While walking my dog in Lincoln Park on a lovely spring day, we took a side alley to avoid pedestrian and dog traffic on the city sidewalks.
This brick-paved alley's name is Szathmary Lane and I figured it had to be named after someone. Who was this Szathmary person? There were quite a few Szathmarys in Chicago but this alley was named after Louis Szathmary, a Hungarian-American chef, writer, and public personality. He was a pioneering force in the food service profession and is best known for heading the Chicago restaurant, The Bakery, and for writing the New York Times bestseller The Chef's Secret Cookbook. Szathmary's involvement with the early frozen food industry, his numerous cookbooks and articles and his persona established him as an icon in the culinary arts industry. The Bakery, located at 2218 N. Lincoln Avenue, was in business from 1963-1989, and in 1974 the alley behind the former business was renamed to recognize Louis Szathmary's contributions to the neighborhood.
Now where does Ohio come into this? The alley is paved with bricks and some of the bricks are labeled Athens Block. I happen to have 3 Ohio University Bobcats in my family and spent some wonderful days on the Ohio University campus in Athens, Ohio.
The Athens Brick Company first opened in 1890 on Stimson Avenue and the company shipped the Athens Block bricks around the world, primarily for street paving. Just think, a small company in a rural, Appalachian town in southeastern Ohio paved some streets in the 3rd largest city in the United States.
