Living in Interesting Times

Crilly Court, the little street in Old Town where the elite and not- so- elite met in the 1930s. The third house from the corner was one of the two "brothels" operating on the street from the late 1920s to the 1940s.

I met a lady, a shady lady...

And she said okay, sonny--give me your money.

     Shady Lady, Uriah Heep

    

Living the Good Life on Crilly Court

Crilly Court is quaint. Crilly Court is charming. Crilly Court is home to some of the luckiest people in Old Town. I know, because I'm one of them. I could tell you a lot about Crilly Court. I could tell you that it was the first planned community in the City of Chicago--designated by its developer as an enclave for artsy types and young marrieds, with or without children. I could tell you that it was dubbed "Hollywood by the Lake" in the early 1900s because it was the center of the movie industry. I could tell you that it was the site of the first "gay rights" organization in the country. I could tell you it was the home of a brilliant, eccentric water engineer who greeted me, when we rang his doorbell as newcomers, in his boxer shorts with his head lathered in green shampoo and a martini glass in his hand. I could tell you about a neighbor who would come home after a night on the town, throw out his arms, and burst into a chorus of "The Street Where You Live". Honestly--it happened, more than once. I could, and will, tell you about all of these things--in time. But for now, I will tell you the story I promised, about the brothels of Crilly Court.

 

 

The Way We Are

You'd never know by looking at Crilly Court that it was once a thriving "red light district". Turn the corner from Eugenie onto Crilly and you'll wonder if you landed on a street in London by mistake. The tiny row of two-plus story Queen Anne-style houses, fronted by wrought iron fences, tiny gardens, and wooden stairs leading to the main floor entry, makes you think of Victorian England. Crilly Court just oozes charm. But, believe me, there's a lot more to Crilly Court than charm. Read on.

The Way We Were

Crilly Court was built by a southside developer named Daniel Crilly in 1885. Crilly purchased all of the property between Eugenie and St. Paul from Wells Street to North Park and proceeded to construct his very own planned community, leasing only to young married couples and personalities connected with the arts: writers, actors, musicians, dancers, and painters. He and his son Edgar kept to this plan, for the most part, until the area fell on hard times after World War I. By the late 1920s,the family had to give up pieces of Crilly, a house here, an apartment complex there. Later, they tried to buy them back, but it was too late. Finally, in 1963, they sold off everything they had left: the houses, the apartments, and the stores on Wells Street for just over two million dollars. Read it and weep. Can you  imagine what just one of these building would fetch today? Oh well, lah di dah. No use going down that road.

Going Down

Until 1920, the Crilly houses were, as I said, a rather stately group of Queen Anne-style houses, occupied by business and professional people. By the mid-1920s, they had become seedy tenements whose landladies sat on their front stoops barefoot and tossed bones to dogs passing by. They also threw their trash directly into the back yards. Nice! In 1924, a gay activist by the name of Henry Gerber rented a room at 1710 N. Crilly Court and held clandestine meetings in the basement for a small group of gay men. The meetings were highly secret because homosexuality was illegal in the City of Chicago, and they would have been arrested if discovered. In fact, they were discovered and arrested a few years later after being "ratted out" by the disgruntled wife of one of the bisexual members. All their papers and equipment were confiscated. The charges were later dismissed because the search was conducted without a warrant. But--more on that later. For now, it's just another example of the shady past of Crilly Court.

Things began to change in the late 30s. In 1937, a young couple named Kappy and Alexander Maley decided to bite the bullet and rent the house at 1716 N. Crilly Court. It took some courage, because they were appalled at what they saw when they first walked inside. The already-small rooms had been chopped in half and had beds in every cubby-hole. Pay phones hung on partitions all over the house. There was only one bathroom, and it was in such terrible condition that it had to be completely redone. Despite its shabby appearance, the Maleys fell in love with the place, and when Edgar Crilly agreed to tear out the partitions, remove the phones, put in new carpeting, build a second bathroom, and have the entire house painted, they signed a lease--promising to pay $50 per month in rent. Irma O'Toole, daughter of a well-known Old Town saloon keeper, bought the house at 1706 for a whopping $3,000. She and her husband did a complete gut on their place and turned it into an early Old Town showpiece.

The house at 1704, though still a rental, had a nice, cared-for appearance--displaying "clean windows" and polished brass plates and door knockers. Kappy Maley, who by then was becoming seriously invested in the neighborhood, decided to drop by one afternoon and get some decorating tips for her place. Okay, get ready now. She knocked on the door and was courteously received by a handsome woman of a certain age. Shewalked into a glitzy parlor and found several young ladies all made up and lounging around in their robes, albeit fairly elaborate robes, and looking askance at their visitor. Now this was odd. A few minutes into the conversation, Kappy realized that she had not walked into just an ordinary house. The "older woman" was, in fact, the Madame of a "call house", and the younger women were her "girls". She said her hasty good-byes and left. (It is not known what decorating tips she came away with.)

Well, this was a titillating discovery. But the real surprise came a week after Kappy and Alexander actually moved into their house at 1716. At 3:00 one morning, there was a loud knock on their front door. Alexander opened the upstairs window and saw a cab driver standing there. He had knocked on behalf of three men waiting in his cab. "Is the Madam in", yelled the cabbie.

Alexander, groggy at being awakened at such an hour, and thinking it might be one of their friends playing a joke, replied, "Yes, but she's in bed now."

The cabbie went back and relayed the message to three disappointed fares, who directed him to drive away. At that point, as the saying goes, the light dawned on the Maleys--both for the cabbie's visit and for the strange living arrangements they had originally found in the house. They had moved into a brothel, or, in Kappy's words, a "whorehouse!" which some people obviously thought was still in business. The partitions were there to allow more rooms for entertaining "guests", and the phones were used for taking appointments. They had heard about  "call house flats", that depended on a communications network of pimps, taxi drivers, and saloon-keepers to attract "guests". But they thought that the vice district, then protected by organized crime, was centered in the area around Clark Street and Chicago Avenue.  They had no idea it had spread north to Old Town.

Although the Maleys immediately straightened things out with the Vice Squad, taxi drivers were still directed to Crilly Court by lecherous patrons for a few more years before finally, the red lights went out. While the folks who moved to the street in the 1930s and 40s were not too thrilled with its shady reputation, those who came in the nineties actually vied for the distinction of owning one of the  former "whorehouses". I remember my friend, the late Jeanne Kuhn, who lived at 1716, saying proudly, "I think one was mine". It was. The house where Kappy Maley stopped for decorating tips now belongs to a very proper local real estate agent. And though the Madame has long gone, the windows are still clean and the brass very polished.

So, bicycle people, now you have it. The real story of the brothels of Old Town.

Till next time,

Shirley