Last July a kitchen fire spread unchecked through the home of Nancy O’Reilly, a longtime resident of south suburban Bridgeview. The blaze should have been extinguished sooner than it was: firefighters tapped the hydrant in front of O’Reilly’s trailer in the Rosebud Mobile Home Park but were thwarted by low water pressure. “A water supply was attempted, but the hydrant did not work,” wrote firefighter Anton Gass in his report to the Bridgeview fire department. “Nor did the other hydrants tried in the 1900 Row.” The nearest working hydrant was on Harlem Avenue, two blocks away, but by the time a hose was hooked, the oxygen tanks O’Reilly used for her emphysema had exploded, and the trailers on either side of hers were in flames.
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“It was crazy,” says 21-year-old Randy Kadazlauskas. “There were SWAT teams and detectives everywhere. I have no idea why it happened. Basically just everyone was raising hell, just standing up for their country, I guess.” Marchers chanted “Kill the Arabs!” and “Let them burn!” Two dozen people were arrested, most for disorderly conduct, and video of the melee circled the globe. Bridgeview had once been touted as a symbol of diversity, but on September 14 it looked more like Gage Park in 1966. “I was out there because we’ve got the mosque down the street,” said one Rosebud resident, who showed up at the march draped in an American flag. “It’s the Muslim people that did it to us.”
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The area now known as Bridgeview was settled by farmers in the mid-1800s, and by the early 20th century it was one of leading hay-production centers in the midwest. After World War II, Bridgeview became a manufacturing hub, home to hundreds of steelworkers and other laborers. Low property taxes and a proximity to Muslim enclaves on Chicago’s southwest side began drawing Arab immigrants to Bridgeview in the 1970s. They bought up the only remaining land, west of the strip malls on Harlem, and built new houses, the Bridgeview Mosque Foundation, and the Universal and Aqsa schools. Now 30 percent of the village’s 15,000 residents are Arab.
New fire hydrants would be “mighty nice,” but she’s not counting on them. Saving money to move out of Rosebud is her priority. “The kids are at a fun age–it’s OK when all they want to do is color and paint and read. But I don’t really plan on living here where they’re old enough for school.”
