Murder Neighborhood

I took a walk down 95th to get a tooth yanked out a few days back. Passed by Mike's Barber Shop. I worked in that same building in the late 1970s. I'll not use real names at this point, because the other day I received a somewhat angry comment from H*oly Gh*st regarding my post on the Ins*n* *nkn*ns a month or two back. The place had been a sandwich shop owned by a guy named Sam A. He left the joint on a Monday in July, 1979, and went to Mirabelli's Furniture Store on 103rd & Cicero. Rush hour. Got himself shotgunned, the sandwich place was a front for a chop shop. Three shooters. No witnesses. Perfectly understandable. Still unsolved.


I would close up the place after the counter girls left. I quit in August, because I didn't much like seeing black sedans drive by the place at 11 PM. The original building was torched in late August, on a Sunday, the one day they were closed. On this one stretch of 95th, that little square of real estate is the only new building, and that itself is thirty years old. I could have taken photos of a car dealership and two attorney signs, but they'd have no meaning.


Petey's Bungalow seems like a cool place; there are so many brick buildings here. Cormac Condominiums look great, the odd 1960s style lettering. This might have been the place I first saw the word condominium. A "U" shaped building, the courtyard could be a postcard of any recent time era. It really reminds me of a framing scene for an episode of The Fugitive.


But yeah, for a few months in 1979 I worked for the Chicago Outfit.