Community mourns passing of legendary activist Florence Scala 

By Susan S. Stevens 

Florence Catherine Giovangelo Scala, who could shout with the best of them when it came to trying to save her neighborhood but was a soft-spoken friend to the professors and students who later became her neighbors, died Aug. 28 of colon cancer. She would have celebrated her 89th birthday in three weeks.

            First known for leading the fight to save her community from demolition for the construction of the University of Illinois Circle Campus, later named the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Mrs. Scala later worked for affordable housing and a variety of other causes. She also ran a restaurant patronized by politicians and professors alike.

            “She represented the spirit of Chicago,” said author and broadcaster Studs Terkel, who interviewed her for chapters in more than half his oral history books. “She roused the community.”

            Death came with her nephew, Rev. Steven Giovangelo, and several neighbors at her side in the apartment building on the northwest corner of Taylor and Miller Streets where she had lived most of her life, Fr. Giovangelo said. She was born next door in an apartment behind her father’s tailor shop. When she was 14, he bought the building that in her later years housed her and the Florence Restaurant—named after the city in Italy and not for her.

            The only years she lived elsewhere were those after the 1963 bombing of the building, when she feared for the safety of her family. The bombing had been attributed to organized crime, whose leaders were running their own candidate in that year’s Aldermanic election against Mrs. Scala, who was a candidate. During that time, Hull House or an apartment on Ashland Avenue were her homes.

            “She was so self-effacing that she did not want a funeral,” her nephew said. “But we are going to defy her wishes and have a memorial service.”

            It was scheduled at 10:30 a.m. Sat. Oct. 20 at Holy Family Church, which she attended from childhood on, was married in, and helped save from demolition. Her cremains were being placed in the family monument at Queen of Heaven Cemetery.

            Born in 1918 to Alex and Theresa Giovangelo, who emigrated from the Abruzzi region of Italy, Mrs. Scala attended the original Jackson School, now the Galileo Math and Science Academy, and started learning English when she was in kindergarten. McKinley High School followed. She dropped out of a community college after a couple of months because she could not afford it. However, she took an assortment of college classes later.

            While in high school, she expanded her horizons at Hull House, the community settlement house established by Jane Addams to improve the living conditions of immigrants and teach them to participate as citizens of a wider community. Mrs. Scala joined its little theater and dancing classes. She called Hull House her “awakening.” She impressed Hull House administrators so much that she was sent to Washington, DC, to meet with Eleanor Roosevelt.

            During the Great Depression, her experience at Hull House earned her a $50 a month job at the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Theater Project. Most of the time, she was an extra in performances. With the arrival of World War II, she became a clerical worker for the Draft Board and in 1942 married Charles “Chick” Scala, before he was drafted. He died in 1986.

            Mrs. Scala’s brother, Ernie Giovangelo, returned from WWII with hope of bettering the homes in the largely Italian and Greek community. In 1949, he helped organize the Near West Planning Board, a citizen-participation planning group, and became its executive director.

            His sister was appointed “the housewife” on the board. She had such tasks as photographing empty, derelict buildings and dirty alleys in the area where garbage pick-up was perhaps twice a month.

            In February 1961, Mayor Richard J. Daley announced the Harrison-Halsted area would become the home of Circle Campus.

            Community residents felt betrayed, though politicians representing them were quiet. Even Hull House and the Archdiocese of Chicago, which stood to lose its newly built Holy Guardian Angel Church and School, sided with Daley.

            Mrs. Scala became—almost accidentally—leader of the opposition. She was feeling defeated by the City when a neighbor, Lee Valentino, asked her to go to a community meeting. Once there, she was asked to chair it. That gave birth to the Harrison-Halsted Community Group. They set a date to picket City Hall, for the first of many times.

            Picketing and meeting with politicians got them nowhere. They tried the courts, going as far as they could—to the U.S. Supreme Court. They failed. They even stalled an essential bond issue for two years. But, in the end, the City acquired 1,100 lots, demolishing homes and businesses on most of them, and construction of Circle Campus began. It opened Feb. 22, 1965.

            Among the grieving neighbors is Mario “Skippy” DiPaolo, whose parents were friends of the Giovangelos and Scalas and took over Mario’s Italian Ice on Taylor Street from his father. “She fought very hard to keep our neighborhood intact,” DiPaolo said. “She fought for everybody’s rights.”

            Other neighbors who did not want to be identified said she helped them in times of need and was always a good friend.

            Despite losing the Circle Campus fight, Mrs. Scala was not through. At the urging of the West Side Christian Church pastor, Rev. David Wright, she ran for Alderman in 1963, but lost to the candidate backed by organized crime.

            After her Aldermanic race, she stayed focused on housing, working through the West Side Christian Church and Catholic Voices for Economic Justice. She fought displacement of the residents of the ABLA Homes and for maintaining affordable housing in the community. She served on the Near West Side Conservation Community Council for decades, and often was the lone voice of dissent as the council generally sided with its Chairman, Oscar D’Angelo.

            “She was terribly concerned about justice, particularly in Chicago” said Sister Francilla Kirby, who still works on housing issues with Catholic Voices. “She was one of Chicago’s heroines.”

            Saving Holy Family Church was one fight she won. She was on its Preservation Steering Committee, which raised money to renovate the church and attract enough new parishioners to make the Archdiocese back off on closing it.

Another winning fight was for a new public library. Mrs. Scala worked with Chicago Public Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey to set up the Roosevelt Branch of the library on Taylor Street. The community wanted the library named for Mrs. Scala, but the humble activist declined this honor and many others as well. She did allow the Chicago Historical Society to create an exhibit in the late 1980s about her activism, however.

            Dempsey knew the community activist’s reputation but had not met her previously. “It was a special experience for me,” Dempsey said. “She was so thrilled that the library was going to have a stronger presence in the community.”

            Her parents died within months of each other in 1976 and the tailor shop sat empty.          In 1978, she suggested to her brother, Mario, that they open a restaurant in the old tailor shop. They converted it with woodwork salvaged from demolished buildings in the neighborhood, including the Hull House complex. Already what her nephew termed a “fabulous cook” —she learned from her mother—she took classes in restaurant management. The Florence Restaurant quickly became one of Taylor Street’s most popular eateries.

            Dan Czerwinski, who lived in an apartment above the restaurant for seven years.

            ‘She was absolutely fearless,” Czerwinski said. “If something needed addressing in the neighborhood, she went right after it, loved her independence, and rescued countless cats.”

            “The restaurant—the food was exceptional because it wasn’t restaurant food, it was truly Nor-thern Italian food cooked as if at home,” Gail Quillman, Czerwinski’s mother, said. “She came out of the kitchen occasionally to see how you were doing, and would never fail to cater to special requests,”

            UIC joined the mourning. Chancellor Sylvia Manning issued a statement:

            “On behalf of the campus I would like to extend our condolences to the family and friends of Mrs. Scala, and also to note that although differences in perception placed her in deep opposition to the building of the East Campus of UIC, behind that opposition there stood principles of community, neighborhood and integrity that UIC shares. We offer whole-hearted respect for those values she represented with such dedication.”

            “A great leader has been lost to the Italian community and the city at large,” said D’Angelo.

            Studs Terkel said Mrs. Scala is a voice in almost half of the oral history books he wrote. “I knew her way back when she first started challenging those who destroyed the community by setting the UIC campus there,” he said. “This is no reflection on the campus and the students, but on the way they did it.

            “She was independent. She was my hero. What a loss,” Terkel said.

            One of Mrs. Scala’s last formal interviews was with Kathy Catram-bone, co-author of the 2007 book Taylor Street: Chicago’s Little Italy.

            “Although she was sick, she graciously talked to me on the phone when I was working on my book,” Catrambone said. “She was a role model for Italian-American women and, in a larger sense, for everyone who cares passionately about their neighborhood and city. What a loss for all of us.”

            In addition to her nephew, an Episcopal priest in Indianapolis, she is survived by a niece, Teresa (Glynn) Wyatt of Northridge, Calif., and twin nephews, David and Robert Farrell.

            In keeping with her wishes, donations in her memory are sought for the Holy Family Church Memorial Fund, 1080 W. Roosevelt Rd., Chicago, IL, 60608.