Anyone who propelled at night up Ravenswood's main drag of 21st Street would have seen it: a life-size gondola outlined in Christmas lights perched atop Rizzo's Italian Village. A shadowy figure stood upright in the boat, a broad-brimmed hat pulled down over his eyes. As if that weren't enough to scare children, the gondolier was motorized so that it twitched like a guy in his death throes as he poled the boat. Wow! The gondolier made Freddy Krueger look like a Sunday-school teacher, and he'd terrorized this stark neighborhood of auto-body shops, strip shopping centers, and housing... More >>>