The Cross is Boss...


If you lived on North Side of Chicago from the 1940's-90's you remember the Gaylords. My Step dad is a former Gaylord. As a young person I interacted with these guys. Many of my elementary school mates ended up in the gang. Last year I purchased a book Lords of Lawndale: My Life in a Chicago White Street gang. It is an interesting bit of Chicago history.

A social club in the late 1940s to a greaser gang in the 1950s, The Gaylords became a force to be reckoned with. From the 1960s on, the Gaylords spread throughout the City of Chicago.

The Chicago Gaylords began as one of the clubs started by Veterans post WWII. The majority of the original members were Italian, Irish, Greek, and Mexican American which reflected the population at the time, as the Grand and Ogden area was known as one of Chicago's "Little Italy's" There were many such clubs in Chicago during the post WWII era. Many of these social clubs had their own clubhouses and baseball teams. The Gaylord's clubhouse was on the corner of Ohio and Noble Street.

During their peak period in the 1970s, the Chicago Gaylords held sets (or sections) on the North Side,West side and the South Side of Chicago.

• The West side sections included Ohio and Noble, Ohio and Leclaire and Monticelllo and Augusta.
• Their South Side sections included Back of the Yards (around 55th & Ashland, Sherman Park), Marquette Park, Pilsen (18th & Western), and Bridgeport (Throop Street).
  
• Their North Side presence included Humbolt Park (Moffat & Campbell); (Palmer & California, Lawndale & Altgeld); Logan SquareIrving Park (Albany & Byron); Kilbourn Park (Cornelia & Kilbourn); Kelvyn Park (Kilbourn & Wrightwood); Dunham Park (Montrose & Narragansett); Ravenswood (Seeley & Ainslie); and Uptown (Sunnyside & Magnolia, Lawrence & Broadway). During the 1960s through the early 1980s, the Chicago Gaylords experienced tremendous growth and expansion, with sections popping up all over Chicago.

By the year 2000, the Gaylords Nation found themselves claiming only four sets. These four sets were Sayre Park, Newport Street, Kilbourn Park and Seeley and Ainslie.

At this time, the four sets found themselves going through a lot of turmoil at this time. Their basic problem was lack of recruitment, which is hard to do when the area around you is going through a ethnic and cultural transformation. Anyone living in these areas at the time, can probably testify to the fact that Spanish/ Latino immigration was being felt strongly around them. Along with the growth of the Spanish speaking community comes the growth of their gangs, and these gangs are what Spanish/Latino youths are drawn in to, not mostly white gangs waving an American flag.

With no new recruits coming in for these four Gaylord sets, the current members were finding themselves aging and having to contend with other things in life, other than just protecting their neighborhood. In the process of all this, many members got married, moved away, got long prison time, etc..

It was at this period in time that the Gaylords main enemy and problem had come full force to bear on the Gaylords. This was drug addiction. Heroin, Crack Cocaine and other drugs were rampant all over the streets of Chicago at this time. The gang ended up collapsing and their so called reign ended all because of drugs.