Howard Medley, once among City Hall’s most influential political operators, slips through the lobby of his Hyde Park apartment building looking for a pay phone.
And then–starting in 1987–Medley did something incredibly stupid: unwittingly or not, he got involved with an operator who was out to bilk the CTA of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Medley called it a legitimate business relationship. But federal prosecutors accused him of taking a bribe, and a jury agreed. It’s autumn 1989 as Medley stands in his vestibule, and he’s a convicted felon facing ten years in prison.
Medley was 16 when he moved to Chicago from Helena, Arkansas. That was in 1943. He was an orphan. His parents died when he was three. His grandparents raised him.
By 1960 he had saved $9,000. He bought a south-side apartment building, using its rental income to help pay the mortgage. Soon he owned two buildings, and he bought an old, beat- up truck to haul junk from his property. Word spread of his truck. Neighbors asked if he would make light hauls for them. He decided that the time was right to make something of the requests. He papered the south side with fliers announcing a new hauling business. Medley Movers & Storage was born.
To hear him tell it, he helped everyone and asked for nothing. “You can’t just be helping the young skinny attractive ones,” Medley says. “Everybody wants to help them. You got to help the old fat ugly ones too.”
How much of his talk is truth remains a mystery. A relentless self-promoter, Medley realized long ago that the appearance of power is often as important as the power itself. Sometimes, however, he came on a little too strong.
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Guys like Medley, however, operated outside these larger social struggles. They didn’t press for open housing. What they wanted was the privileges of power–jobs, contracts, and clout–that Daley could provide.
