Lucca Grill stands the test of time in downtown Bloomington Karen Hansen
khansen@pantagraph.com
The venerable Lucca Grill always extends a warm welcome to friends, whether gone a day or a decade. The downtown Bloomington landmark, 116 E. Market St., is long on comfort and short on pretense; hang around long enough and you’ll join an extended family. The eatery is nearly an octogenarian now, begun in 1936 by immigrant brothers Fred and John Baldini near the end of the Great Depression. Over time, many superlatives have described its special ambiance: painted tin ceilings, a working dumbwaiter and Lilliputian-sized bathrooms. “A delightful old-time saloon” gushed The New York Times; “one of the most congenial bars ever founded,” fawned The Washington Post. Its long love affair with Democrats was trumpeted by John Baldini No. 2, revered leader of McLean County’s liberal wing until his 1994 death. The grill dispenses Kennedy half-dollars in change and one manager – John Fitzgerald Koch – is even named for the 35th president. Oodles of celebrities have walked through the doors but it’s regulars like 91-year-old Priscilla Blakney and her late husband Karl, or 43-year employee Lois Durbin who have been vetted with a picture on the wall or a plaque on a barstool or a menu item named in their honor.
B-N in 50 objects: Memory game CARLOS T. MIRANDA, The Pantagraph
Lucca Grill has been a landmark in downtown Bloomington since 1936. That menu’s most-favored meal is the “A La Baldini,” the dime-thin Italian pie with sausage, pepperoni, ham, onions, mushrooms, green peppers and pepperocini. Slide into a stool along the timeworn mahogany bar and savor some. It’s a family rite of passage.
Test your memory and relive recent “B-N in 50 objects” articles with Pantagraph.com’s photo memory game. Match photos of objects that scream Twin Cities. Photos are chosen randomly — always two of each — and more will be added as the series continues. There are easy, medium and expert levels, all of which you can play on any device, but levels below expert will appear better on phones and tablets. Play it at www.pantagraph.com/game
Watterson Towers is a sight that stands out for miles and miles Lenore Sobota
lsobota@pantagraph.com
You can see Watterson Towers for miles. It’s among the tallest residence halls in the world. Pretty much everyone in Central Illinois knows the Illinois State University’s scion is the tallest building in Bloomington-Normal and among the tallest buildings outside of Chicago. It’s also among the most populous, called home each year by about 2,200 students. Arthur W. Watterson was not a major financial donor to the university, the primary way people and corporations get their names on buildings these days. Instead, Watterson was a geography professor who died in 1966, a year before construction began on the 28-story building. He had joined the ISU faculty in 1946, after serving in the Office of War Information in Washington and later with the Office of Strategic Services, mostly in Europe, during World War II. He led the geography department for 15 years, from 1951 to 1966. Selected in 1961 for the Outstanding Citizen Award by the Normal Chamber of Commerce, he was described as a “tireless worker on the ISU campus, in his church and in his community.” His name - rescued from relative obscurity - isn’t the
B-N in 50 objects: Memory game DAVID PROEBER, The Pantagraph
Illinois State University’s gigantic Watterson Towers is seen in Normal. only one attached to the residence complex. The 10 “houses” within the towers are named for the first 10 secretaries of state, some of whom later became president: Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Randolph, Timothy Pickering, John Marshall, James Madison, Robert Smith, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and Martin Van Buren.
Test your memory and relive recent “B-N in 50 objects” articles with Pantagraph.com’s photo memory game. Match photos of objects that scream Twin Cities. Photos are chosen randomly — always two of each — and more will be added as the series continues. There are easy, medium and expert levels, all of which you can play on any device, but levels below expert will appear better on phones and tablets. Play it at www.pantagraph.com/game
What makes Central Illinois unique can be found in the ground Randy Kindred
rkindred@pantagraph.com
The stores have plenty of it in bags … top soil, garden soil, potting soil. Any will do in a pinch. Yet, at our house we want the best for our plants, and we know what that is. How? Husband and wife both came from dirt … that is, we grew up on family farms. So each spring, a plea is sent out to a brother and/or brother in-law for dirt. Not just any dirt. Central Illinois farm dirt. It is transported in buckets and transferred to pots large and small. The plants take off like crazy, even when mixed with that city-bought soil. The brother and brother-inlaw grow corn and soybeans, just as our dads did. They plant seeds in the darkest, richest, most fertile ground you’ll find … the brother in Logan, McLean and Tazewell counties, the brother in-law in Hancock and Henderson to the west. They worry about rain or the lack of it. They fret about wind or hail or droughts. They take out their pocket knives and dig in the dirt. All the while, they know there is no better place to raise a crop. Why? “I would say it’s the fact we have a deeper top soil than a lot of other parts of the country that grow crops,”
DAVID PROEBER, The Pantagraph
The soil in Central Illinois helps make it some of the best farmland. the brother said. “That probably helps us as much as anything. The top soil is really rich and productive. “We’re flat here, we have a lot of top soil and our soil drains fairly well, but it also retains water very well. Moisture seems to be readily available to the crop most of the time because it’s not draining away real quickly, yet it is draining.” So give our dirt a thumb’s up … with a little under the nail, of course.
B-N in 50 objects: Memory game Test your memory and relive recent “B-N in 50 objects” articles with Pantagraph.com’s photo memory game. Match photos of objects that scream Twin Cities. Photos are chosen randomly — always two of each — and more will be added as the series continues. There are easy, medium and expert levels, all of which you can play on any device, but levels below expert will appear better on phones and tablets. Play it at www.pantagraph.com/game
Normal Theater is still lighting up Uptown with movie nostalgia Dan Craft
dcraft@pantagraph.com
There’s nothing remotely normal about the 77-yearold Normal Theater: the sleek Art Deco/Art Moderne building at 209 North St. remains among Illinois’ handful of surviving, still-functioning single-screen bijous. It was designed by famed Bloomington architect Arthur F. Moratz and financed to the tune of $100,000 by local lawyer Sylvan Kupfer, who leased the theater to Great States Corp. The first of Hollywood’s movie legends to visit the Normal’s silver screen: Bing Crosby, whose new musical comedy, “Double or Nothing,” graced the marquee on opening night in 1937. Crosby remains a Normal fixture thanks to the annual showings of his seasonal classics “White Christmas” and “Holiday Inn.” Among the Normal’s distinctions: It was the first B-N cinema designed for sound movies and it was equipped with air conditioning, a rarity for 1937. There was rough sledding ahead as the movie business changed, reaching a nadir in 1985, when its thenowner shoved a wall between the balcony and the main floor to create a cramped twin-screen theater. The ploy failed and the theater closed in 1991, reduced to seedy second-run, bargain house status. Salvation and rebirth came via the Town of Normal,
CARLOS T. MIRANDA, The Pantagraph
Normal Theater’s marquee has been advertising movies since 1937. which purchased the theater and committed to a meticulous three-year restoration that included a return to its single-screen origins. The grand re-opening occurred Oct. 7, 1994, with “Singin’ in the Rain.” In the two decades since, the theater has remained an iconic symbol and focal point of uptown renaissance.
B-N in 50 objects: Memory game Test your memory and relive recent “B-N in 50 objects” articles with Pantagraph.com’s photo memory game. Match photos of objects that scream Twin Cities. Photos are chosen randomly — always two of each — and more will be added as the series continues. There are easy, medium and expert levels, all of which you can play on any device, but levels below expert will appear better on phones and tablets. Play it at www.pantagraph.com/game
ISU, IWU alumni know where to eat when they return to town Jim Benson
jbenson@pantagraph.com
When Illinois State and Illinois Wesleyan celebrate homecomings in the fall, alumni taste buds immediately start salivating down memory lane. Time to get a gondola or some thin-crust pizza, that comfort food they loved – and devoured – during their college days at two special places burnt into the brain forever. Thus, the packed parking lots at Avanti’s in Normal and Tobin’s Pizza in Bloomington when former ISU and IWU students roll into town. The Avanti’s on Main Street near the ISU campus may have changed some inside since it was opened by Guido and Albert Zeller in 1971. What hasn’t changed is Avanti’s fresh Italian bread, which is prepared and baked in the restaurant’s kitchen and, of course, the trademark “Avanti’s famous gondola” of ham, salami, American cheese and lettuce. You can get a half gondola, but a whole gondola is usually the way to go for hearty eaters. There are plenty of other options on the menu, but the gondola always is the first remembered. South from Avanti’s, on Main Street near the IWU campus, sits Tobin’s Pizza, a community staple since 1963 when Jim Tobin opened the doors. It looks almost the same inside as 1963, too, which just adds to its
B-N in 50 objects: Memory game CARLOS T. MIRANDA, The Pantagraph
Ben Wirtz, kitchen staff, slices a pizza at Tobin’s Pizza in Bloomington. unique charm. The thin (but not paper thin) crust pizza has remained the same even after Moe and Karen Davis bought the business in 1998. “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it,” said Moe Davis on the 50th anniversary in 2013. Good thinking - regardless if your college colors are red and white or green and white.
Test your memory and relive recent “B-N in 50 objects” articles with Pantagraph.com’s photo memory game. Match photos of objects that scream Twin Cities. Photos are chosen randomly — always two of each — and more will be added as the series continues. There are easy, medium and expert levels, all of which you can play on any device, but levels below expert will appear better on phones and tablets. Play it at www.pantagraph.com/game
Adlais, Abe & David lead the Twin Cities’ political list Edith Brady-Lunny eblunny@pantagraph.com
Mention the names Stevenson, Lincoln and Davis and three common themes come to mind: politics, lawyers and Bloomington. Maryland-born David Davis settled in Bloomington in the 1830s, presiding over a judicial circuit where Abraham Lincoln, an up-and-coming lawyer, was building his career. That’s where Lincoln also crossed paths with Adlai Stevenson I, the first in a succession of Democrat office-holders with the same last name. So impressed with Lincoln were Davis and several other prominent local leaders that they provided the support Lincoln needed in May 1860 to secure the Republican presidential nomination. After Lincoln was elected, Davis was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he remained until he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1877. Stevenson, who had moved to Bloomington with his family when he was 16, later served as vice president under Grover Cleveland and in the U.S. Congress. The second Stevenson named Adlai (grandson of Adlai I) was governor of Illinois, a presidential candidate and a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. His son, Adlai III, was a U.S. senator and candidate for governor. The Bloomington home of Adlai II still stands. The
BiLL GaLLaGhEr, For The Pantagraph
Bill Gallagher’s photo of the hole in Adlai Stevenson II’s shoe during the 1952 campaign at a Flint, Mich., amusement park became a trademark for his campaign. The photo won Gallagher the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. David Davis Mansion is a popular state historic site that includes Sarah’s Garden. A statue of Stevenson II is in the lobby of Central Illinois Regional Airport. A statue of Lincoln, Davis and Pantagraph founder Jesse Fell is in Lincoln Park, directly in front of the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.
B-N in 50 objects: Memory game Test your memory and relive recent “B-N in 50 objects” articles with Pantagraph.com’s photo memory game. Match photos of objects that scream Twin Cities. Photos are chosen randomly — always two of each — and more will be added as the series continues. There are easy, medium and expert levels, all of which you can play on any device, but levels below expert will appear better on phones and tablets. Play it at www.pantagraph.com/game