Thursday

Those Places Thursday - Grandma's House

1616 Hollywood, Chicago, Illinois
my grandparents, Richard and Lydia Kallman's home.



Their home was located in the Edgewater area of Chicago. Nowadays a more upscale community but I remember it differently.  Once home to a large Swedish population  and part of Lakeview township, "white flight" in the years after World War II had left the area in decline. Some older Swedish immigrants, like my grandparents, hung on but their children and grandchildren had "escaped" to the suburbs. 1616 Hollywood butted directly next to the ever expanding Edgewater Hospital on 5700 N. Ashland Avenue. I remember in the hot Chicago summers, when Grandma left all her windows open just hoping for a breeze, the ever constant loud deep hum of the hospital fans and mechanical systems even seemed to vibrate her little kitchen. Maybe she was used to it because she didn't seem to notice. Eventually the hospital ate up her house too. In spite of Dad's advice, Grandma just couldn't leave the neighborhood, no longer Swedish, that she had known for so many years. Or she couldn't go far anyway. She moved to Wrigleyville.

A bit of useless trivia about Edgewater Hospital is that Hillary Clinton was born there. Karma, or the government, paid that place back for eating Grandmas house. It was closed down in the early 2000's because of massive Medicaid and Medicare fraud. I don't think we can blame Hillary for that though, or can we?





**click on photo to enlarge for easier viewing**