Before New York
This is the first of a two part series; see also the second part, "A New York Story"
Why?
Before the first time I tried to move to New York City in the summer of 1973, the biggest question from everyone who knew me was why? Why did I want to leave Chicago? What had happened to drive me away from the city in which I had been born and had grown up?
My life had been in crisis. Chicago, the city I loved and knew so well, was the location of everything that was wrong. I didn't think it was a salvageable part of my life anymore. Only by leaving could I separate myself from the terrible events that had happened.
But the devastation I wanted to leave had its roots planted well in advance. Intense problems affecting me and others in my family had been occurring repeatedly for years.
my older brother, me and my older sister
Chicago
1956
Family
I grew up in apartments in various locations on the West Side of Chicago, where I also went to a Catholic elementary school and high school. In the beginning, I had two siblings: my sister, who at eight years older than me was the oldest child and my older brother who was five years older than me. Thirteen years after I was born, in 1965 my younger brother was born.
My father, who had abused and threatened my older two siblings when they were still kids and teenagers, and who had threatened to kill my mother on multiple occasions, had major psychological problems that continued to affect everyone. My parents had divorced, remarried just before my younger brother arrived and later divorced a second time.
In the mid-1960s, my sister and her husband already had two children with a third on the way. My older brother, who had been beaten a few years before by my father, was much taller and stronger when he joined the U.S. Marine Corps. He encountered racism during his training at Camp Pendleton in California. Afterward, he spent eighteen months in heavy combat in Vietnam during the war in southeast Asia.
My mother was the breadwinner in her job as a manager of up to three dozen operators at the telephone company (she was one of the first black women ever promoted to such a position after passing tests that the company required). It kept her working torturous hours on weekdays and weekends in a constantly changing schedule that could begin in the early morning, the afternoon or in the evening on any of the seven days of the week. However, her salary was the essential resource for everyone. She paid for our tuition and helped her children as well as extended family members in crucial ways.
In 1968, when I was still a teenager in high school and my younger brother was two and a half years old, my father went back to Canada where he was born and raised. He was mostly out of our lives when I was about to turn 16 years old, and I was thankful.
Nevertheless, as the decade ended and the 1970s began, I would be confronted with some incredible new challenges.
College and Much More
I graduated from high school and began attending the University of Illinois at Chicago (then known as Chicago Circle campus), majoring in architecture. My commute from our West Side apartment was not a problem. However, during my first year, I had an accident on campus that tore the cartilage in my knee and required surgery to address my inability to walk normally.
the apartment building where my mother, younger brother and I lived when I started college
Washington Blvd. and Lockwood Avenue
West Side
Chicago
me at 18 years old on the roof of the Architecture and Art Building
University of Illinois Chicago Circle campus
photo taken by my friend and classmate John with my camera
April 1971
Chicago
My mother was paying for care for my baby brother while she worked and dealt with my recovery, when suddenly she had to help my older brother overcome an extraordinary event after his return to the States. Off-duty racist Chicago cops started a fight with him and his friend at a bar and lounge on the West Side. My brother's friend was killed and my brother was falsely accused of attempted murder of a Chicago police officer. My brother was arrested, repeatedly beaten and kicked in the groin in their attempt to get him to confess to a crime he didn't commit before they took him to Cook Country Jail. The experience left him more than bitter.
After my mother and a priest got him out of jail, Chicago cops would drive around the block where we lived every day, sometimes multiple times a day, looking for my brother who they wanted to harm or kill. (I witnessed their open surveillance of our apartment building while I was wearing a cast on my left leg after my surgery.) My brother-in-law managed to smuggle my brother out of Chicago entirely, in the back seat of a car, hidden underneath blankets (this story appears far more extensively in a different online journal that is a biography I wrote about the life of my brother).
above and below, our family's shared house
Eighth Avenue
Maywood
June 1973
The Suburbs
Eventually, my mother tried to help everyone live a better, safer life in a large shared house in the suburbs with two levels and a finished basement, a back yard, and a two-car garage. My mother's income was mated with my sister's income as a crossing guard in the city and my brother-in-law's income as a delivery truck driver for a suburban meat processing company. It enabled my sister and her husband to purchase the house we would all live in, My sister's three children and my younger brother would have space to play and attend new, better suburban schools. My older brother would be able to visit as well.
My mother, my younger brother and I lived on the smaller, second floor which had a kitchen, bedroom, living space and a second, tiny windowless room that became my sleeping area. My sister and her family had the larger downstairs floor with another, bigger kitchen, bedrooms, a living room and a dining room. The basement, which had a bar, space for entertainment and separate spaces for utilities (the boiler, a laundry room and storage areas), became my brother-in-law's relaxation area.
My mother took the commuter train to downtown Chicago where she worked. However, the new location made my commute to the university, via a bus to the Chicago "L" train, take two to three times as long as when we lived in the city. It greatly affected my daily life. The suburbs seemed to benefit everyone but the house was away from everything I loved. There was nothing for me in the suburbs and I didn't want to be there at all.
Solutions
My college expenses were sky high and the distance from school was negatively affecting me. In the winter, I traveled on sometimes bitterly cold days via public transportation down to the city. My sister, who drove down into the city each day to where she worked only a mile or two from the university, never offered to drive me until one day when my mother suggested it on super cold day. Nevertheless, my sister wouldn't take me the last mile and she dropped me off, letting me endure the freezing temperatures as I walked to the university. It was almost cruel and it was obvious that she didn't care about me. I never rode in her car again.
I needed money to afford drafting supplies and other expensive tools required for my architecture courses. I didn't think my mother should be asked to handle any more financial demands. I was reluctant to tell her everything although I let her know that I was facing some financial issues. I just wouldn't tell her the full extent of my problems since I thought she already had more than enough to deal with involving my siblings, her job and even other relatives.
I decided to try possible solutions of my own. I got a job cleaning animal cages at the Medical Research Laboratory of the University of Illinois Medical Center Campus which was slightly less than a mile away from my classes. The windowless building contained hundreds to thousands of mostly rats, mice and guinea pigs but also many cats, dogs, primates, etc.
the dormitory in which I shared a room with a white, male medical student
University of Illinois Medical Center Campus
Chicago
The Dormitory and My First Apartment
My job at the Medical Research Lab allowed me to obtain a room in the only university dormitory at that time. It was primarily occupied by medical students. The university matched me with a white suburban student with whom I had nothing in common. He barely spoke to me even though we spent every night together in our room. I heard his friends whisper and laugh about me in the cafeteria whenever I passed by. Our time together was a social disaster. But it was close to the main campus that I attended and that was the most important aspect.
My being an employee of the university also made me eligible for a small apartment in a different building which was usually reserved for medical students and personnel. I left the dormitory and got my very first apartment which was known as an "efficiency".
the staff apartment building where I lived in my first "efficiency" apartment
University of Illinois Medical Center
Chicago
the partially furnished living space in my apartment
another view of my apartment
the kitchen
another view of the staff apartment building that contained my "efficiency" apartment
University of Illinois Medical Center
Chicago
A Camera
Somehow along the way, my interest in photography expanded. By 1972, I had managed to leave behind the little camera that my mother had bought for me when I was still a kid and any small cameras I might have acquired afterward. I saved enough money to by my first "real" camera, a Canon FTb single lens reflex with interchangeable lenses. It was capable of taking better pictures although because of the cost of film and processing (whether color negative film, color slide/transparencies or black and white film), I didn't take a lot of pictures right away. Still, I was fascinated and valued it greatly. I had no idea that I would use the camera in entirely new and creative ways in the near future, record many memorable times and take many portraits of other people as well as self-portraits.
Still, the cost of school and all the required supplies was way beyond my reach. In my third year at college, I dropped classes to work more hours but it was in reality a spiraling problem of its own. I had loans but I couldn't see how I could ever pay them back and I was reluctant to apply for more of them. An uncaring university counselor and I spoke for maybe four minutes, with no paths or help offered.
Finally, by the beginning of 1973, I dropped out of college entirely. Nothing hurt more.
I returned home to the suburbs where my family lived, far away from school and downtown employment opportunities. It remained an especially limiting environment without a car.
In January of 1973, my older brother got married. I was the wedding photographer. My photography would continue to grow in the coming weeks, months and years as I began recording more of everything around me. I took pictures of the people who were important to me and the places in the city that I loved.
Then an amazing, life changing thing happened.
A Car
In an attempt to help me deal with commute back to the city, where I had more goals and opportunities, my mother bought a car for me to drive. The used but like-new 1972 metallic green Buick Skylark, which she purchased with the help of my brother-in-law in early 1973, also allowed me to drive her and my little brother around, providing an important benefit for them as well (at the time, my mother didn't drive).
Nothing gets the attention of young men more than cars. They offer unsupervised roaming. Even the auto show at the convention center in downtown Chicago suddenly became more interesting than ever.
me at the Chicago Auto Show
photo taken by my best friend Chuck with my camera
McCormick Place
Chicago
March 1973
The car gave me new options both daily and long term. Just as any young man would, I began to explore the world more. I traveled to various places in the car with my best friend. New places seemed within reach. I had a chance to figure out how to get back to the city on a more permanent basis.
My friend Chuck and I traveled first to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and spent the night in a hotel downtown. It was just a destination, only 90 miles away from Chicago.
photo taken by Chuck with my camera
Milwaukee
April 1973
me in a building downtown
photo taken by Chuck with my camera
Milwaukee
April 1973
We were two twenty year old guys with the new independence given to us by four wheels. We continued with small trips. Among the places we went to was Indiana Dunes State Park, just over the border with Chicago.
photo of me taken by Chuckwhen we stopped to pee in the woods
on the way to Indiana Dunes State Park
June 1973
In June, my mother decided to take the train to St. Louis, Missouri to visit relatives there. She was accompanied by my niece and my younger brother. My friend Chuck and I drove from Chicago to meet them there. It was our first truly long driving trip, three hundred miles. There was nothing like the ability to go where we wanted, and do whatever we wanted while the wheels of the car took us down Interstate 55 at 70+ miles per hour. It was a more positive time while I worked on finding a way to afford a return to my educational goals.
Then, without warning, in an instant everything took a turn for the worse.
Arbitrary Destruction
One day my emotional and irrational sister came upstairs into the smaller section where I was staying with my mother and younger brother. She started an argument for no reason and it made no sense.
She had never been to college but began to question everything in my life, even though nothing involving me had ever affected her and she didn't even see me often. She lacked any knowledge of what she was talking about. It was an escalating attack on me but there was never an explanation for it. I tried to tell her about the cost of resources needed for college, even though I had never requested or received any money from her whatsoever. I didn't take up any of her time with my efforts involving school and I never requested any help from her. My mother tried to stop her hysterical rantings. I couldn't understand where this was coming from.
Finally, after enduring the most intense and sustained verbal assault I had ever experienced in my life, criticizing everything I was dealing with, I asked her if she wanted me to leave. She screamed yes, go, get out. Go!
I had never done anything to her or to any other family member. No offense had ever been committed by me. It was unexpected and astonishing.
Even though my sister and her husband (who was at work) were technically the owners of the house with my mother as the financial underpinning of it, my sister couldn't actually legally require any of this. She was standing in the section of the house where she didn't live, where my mother was paying for a place for herself, my younger brother and me. It was just as much my mother's place as my sister's. My mother was in disbelief.
But I had enough. It was the last straw. I was treated as though I had committed some awful crime. I grabbed my keys and jumped down the stairs to the car, and drove off, burning rubber. I had no place to go. I was angry and fed up.
I was now homeless. My life was in ruins simply because someone, my sister, was in a mood to destroy it. I didn't want to live in the house anyway but I had been told to leave immediately. If I disliked the suburbs before, I absolutely hated them now.
I drove down to my best friend's house. My mother had already called his mother and told them to expect me. They were so kind to me as always. My best friend was the only person who knew a lot of what was really going on inside my head. But I didn't want to impose on his family and they had no space for another young man to live indefinitely in their apartment.
With my friend's help, I drove back to the suburbs. I spoke on the phone with my mother and she arranged for me to pick up some of my clothes and other basic items. She had packed food for me as well. When we arrived, I parked down the street from the house. I wouldn't go too close or inside. Instead, my friend went to get the items my mother had packed. He brought them to the car and put them in the trunk and back seat.
A Searing Memory
Then my mother walked out of the house and down the street toward me and the car. I walked toward her and met her in the middle of the street. She and I hugged each other and then she began to cry in my arms. She was the strongest woman and parent I had ever known, but she was worried about me and in a brand new pain over what had happened. I rarely saw my mother cry and now it was over me.
I never forgot those moments. They were seared into my memory forever. After all that my mother had endured, after all her sacrifices for all of her children, she had to watch her efforts to help me end up demolished by another one of her children. I wasn't nearly as upset with my sister for what she had done to me, as I was with my sister for making my mother cry.
I didn't think I could ever forgive my sister for hurting my mother. It was the ultimate transgression. It was the worst thing my sister could ever do.
I later learned that my sister had gone back downstairs and into her bedroom, shut the door and refused to talk to my mother or anyone else that night, including her husband when he questioned her why she demanded that I leave. Yet it was predictable of her to run from the terrible thing she had done and not admit any error, even if she knew that she was wrong in the extreme.
It took my sister almost three years to apologize to me and even then I was knew that it was only at my mother's insistence. My sister would have felt guilty and quietly pressured to try to admit her mistake but she just couldn't face it on her own. She would rather have pretended that none of it ever happened. For a long time, we never talked about it. When it came, her apology never felt sincere and I never believed it. Yet I never held against her what she had done to me. In future years our relationship returned to something approaching normal, although it would never be truly positive in the way it should be for a brother and a sister. However, I resolved never again to be in a position where someone could destroy my life on a whim.
Living in My Car
In the meantime, for weeks afterward, I lived in the car my mother bought for me earlier in the year. I looked for places to park and sleep at night in both the city and the suburbs. I would wash up in the men's rooms of train stations in downtown Chicago.
One night I thought I had found a quiet place to park in a near empty, weed-strewn lot behind a factory-like building in the suburbs that was closed all night long with no one around. Not a single person knew where I was, or so I thought.
Yet somehow the police found me and after checking my papers, told me that I couldn't stay there. In the middle of the night, I once again began the search for a place to sleep. I was lucky it was summer and I didn't need heavy coats or a lot of blankets.
Nevertheless, as I experimented with places to sleep, I would often hide under a blanket, trying to make myself look like nothing more than packages. I sat in my car and tried to sleep for brief times in the suburbs on a road parallel to the expressway not far from on and off ramps.
Sometimes I drove down to the lakefront and slept in a parking lot next to North Avenue Beach. I knew no one would bother me in daylight. The beach facility had sinks and toilets. The men's changing room was a place where I could wash up and no one would question me.
I survived on money my mother had given me, plus money from odd jobs. I ate mostly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that I made inside the car. My life had hit its lowest point ever and I was depressed to the point of losing the will to live, because I had lost college and now I had no place to live, nor any place that I wanted to live.
the used but like new 1972 Buick Skylark
that my mother had purchased in Spring 1973 for me to drive
viewed here near North Avenue Beach along the lakefront
Chicago
New York as a Flawed Oz
I decided to try to leave it all. I hoped that I could restart my life away from the madness. I packed my camera and some clothes and I set out for New York City. I hoped to get a job and move there. It would finally divorce me from all the awful family problems and terrible events of the prior months. I could start over, free of the influences that worked so hard against me.
I have written about my travels in A New York Story, which chronicles my journey and the difficulties I had in relocating. Ultimately, during my initial visit to a city that had its own massive problems, I ran out of money and had to return to Chicago. My mother wired money to me via Western Union, which I picked up at their location just south of Times Square.
I didn't want to come back to Chicago. It was the scene of the most awful events in my life and I had not made progress in solving any problems at all.
A Potentially Deadly Act
At the depths of hopelessness, one night I tried to end my own life by a taking a whole bottle of sleeping pills. It wasn't successful and the emergency room doctors told my mother that I would survive it. Yet it remains an eternal marker of just how low my life had sunk.
Recovery
In the coming weeks, months and years, I got more jobs, moved into a YMCA downtown and then into a YMCA on the West Side, switched to photography, took courses at Columbia College Chicago and moved yet again to a different YMCA in Hyde Park on the South Side (all chronicled in A New York Story).
the window of my room
Austin YMCA
West Side
Chicago
January 1974
self-portrait
Austin YMCA
West Side
Chicago
February 1974
my school ID
Columbia College
Chicago
1974-1975
at my job on my birthday
when I turned from 21 to 22 years old
Borg-Warner Corporation
Michigan Avenue
Chicago
November 1974
The most significant change was when I got a full time job as staff photographer and audio-visual technician at Borg-Warner Corporation. Things were better. Even Chicago, my beloved city, was becoming ever more beautiful with all its tall, new skyscrapers and magnificent waterfront that beckoned when I went running in the mornings and rode my bicycle in the evenings.
1976-1977
I left YMCAs and lived in my own apartment again, this time on the North Side of Chicago. I had a steady income and a job that used my talents in photography and writing (despite my having a racist boss). I photographed friends, family members and the city. I had a relatively short, reasonable commute to the office downtown. I participated in a program sponsored by corporations where for several weeks I was a tutor for young inner city kids, and I did a photo essay on them for our company newsletter.
I spent time with my close friend Larry and my girlfriend Deborah. I gave back the Buick Skylark to my mother who needed it more. I went without a car for a while and just took the "L" (elevated train) to work every day. I rode my bicycle, worked out and went swimming in a downtown YMCA. For the first time I had a level of security and a basically stable lifestyle.
above and below, part of my living room with my photos on the walls
in my third (top) floor apartment
Buena Avenue
North Side
Chicago
August 1977
above and below, part of my workspace
with a table, desk and darkroom equipment
and my photos on the walls
Buena Avenue
North Side
Chicago
August 1977
my "courtway" apartment building
on the right half of the photo
Buena Avenue
North Side
Chicago
August 1977
Destiny
And then, one weekend in February of 1977, I flew to New York City without telling anyone. I was entranced all over again.
In June of 1977, I bought a new car. Soon I was driving my Honda Civic CVCC hatchback stick shift car around the city and using it to visit my mother and brother in the suburbs.
Within two months of purchasing my car, in August 1977, I decided to take another trip to New York City. It was journey back to my future life.
Despite the seeming steadiness of that time in my life, I was still secretly not satisfied. I didn't want to think that there was nothing more, that I would settle down and live an uneventful life forever, without having seen more of the world. I needed to go where I could create on a larger, more dynamic canvas.
24 years old on the back stairs of my apartment building
Buena Avenue
North Side
Chicago
August 1977
above and below, my light metallic blue Honda Civic CVCC hatchback stick shift
Midway Plaisance
South Side
Chicago
May 1978
1978
I never got New York out of my system. If anything, it kept calling upon me from the rising sun in the eastern sky.
It wasn't easy and I had to restart my life all over again from the ground up. But when I finally managed to relocate, I knew that I was going to have a very different life from the one I had in Chicago. I was meant to see more than I had ever expected, from a base that was a stepping stone to the whole world.
I was right.
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