Jacquee Thomas

The bar roars with laughter, even as the night ends on a bittersweet note—while it's refreshing to see the support of so many people from over the years, there's also the disheartening reality. Having stood at the corner of Paulina and Haddon since 1910, Jean's Place is closing for good.

Outside, Jean's Place resembles an old-time saloon. Inside, the original bar shows its age, wearing scratches and stains collected over ninety years; the worn tile floor is just as proud. The tavern stretches long and narrow. Its barstools pull up to a footrest that's really nothing but a boarded-up line of spittoons. The back room, renovated as an apartment, once accommodated a speakeasy, while the front room served as a Prohibition-era juice bar.

Originally called Bud's Place, the bar underwent a name change when Bud passed it along to Jean and her siblings, Harry and Irene. For the past fourteen years, John and Bill Paige and Kevin Kutsch have held the keys, but the time to sell has come.

"There were people interested in continuing it as a bar when we were selling," says John Paige. "But in March of 1999, the city of Chicago passed an ordinance that said no new [liquor] licenses shall be issued on Paulina from Chicago Avenue to Division. We were the only place on that stretch."

Under last year's liquor license moratorium, targeted areas are introduced in the form of an ordinance by an alderman to the city council, says Jennifer Hoyle, Public Information Officer for the city's Law Department. An alderman may choose different parts of their ward and be as area specific as they want covering a minimum of two contiguous city blocks. The moratorium itself comes into effect under issues of new ownership, Hoyle says, and there are a few exceptions. For example, if a family member buys the property, a new license may be issued.

So when prospective buyers showed interest in maintaining the bar, they had to ask the owners for a partnership. But after fourteen years of providing a gathering place for neighbors to meet, network, chat, toast and tipple, Kutsch and the Paiges weren't interested. Enter the new buyer—a developer, ready to tear down the tavern to make room for condos. Exit Jean's Place. The bar closed November 15.

Chicago boasts a reputation as the "city of neighborhoods," a crazy quilt of communities with individual and unique histories. As neighborhoods formed over the years, bars inevitably popped up on corners—taverns with woody interiors, humble, tattered watering holes and owners who are there daily, if only in their name on the sign outside. Places that provide an opportunity for what has become an increasingly rare phenomenon—a chance to get to know your neighbors. In East Village, where Jean's Place stood, more and more of those neighbors reside in condos, the very hulking, modern structures for which neighborhood taverns are sacrificed.

In a sense, bar regulars who find themselves second-homeless have their city to thank. "There must have been about twenty other ordinances that specific," Paige says. "The city seems to be trying to get rid of that kind of bar. I know what they're doing; they're trying to push the bars to the main streets."

"It's sad," says Suzie Borzecki "There's fewer and fewer neighborhood hangouts. You can't walk to the bar anymore. People are forced to drive, and that's not always safe."

The Blue Note, formerly located on the corner of Armitage and Wolcott, closed in the fall 1996 and was eventually lost to the wrecking ball. The lot where it once stood now hosts a set of pretty condominiums. The predecessor of The Note on Milwaukee Avenue, the old Blue Note lived in a building that had a long history of taverns and nightclubs. "It was the Bucktown Pub for a couple years before I bought it," says Nick Novich, proprietor of both incarnations. "It was Just Jim's since the sixties. During the forties, it was the Silver Slipper."

The Blue Note was an intimate nightclub, with black floors and blue lighting, a long glass bar in a narrow front room. The back room had pool tables that, on late weekend nights, were shuffled to the corner and covered with plywood—a makeshift landing for seats and drinks. A blue guitar was painted on the floor, upon which people danced to the piped-in music of the front bar's jukebox, which had a fabulous selection of vintage jazz and blues.

Then gentrification seeped in, strangling the establishment's existence. Outside, residents—many from the area's new developments—complained, fussed, and generally put up a fight over the debauchery they felt The Blue Note brought to the neighborhood. Inside, more and more "weekend warriors" entered.

Novich endured a series of confrontations, including hearings, with opposing neighbors. "The only ones who show up are the ones who are anti. The people who are pro might see an announcement about it and think, 'That doesn't bother me,' so they don't show up." As a result, he says, it creates an impression that the entire neighborhood is against the issue, when it is actually a vocal minority.

Before the Blue Note reached a point where it was forced out, Novich found the space on Milwaukee, closed the old place and opened The Note. "We were more surprised than anyone at the incredible response we got [at the Blue Note]," he said. "We were growing out of the neighborhood." But while the Blue Note lives on in its new incarnation, it's never been the same.

A portion of Jean's Place regulars meet at other area bars for Bears games. And old Blue Note patrons might be reminded of the place when they gaze at the blue neon note that now dangles over the 1600 block of Milwaukee Avenue.

And gentrification, while renewing the city, has its casualties. With the city pushing its licenses toward the main thoroughfares, people from the suburbs flocking to the city and the emphasis on condo development, old neighborhood bars are falling out.

"I think it's important to keep the neighborhood bar in existence," Novich reiterates. "They're one of the last vestiges, [where] people aren't so anonymous in the big city."

(01/06/2000)


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