Micah | Curious Art Glass

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Resurrection Mary, Archer Avenue, and the Willowbrook Ballroom: chasing memories from over by there.

The Willowbrook Ballroom burned down October 28th, 2016. The special vibe of Haunted Archer Avenue will never be the same.

A year after the fire, I drove to Chet’s Melody Lounge in Justice for a dimly lit, Bloody Mary infused reminiscence.

Chet’s is a blue collar roadhouse serving boilermakers alongside breakfast. Inside is a dark paneled ’70’s vibe: diamond jukebox, beer signs in Polish, generous spreads of home cooking laid out for Bears games, and a big gravel driveway lorded over by a pair of bounding Dobermans. Just up from Willow Springs, directly across Archer Road from Resurrection Cemetery, it figures prominently in Mary’s legend.

That morning it was closed.

Dry leaves rustled and swirled in circles around the parking lot. Sixty eight degrees out, still cold in the shadows, it was a perfect late October day in Northern Illinois.

Boozy cackling erupted from the beer garden as two blowzy, artificially tanned wenches tied orange and black balloons to a chain link fence. They gave me uncalled for south side Chicago chick attitude for crashing their biker wedding decorating party. Maybe itching for a cat fight to kick off the festivities.

Bloody Mary-less, I decided to take a drive around Resurrection Cemetery. 

The oldest part by the road across from Chet's has eerie Crucifixion statuary, blackened by lichens, very Transylvania / Eastern European. Names and inscriptions are carved in Polish. Owl scat litters the grass, a macabre smorgasbord of undigested bones, fur, claws, and teeth.

The newest section in back had so many people decorating graves, I asked a lady carrying pitchers of water if something special was going on. She said the chapel had 10 funerals that day.

Shiny, modern headstones were heaped with colorful flowers of plastic and paper, tinsel, and whirligigs… not just one grave but ALL of them, competitively decorated in a glittering, sentimental pact to honor the dead. The lady with the water said it’s Polish and Mexican social tradition.

As Southwest jets flew low overhead on their final approach to Midway, the air was split with primal screams, a small group wailing and crying over a freshly dug grave. I took that as my cue to leave.

Chet’s was still closed so I took Archer Road south, past acres of cemeteries on the left, and seedy, light industrial businesses on the right. This is the corridor that Resurrection Mary roamed.

With dread, I crossed into Willow Springs and drove slowly past the Ballroom. No melted rubble or funky stench that goes with an old building burned, all that was left were chunks of concrete, limestone chimney stacks, and some seriously charred trees.

On that spot one joyous Halloween, me and my fellow revelers, wrapped in Animal House togas, writhed on the floating dance floor as Otis Day and the Knights blew the roof off the joint.

Driving home through the thick forest preserves of Cook County, I wondered: what happens when a spirit’s connection to its former worldly life goes up in smoke?

Resurrection Cemetery, Chet’s Melody Lounge, and Archer Road still exist. But the juicy marrow of Chicago’s most famous ghostly legend has dried up, turned to ash, changed forever.

Luckily, the iconic Alpine style Willowbrook marquee still stands, perhaps waiting to pierce the veil and welcome back The Teddy Lee Orchestra one future, cold, New Year’s Eve night.

Zapraszamy, Zimne Piwo!

 

Micah / Curious Art Glass