land + history
(pictured: shikaakwa (chicagou), so named by the Myaamia Peoples.
commonly known as allium tricoccum, or ramps.)
we’re doing our best to learn the history of the land that bim bom studios occupies, as well as the history of the building itself. we’ll be adding to this page as we learn,
with the hope that it will serve as a living archive.
land.
in the immediate area around our studio, between 1816 and 1834 the United States government forcibly removed Chippewa, Ottowa, and Potawatomi Peoples and forced them to cede the land as per Cession 148 on July 29, 1829. the eastern-most border line of Cession 148 runs diagonally northeast to southwest at what is now the intersection of Belmont and Cicero avenues. the series of “treaties” included in Cession 148 were altered without the consent of Indigenous Peoples.
Zhigaagoong (Chicago) once was home to the Peoria, Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Myaamia, Kickapoo, Kaskasia, Ho-Chunk, and Potawatomi Peoples (native-land.ca). to this day, the state of Illinois does not federally recognize any Native tribes or contain any reservations - in spite of the fact that Zhigaagoong (Chicago) is presently home to the third-largest Native community in the United States.
we hold immense gratitude and grief for the land that we are on, and do all we can to steward and care for the soil below our feet.
reparations + land back are overdue.
building.
this building was most recently, and perhaps most infamously, the Bim Bom Lounge. the previous owner, Halina, was kind enough to let us keep the name when we bought the building. the Bim Bom was a neighborhood gem, a Polish dive bar for the ages. the bar was known for having raucous punk shows, one of the last “smoking rooms” in chicago, pervy bathroom wallpaper, and a rotating cast of kind bartenders. we hope these yelp reviews live on forever.
name.
you, like us, may be wondering - “what the **** is a bim bom?”. well we’ve done the research by now, so wonder no more. there are a few possible references throughout history, and we definitely found a few red herrings in our research. we’ll take you through the whole journey here ::
possible namesake #1 | Bim and Bom; the famous russian clown duo. these guys were pretty amazing, performing political satire often at the risk of censorship or gunfire during the russian revolution. this article is a great read, if you’re curious.
possible namesake #2 | the first ever Bossa Nova song, Bim Bom, written by João Gilberto. it’s incredibly cute. here are some lyrics translated from the original Portuguese:
”Bim bom, bim bim bom bom, bim bom, bim bim bom bom bim.
That’s the song, there’s nothing more,
though you may think it’s just a bore
My heart insists that this is how it goes, so…”
for a sweet live performance from 1966 including dancing (!), click here.
Bim-Bom.
but alas, after a bunch of (silly and satisfying) research and tips from kind neighbors, we’ve concluded that the Bim Bom Lounge (bar) was likely named after Bim-Bom, an avant-garde student theater group in Gdańsk, Poland (1954-1960). the facade of our building was fashioned to look like a theater curtain by Polish artist Miroslaw Chudy. to see some of Bim-Bom’s work we HIGHLY recommend watching Janusz Morgenstern’s film, See You Tomorrow (1960). It’s a sweet film made in the style of French New Wave and includes several actors, monologues and ideas from group, including the opening scene called Theatre of Hands.
Bim-Bom didn’t document much in their short time. it seems that most of the handmade garments and decorations had been stored in a boiler room, later to be burned during a harsh winter in the 1970’s.
“I imagine a sculptor who made his most interesting work out of snow and it disappeared when spring came. Nothing left.”
- Jacek Fedorowicz (one of the theater’s founders)
while reading everything we could about Bim-Bom’s history and work we stumbled across one quote deep in an article (translated):
“The name of the group comes from the song Winnie the Pooh, taken from Milne's book, which we sang.”
A.A. Milne’s The House At Pooh Corner includes the song “The More It Snows (Tiddely-Pom).”
Tiddely-Pom was translated to Polish as Bim-Bom in those books. following the Thaw in Poland (1956-1960) The House At Pooh Corner was reissued for the first time since ‘46. there’s a big section in The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff devoted to conceptualizing “Tiddley-Pom” ; put briefly, he writes that it’s the “principle of building momentum in life.”
there are too many histories here to ignore.
we’re excited to bring more memories to the bim bom name and to care for our little plot of land
and the community it exists in.