Chicago Urban Legends
An Autobiography: 1969-1985By Robert M. Katzman348 Pages
$29.99 Plus sales tax, where applicable.
“When I was faced with ruin - as wild as it seems - the head of the Chicago Mafia came to my rescue.”
Ages 19 to 35, besides creating Bob's Newsstand, mostly forgotten today in a very different and dangerous Hyde Park, it carried 3,000 periodicals from all over the world, gave employment to uncountable local children and seniors.
I married too young at 21, then REALLY fell in love with the right one for the next 42 years.
Oh, and I opened a kosher deli at 19, a distribution company at 25 which broke the nationwide barrier against Queer magazines being allowed on newsstands, creating legal history in the process and after 20 years, when Bob's ended, I stunningly discovered that nobody -- nobody -- would hire me and I faced two years of unemployment. For a guy working continuously since 1962 at 12, two idle years was an eternity.
Today, there is a massive building covering the entire former Hyde Park shopping center and my last brick newsstand. So much history buried under all that concrete. 1,100 Sunday New York Times were sold there on Sunday mornings for decades. Today, the big store on the ground floor doesn't sell newspapers.
I married too young at 21, then REALLY fell in love with the right one for the next 42 years.
Oh, and I opened a kosher deli at 19, a distribution company at 25 which broke the nationwide barrier against Queer magazines being allowed on newsstands, creating legal history in the process and after 20 years, when Bob's ended, I stunningly discovered that nobody -- nobody -- would hire me and I faced two years of unemployment. For a guy working continuously since 1962 at 12, two idle years was an eternity.
Today, there is a massive building covering the entire former Hyde Park shopping center and my last brick newsstand. So much history buried under all that concrete. 1,100 Sunday New York Times were sold there on Sunday mornings for decades. Today, the big store on the ground floor doesn't sell newspapers.
