Satin Doll

I grew up near Fondulac Ave. It's a main vein of the city, cutting through the city's roughest neighborhoods on a diagonal. This area has always been working class. All the whites moved out when the city started forcing them to sell homes to blacks. In the late seventies my mom married my stepfather and bought a duplex on Locust, just down the street from Fondulac Ave.




There were store front churches and taverns on every other block. You could go to Big Mama's Fun House on Saturday night and The Temple for Jesus on Sunday. Immigrants ran the corner stores, but they never lived in the neighborhood.




On hot summer days the Satin Doll's Lounge's back patio would be open. You could see the patio area from the street. They had those old school oil drum barbecue pits smoking. Riding by on the bus I wondered what went on there. Were there half naked go go dancers with satin skin prancing around? That cool vibe faded slowly over the years, as times changed and the neighborhood slipped further into poverty.




There’s always been a hope that the area would somehow rise up. It is getting better further down the road and I think in a few years these throw backs to the seventies will be gone forever.