Brookfield’s ‘hub’ of commerce

If anywhere in Brookfield can be said to be a “hub” of commerce, it is the Eight Corners area, surrounding what is formally known as the Veterans Memorial Circle.

Informally, this intersection of streets, spreading out like the hub of a wagon wheel, is known as just plain Eight Corners or The Circle, where cars go round and round. Right turns only, please.

Brookfield had its start on Dec. 1, 1888, when founder S.E. Gross bought his first section of land and named it Grossdale. This section’s boundaries were at Washington Avenue on the north, Southview Avenue on the south, Maple Avenue on the west and Grove Avenue on the east. A neat square.

So well did his lots sell, that late in 1889 he bought a second section of land, north and west of his original one. This section comprised Logan Avenue (31st Street) on the north, Washington on the south, Kemman Avenue on the west, and Maple Avenue on the east.

The bit of land between these sections was to become what is known as the Circle, but at the time it was called “The Six Points.”

On July 15, 1897, the Suburban Electric Railroad opened up its streetcar line, bisecting the upper and lower sections of land.

Building on the “points” began around 1913, at the corner address of 3453 Grand Blvd. The Brookfield Ice Cream Parlor was a high-ceilinged, cement block structure, where people could also wait to catch the streetcars and even buy their tickets there.

In 1915, Frederick H. Bartlett went to work promoting his “Portia Manor” subdivision, and this included the streets west of the “points,” along the streetcar tracks. He named this street Broadway. Now the “Six Points” became “Eight Points” or Eight Corners.

Bartlett sold Portia Manor in 1920, and had he waited only a few more years, he might have become rich by selling lots and homes during Brookfield’s building boom.

Then, in the late 1920s, stores rose on corners two and three. In 1928, Rudy Hermanek built a one-story building at 9201 Broadway and used it for a real estate and loans office. It was taken over by Charles Mraz, who, in the late 1930s, added the second floor onto the building, which is currently being converted into a dentist’s office.

The third corner business, a delicatessen that was to become what is today known as Leo’s Liquors, was erected at 9154 Broadway.

Other stores were going up along Broadway, too, as a result of the “bungalow boom.” In 1924, Joseph Holler’s Delicatessen was operating, and today that building, at 9228 Broadway, is known as Blando’s Jewelry store.

A few years later, Stanley Holat’s Hardware store at 9217 Broadway opened. In an article from the Citizen newspaper of Nov. 6, 1958, Holat recollected that “I opened my hardware store here back on Feb. 5, 1927, and had a few good years up to the Depression.

“An area in the northwest section of the municipality was known as ‘Oklahoma Territory,’ since it was considered wild and untamed, and cows and goats grazed on the prairie lands. Haystacks could be seen from the windows of my early store; pigs were not unknown, and not all the homes had the advantages of indoor plumbing. Yes, there were still some old-fashioned privies.”

Holat may have had some competition from Louis Stular, whose Broadway Hardware Store was, even then, operating east of the “points,” in the yellow brick building at 9146 Broadway.

But Holat’s competition was short-lived. Stular closed down by the next year, 1928, and Fred Stromsky opened his grocery and meat market here. Stromsky had his competitor, too, in the form of the National Food Store, which opened at 2 E. Broadway. This is the boarded-over storefront just east of Leo’s Liquors.

From the 1960s-1980s, Edward Ziganto ran the Brookfield Photo Shop at 9146 Broadway. During Brookfield’s Diamond Jubilee year of 1968, Ziganto ran ads encouraging people to come in and have their pictures taken in old-fashioned apparel.

In 1993, The Deja Vu Shoppe, also located here, brought back the Hippie era to Brookfield, but with up-to-date amenities such as wind chimes, rain sticks and aromatherapy. Anyone entering the store instantly noticed the strong scents.

After the Deja Vu moved, Superior Bank had a branch office here, and today this building houses the Physicians for Natural Healing office.

Building ground to halt during the Depression. Still, people opened businesses along Broadway. Back in 1931, the Broadway Beauty Shop opened its door at 9152 Broadway. This address, under various names, has been catering to the looks of ladies ever since, for 78 years. Today it is known as the Broadway Hair Salon.

Few people remember Emil Hermanek’s clothing store, at 9215 Broadway, which survived the 1930s. But many recall what was in the building from the 1960s through the 1990s – Bamboo Grove Chop Suey, a Chinese food takeout shop. Who could ever forget the handmade fortune cookies wrapped in wax paper, stapled shut, and the boxes of rice candy (with a sticker) that completed the perfect meal?

Speaking of meals, today two signs advertise this building as the Broadway Family Restaurant and the Broadway Pancake House.

With new places to shop, customers in the 1930s began complaining that the Chicago and West Towns Railway tracks were set too high along all of Broadway.

“Suicide Ridge,” as it was locally called, was eliminated with the lowering of the tracks in 1938. No longer was there a “fence” (the tracks) separating north and south Brookfield. The tracks became even more of a non-problem once the streetcar line closed down on April 11, 1948. However, the tracks and ties were never removed, but just paved over.

Except for Hyler’s Sinclair Service Station opening in 1937 at 3501 Grand Blvd., and taking over the fourth of the eight corners, business growth here stayed stagnant until after World War II. It wasn’t until 1950 that Paloucek’s Funeral Home, on corner number five, was built at 3452 Grand Blvd.

The next year, in 1951, an A&P grocery store opened at the sixth corner, the southeast corner of Washington and Broadway. The brand new store, with automatic entry doors that enchanted small children, was much welcome, although older residents waxed nostalgic over the fate of the land the store was on.

This land was once known as Booster’s Field, where the Brookfield Athletic Club had played baseball and football since the club first organized in 1913.

From groceries to banks

Still, there was much land here left for kids to play on, until the Jewel Food Store was constructed in 1954, at 9139 Broadway. Also occupying Booster’s Field was the Modern Baking Company and the Ben Franklin dime store, both open that same year.

Somehow A&P, Jewel and then Kroger (today Tischler’s) in 1958, managed to stay in business until 1971. Then A&P quit right after celebrating its 20th anniversary that January. Five hundred cherry pies were given away free to the first 500 customers. Shortly thereafter, the store closed, plaid trading stamps and all.

Replacing it was the Half Price Store, selling non-food items that looked as if they’d been bought from comic book ads. Not only were the items just set out on the bare A&P shelves, they were also set in the meat display bins and on the produce racks. Truly bizarre were the glowing black velvet paintings that ranged all the way up and down the produce aisle.

The store was “here today and gone tomorrow,” or nearly so. In 1972, the First National Bank of Brookfield bought the building, renovated it, and has called spot home ever since.

The year 1958 was important for Eight Corners. This was the year that the corners officially gained the extra name, “The Circle,” thanks to Brookfield’s Public Works Superintendent Peter Natale. He concocted a notion that a ring of sandbags should be set up to create a “Traffic Circle,” with “No Left Turn” signs ringing it.

At first laughingly called “Natale’s Folly,” the experiment, begun on April 3, proved to be a success. No longer would drivers at stop signs have to guess what streets the other drivers were going to aim for.

Other improvements were added, such as modern mercury vapor street lighting and central median curbs. The end of this work was celebrated by a “light up” ceremony on Tuesday, Dec. 16 along Broadway, “Brookfield’s New Great White Way.”

Since that year, much more street work around the Circle has been done. In July 1973, the Memorial Fountain was first turned on. In September 1987, all of the circle’s pavement (except the fountain) was removed to a depth of 1.5 feet below street level, and the old streetcar tracks and ties were discovered to be still embedded. A few years ago, the circle was again dug up, although not as far down as before.

The seventh corner filled was the one on the southwest of Grand Boulevard and Maple. In the early 1970s, the Henny Penny Chicken takeout erected the building that still, today, is the front-most part of Harps Realty.

Time has taken its toll on a few buildings. The Brookfield Federal Savings Bank branch, built at the eighth corner, northwest on Broadway and Washington, has been torn done, and the vacant lot looks as it did prior to 1975.

The old Jewel Store, closed in 1993, was demolished in 1995 and has been replaced by the bigger CVS Pharmacy building.

Some businesses stay, and some businesses go, but since 1958, the cars still go round and round. Only the models change.