Historian determined to retrieve original statue with ties to Chicago restaurant
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Obsession drives people to do all sorts of things.
In Chicago, obsession can inspire the design of a restaurant or the research of a historian.
Tim Samuelson understands this from experience.
"When you kind of get into this, if you're a history nerd like me, you don't know when to stop," Samuelson said.
Samuelson is the cultural historian emeritus for the City of Chicago.
"Emeritus is when you're supposedly retired, but you're really not," Samuelson smiled.
The historian's latest work involves his favorite watering hole, Gino's North in Edgewater at 1111 W. Granville Ave.
"The story of Gino's North is so Chicago," Samuelson said. "Because Chicago is all about people who are really kind of passionate and in their passions, they're over the top."
Gino's North is a restaurant rooted in history.
"It's a fabulous restaurant," said owner, Stephen Mendoza. "Lot of charm and a lot of history. Yep."
The place also revolves around an old statue of a young woman. The figure has been a fixture behind the bar, and the regulars know her name.
"We always knew that Snowdrop was above the fountain behind the bar," said bartender, Robbie Lewis. "She's been here for quite some time, and I don't know what she went through before she got here."
The mystery is just unknown history and a historian's latest obsession.
"This is one of the souvenir matchbooks that they gave out at the Snow Drop," Tim Samuelson said, flipping open an old "Snow Drop" matchbook.
Samuelson uncovered the story of a Greek immigrant named Frank Nichols who was so obsessed with a Swedish statue called "Snowdrop," he named a cocktail bar after it in 1940.
"Chicago's most exquisite cocktail lounge," Samuelson said, reading from an old restaurant brochure.
"Frank Nichols in a way was in love," Samuelson said. "He was in love with a statue."
Samuelson said Nichols designed his bar almost as a shrine to Snowdrop.
"If he heard somebody make a lewd comment or inappropriate comment about Snowdrop, he'd grab their drink, pour it in the sink, walk them to the door and tell them to get out and never come back," Samuelson said.
Years passed, the restaurant changed hands and the Snowdrop statue took a beating.
"She was a target for throwing their beer bottles at," Samuelson said. "So now, poor Snowdrop is getting all of these big divots in her body from flying, heavy things being thrown at her."
Gino's North is a new era with new ownership, but the best kept secret behind the restaurant dubbed "Chicago's Best Kept Secret" is the imposter on a pedestal.
"That's no Snowdrop," Samuelson said, referring to the long-standing statue. "That's kind of like a piece of garden statuary that you get to put in your backyard."
Samuelson said a previous owner took home the original Snowdrop statue for safe keeping decades ago. It proved to be a fateful choice for the fixture behind the bar.
"One day, he accidentally backed his car into her," Samuelson said.
Samuelson said the original Snowdrop was never replaced and has been missing for nearly 40 years. This was news even to current owner, Stephen Mendoza.
"I was kind of blown away," Mendoza said.
This is where the historian became part of the story.
"Realizing how important Snowdrop was to the story, I was determined to see Snowdrop put back," Samuelson said. "How am I going to locate such a sculpture? Where is it going to be? I don't know."
What seemed a needle in a haystack was just a statue in a place that deals with statuary.
"I'm the only guy in the country that you're going to find that has this," said Dani Orlandi.
He stood beside a Snowdrop statue inside the massive warehouse at Orlandi Statuary where his family has been casting statues in Chicago for five generations.
"This is like the last standing statuary that we know of in the country," Orlandi said.
Orlandi said he pulled the fiberglass Snowdrop from his warehouse at the request of a longtime customer, Tim Samuelson.
Samuelson happened to be picking up work from Orlandi Statuary when it occurred to him to inquire about the Snowdrop statue.
"Sometimes, the obvious is staring you right in the face and you totally don't see it," Samuelson said.
The historian said he didn't think twice. He bought the Snowdrop statue and brought it home.
"Once he gets a hook in him about some obscure thing, he goes, he dives deep," said Barbara Koenen, Samuelson's wife.
For weeks, the statue sat on the couple's coffee table.
"My wife is very nice about this whole thing," Samuelson said. "She knows my obsessions."
While Snowdrop no doubt enjoyed the view from the Hyde Park high rise, Samuelson never intended for it to be her permanent home.
On a recent Sunday morning, he and his wife Barbara carried Snowdrop from their apartment, took her down an elevator and squeezed her into the trunk of their Toyota Prius.
"Poor Snowdrop's nose is shoved right into the upholstery here," Samuelson said, his arm resting on the statue in the backseat.
The Prius pulled up to the curb on West Granville Avenue. The street was blocked for an art festival, so the historian had to do a little heavy lifting, carrying the statue the rest of the way to Gino's North.
"Weight's not bad at all," Samuelson said, trudging down the sidewalk. "That's the nice thing about Snowdrop is she's very portable."
Samuelson brought her into the bar where owner Stephen Mendoza and the staff were waiting. Together, they removed the old statue and hoisted up the new one that looked just like the original Snowdrop.
A bartender passed out champagne to the group gathered inside as Samuelson prepared his toast to a statue.
"To the triumphant return of Snowdrop who disappeared nearly 40 years ago but has now come back to watch over Gino's North and all its customers for ever after," Samuelson said, raising his glass. "Cheers!"
The historian had not only carried on the story, but he sculpted the perfect ending.
