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08/24/08 14:57
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From Wikipedia, Regarding Nelson Algren, for whom the fountain at the center of the Polish Triangle was dedicated:
(Nelson) Algren's complex relationship with Chicago Polonia
Algren, who famously compared Ashland avenue to "a bridge between Warsaw and Chicago, had a complex if not troubled relationship with Chicago Polonia; his second wife Amanda Kontowicz was Polish, and his friend Art Shay would reminisce how Algren would listen to old Polish love songs sung by an elderly waitress while gambling away. The city's Polish Downtown was significant in the literary output of Nelson Algren who lived for years in the area. Polish bars that Algren frequented for his notorious gambling habit, such as the Bit of Poland on Milwaukee Avenue figured in such stories such as Never Come Morning and The Man With the Golden Arm. His writing's central focus on the area's Polish American underclass against the background of prevalent anti-immigrant xenophobia was taken by Poles as Anti-Polonism and resulted in the book Never Come Morning being banned for decades from the Chicago Public Library system over the massive outcry by Chicago Polonia.
The book's publishing coincided with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union: a period when Poles, like Jews were labeled as "racially inferior" by Nazi ideology which eventually resulted in the death of six million Polish citizens. Chicago's Polish-American leaders thought Never Come Morning played on these anti-Polish stereotypes resulting in a massive campaign against the book launched by the Polish press, the Polish Roman Catholic Union of America, as well as a host of other Polish-American institutions. A flood of articles appeared in the local Polish newspapers and letters were sent to Mayor Ed Kelly, the Chicago Public Library, and to Algren's publisher, Harper and Brothers. The general sentiment of the campaign can be gleaned from this Zgoda editorial: "The author is a product of a distorted mentality, for in his treatment of inmates of houses of ill repute he is in an element all his own and no doubt was on a narcotic jag when he concocted this story....When free copies begin to find their way into the hands of unsuspecting victims it's a signal that this anti-Polish propaganda is definitely directed by Nazi money." It went on to say that Algren, "cannot possibly be without malice in his heart against the Poles." The Polish American Council even sent a copy of a resolution condemning the novel to the FBI[12]. Algren and his publisher tried to defend themselves against these accusations, with the author purportedly explaining to a library meeting that the book had nothing to do with nationality and everything to do with poverty.
Later controversies to commemorate Algren would bring these old wounds back to surface. Two incidents regarding honoring Algren's presence in Polish Downtown played out most prominently:
The first involved Algren's last Chicago residence, 1958 West Evergreen Street. A walk-up apartment just east of Damen Avenue in the former Polish Downtown neighborhood of West Town, an area that had been dominated by Polish immigrants and was once one of Chicago's toughest and most crowded neighborhoods. Shortly after his death, Evergreen Street was renamed Algren Street. The change caused controversy and was almost immediately changed back. The area is now a gentrified, popular nightlife district.
The second involved renaming the Polish Triangle in what had been the center of the Polish Downtown after Algren. In the end a compromise was reached where the Triangle kept its name and a newly installed fountain was named after Algren and inscribed with a quote from Chicago: City on the Make circling the fountain's base: "For the masses who do the city's labor also keep the city's heart."
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