Racetrack, Reconsidered
My previous visit to this abandoned racetrack was underwhelming, to say the least. The weather was dreary and the track clubhouse reminded me of a cheaply built strip mall left to rot. I did not plan on going back, but when I learned that the racetrack was being demolished to make way for a shopping center I decided a return trip was in order. Maybe the place would be more impressive the second time around.
Sportsman’s Park is located along one of the more desolate stretches of Cicero, a town that is not lacking in desolate stretches. A rail line along the northern property line separates Sportsman’s from the rest of the population. The clubhouse, a pseudo-Googie structure that would not look out of place in a futuristic science fiction film shot in 1963, is the dominant feature in a landscape of mostly empty lots awaiting development. Ignoring the constant car traffic along Laramie Avenue, it was easy to convince myself that I was miles from civilization. There was a snowstorm a few days before my visit, and I left a trail of 6 inch deep footprints from the surrounding fence to where I entered the track clubhouse. So much for not leaving any traces of my visit.
The track has what some might call a ‘colorful history’. It started as the Hawthorne Kennel Club, a dog racing track run by mobster Al Capone and lawyer Edward J. O’Hare (O’Hare Airport was named after his son Butch, a WWII fighter pilot). But dog racing was illegal in Illinois, and after a few years of legal wrangling Capone and O’Hare were forced to shut the track down. O’Hare reconfigured the track for horse racing and reopened it in 1932 as Sportsman’s Park. Since then the track and surrounding buildings have undergone many changes, but the most radical was in 1999 when the track was rebuilt to make it suitable for racing cars as well as horses. During the auto racing season the place was called Chicago Motor Speedway, and according to sports writer Ted McClelland that was the beginning of the end to Sportsman’s Park. He wrote:
Charles Bidwill III, the nitwit scion of the same family that has mismanaged the NFL’s Cardinals for the last 75 years, thought it would be a good idea to convert Sportsman’s to a combination horse racing/auto racing facility. He spent $60 million to lay down an asphalt racetrack and built an enormous grandstand for the auto racing crowd.
Horseplayers hated it. Once a cozy seven-eights of a mile oval, Sportsman’s suddenly looked like a prison yard. The first year barbed wire blocked the view of the track. The horses were running on a cushion of dirt spread over the auto racing surface, which caused leg-snapping breakdowns. In Sportsman’s final season, the spring of 2002, track superintendents sometime spent an hour trying to get the surface ready before calling off the races. One Saturday I watched a horse belly-flop in the stretch, then heard a fuming trainer declare, “That’s it. We’re scratching.” The rest of the day’s races were canceled.
The track closed in 2003, and in 2005 the easternmost section of the grandstand bleachers were torn down. The rest of the complex remained standing until just a few weeks ago, when demolition began. That’s when I decided to go pay another visit.
Most of the bleachers were already torn down by the time I got there, and what was once a dark interior space inside the eastern section of the complex was now ripped open and exposed to the elements. Snowdrifts covered piles of rubble, giving the impression that the building has been sitting like this, half demolished, for ages. I’m not fond of the term ‘post-apocalyptic’–too cliche–but that’s how the place felt. I enjoyed the bleakness of it all. After poking around for a bit, I made my way to the part of the complex that was still intact.
Inside the clubhouse, guests could eat while watching the races from windows that ran along the southern wall facing the track. The higher floors had better sight lines, and the uppermost ‘VIP’ rooms had a panorama view of the racetrack. From here, one could smoke and drink and watch the races in comfort and style, without rubbing elbows with the riffraff below. There was also a nice view of the neighboring Hawthorne Race Course, which preceded Sportsman’s Park and is still hosting horse races to this day.
I spent a few hours inside shooting photos. Some artifacts from when the track was still active–racing forms, promotional materials–were stuffed into my backpack, fodder for another blog post. There wasn’t much to look at, just large empty spaces and the surrounding landscape buried in snow, but I was content to wander the vacant clubhouse and enjoy the quiet. Before I left I decided to re-categorize Sportsman’s Park–my previous assessment of the place as “boring” was far too harsh. Maybe “weird” would be more accurate.
I returned two weeks later to find that all remnants of the grandstands were gone. The main building was being prepared for asbestos abatement, and crews had started to rip up the racetrack. I think I’m going to miss this place.
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Online Sources:
O’Hare Airport’s Mob Ties: http://www.ipsn.org/ohare.html
Chicago Reader blogs, The Sports Page: So long, Sportsman’s–good riddance
Wikipedia: Chicago Motor Speedway
Chicago Tribune: Photo gallery of the demolition work at Sportsman’s Park
McChump.com, which describes itself as “Horse racing stories and racetrack visits, tall tales and rants, and photos”, has several amusing Sportsman’s Park photo essays: “Old” Sportsman’s Park, “New” Sportsman’s Park, and a few circa 2005 photos of the auto racing grandstands being torn down. Well worth a look–it’s a fun site.
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Article last edited 5/24/09, with clickable photos. Because bigger is better.