The Freedom Flights For
Cuban Political Refugees Were Sponsored By Catholic Charities USA
By Gardenia C. Hung
On July 19, 1971, Mr. Roberto Hung Juris Doctor, his wife
Gardenia Fong Ramos, his daughter and son, arrived at Miami International
Airport on Cubana Airlines where his eldest brother Miguel Hung, his wife
Silvia Simons and family were expecting this Cuban family arriving with the
Freedom Flights from La Habana, Cuba. Miguel
Hung, his wife Silvia, and his four children Olivia, Miguel, Santiago, and
Raimundo Hung-Simons were all Miami residents living in Florida. After Roberto Hung and his family visited his
Florida relatives, he decided to be relocated by Catholic Charities to the City
of Chicago by Lake Michigan in the State of Illinois, by the Great Lakes area
in the Midwest of the United States of America.
The third week in July 1971, on July 22, 1971, Mr. Roberto
Hung Juris Doctor, his wife, his daughter and son arrived at O’Hare Airport in
Chicago from Miami, Florida sponsored by Catholic Charities USA which relocated
this Cuban family to The Montfield Hotel for lodging upon
referral by Catholic Charities of Chicago.
Once in the Windy City, they were welcomed as Cuban political refugees
from the Freedom Flights designed to bring Cuban exiles to the United States of
America. The Montfield Hotel was
the first place of residence in July 1971 for Mr. Roberto Hung, his wife, his
daughter and son in the Lakeview neighborhood of the City of Chicago, in the
State of Illinois USA.
The Freedom Flights
represent the largest and longest resettlement program of political refugees
ever sponsored by the U.S. government, offering an escape from Fidel Castro's
Cuba to 265,000 people. This is an effort for people who were on the Freedom
Flights to find their names, as well as their families, complete their records,
and reconnect over the memory. This is the only public record of the Freedom
Flights at this time.
Roberto Hung’s Cousin “Hortensia” Niebocki who was married to Gary Niebocki from New
Jersey, had filed U.S. Immigration forms as a relative to bring his family to
the United States America. The name “Hortensia”
in Spanish is the eponym for the flower Hydrangea in English. Hortensia was the eldest daughter of Antonia
Mustelier Baró, who was a registered nurse married to Dr. Gary Niebocki, M.D. Hortensia’s mother was the eldest sister of
Gertrudis Salustiana Mustelier Baró, Roberto Hung’s mother. Dr. Gary Niebocki, M.D. was a medical officer
in the U.S. Navy who married Hortensia as a registered nurse practitioner while
she worked at the Guantánamo Naval Base near Santiago de Cuba in the Caribbean country
of Cuba.
Figure 1 The Flower Hydrangea is translated in Spanish as
Hortensia.
The Montfield Hotel was included as a National Historic
Landmark in the building located at the corner of Belmont and Sheffield Avenues for the Lakeview neighborhood,
Chicago, Illinois USA.
This former
multi-use commercial block was constructed by the Belmont-Sheffield Trust and
Savings Bank, founded in 1927 by a group of prominent Swedish businessmen to
serve the needs of Lakeview's numerous Swedish residents. An outstanding
feature is the monumental arched entrance on Belmont Avenue, designed in the
Classical Revival-style, while simpler Art Deco-style ornamentation is visible
at the upper floors. Walls are clad with limestone on the first four stories.
Buff colored brick and light-gray ornamental terra-cotta are used on the
remaining two stories. In addition to the bank, the building was originally
designed to house multiple uses, including rental offices, a hotel, and
street-level storefronts. The Belmont-Sheffield Trust and Savings Bank thrived
from 1929 to 1932, but was forced to close on July 6, 1933, during the
Depression.
Figure 2 Belmont-Sheffield Trust and
Savings Bank (Former) located at 1001 West Belmont Avenue and Sheffield, in the
Lakeview neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois USA
Address: 1001 W. Belmont Avenue
Year Built: 1929
Architect: John A. Nyden
Date Designated a Chicago Landmark: July 9, 2009
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Figure 3 Detail of Medusa
Medallion at the Belmont-Sheffield Trust and Savings Bank in Lakeview, Chicago
Illinois USA
The National
Register of Historic Places has recorded and registered the Belmont-Sheffield
Bank Building as a national landmark in the City of Chicago, Illinois USA.
The
Belmont-Sheffield Bank Building, which once contained a bank, a residential
hotel, offices and stores, stands six stories at the southwest corner of the
Belmont and Sheffield Avenues. The freestanding
building is “U” shaped in the upper
stories around a two-story central atrium with a light court of approximately
1500 square feet in the center rear beginning above the second floor of the
building—which allowed the light to reach the bank lobby—the glass atrium has
since been roofed over.
The fourth
floor, where the hotel section of the building begins, has terracotta medallions
of Medusa on the piers separating the five window bays on Sheffield and end
bays on Belmont and is topped by geometric moldings and a second slightly
deeper cornice. The top two floors have
simply-ornamented limestone spandrels:
A parapet of brick is capped by a projecting acanthus ornament.
The
Sheffield House Hotel is a historic hotel in the heart of Wrigleyville, built
in the 1920s. The Cubs baseball team
used the Sheffield House Hotel for their players in the 1930s.
Stylistically,
this building combines Classical influences typically found in both downtown
and neighborhood banking institutions, with elements of the Art Deco style
popular in the late twenties.
The Bank’s
monumental arched entry located on
Belmont is its most conspicuous Classical feature. Reminiscent of the Renaissance work of
Alberti (especially the Church of St.
Andrea at Mantua). The three-story arch
springs from strong Ionic columns. Once
inside this impressive archway, the scale changes to one more human. A recessed post and lintel doorway painted
blue green is embellished with more intricate Classical details deluding
rosettes, lintils, quivers and acanthus patterns. Hanging from the center of the shallow
vaulted entrance is a wrought iron bronze lantern. The hotel-office entrance on Sheffield is
also ornamented with Classical detailing.
This
building combines the Art Deco style with Classicism, thus making it more the
legacy of its own time conventions.
The office spaces
can be accessed from the bank vestibule, but the main office and hotel entrance
is on Sheffield, the elevator lobby to the upper staircase has a strapwork
ceiling with marble flooring in the same pattern as the banking room.
The entire
building combines Classicism and Art Deco, monumentality and intimate scale in
a manner that suits the bank’s need to impress with the more personal needs of
the customer.
The
Belmont-Sheffield Trust and Savings Bank is primarily significant as the only
remaining bank building built in Lakeview before the Depression which retains
its architectural integrity; all others have been demolished or extensively
altered. Its stylistic characteristics,
reflecting a combination of Neo-Classicism typical of bank design and Art Deco
refinements typical of the period, have not been lost. In addition, this building is important as an
early multi-use structure. The
prominently-located six story corner building was unusual if not unique under a
single-roof. It was always a hotel. Reference to The Montfield Hotel is found in
the 1930 telephone directory. The Bank
which occupied the bulding between November 1, 1929 and July 6. 1933 is a
typical Chicago community bank, but it is historically important to Lakeview as
the Swedish institution in a neighborhood that was strongly Swedish. The bank’s financial support, its Board of
Directors and its architects were all Swedish…
The Montfield Hotel which used to be located at 3146
North Sheffield on floors four through six struggled with vacancy until 1984,
when a developer received a federal loan to convert the Montfield Hotel into
54 apartments, maintaining stores on the ground floor. The building was sold again to another
developer and the upper floors were converted into loft condos in 2005, which
are now listed at the address 3150 North Sheffield. In 2008, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks
designated this building as a landmark along with 15 other neighborhood bank
buildings.
This is a
reference to the article about the Belmont-Sheffield Trust and Savings Bank
Building from Wikipedia.
