Reporter penned books on Chicago neighborhoods
Patrick Butler was a reporter for North Side weekly newspapers whose deep knowledge of the city informed both his stories and several books he wrote on Chicago neighborhoods.
“He was sort of the classic rumpled newspaperman who really followed the story without any ax to grind,” said Dick Simpson, a former alderman and University of Illinois at Chicago political science professor. “He reported what happened, and he did thorough interviews of the people involved and it was unbiased and important in informing the neighborhood.”
Butler, 83, died of complications from colon cancer on Dec. 14 at the Ascension Living Nazarethville Place senior living community in Des Plaines, said his longtime partner, Kathy Hills. He was a resident of the Northwest Side Dunning neighborhood.
Born in Chicago, Butler grew up in various North Side neighborhoods and graduated from Maryville Academy in Des Plaines. He went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in 1963 from Columbia College Chicago.
He started out in public relations for the Chicago Osteopathic Association before finding work as a freelance reporter for the North Side Lerner Newspapers chain in 1967. Butler was the chain’s lone reporter willing to cover the 1968 rioting in Chicago after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Hills said.
In 1968, he was hired as a full-time reporter with Lerner and within a decade became managing editor of the chain, whose North Side titles included the Booster, the News-Star and Skyline. Butler also wrote a weekly human-interest column titled “Pat’s People,” and covered City Hall.
Butler won a Peter Lisagor Award from the Chicago Headline Club in 1987 for a series that reported how the loss of factory jobs strains mental health and alcohol abuse services.
Butler also was active in his newspaper’s union as president of the Newspaper Guild’s Lerner unit.
Lerner Newspapers underwent several ownership changes before being acquired by the Sun-Times Media Group and merged with the rival chain Pioneer Press. Butler left the chain in the mid-2000s, and in 2006 began working as a freelance reporter for the monthly Gazette Chicago newspaper, which covers the West and South Side neighborhoods.
“Pat was really a special reporter for Gazette Chicago — he came with such a treasure trove of experience, and yet he took on any and every assignment as if it was the most important one,” said Mark Valentino, Gazette Chicago’s publisher. “He really took a liking to covering the Bridgeport, Armour Square, Chinatown and Canaryville beat because he grew up in blue-collar neighborhoods and they really resonated with him.”
Butler did not drive and took public transportation everywhere.
“The great thing was when you knew Pat was in the room, you knew it was going to be accurate reporting,” Valentino said. “He was a seasoned vet who knew his way around the room. A lot of our work is with aldermen, and Pat knew how to talk to aldermen.”
Several former Lerner newspapers, including the Booster, Skyline and the News-Star, were sold to Inside Publications in 2009, and Butler began working as a freelance reporter for those newspapers as well.
“He brought a depth of knowledge — his institutional memory of what went on in the city was priceless,” said Ron Roenigk, Inside Publications’ publisher. “He knew where the bodies were buried from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when I was in high school. Other ... reporters also leaned on him — he was our encyclopedia.”
Butler wrote three nonfiction books about Chicago neighborhoods for Arcadia Press’ The History Press imprint: “Hidden History of Uptown and Edgewater,” “Hidden History of Ravenswood and Lake View” and “Hidden History of Lincoln Park.”
Butler was president of the Ravenswood/Lake View Historical Association for more than a dozen years. Colleagues said that he was a popular tour guide at Graceland Cemetery.
“Pat loved to tell stories, and he had so many of them about the city and wonderful anecdotal information,” said Leah Steele, former Sulzer Library regional director. “He was a fount of information. And he always had a smile or a laugh — he always was very positive and found the humor in everything, even if it was kind of tragic or sad.”
Steele also knew Butler well through the Kiwanis Club of LakeView, where he had served as president.
“He understood the hardships of people, and he was always sympathetic and wanted to make sure that the Kiwanis gave back to the community and understood the plight of those who were less fortunate,” she said.
A marriage ended in divorce. Butler is survived by a daughter, Kathleen Butler Greenan; a sister, Regina Dziewior; and two grandsons.
Services were held.