Landmarks: 3 Star Tavern in Chicago Heights, where Jerry Colangelo cut his bocce ball chops, to close after 87 years

There used to be a sign posted right outside an old, two-story house on the south side of 22nd Street in Chicago Heights, separated from its neighbors only by narrow gangways.

The sign fell off a few years ago, but the house, now divided into apartment flats, is still notable because of its famous former occupant, Jerry Colangelo.

Perhaps the most successful name to emerge from Chicago Heights this side of Inland Steel, Colangelo would become a scout for the Chicago Bulls before subsequent stops as coach, general manager and owner of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and eventually the Basketball Hall of Fame. He also owned the MLB’s Arizona Diamondbacks and presided over Team USA’s international basketball endeavors.

But growing up in the Heights, another sport filled his nights.

“I went to sleep at night, when weather permitted, to the sound of bocce balls clicking,” he said. “Some people need music or something else to go to sleep. I recall the bocce balls clicking.”

Two doors down from the modest house his Italian immigrant grandfather built in 1904 “from the remnants of two railroad boxcars and some extra lumber,” the bocce courts at 3 Star Tavern at 22nd and Wallace streets had become the social hub of the working class Hungry Hill neighborhood adjacent to Inland’s first steel plant.

The tavern “was a gathering place for the Italian community,” Colangelo recalled, a place with “sawdust on the floor and spittoons” where his retired grandfather would play cards with friends who also had come from the old country.

He, too, spent many days and nights at 3 Star, or just hanging out on the street corner out front.

“As a kid, I’d go in there for a Coke and an O Henry candy bar,” he said. “Then later, when you grow up, you go in there for a beer — when I was eligible.”

And he played plenty of bocce, which was serious business on Hungry Hill.

“The loser had to go down to Petrarca’s Grocery Store a half block down the street and buy salami, and get fresh bread at Nick the Greek’s bakery a block away,” Colangelo said. “That was really living.”

The bocce courts are still there at 3 Star, which was established in 1936 by the Panici family. But now a few early spring weeds are sprouting through the tightly packed gravel, an unthinkable sight in the days Colangelo recalled when the courts were lined with “old time Italian guys sitting with cigars and cigarettes, having a drink and watching the games being played.”

Few people line the courts these days, as there aren’t many people who come to play bocce in a neighborhood where most of the old time Italian guys have either died or moved away.

When Luke Marthaler and his brother Jake Marthaler purchased 3 Star in 2013, people who would come out on bocce league nights would ask him where his family was from.

“I’d tell them Markham and Miller Woods,” Luke Marthaler said. “And they said, no, where’s your family from in the old country?”

Since then, interest in bocce at 3 Star “kind of dissipated,” Marthaler said. He publicized open bocce nights to attract new players, “but they never caught.”

“Even though it’s a better game than bean bags,” he said. “More people can play. You can be a bad player and still get away with playing without being absolutely run over like with bean bags.”

He installed video gambling machines and dabbled in virtual golf, offered an array of menu items, brought in more TVs for sports events and refurbished 3 Star’s signature bocce courts, but still the clientele dwindled.

“I can count on one hand the number of regulars I have,” he said. “Everyone who comes here says they have a great time, but it slips their mind because it’s off the beaten path.”

When Marthaler began having health difficulties, he figured it was time to put 3 Star on the market. A deal with one prospective buyer fell through, and with nothing else in the pipeline and tavern’s liquor license set to expire at the end of the month, 3 Star will shut down for good April 30 after an 87-year run.

“It’s time for me to flip the script,” he said. “Everyone’s got to do something new and it’s time for me to do something new. Hopefully we’ll get the offer we’re looking for. It’s a shame that it came down to having to close the doors.”

Marthaler said he won’t miss the stress of running a tavern and restaurant, but he will miss the people he’s met along the way, like “the guy who comes in here every day and spends a buck on a beer.”

Colangelo, whose long, successful career in basketball started in the alley behind 3 Star on a makeshift court surrounded by garbage cans and involved a hoop that sometimes didn’t even have a backboard, said he often visits 22nd Street when he travels to the Chicago area.

“That was my life,” he said. “I have great memories of growing up. I’ve been very blessed with opportunities and successes, as it turns out, but I never forgot where I came from, or the people who were there supporting me, and I’ve always thought I was representing them.

“It’s a way of keeping my feet on the ground and my head where it should be. It’s a way to pay homage to not only the people but to the community in every way.”

A half block east of 3 Star, Petrarca’s Grocery became La Granga’s, and then La Rosita Supermercado. A bit farther down 22nd Street, the old San Rocco Parish where the Colangelo family regularly attended Mass was closed and demolished several decades ago and a smaller, wooden church building now serves the neighborhood.

Change is inevitable, even along a stretch as seemingly timeless as 22nd Street in Chicago Heights, and Colangelo’s occasional visits to his old hangouts have illustrated that for him.

“There’s a realization that things were never going to be the same,” he said. “A lot of people moved away from Hungry Hill, and many don’t live in Chicago Heights anymore. It’s kind of a downer. I went back to keep my feet on the ground and visit whoever was still around, but there’s not that many. Because of age. There’s a little sadness involved with that, too.”

Colangelo is preparing to depart for a monthlong trip to Europe and will not be able to make one last trip to 3 Star to throw red or green balls toward the pallino on the gravel courts before they are shuttered this month.

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“This is yet another closure,” said Colangelo, now an old time Italian guy himself. “As you age in life, there’s quite a few of these things that happen. That’s part of our journey. Near the end, there’s a lot of closures.”

But Colangelo’s brought some of that Hungry Hill heritage with him to Arizona, where he flew in “a few of the guys from the old neighborhood” to build a bocce court at his favorite pizza place in Phoenix. One who helped with the project, he said, was Kelo Panici, a descendant of 3 Star’s original owners.

It’s an opportunity to share some of his childhood in his adopted home.

“You learn a lot about life growing up on the bocce court,” Colangelo said.

And back on 22nd Street, a new owner may come along for the old 3 Star, and maybe they’ll replace the bocce courts with something that speaks more to the people who live on Hungry Hill these days.

It’s a neighborhood that’s rich with over a century of stories, and new ones are being written all the time.

Landmarks is a weekly column by Paul Eisenberg exploring the people, places and things that have left an indelible mark on the Southland. He can be reached at peisenberg@tribpub.com.