During the 27 years that Wally Conrad was the supervisor at Brooks Park, the once little-used ball field at 7100 N. Harlem was transformed into one of the city’s finest recreation facilities. It was Conrad who organized the wide range of activities there–gymnastics, wrestling, boxing, arts and crafts, swimming, softball–which won him the support of two generations of residents of the communities around the park.
Claypool in particular has been singled out for praise by Mayor Daley. And there are rumors that the mayor would like Claypool to oversee the privatization of services at the Board of Education, that local symbol of bureaucratic waste.
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In those days the Park District was run by political cronies of Mayor Richard J. Daley, and many jobs were given out on the basis of clout. “I wasn’t politically connected,” says Conrad. “I never went in for that stuff. But, yes, we were hit for tickets to political events. I got my start because people knew me as a boxer and a wrestler. But I did my job well. I worked at it. And the supervisors left me alone to do things as I saw it. They let us be professionals about it.”
A few days later Conrad was told to spend two days a week managing the after-school park programs at a northwest-side school and three days a week at Indian Road Park, a smaller park with fewer programs than Brooks. Meanwhile Devereux brought in a new supervisor to run Brooks Park.
Why did Devereux move Conrad to a new park?
The letter hardly satisfied Conrad. “What’s that ‘I you feel’ stuff? It’s not even proper English. Here they are moving me out after 27 years–and she doesn’t even take the time to proofread her letter before she mails it. That’s how much she cares about me. It’s ridiculous. And now she says I didn’t care about being transferred. Of course I cared. This has been my life. If they treat me like this, there’s no hope for anyone else.”
