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“Even the leaves fall down in lovelier patterns here,” poet Gwendolyn Brooks wrote of Beverly Hills, Chicago (today more commonly known as Beverly). That impossibility Brooks lays out—of wealth itself influencing something as infungible as the wind—feels like one of the threads running through Ethel Spears’s (1903-1974) watercolor of the same neighborhood. Little chaoses abound in “Railway Station, Beverly Hills,” including an alarming number of vehicles, people, and creatures dashing across the train tracks despite the locomotive looming in the lower left. Yet there’s a clean orderliness to the whimsy of the scene, telegraphing a sense that no harm will befall this imprudent bunch today. Ethel Spears grew up in Beverly Hills, a South Side enclave literally elevated above the rest (it claims the city’s highest geographic point, a whopping 672 feet, leading one 1954 Tribune reporter to jokingly refer to it as “the Alps of Chicago”). Born in 1903, Spears was witness to the early development of the neighborhood, not long after its annexation. The Rock Island Railroad branched north in 1889, dotting Beverly Hills with five new train stations; one 1890 map looking to attract prospective homeowners advertised “The Prettiest Lots, The Finest Frontages, The Choicest Blocks, The Most Promising Acres.” And while the neighborhood did grow, it did so with a certain image in mind—even the poorest 1920s boarders still had access to maids and chauffeurs, paying their rent not in cash but rather old diamonds. Indeed, if Spears’s rendering of this monied locale feels more Midwestern small town than City of Broad Shoulders, it’s not by accident. Perhaps you’ve already noted the conspicuous lack of apartment buildings (residents successfully fought a 1929 rezoning attempt that would have allowed for their construction), or the fact that every person in the scene is white (an accurate reflection of 1930 demographics—at the time, 99.6% of Beverly Hills’s 13,700 residents were white). That charmingly dapper crossing guard remained a fixture of the neighborhood beyond what was explicitly necessary: while other stops along the line had installed automated gates, in 1950 the people of Beverly Hills were still imploring the city to let them keep a real person there for the sake of the children. The horse and buggy in the upper right of Spears’s watercolor provides further proof of a stubborn insistence on tradition, holding on fiercely to those quaint relics of yesteryear. Of the legible faces in “Railway Station, Beverly Hills,” most maintain a cheery disposition. Couples kiss, ladies gossip, a father swings a child high above the street. Only one woman obviously bucks the trend. Do you see her, with the blue hat and pink bouquet, just in front of the approaching train? Glancing out with skepticism, suddenly we, the viewers, transform from innocent voyeur to potentially intrusive presence. Is she our reminder of how Beverly Hills remains so pristine? These sprawling lawns and well-kept gardens—we can look at them, but not for too long. This life belongs to someone else. We’re just passing through. Interested in taking this piece home? Inquire here. “Bernece Berkman-Hunter & Ethel Spears” is open now through November 22nd.
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