Elmwood Park Neighborhood Civic Organization

Retired Oak Park cop stops El robbery

New Nine — Sat, 19 May 2012 23:22:21 +0000

Clemet Harbour was known as a no-nonsense cop during his 32 years on the Oak Park police force. Friday morning, during a violent robbery attempt on another passenger on the Green Line elevated train, the 62-year-old showed he’s still got it. As the train slowed at a station, a teen boy started beating up a 17-year-old female student as he tried to steal her iPod. “He’s punching her with one hand and grabbing with the other,” Harbour said. “I think everyone was in shock, it happened so fast.” But Harbour didn’t flinch. “I was like, ‘Uh-uh, this can’t happen,’” he …

BGA president: Tax dollars go down drain

New Nine — Sat, 19 May 2012 22:02:00 +0000

Andy Shaw says governments need to be watched in the suburbs, not just Chicago. “I think some of the worst practices are in the suburbs and collar counties because no one is watching,” Shaw said. Shaw is the president of the Better Government Association. He spoke Tuesday during a meeting, partially sponsored by the Franklin Park/Schiller Park Chamber of Commerce, in Rosemont. Much of Shaw’s talk was a pitch for attendees to join the BGA. The non-profit investigates allegations of waste, fraud and corruption in city, county, suburban and state governments. As such, the BGA has plenty of options for …

Relay For Life Elmwood Park

New Nine — Sat, 19 May 2012 03:47:38 +0000

Almost everyone has been touched by cancer, either through their own personal battle or through someone they love. Last year, the EPNCO raised thousands towards putting an end to cancer…and we’re at it again this year!

Every day, the American Cancer Society is helping us stay well by preventing cancer or finding it at its earliest, most treatable stages. They assist families in finding the best resources to help their friend or loved one deal with a diagnosis and their journey to get well. The American Cancer Society is also rallying communities (like ours!) through events like Relay For Life, to fight back and find cures for this disease.

Please join our team or make a donation to help the American Cancer Society create a world with less cancer and more birthdays. Together, we can help make sure that cancer never steals another year of anyone’s life!

This year’s Relay for Life is June 15 – June 16 (6:00PM to 6:00AM) at the Elmwood Park High School.

‘Specialist’ disrupts NATO rally

New Nine — Sat, 19 May 2012 02:58:00 +0000

His posture suggested a soldier in a war zone. As he prepared to board a Green Line train in Oak Park to go down to the National Nurses United G8 protest at Daley Plaza Friday morning, he stood out from the other Oak Park natives and Missouri Occupy members. He wore his short blond hair in a mohawk, a black sleeveless shirt, black calf-length pants, and bands on each wrist. He seemed driven. Not unfriendly but guarded. Tightly wound. Several hours later, videos captured him scaling the bridge tower at Michigan and Wacker and tearing off a NATO banner. The …

Two charged in River Forest robbery

New Nine — Sat, 19 May 2012 01:26:01 +0000

A Chicago man and woman have been charged with aggravated robbery of a River Forest 7-Eleven convenience store late Wednesday night. At 1:20 a.m. May 17, police responded to the 7-Eleven store at Division and Harlem regarding an armed robbery that was in progress. Kirby Wise, 38 of the 5700 block of W. North Ave. in Chicago, and Stephany Powell, 51, of the 1700 block of N. Mason in Chicago, were arrested outside the store as they allegedly tried to escape in a car they’d left parked in the alley behind the store. “During the investigation it was learned that …

iPhones in hand, first NATO rally goers broadcast live

New Nine — Sat, 19 May 2012 00:12:00 +0000

“The revolution will not be televised,” spoken word artist Gil Scott-Heron famously said back in 1970. As novelist S. E. Hinton would later write, “That was then. This is now.” The 2012 NATO/G8 protests, while not a revolution, are most definitely being televised. And in a manner unimaginable 42 years ago. In an age of social media and its resultant social immediacy, the sounds and images of Friday’s National Nurses United rally at Daley Plaza in downtown Chicago were captured and promulgated by dozens of professional journalists and hundreds of citizen journalists from every angle. Of the maybe 3,000 to …

WOPA: Broadcasting from the Arms

New Nine — Fri, 18 May 2012 22:27:50 +0000

The history of the Oak Park Arms would be greatly diminished without the radio stations that have broadcasted there since the earliest days of the medium. The hotel became home for several years to WTAY radio (Wireless Tunes Await You) only a year after it opened in 1922, broadcasting “nothing but high class talent” from the Arms ballroom five evenings a week. Two decades later, William Klein was granted an AM/FM license for the area. He built a transmitting tower on top of the Arms and began broadcasting in 1950 as WOPA (signifying Oak Park Arms), with a general entertainment …

Oak Park Arms troupe recreates Thrilling Days of golden-age radio

New Nine — Fri, 18 May 2012 22:27:43 +0000

There are times when Ben Dooley swears he can feel the history of the place coming to life. Dooley, 44, founded the golden-age radio performance troupe Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear 10 years ago with his wife, actress Pam Turlow, partially because he had been thinking about a give-back-to-the-community project, partially because he had recently developed a passion for glory-days radio recordings, and partially because Turlow’s father, Dan, had recently become a resident of the Oak Park Arms. The Elmhurst residents approached the Arms about hosting a series of live recreations of vintage radio programs in 2002, and Dooley said …

Oak Park Arms recalls its elegant heyday in 90th anniversary

New Nine — Fri, 18 May 2012 22:23:53 +0000

The Oak Park Arms is the happening place in town again during its 90th anniversary celebration this month. A big band was swinging in the ballroom and radio players were providing entertainment the good old-fashioned way. Except for the median age of the audience trending a bit toward the senior side, it might almost have been a flashback to the hotel’s heyday in the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, when it was at the center of the social scene in Oak Park. Built in 1921 and officially opened in late April of 1922, the Oak Park Arms was designed to …

Voterama in Congress, week ending May 11, 2012

New Nine — Fri, 18 May 2012 21:44:38 +0000

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted on matters relating to defense spending, lobbyists’ federal pensions, funding of two federal departments, voter ID laws and funding for the Export-Import Bank. Senators failed to end GOP blockage of a bill preventing interest rates on student loans from doubling, to 6.8 percent, on July 1.