When Dennis Murphy opened Poor Phil’s with his wife Bunny, on the corner of Marion and Pleasant 30 years ago, the neighborhood was in transition, so to speak.
Nearby the popular pub was a gun shop. Spanning the blocks left to right were three SRO (single room occupancy) buildings. Two were well run. The dicey SRO on the corner of Marion Street and South Boulevard was not. “Back then, it was a lot of SROs for one business district to shoulder,” Murphy recalls.
Over time, though, turnovers took care of the eyesores, and the neighborhood now “looks good, and is only getting better,” Murphy reports.
“What is happening here is the extension of the North Marion Street streetscape to create a typical unification and link between the two districts, Downtown Oak Park and the Pleasant District,” says Pat Zubak, executive director of Downtown Oak Park.
The two business districts north and south of the railroad tracks, she adds, will have some similar design elements, but be unique and now connected by a beautified viaduct, after the first of the year, that is.
Zuback says that the next phase of this local improvement effort will be unifying The Avenue Business District from north to south on Oak Park Avenue and then connecting it to Downtown Oak Park. The three retail areas will eventually link together to establish a greater, and unified, downtown business district.
Michael Fox, of R.P. Fox and Associates, the group that owns and operates the Carleton Hotel, says he and his staff are ready to get back to business without parking disruptions in the Pleasant District which runs from Harlem to Home Avenue, and includes Marion Street between South Boulevard and Randolph.
“The streetscape that was here before was very old, tired and in disrepair,” Fox says. “Whenever you take anything from a state like that to a state like it will be, it will create a better overall customer experience for everybody.”
Even before the streetscape was completed, Eric Larson, co-owner of Marion Street Cheese Market, has been meeting with Zubak to begin making plans for future collaborations between the Downtown Oak Park and Pleasant Districts. “The day after our microbrew event ended, we thought it would be a great idea to extend it south through to the Pleasant District, so next year we could begin at Lake Street on Marion and extend it all the way down to Poor Phil’s,” Larson says. “Pat Zubak and her team have really done a great job in coming up with other great programming, and we hope to become part of that as well.”
Meanwhile, Mary Jo Schuler, president of the Pleasant District, and Larson’s business partner, notes that the new streetscape, including the garden space and bicycle parking accommodations, will be pretty and green. Last summer, on South Marion Street, she co-founded Greenline Wheels, an L3C social business which promotes green transportation. Schuler is an advocate of creating a greener, walkable community throughout Oak Park.
“We have a great mix of businesses here, and I love the fact that I can go to the spa at Salon 212, or shop in the Oak Park Jewelers, and afterwards eat some great food – we have five restaurants in our district. I also have an office here, and I can drop my car off at Loro Auto to get it serviced while I work,” says Schuler. “Getting this down took some high level teamwork. I am really proud of how these entities pulled together to make something really positive happen for our community.”