and C. T. A. elevated stations.
If you look at the 1960 picture of Rainbow around 77th, the one with the crowd in the park, you will see two buildings near each other.
I can’t imagine touring any part of South Shore anymore. I was last there in the mid-eighties, and the commercial streets were a disaster, almost like a war zone, just liquor stores with bars on the windows, shabby revival storefronts, and not a decent-looking business anywhere.
My old, good friend’s, Preston Uney, house on Kingston just south of 79th had had a fire and the roof was left open.
Nothing much left to nourish memories.
All the best,
John Chuckman
So many memories! I graduated in 1955 from Bradwell. I remember the warming house to be a small building next to the ice rink with the pot belly stove and everyone carved their names on the benches, walls etc. How lucky we were to grow up in such a great neighborhood. The buildings were really beautiful, I didn’t realize it at the time. I lived in a 1 bedroom apartment at 7752 Essex, then in 1955 we moved to another 1 bedroom apartment 2416 East 78th St. I married and moved to Downers Grove in 1960 and with sadness left my beautiful Rainbow Beach. Your pictues of the Avalon were great.I checked out your pictures of Toronto as my Mother was from there. Thanks1
Thanks, Marilyn,
I think I’ll assume you are right about the warming house: you are the second person to write about it and to offer details.
So I think I’ll change the caption.
Memory is such an imprecise thing. I remember some things so very keenly from those days, but others, like the nature of the warming house, seem to be fuzzy.
John Chuckman
Your pictures, especially those of our old neighborhood of South Shore are absolutely fantastic. It was a such a great area in which to grow up . I have some wonderful memories of our days at Bradwell and South Shore High. You may want to check out the Facebook group called, “Forgotten Chicago” which focuses on Chicago buildings and sites. Your contributions to this group would be wonderful. I am now living in Albuquerque, NM. I hope all is well with you.
Hi Karen,
Mr Kazmier lives just up the road from you in the Santa Fe.
John Chuckman
I just wanted to say thank you for the trip down memory lane. I spent 27 years of my younger life residing on 73rd & South Shore Drive. Spent many years at Rainbow beach. Used to go to the Thunderbird Motel to swim in the pool and have dinner at the restaurant. My brother & I used to sneak in the the South Shore Country Club by climbing the black rocks of of the lake. I remember so many Air Shows at Rainbow Beach! We used to go to the gardens on 79th Street and my parents also rented a small plot to grow vegetables there. I attended St. Brides School in the 60’s and a few years in the 70’s. We used to go to Goldblatt’s in South Chicago as a big shopping spree and as a treat we went to Woolworth’s across the street to have a shake and burger at the sit down counter, if you had a soda with Coke you got to keep the glass! It was a different time, I watched as the area changed and everything started to be boarded up, closed businesses and the end of an era. Thank you once again for rekindling my childhood memories…
And thank you, Mihaly, for those words of warm old memories.
John Chuckman